FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS SPRING 2003 • VOLUME XXV, NUMBER 2

American Folklife Center • The BOARD OF TRUSTEES ONLINE INFORMATION RESOURCES Congressional Appointees Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Chair, The ’s Massachusetts Web site provides full texts of Mickey Hart, California many publications, information Dennis Holub, South Dakota about AFC projects, multimedia William L. Kinney Jr., presentations of selected collec- Judith McCulloh, Illinois tions, links to Web resources on Marlene Meyerson, New Mexico , and announcements Presidential Appointees of upcoming events. The address Thomas Bowman, for the home page is http://www. The American Folklife Center loc.gov/folklife/ An index of the was created in 1976 by the U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs site contents is available at http:// Congress to “preserve and present www.loc.gov/folklife/afcindex.html American folklife” through pro- Department of Veterans Affairs grams of research, documentation, Fran Mainella The Web site for The Veter- archival preservation, reference ser- Director, National Park Service ans History Project provides an vice, live performance, exhibition, Sonya E. Medina overview of the project, an online publication, and training. The Deputy Director of Projects “kit” for participants recording oral Center incorporates the Archive of Office of the First Lady histories of veterans, and a brief Folk , which was established The White House pre-sentation of some examples of in the Division of the Library Aurene Martin video- and audio-recordings of vet- of Congress in 1928 and is now one Acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs erans’ stories. The address is of the largest collections of ethno- Department of the Interior http://www. loc.gov/folklife/vets Librarian Appointees graphic material from the United The Folkline Information Ser- Jane Beck, Vice-chair, Vermont States and around the world. vice Norma Cantú, is now a cooperative an- Kojo Nnamdi, District of Columbia nouncement program of the Tom Rankin, American Folklore Society and the Ex Officio Members American Folklife Center. It is James H. Billington, Librarian of available only on the American www. Congress Folklore Society’s server: STAFF afsnet.org. Lawrence M. Small, Secretary of the The service provides Administration timely information on the field of Peggy A. Bulger, Director Dana Gioia, Chairman, folklore and folklife, including Doris Craig, Administrative Assistant National Endowment for the Arts training and professional oppor- John Lewis, Assistant to the Director Bruce Cole, Chairman, National tunities, and news items of nation- Michael Taft, Head, Endowment for the Humanities al interest. Acquisitions and Programs Jack Santino, President, David A. Taylor, Coordinator American Folklore Society Processing and Cataloging Ellen Koskoff, President, Rosemary Graham, Processing Technician Society for EDITOR’S NOTES Todd Harvey, Processing Technician Peggy A. Bulger, Director, Catherine Hiebert Kerst, Archivist American Folklife Center Happy Birthday, Archive of Folk Marcia Segal, Processing Technician Nora Yeh, Archivist, Coordinator Culture Publications James Hardin, Editor Anniversaries, however arbi- FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS Public Events trary such dates may seem, Theadocia Austen, Coordinator James Hardin, Editor invite individuals and institu- Andrew Wallace, Coordinator David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor tions to take a backward glance. Reference Sheryle Shears, Designer The Archive of Folk Culture has Jennifer A. Cutting, Folklife Specialist Peggy Pixley, Production Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist, an institutional history well Coordinator worth remembering and cele- Stephanie A. Hall, Automation Specialist Folklife Center News publishes ar- brating, from the vision of its Ann Hoog, Folklife Specialist ticles on the programs and activ- founders that our American Digital Conversion ities of the American Folklife Cen- grassroots traditions belong in John Barton, Specialist ter, as well as other articles on Myron Briggs, Specialist the national library to the deter- traditional expressive culture. It is mination of its present-day cus- Reference Service available free of charge from the Tel: 202 707–5510 Library of Congress, American todians that the great audio Fax: 202 707–2076 Folklife Center, 101 Independence treasures of the past century be E-mail: [email protected] Avenue, S.E., , D.C. preserved for future genera- Veterans History Project 20540–4610. Folklife Center News tions. The archive’s history is Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, Director Timothy Roberts, Administrative Officer does not publish announcements also a lesson in the relationship Peter T. Bartis, Program Officer from other institutions or reviews between individuals and insti- Sarah Rouse, Program Officer of books from publishers other (Continued on page 15) Timothy Schurtter, Program Officer than the Library of Congress. Eileen Simon, Archivist Readers who would like to com- Sorkin, Program Officer ment on Center activities or Cover: Robert W. Gordon, 1928. Taru Spiegel, Program Officer newsletter articles may address Photo by Bachrach, courtesy of Judy Ng, Processing Technician their remarks to the editor. Mr. and Mrs. Bert Nye

2 Folklife Center News The Archive of Folk Culture at 75: A National Project with Many Workers

Robert W.Gordon, first head of the Archive of American Folk-Song at the Library of Congress, with part of the cylinder collection and recording machinery, about 1930. Library of Congress photo

