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Posted by: Stephen Winick
A photo in the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division (known colloquially around the institution as P & P) shows white men in formal attire, sitting row upon row at tables, apparently waiting to be served. The caption, which came to us with the photo itself, is “’Possum’ dinner tendered to President-elect William Howard …
Posted by: Stephen Winick
This is the third in a series of posts about folklife related to the Virginia Opossum, the only marsupial native to the United States. Find the series here! In 1910, Maggie Pogue Johnson, an African American woman from Virginia, published a dialect poem about classic African American cuisine, or what we would today call “soul food.” …
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Each year, as Thanksgiving Day rolls around, the blogosphere is bombarded with articles telling us that everything we know about Thanksgiving is wrong. In particular, these articles focus on the three-day event in autumn 1621, during which English colonists at Plymouth, Massachusetts, hosted 90 members of the Wampanoag tribe for a feast. Skeptical articles revisiting …
Posted in: Foodways, Holidays, Thanksgiving
Posted by: Stephen Winick
The following guest post by Ann Hoog is part of a series of blog posts about the 40th Anniversary Year of the American Folklife Center. Visit this link to see them all! The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce a new online presentation of the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection. The photos and audio …
Posted in: AFC 40th Anniversary, AFC History, African Americans, Asian American History, Austrian Americans, Chinese Americans, Croatian Americans, Cuban Americans, Czech Americans, Danish Americans, Finnish Americans, Folk Art, Folk Music, Folklorists, Folksong, Foodways, German Americans, Greek Americans, Hispanic American History, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Japanese Americans, Jewish American History, Jewish Americans, Korean Americans, Lithuanian Americans, Macedonian Americans, Native American History, Norwegian Americans, Polish Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, Serbian Americans, Slovak Americans, Slovenian Americans, Swedish Americans, Ukrainian Americans