The collections of the American Folklife Center reflect a long history of ethnographic interest in Luso-Hispanic American music and song. Much of the early collecting work focused on peoples of the regions that formerly belonged to Spain. In this post I’ll provide a quick overview of the Hispanic-American music in AFC’s online collections. Spanish Songs …
March 14 (3/14) is Pi Day and July 22 (22/7 in the European date style) is Pi Approximation Day. In mathematics a common shortened figure for pi is 3.14 while the most well-known “approximate pi” is 22 divided by 7 (3.1428571428571428). These two celebrations of the most famous irrational number on dates related to that …
The tradition of a national celebration of Mother’s Day in the United States grew out of reactions to the aftermath of the Civil War. Poet, suffragist, and author of the lyrics of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Julia Ward Howe attempted to unite women in the cause of peace, beginning with her “Appeal to …
May Eve, April 30th, and May Day, May first, have long been part of the celebration of spring in Europe. The flowering of fruit trees and sowing season were important to agriculturalists in the hope of a good harvest. Lambing, kidding, and calving season had passed, so animals could be allowed out to more remote …
For Women’s History Month, I thought it would be interesting to highlight some examples of interviews with women and girls in American English Dialects: The Center for Applied Linguistics Collection. This online collection is one of several dialect collections in the American Folklife Center archive. With a little digging, such collections can yield exciting examples of …
For Presidents’ Day, take a look at the new presentation The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America. [1] This article will provide links giving you a start. George Washington had songs written for him while he was a general. An example is “General Washington,” which was printed on a single side of a …
For Valentine’s Day, let’s examine love songs in the light of historical changes of the early twentieth century, through the new presentation The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, love underwent many changes: young people wanted relationships without much involvement from parents and elders, …