By James Hardin and San Francisco, California, to There is a pressing need for the for- Asheville, North Carolina, and mation of a great centralized collec- In 1928, when the Librarian of Darien, , collecting and tion of American folk-songs. The Congress, Herbert Putnam, recording folksongs with his logical place for such a collection is invited Robert W. Gordon to Edison wax-cylinder machine. the national library of the United become “specialist and consult- He wrote a monthly column States. This collection should com- ant in the field of Folk Song and in Adventure magazine, “Old prise all the poems and melodies Literature,” Gordon had already Songs That Men Have Sung,” that have sprung from our soil or conceived and launched his life- asking readers to send in copies have been transplanted here, and time mission to collect the entire of all the folksongs they could have been handed down, often with body of American . He remember. And he contacted manifold changes, from generation called it a “national project with Carl Engel, chief of the Music to generation as a precious posses- many workers.” Gordon attend- Division at the Library of Con- sion of our folk. ed Harvard University between gress, to discuss his dream and 1906 and 1917, and then left in seek institutional support. Countless individuals, numerous order to devote all his free time Engel believed that American walks of life, several races have con- to this collecting enterprise. grassroots traditions should be tributed to this treasure of songs Supporting himself through represented in the national li- and ballads. It is richer than that of teaching, writing, and the occa- brary, and wrote in The Annual any other country. Too much of it sional grant, Gordon traveled Report of the Librarian of Congress has remained scattered or un- from the waterfronts of Oakland for 1928: recorded. The preservation of this Spring 2003 3 material in the remote haunts in the creation of the American came to the Library in 1932. where it still flourishes is endan- Folklife Center. They believed Lomax too was devoted to col- gered by the spread of the radio and that sound—both song and spo- lecting American folksong, and , which are diverting ken word—was a vital part of the decade-long association of the attention of the people from the historical, cultural record. John A. Lomax and his son, Alan, their old heritage and are making Harvard Jesse with the Library of Congress them less dependent on it. Walter Fewkes was the first to established the documentation use the Edison cylinder machine of traditional culture as an The Library of Congress is vitally for ethnographic research. Field important and integral activity interested in the collecting of these recordings made on wax cylin- of the institution. folk verses and folk melodies. The ders could be brought back to a became the Folk collecting must be done in a schol- studio for study, and Fewkes Archive’s first federally funded arly manner and the collection, used Edison’s machine in staff member in 1936, and served safeguarded against improper use, Maine, in 1890, to record the as “assistant in charge.” He should be made freely accessible to songs and stories of Pas- made collecting expeditions for scholars. samaquoddy Indians. These the Library throughout the wax-cylinder recordings, the South, in the Midwest, and in first ethnographic recordings New England; produced a semi- Heads of the extant, are in the collections of nal series of documentary folk Archive of Folk Culture the Archive of Folk Culture. music albums entitled Folk Between 1907 and the early Music of the ; con- Robert W. Gordon (1928–32) 1940s, col- ducted interviews with per- John A. Lomax (1932–42, lected more than twenty-five formers, such as Jelly Roll Mor- keeping the title “hon- hundred recordings from mem- ton; and, over the years, orary curator” until his bers of forty tribes. She was one introduced audiences in Wash- death in 1948) of a number of pioneering ington, D.C., and radio listeners Alan Lomax (1937–42, women in the field of ethno- nationwide to an array of tradi- with the title “assistant graphic documentation (includ- tional artists. in charge”) ing Alice Cunningham Fletcher, An arrangement with the Benjamin A. Botkin (1942– Helen Heffron Roberts, and Library initiated by John A. 45) Laura Bolton) whose collections Lomax, wherein he would “give Duncan Emrich (1945–55, are now in the Archive of Folk to the Library, in return for the with the title “chief of Culture. use of a recording machine, any the Folklore Section”) Rae Korson (1956–69) The Archive of (1969–74) Folk Culture Joseph C. Hickerson (1974–88) Alan Jabbour (1988–99), as When the Archive director of the American of American Folk- Folklife Center Song was first Peggy Bulger (1999–2002), established in the as director of the Ameri- Music Division, it can Folklife Center was funded from Michael Taft (2002– ) private sources. Periodic dis- Robert Gordon was not the agreements over first to use the latest technology his methods to document our national tradi- erupted between tional culture, nor Carl Engel the Robert Gordon first to acknowledge its impor- and Library of tance. Thomas A. Edison invent- Congress officials ed the wax-cylinder recording during his tenure machine in 1877, and it became as head, and the available commercially about private money 1888. The machine facilitated that Carl Engel documentary work by many pri- had secured to vate individuals, as well as fund Gordon’s those employed by government position eventu- agencies and public museums. ally came to an Frances Densmore with of the Black- These ethnographers shared a end. But the idea foot Tribe, Washington, D.C., early 1900s. Densmore common vision. They believed of a national folk spent fifty years collecting several thousand record- that the history of the American archive had taken ings of Native Americans from all over the United nation ought to include the root, and it was States and British Columbia, and her extensive col- many voices of its diverse popu- revived when lection is housed in the Archive of Folk Culture. lation, a notion that later figured John A. Lomax Library of Congress photo 4 Folklife Center News enormously productive, both in scope, and Library officials in building the collection and supported an international ac- in creating a community of quisition policy for the Folk folklorists with ties to the Archive. A recording trip to the Library. Bahamas that Alan Lomax made The desire to distribute the in 1935, during his tenure at the Folk Archive’s holdings for Library, may have been the first public and educational uses instance of seeking folklife ma- led to the creation of the Li- terials from outside the United brary’s Recording Laboratory, States. The Folk Archive now which produced the first holds material from nearly releases in the Folk Music of every region in the world. the United States series in During the 1940s and 1950s, for 1942. In the 1950s, the early 78- example, Arthur S. Alberts made rpm albums were converted to remarkable recordings of West 33-rpm, and new LP releases African music, from a dozen eth- appeared through the early nic groups and six different colo- 1980s. As new technologies nial territories, all of which he developed for making field contributed to the Library of recordings—wax cylinder, disc, Congress during the tenure of wire, tape, and so forth—the archive head Duncan Emrich. laboratory staff acquired ma- When portions of this collection chines, developed exper-tise, were made available commer- and initiated publishing proj- cially, they did much to counter ects to make available to the stereotypical notions about the public traditional music that “Dark Continent” by presenting was thought at the time to examples of authentic cultural have no commercial value. It expressions. During her long was also necessary for the lab- career, anthropologist Henrietta Alan Lomax with guitar, in a publicity oratory to buy and maintain Yurchenco has documented the photo, 1940. American Folklife Center recording equipment associ- traditions of African Americans ated with each succeeding on John’s Island, South Carolina, records that he might obtain technology. In the 1990s, CD and in Puerto Rico. She has also with it” (Report of the Librarian of versions of many of these early conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending recordings, as well as new releas- Guatemala, Spain, Morocco, and June 30, 1933), facilitated his es from the world music collec- Ireland. Like many such collec- own collecting activities and tions, were produced and distrib- tors of international folklife launched a documentary equip- uted through cooperative materials, Yurchenco has made ment-loan program that has agreements with commercial re- periodic donations to the Library lasted for seventy years. Using cording companies. of Congress. successive types of equipment The Folk Archive also re- from the Library, as recording he expertise developed ceived an infusion of material technologies evolved from by the Record- cylinder to disc to tape, collec- ing Laboratory, tors such as Vance Randolph, the equipment- Charles Todd, Robert Sonkin, Tloan program, and the Eloise Hubbard Linscott, Zora growing reputation of Neale Hurston, Herbert Hal- the Library of Con- pert, William Fenton, Melville gress as a repository Herskovits, Helen Hartness for ethnographic doc- Flanders, Austin Fife, and many umentation were ap- others were able to pursue their pealing to folklorists personal collecting activities and cultural documen- and, at the same time, contribute tarians working in this to the national collection. The country and in foreign strategy of lending equipment lands as well. Library and recording supplies to a net- of Congress collec- work of regional collectors was tions are international Mexican girls Josephine Gonzalez (probably at center), Aurora Gonzalez, Pearl Manchaco, Lia Trujillo, and Adela Flores sing for John A. and Alan Lomax, San Antonio, Texas, 1934. The Lomax- es were in south Texas on a Library-sponsored trip to document Mexican American folk music. Prints and Photographs Division. Photo by Alan Lomax

