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Posted by: Stephanie Hall
Folklorist Tom Burns, working as a fieldworker in the Rhode Island Folklife Project in 1979, sought out the Narragansett people, crossing the border into Connecticut to find tribal leaders with whom to talk. At that time the Narragansetts were somewhat spread out, as they had no lands. What they did have was a strong desire …
Posted in: Languages and Dialects, Native American History
Posted by: Lisa Taylor
The following is a guest post by Justina Moloney, a Library of Congress Junior Fellow working with the Veterans History Project (VHP) this summer. I own a special collection of letters my father sent to me during his deployment to Afghanistan six years ago, when I was in my second year of college. They were …
Posted in: Languages and Dialects, Millennials, Narratives, Oral History, Photographs, Storytelling, Veterans History Project, World War I
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
At the time that turned the heat of the earth, At the time when the heavens turned and changed, At the time when the light of the sun was subdued To cause light to break forth, At the time of the night of Makalii (winter) Then began the slime which established the earth, The source …
Posted in: Folksong, Hawaiian Americans, Languages and Dialects, Pacific Islander History, Pacific Islands Americans
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
I remember a history class my junior year in high school dealing with the period in United States history when Indian tribes were being forced onto reservations. Presented as a better option were Indian schools where children were taught to assimilate into American society. To ensure that they would learn English and American customs these …
Posted in: Languages and Dialects, Native American History, Religion
Posted by: Stephanie Hall
This guest blog post is by Alexandra Jaffe, who will be speaking on this topic at noon on December 2, 2014 in the Montpelier Room, 6th floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress as part of the American Folklife Center’s Benjamin Botkin Lecture Series. Jaffe is a professor of Anthropology at California State University, Long Beach …
Posted in: AFC Events, Languages and Dialects
Posted by: Stephen Winick
In my last post, I discussed the more serious side of songs about Noah’s ark. As I mentioned, though, there are other songs too, often with more celebratory messages–or even silly ones. We’ll look at some of those Noah songs in this post. Celebratory songs tend to focus on the joy felt by Noah when …
Posted in: African Americans, Alan Lomax, Animals, Folk Music, Folksong, Languages and Dialects, Uncategorized
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
As November is Native American Heritage Month, it seems a good opportunity to talk about some of the services the American Folklife Center provides for American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, and for those who wish to learn more about them. The archival collections of the Library of Congress include the largest body of …
Posted in: Alice Cunningham Fletcher, Folk Music, Folksong, Frances Densmore, Francis La Flesche, Languages and Dialects, Native American History