Many divisions of the Library of Congress have fascinating collections that are closely related to folklife and that complement collections in the American Folklife Center. The Recorded Sound Section is a part of the Library that works closely with the American Folklife Center in a variety of important ways. Among their holdings are recordings related …
This post is part of a series of posts called Staff Finds During Difficult Times, in which staff members discuss collections and items that have been inspiring them while they are working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic or in other difficult circumstances. Find the whole series here! As I work from home and keep …
Margaret MacArthur (May 7, 1928 – May 23, 2006) was a folksong collector, singer, and player of the Appalachian dulcimer. She performed traditional ballads and songs at the Library of Congress in 2005, one of the first of the American Folklife Center concerts recorded for the web, and the video of that concert is presented …
If asked her about her profession, Ruby Pickens Tartt (1880-1974) would say that she was a painter. In an era when Alabama women rarely attended college, she graduated from the Chase School of Art in New York and painted and taught painting for much of her life. But folklorists consider her one of their own. She was …
On September 15 and 16, 2015, AFC will be featuring a lecture and workshop with Juan Díes, and a and concert with Sones de México Ensemble, presenting the corrido, a type of narrative song native to the Texas-Mexico border region. In honor of these events, I thought I would introduce our readers to some of …
Folklorist John Wesley Work III lived in an extraordinary time in the development of African American music. He was in college as the Harlem Renaissance began. African American composers were developing traditional blues into elite compositions and the piano became an instrument for new styles such as jazz and boogie-woogie. Work, like his brother Julian, …