Spring 2003 5 Musicians of the Haha Tribe, of Tamanar, play the bendir (a tambourine-shaped drum) and the aoua- da (a long-reed flute), while Paul Bowles records them, Essaouira, Morocco, August 8, 1959. Paul Bowles conducted extensive fieldwork in 1959, documenting the folk and art music of Morocco, which was his adopted home. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, support from the Library of Congress, and assistance from the Moroccan gov- ernment, Bowles collected examples of every major Moroccan musical genre, over a period of six months, and donated his recordings to the Library of Congress. Paul Bowles Moroccan Music Collec- tion. Photographer unknown when John A. Lomax, Benjamin ing pro- A. Botkin (who followed Alan grams for Lomax as head of the archive), the CBS and others associated with the School of Folk Archive participated in the Air in New York City, and documentation equipment and New Deal-era programs such as participating in the Rockefeller supplies, publishing materials the Federal Writers’ Project. Foundation-funded Radio Re- from the collections, and During the 1930s, hundreds of search Project at the Library of encouraging donations of mate- federal workers were employed Congress. One activity of the rial from this country and in cultural projects around the project was to conduct recorded around the world. Benjamin A. country, including the Ex-Slave interviews that sampled public Botkin helped to redefine and Narrative Project and the Cali- opinion from around the coun- broaden the purview of folklore fornia Folk Music Project. When try, and the day after the attack research to include ethnic stud- the Work Projects Administra- on Pearl Harbor, December 7, ies and cultural traditions found tion (WPA) offices finally closed 1941, Lomax put out a call for in urban settings. He also down, in response to a shifting folklorists to collect “man on the encouraged folklorists to be- of emphasis to national defense street” reactions to the event. come involved in public per- as the United States entered the Sixty years later, the American formances and presentations by Second World War, Library of Folklife Center followed Lo- traditional artists. He is best Congress officials facilitated the max’s example by asking folk- known for his many popular transfer of cultural materials lorists from across the nation to anthologies, such as the Treasury collected by its various agencies document immediate public of American Folklore (1944) and to the Library. reactions to the tragic events of Lay My Burden Down (1945), Thus, by the 1940s, the Ar- September 11, 2001. which draws on the Folk Ar- chive of American Folk-Song With national energies fo- chive’s recordings of ex-slave had expanded its documentary cused on the Second World War, narratives. scope to include folklore, verbal folklife collecting activities arts, and oral history. In addi- slowed, but successive Folk uncan Emrich was tion to his work as “assistant in Archive heads continued the another Harvard- charge” at the archive, Alan policies and practices estab- trained folklorist and Lomax was hosting and produc- lished by the Lomaxes—lending historian (like Robert DGordon, , and Ben- jamin Botkin) who advanced Folk Archive acquisition efforts. The growing reputation of the archive following World War II resulted in a flood of requests for reference information and

