Top of page
Posted by: Stephen Winick
Halloween is on its way, and this year the Library of Congress has decided to make it extra-special, with a pop-up exhibition of our best spooky treasures. The event is called LOC Halloween: Chambers of Mystery, and we hope you’ll visit us for the scary fun. As part of the effort, I’ve been looking through AFC’s …
Posted in: Folksong, Halloween, Halloween Songs
Posted by: Stephen Winick
With Halloween just around the corner, the Library of Congress is gearing up for an exhibition of our best spooky treasures. The event is called LOC Halloween: Chambers of Mystery, and it’s sure to add both cheer and chills to your All Hallows season. As part of the effort, I’ve been looking through AFC’s collections for …
Posted in: Halloween, Halloween Stories, Narratives, Storytelling, Women's History
Posted by: Stephen Winick
As our readers know, Folklife Today is particularly fond of Halloween. We launched the blog just before Halloween 2013 with a post updating Jack Santino’s Halloween article. We’ve had special posts for Halloween every year thereafter. So we’re especially happy to announce that the Library of Congress will be hosting a special pop-up exhibition for Halloween …
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
A celebration of fathers and fatherhood took a long time to be established as a nation-wide observance. Mother’s Day was being locally observed as it was being promoted in the 19th and early 20th century, and became a regular holiday in May in 1914 by presidential proclamation. Father’s Day was locally celebrated around the country …
Posted in: African Americans, Cuban Americans, Father's Day, Folksong, Hispanic American History, Irish Americans, Narratives, Native American History, Storytelling
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
If you have decorated an egg, then you have participated in one of the oldest decorative arts. Archaeologists have long known of decorated ostrich shell pieces and empty eggs in Africa of great antiquity, found in tombs or archaeological digs, but they did not know how old this custom really was. In 2010 an important …
Posted in: Easter, Eggs, Holidays, Material Culture, Ukrainian Americans
Posted by: Lisa Taylor
The following is a guest blog post by Owen Rogers, Liaison Specialist for the Veterans History Project (VHP). Among VHP’s oral histories, memoirs and correspondence, we frequently find humorous anecdotes about jokes, pranks and creative punishments. This post began as an “April Fools” ruse developed from some of the more absurd scenarios recounted by veterans …
Posted in: African Americans, April Fool's Day, Civil Rights, Holidays, Korean War, Narratives, Oral History, Photographs, Practical Jokes, Storytelling, Veterans History Project, Vietnam War, World War II
Posted by: Guha Shankar
In remembrance of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s birthday, the Library of Congress and other federal agencies, will be closed on Monday, January 16th (to be faithful to the facts, the Reverend’s actual birthday is January 15, 1929). To commemorate the occasion, this blog draws from the American Folklife Center’s documentary collections to present selected …
Posted in: 1965, African American History, African Americans, Civil Rights, Freedom Struggle, Glen Pearcy Collection, Holidays, Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King, Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March, SNCC