The Library's American Folklife Center and the Mellon Foundation have teamed up over the past several years to set up a series of grants that help preserve traditions that may otherwise be absent from the national record. For the most recent year, these include dances of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, artistic creations of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma and traditional Hawaiian music. These works are then preserved in Library collections for future generations.
In this edition of "My Job" at the Library, Aimee Hess talks about her work in editing and producing books that highlight the Library’s collections. She oversees the Library's Crime Classics series, has written two books in the "Women Who Dare" series and cowritten two books: one on the suffrage exhibition, “Shall Not Be Denied"; and one about the Library's photograph collections, “The Joy of Looking."
Cormac Ó hAodha, a resident fellow in the John W. Kluge Center, is taking a deep dive into the Library's Alan Lomax Collection. Lomax, a major figure in 20th-century folklore and ethnomusicology, made field recordings in the Múscraí region of County Cork, Ireland, in the early 1950s. Ó hAodha is using those recordings as part of his Ph. D studies at the University College Cork into the history of the Múscraí song tradition.
The Library and three Native American tribes are collaborating on a project to digitize and restore some 9,000 wax cylinder recordings of Native Americans singing and telling stories from more than a century ago. The work is the subject of "Language is Life," a documentary narrated by Joy Harjo, the former U.S. poet laureate. It premiered at the Library in November in advance of its broadcast as part of the PBS series, “Native America.”
This post by Stephanie Hall of the American Folklife Center was first published on the center’s blog, “Folklife Today.” An important new oral history collection documenting the lives and careers of home health-care workers in Oregon is now available on the Library of Congress’ website. The American Folklife Center recently announced the release of “Taking …
This is a guest post by Stephen Winick of the American Folklife Center. It was first published on the center’s blog, Folklife Today. A companion post about circus life in Hugo, Oklahoma, is available here. The American Folklife Center (AFC) is delighted to announce the online presentation of an important new oral history collection documenting …
On June 4 in the Madison Building’s West Dining Room, Dwayne Tomah of the Passamaquoddy Tribe of Maine stood to sing a tribal war song at a celebration organized by the American Folklife Center. It was an emotional moment for Tomah — the song hadn’t been performed publicly in 128 years. He was able to …
Margaret “Maggie” Kruesi is the first and, so far, the only cataloger to work at the Library’s American Folklife Center (AFC). Before starting in 2004, she earned a Ph.D. in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania and acquired considerable experience cataloging and otherwise processing archival collections at Penn’s Van Pelt Library. She will retire from …
An earlier version of this interview, conducted by John Fenn of the American Folklife Center, was published on “Folklife Today,” the center’s blog. A little over a decade ago, Brooklyn-based musician and promoter Eli Smith merged his passion for folk music with the inspiration he gets from fellow New York City artists and created the …