Ethnomusicologist Vida Chenoweth interviews Taaqiyáa, her chief Kaagú Usarufa music and text contributor, Papua New Guinea, 1967.Donations from ethnog- raphers whose international collecting efforts, often over a lifetime, have resulted in large collections of cultural expression from many regions and have enriched the Archive of Folk culture. Vida Chenoweth Collection. Photographer unknown

6 Folklife Center News Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, with his twelve-string guitar, in a 1940s publicity photograph. Through his connection with Alan Lomax, Leadbelly became known to the New York City political Left and emerged as one of the stars of the folk revival movement that began in the 1930s and lasted for several decades.The Folk Archive holds Leadbelly record- ings and letters he wrote to Alan Lomax. American Folklife Center services, both from private indi- leges and univer- viduals and from radio, motion sities around the picture, and publishing firms. country to initi- Emrich argued vigorously for a ate a network of larger staff to help respond to university-based the many demands of acquisi- documentary tion, processing, and reference. programs and to The Library failed to hire addi- urge the creation tional staff but did name Emrich of state folklore chief of a Folklore Section cre- archives. ated within the Music Division. A new genera- (The unit was abandoned after tion of regional Emrich’s departure.) Emrich collectors was at developed a visionary four-year work following plan for acquiring recordings World War II. from twelve states whose tradi- Wayland Hand tional culture was not represent- was working ed in the archive, with a particu- among the min- lar interest in the narrative, ers in Butte, Mon- in occupational culture, and tana; Arthur in materials from urban areas Campa, collecting Hispanic legendary Henry Reed of Glen and minority language groups. songs in New Mexico; and Thel- Lyn, Virginia). He also proposed document- ma James, recording among the In the Library’s annual report ing traditional performers from minority communities in Detroit. for 1950, halfway through his foreign lands, such as Asia, The Archive of Folk Culture prof- tenure as head, Duncan Emrich Africa, the Pacific, and Aus- ited from all this effort, and col- reported that the number of tralia. To facilitate his plan, lections eventually arrived at the discs in the collection had Emrich visited twenty-one col- Library, on the new documen- reached ten thousand, and that tary medium of henceforth the medium of tape, from Anne choice for the documentation of Grimes (Ohio sound would be tape record- folksongs), Ray ings. Significantly, he reported B. Browne (Ala- to the Librarian, Luther Evans: bama folklife), Sherman Lee It is possible to say, in 1950, that Pompey (folk- the pioneering phase of field col- songs and folk- lecting and the establishment of lore from the Archives has come to a close and Ozarks), Joseph that in the future emphasis should S. Hall (folk- be directed to coordinated efforts, to life from the elimination of duplication, and to Smokey Moun- strong encouragement for scholars tains of Ten- and others to use—in fairly exhaus- nessee), Harry tive studies—the materials already Oster (Iowa and gathered. cul- tural tradi- In 1955, when Emrich re- tions), and Alan signed his position, his assis- Jabbour (fid- tant, Rae Korson, was named dling traditions, head of the Folk Archive. Her featuring the husband, folklorist George Kor- Margaret O. Moody, age ninety-five, sings for Anne Grimes, Chillicothe, Ohio, September 9, 1955. Moody learned many songs from her family, who first settled in southeastern Ohio in the early 1800s. Anne Grimes Col- lection. Photo by James Grimes

