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Posted by: Stephen Winick
With Labor Day approaching, I’d love to introduce you to some of our resources on the folklore and folklife of labor. This area of study has many names, from the more formal “occupational folk culture” to the more colloquial “laborlore.” It also has many sub-areas, from the study of occupational folk speech, including jargon, to …
Posted in: Cowboy and Western Music, Folksong, Holidays
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
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 …
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
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 …
Posted in: Charles Lafayette Todd, Folksong, Holidays, John Lomax, Robert Sonkin, Ruby Terrill Lomax, Sidney Robertson Cowell
Posted by: Stephen Winick
[This post is part of a series of blog posts about the song “Hal An Tow.” You can find the whole series at this link.] As you can read in Stephanie Hall’s Post “May Day: A Festival of Flowers,” on May Day, or May 1, people in Europe traditionally celebrated the coming of summer …
Posted in: Celtic Music, Dance, England, Folk Drama, Folk Music, Folksong, Hal An Tow, Holidays, May Day
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
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 …
Posted in: Dance, Folk Music, Folksong, Holidays, May Day
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
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 …
Posted in: African Americans, Foodways, Holidays, Languages and Dialects, Native American History, Oral History, Women's History
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
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 …
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
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, …
Posted by: Stephen Winick
As the holiday season comes to a close, the staff of the American Folklife Center wishes you all the best for the coming year. In this picture, we pose by the Christmas Tree in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, with some of us still in the costumes we wore in the AFC …
Posted in: AFC Events, Folk Drama, Holidays