Spring 2003 7 son, documented songs and lore effort inspired by of Pennsylvania coal miners, a letter he discov- and that work is included in the ered in the Folk archive today. Rae Korson had Archive from Car- served as assistant and reference penter to Alan librarian to Lomax and Botkin, Lomax. The elder- as well as to Emrich. In her new ly Carpenter had position, she stressed the impor- disappeared from tance of maintenance and the scene twenty preservation of the vast hold- years earlier, but ings that had accumulated, an through the Har- emphasis that was consistent vard University with the policies of L. Quincy Alumni Associa- Mumford, then Librarian of tion Jabbour was Congress. She was particularly able to track him interested in improving refer- to his home in ence service and publishing Booneville, Mis- additional recordings from the sissippi, and pur- Folk Archive. In 1963 Korson chase the col- hired Joseph C. Hickerson (to lection for the take the place of reference archive. librarian Donald Leavitt) and The 1950s and Pat Markland (to fill a new posi- 1960s spawned a tion as secretary), bringing the folksong revival in staff to three. Hickerson himself the United States would later become head of that included the what was by then called the release of commer- Archive of Folk Song. cial recordings from many popu- lan Jabbour followed lar performers and Korson as head (1969– groups, a prolifera- 74). He had both strong tion of coffeehouse academic credentials “folksingers,” and Aand fieldwork experience, and spontaneous hoo- Frank Proffitt sings and plays for Anne Warner in in keeping with his own inter- tenannies every- ests as a folksong collector he where. The Folk 1941, Pick Britches Valley, North Carolina. In 1938 resumed the practice of making Archive both nour- Frank and Ann Warner traveled from their home in field expeditions. With Carl ished and profited New York to Beech Mountain, North Carolina, for the Fleischhauer, he conducted a from this renewed first of several collecting trips. Frank Proffitt played a field project in , interest and the number of songs for them, including “Tom Dula,” a from 1970 to 1972, to study the new popularity of nineteenth-century local murder ballad. Twenty expressive traditions of the music with tradi- years later, the Kingston Trio’s recording “Tom Doo- Hammons family of Pocahontas tional roots. The ley” shot to the top of the popular charts, contributing County, and this effort resulted collections were a significantly to the 1960s folk revival. Frank Warner in a boxed set of two LP record- resource for per- Collection. Photo by Frank Warner ings (1973) consisting of music, formers of many song, storytelling, and oral his- sorts seeking examples of tradi- ment. Under Hickerson’s lead- tory. In addition, Jabbour trav- tional musical performance, and ership, special emphasis was eled to various places in pursuit the Folk Archive gained attention placed on the organization and of important collections, and he that brought in new collections. cataloging of the archive’s col- acquired significant holdings in In 1974 Alan Jabbour moved lections, the creation of listening Native American traditional to the National Endowment for tapes to facilitate the study of culture, including a small collec- the Arts to direct its newly creat- the holdings by visiting schol- tion of early cylinders from the ed Folk Arts Program, and ars, and the further production Peabody Museum of Harvard Joseph C. Hickerson became and dissemination of record- University, among them Jesse head of the Folk Archive. Hick- ings. Between 1974 and 1976, as Walter Fewkes’s 1890 record- erson did much to argue the case part of its American Revolution ings of Passamaquoddy Indians. for the importance of document- Bicentennial program, the Li- In 1972 Jabbour also acquired a ing and collecting material from brary of Congress issued the large and important collection the folksong revival. Folk festi- first five albums in a new fif- documenting songs, ballads, vals were enormously popular teen-album series Folk Music of and folk plays of the British Isles during the 1970s, and Hickerson America, with a grant from the from the American folklorist encouraged donations of mate- National Endowment for the James Madison Carpenter, an rial documenting the move- Arts.

8 Folklife Center News The American Folklife Center

During the decade preceding the establishment of the Ameri- can Folklife Center in 1976, a number of factors conjoined to bring about the legislation that created it. In 1967 the Smithson- ian Festival of American Folklife was held for the first time on the National Mall, bringing a wide range of traditional artists to Washington and winning enthu- siastic congressional support. About the same time, the approaching American Revolu- tion Bicentennial stimulated a reexamination of pluralism in American life. A number of ded- icated people, notably folklorist and labor historian Archie “Fancy dancers” participate in the Grand Entry at the 1984 Omaha Tribal Green, walked the halls of Con- Powwow in Macy, Nebraska.The powwow is a social gathering that helps to gress to lobby for congressional ensure the cultural conservation of Native American song and dance tradi- recognition of the importance of tions.The Folk Archive holds the largest collection of Native American music regional and ethnic cultures. documentation in the world, from recordings made of Passamaquoddy Indi- Many cultural specialists be- ans in Maine in 1890 to recordings and photographs made of several Omaha lieved the time was right for a powwows held in the 1980s. Photo by Dorothy Sara Lee national center devoted to the preservation and study of folk- expressive culture shared with- cultural richness of the Nation life. in the various groups in the and has fostered a sense of indi- The American Folklife Preser- United States: familial, ethnic, viduality and identity among vation Act, Public Law 94–201, occupational, religious, region- the American people.” which resulted from these al.” It states that “the diversity The American Folklife Preser- efforts, defines the term “Amer- inherent in American folklife vation Act was approved by ican folklife” as “the traditional has contributed greatly to the both houses of Congress at the end of 1975, and signed into law by President on Jan- uary 2, 1976. Initially intended for the Smithsonian Institution, the center was placed in the Library of Congress, in part to build upon the work of the Folk Archive already there. The Folklife Center operates under the supervision of the Librarian of Congress and a board of trustees composed of individuals from private life appointed by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the president pro tempore of the Senate, and the Librarian of Congress; officials from federal agencies with cultural pro- grams, appointed by the presi- dent of the United States; and ex officio members—the Librarian of Congress, the secretary of the William Clark with the “junkyard robots” he created from recycled automo- Smithsonian Institution, the tive parts, Newtonville, New Jersey, 1983. Known as “Robot Man” in his chairs of the National Endow- hometown, Clark uses the tools and skills of his trade as automotive repair- ment for the Arts and the man and the materials at hand in his shop to fashion robot sculptures and National Endowment for the other artful constructions. Pinelands Folklife Project Collection. Photo by Humanities, the director of the Joseph Czarneki American Folklife Center, and

Spring 2003 9 In Wefing’s Marine Supplies store, field-worker Nancy Three generations of Collettes at the family-run busi- Nusz (right) speaks with a local engine mechanic while ness Collette Catering and Carry-out, March 1990.Al a store clerk looks on, Apalachicola, , 1986. and Joanna Collette (shown here, right) established Stores such as the one shown here are often meeting the business as a way of involving their children in places for members of the community and, in the case their everyday lives, and six of their seven children of this marine supply store, good sources of information work in the catering service. Italian-Americans in the about local fishing activities, practitioners, and tradi- West Project. Photo by David Taylor tions for field-workers doing research. Florida Maritime Project. Photo by David A.Taylor

Aerial photo of the Joseph Delume Ranch, Lincoln County, Nevada. The American Folklife Center’s 1990 field project Italian-Americans in the West included a team of teachers and stu- dents from the University of Utah’s Graduate School of Architecture, who documented with photographs and drawings buildings constructed by Italian immigrants. Italian-Ameri- cans in the West Project Collection. Photo by Blanton Owen

10 Folklife Center News the presidents of the Society for as books and exhibitions and to recordings of ethnographic ma- Ethnomusicology and the Amer- building the collections in the terial from field documen- ican Folklore Society. Folk Archive. Teams of cen- tation conducted from 1890 The Folklife Center’s en- ter field-workers sought to through the 1930s, primarily of abling legislation directs it to document not only music but American Indian music. The “preserve and present American also verbal arts, material cul- Library’s Recording Laboratory folklife” through programs of ture, and occupational tradi- had developed a special expert- research, scholarship, training, tions, as well as other aspects of ise in the technically challeng- live performances, exhibits, culture. ing work of copying these publications, and preservation. The creation of the American recordings. In the 1930s and The legislation also calls for the Folklife Center also engaged the 1940s some were copied onto establishment and maintenance U.S. Congress in the folklore disc, and beginning in the 1960s of a national archive “with any enterprise. Whereas most Folk others were copied onto mag- Federal department, agency, or Archive collections had resulted netic tape. Now a commitment institution.” But, of course, a from the vision and interest of was made to copy all of the more folk archive was near at hand, individuals—both private citi- than ten thousand wax cylinders and the Archive of Folk Cul- zens and those working for gov- and cylinder-based recordings ture was transferred from the ernment agencies and large pub- in the archive for preservation Music Division to the center in lic institutions—many of the and access. Word of the project 1978. Thus, the traditional center’s field documentary proj- brought even more cylinders to archival activities of acquisi- ects were now carried out in the Library. tion, processing, preservation, cooperation with the National The Federal Cylinder Project and reference have remained Park Service, often at the behest was established to arrange, cata- central to the mission and the of a member (or members) of log, and transfer to preservation daily life of the American Folk- Congress. The center has tape this priceless heritage of life Center. worked with the Park Service on music. In addition, the project cultural heritage surveys in made cassette-tape copies of the n September 1976, Alan Jab- northern Maine; Lowell, Massa- recordings to return to the tribes bour, who had served earlier chusetts; the New Jersey Pine of origin. This last activity as head of the Folk Archive, Barrens and Paterson, New Jer- exemplified a central philo- became the first director of sey; along the Blue Ridge Park- sophical tenet of the Folk Ar- Ithe American Folklife Center. In way in Virginia and North Car- chive and of many ethnographic 1977, the first full year of its olina; and at New River Gorge in archives throughout the United operations, the center launched West Virginia. State, that the documentary two field documentary projects, In 1979 the Folklife Center materials ultimately belong to the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project launched the Federal Cylinder the communities of origin. For and the South-Central Georgia Project, one of its most ambi- many years representatives of Folklife Project, setting a pat- tious undertakings. Over the American Indian tribes have tern that came to characterize decades the Folk Archive had visited the American Folklife much of its early work. One proj- received thousands of origi- Center to use the collections for ect was urban and one rural, but nal, one-of-a-kind wax-cylinder their own programs of cultural both emphasized the impor- tance of documenting artistic traditions professionally, using both sound recordings and still photography, with an eye both to creating public products such

Federal Cylinder Project sound technician and folklorist Erika Brady, in the Recording Laboratory of the Library of Congress (circa 1980), makes a copy of a wax-cylin- der recording using a reel-to-reel tape machine. By the early 1970s it was clear that time was taking its toll on the Library’s cylinder record- ings and preservation duplication was urgent. Renewed interest on the part of American Indian tribes in their own cultural heritage height- ened the need to preserve and cat- alog this extensive collection. American Folklife Center photo by Carl Fleischhauer

Spring 2003 11 manent authorization by past several decades, require the U.S. Congress. In immediate conservation treat- 2002 Michael Taft was ment and copying to other for- appointed head of the mats. Also in need of preserva- Folk Archive. tion are scores of photographs, drawings, diagrams, maps, and oday, the archive field notes that complement and contains more provide interpretive informa- than 3 million tion on the recordings. items and is truly In July 2000 a joint project Tthe national folk archive proposal by the American Folk- of the United States. In life Center in the Library of Con- keeping with the multi- gress and the Center for Folklife cultural character of and Cultural Heritage of the American society and Smithsonian Institution was the international scope awarded a grant for $750,000 to of the Library of Con- preserve the historic sound gress, its holdings also recordings housed at the two encompass folklife ma- institutions. The White House terials from around the Millennium Council’s preserva- world. Yet many items in tion program Save America’s this storehouse of infor- Treasures, in partnership with mation are imperiled the National Park Service and because of the fragile the National Trust for Historic nature of sound record- Preservation, made the grant. ings. In urgent need of Among its several aims, the preservation are thou- Save Our Sounds audio preser- sands of original audio vation project, as it came to be The American Folklife Center’s Save Our recordings made over called, serves as a model and is Sounds project is preserving as digital files the course of the twenti- building expertise at the Ameri- many thousands of endangered audio record- eth century by folk- can Folklife Center that can then ings, made in different formats, from the lorists, ethnomusicolo- be shared with others. All ethno- 1890s to the present. In this photo Peter gists, , graphic collections will have to Alyea, digital conversion specialist and sound and other ethnogra- face the inevitable deterioration engineer in the Library’s Motion Picture, phers, on wax cylinder, of their sound recordings, and Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, wire, aluminum disc, all will need standards and transfers the sound from a disc recording to a acetate, audiotape, and guidelines for preservation. If digital file. Photo by James Hardin, February videotape. Many, in- the last hundred years have been 2003. cluding those from the a time of great accumulation of preservation and revitaliza- tion. Since the Folklife Center’s establishment in 1976, the Folk Archive has grown dramatical- ly, both from the field documen- tation initiatives undertaken by the center itself and from the acquisition of major collections. By 1981 the archive was official- ly named the Archive of Folk Culture to reflect the breadth of its collections. In July 1999 Peggy A. Bulger succeeded Alan Jabbour as director of the Amer- ican Folklife Center. In October 1999 the center was granted per-

Jackie Torrence, a former reference librarian from High Point, North Caroli- na, now a professional storyteller, at the 1986 National Storytelling Festival, Jonesborough, Tennessee.Internation- al Storytelling Collection. Photo by Tom Raymond. 12 Folklife Center News Mingo Saldivar plays tejano conjunto music on the Library of Congress’s Neptune Plaza, part of the American Folklife Center’s Homegrown 2002 concert series, September 19, 2002. Photo by David Taylor center has a cooperative arrangement with the Interna- tional Storytelling Foundation of Jonesborough, Tennessee, to collect, preserve, and dissemi- nate information about story- telling. The center has likewise acquired thousands of hours of audio and video recordings, photographs, manuscripts, and publications from the National Storytelling Festival. Through an innovative arrangement with the National Council for the Tra- ditional Arts, based in Silver Spring, Maryland, the center is acquiring a vast collection of five thousand hours of record- ings from the National Folk Fes- tival and other events. In November 2000 the Ameri- can Folklife Center launched the Veterans History Project, which was authorized by Public Law 106–380. Approved by President Bill Clinton on October 27, 2000, the Veterans History Project is designed to collect and preserve the personal stories of Ameri- recorded sound, then the twen- but to extend its reach the center ca’s war veterans and to make ty-first century promises to be a engages in cooperative agree- selections from these stories time of major preservation of ments with other public and pri- available on the Internet. This sound recordings to ensure that vate organizations, such as immense project has been they remain accessible. those with the National Park undertaken with the coopera- The American Folklife Center Service for field documentation tion and participation of many is a small agency with a very projects and others with com- project partners, including the large mission. The Library of mercial firms for various print military service organizations Congress provides essential and music recording publica- and numerous individual vol- institutional support, of course, tion projects. For example, the unteers, and is supported by a major grant from AARP. Thus does the American Folk- life Center find itself newly engaged in its mission “to pre- serve and present American folklife” in the new millennium, as it continues to fulfill the dream of the Folk Archive’s first inspired collector, Robert W. Gordon, who sought to gather together in a national archive all our songs and stories, a great task he regarded as “a national project with many workers.” Veterans History Project assistant Mandy Brown sorts and arranges mate- rials sent to the Library of Congress that document the experiences of America’s war veterans. Photo by James Hardin Spring 2003 13 Mickey Hart in Search of the World’s Music

Mickey Hart (right) with two fellow percussionists, Tito Puente and Giovanni Hidalgo, at the Library of Congress for its Bicentennial celebration concert, June 1, 2000. Photo by James Hardin By James Hardin found themselves tangled in takes technology to record and microphone cable and thwarted preserve it. And it takes “It all started innocently enough in their documentary efforts recordists who are willing to in a childhood encounter,” when their panicked commotion travel, sometimes to the remote writes Mickey Hart in his new alerted the zoo guards. corners of the earth.” book Songcatchers: In Search of Songcatchers pays tribute to the World’s Music, with K.M. he late sixties was a time the many men and women who Kostyal (Washington, D.C.: Na- of social and cultural have devoted their lives to tional Geographic, 2003). A rec- experimentation, and recording and preserving the ording of African pygmies he Hart’s musical imagina- infinitely diverse rhythms and discovered in his parents’ rec- Ttion was open to a range of influ- sounds that make up the world’s ord collection opened for him a ences and possibilities, his music. The book traces audio new world of musical possibili- “antenna scanning for new documentation from the inven- ties and, as he says, “lit my sounds.” He met and recorded tion of the cylinder recording imagination with an intensity Indian musicians in San Francis- machine by Thomas Alva Edison that would ultimately guide my co. On a 1978 trip to Egypt for a in 1877 and the first ethnograph- life.” Grateful Dead concert at the foot ic field use of the machine, by Mickey Hart took up the of the Great Pyramids, he trav- Jesse Walter Fewkes, to docu- drums, played with a band dur- eled to Aswan to record the ment Passamaquoddy Indians ing a tour of duty with the U.S. music of those who navigate the in Maine in 1890. It offers hom- Air Force, and eventually found Nile in their feluccas. In 1985 he age to Prussian-born Franz himself in 1960s San Francisco met the Gyuto Tantric Choir at a Boas, who settled in America in with a band called the Grateful concert in Amherst, Massachu- 1887, and his protégé at Colum- Dead. He had his first experi- setts, and invited them to Cali- bia University, George Herzog, ence attempting to document fornia to perform and record. In the fathers of American anthro- the sounds of others when band 1988, on a cultural expedition of pology and ethnomusicology. It colleague Bob Weir suggested another sort, Hart arranged to tells of Alice Cunningham that they make a night-time record a concert of the San Fletcher giving up a comfortable expedition to the San Francisco Quentin prison choir. life to live on the Nebraska zoo to record the animals. With a “Songcatching is not easy,” prairie to document Omaha borrowed Nagra tape recorder, says Mickey Hart. “It takes Indian music, with the help of the two attempted to sneak artists who create music,” and Francis La Flesche, the son of an through the front gate, but listeners who appreciate it. “It Omaha chief. It profiles the

14 Folklife Center News indefatigable Frances Dens- young man by John Lomax’s efforts to ensure that the infinite more, from Red Wing, Minneso- Cowboy Songs and Other Ballads variety of the world’s musical ta, who spent fifty years collect- (1910), Asch founded Folk- traditions will be available to ing several thousand recordings ways Records, which brought enrich human experience for of Native Americans from all out “countless groundbreak- generations to come. over the United States and ing records” of folk and eth- British Columbia. nic music, featuring Woodie Songcatchers also profiles the Guthrie, Leadbelly, , work of collectors working out- Mary Lou Williams, Josh White, side the United States, such as Sonny Terry, Bess Hawes, and the Hungarians Zoltán Kodály many others. EDITOR’S NOTES from page 2 and Béla Bartók, the Australian When Folkways Records was Percy Grainger, and the English transferred to the Smithsonian tions, as chronicled in this issue team of Cecil Sharp and Maud Institution, Tony Seeger invited of Folklife Center News, and the Karpeles; as well as Americans Mickey Hart to serve on the way in which motives and mis- , Paul Bowles, board of directors for Smithson- sions may either conflict or coin- , and Henrietta ian Folkways. Smithsonian eth- cide. Yurchenco. nomusicologist Tom Vennum A review of the history and advised Hart that he should visit contents the Folk Archive also any of the collections the Library of Congress to reveals and reflects a time of of American song- explore the riches of the Archive extraordinary change that spans catchers have found of Folk Culture. As a result of the the twentieth century, from the their way to the visit, Hart eventually produced first cylinder recordings that MArchive of Folk Culture at the a series of six CDs called The made audio documentation pos- Library of Congress, and Hart Endangered Music Project, with sible to the latest technologies and Kostyal pay tribute to the former American Folklife Cen- for publication and preserva- role that several institutions ter director Alan Jabbour. Hart tion. The period has witnessed have played in supporting docu- now serves as a trustee of the the social and cultural disrup- mentary expeditions and hous- Center and chairs the Leader- tions of many forces and events, ing and preserving the resulting ship Committee to support the including two world wars and materials—from Berlin’s Pho- American Folklife Center/Smith- the Great Depression. nogramm-Archiv and New sonian Institution joint audio York’s Museum of Natural His- preservation project, Save Our tory to the Bureau of American Sounds. In addition, he serves on For Further Reading Ethnography at the Smithsonian the National Recorded Sound Institution and the American Preservation Board at the Library “The Archive of Folk Culture Folklife Center. of Congress. at 75” is adapted from “The In a chapter titled “Folksay,” American Folklife Center: An Hart and Kostyal describe the n telling the story of the Illustrated Guide,” by James next step that songcatchers have extraordinary men and Hardin, Library of Congress, taken in the process of collecting women who carried cylin- forthcoming. Debora Kodish’s and archiving the world’s der, disc, tape, and all man- Good Friends and Bad Enemies: : publication. From 1932 Iner of recording devices Robert Winslow Gordon and the to 1942, John A. Lomax and his throughout the United States Study of American Folksong son, Alan, headed the Archive of and the world to capture the (Urbana and Chicago: Univer- American Folk-Song, which was fleeting sounds of musical tra- sity of Illinois Press, 1986) is an established at the Library of ditions from many cultural excellent account of an impor- Congress in 1928. Both devoted groups, Hart also tells the story tant (but little known) figure in their lives to collecting songs of the Archive of Folk Culture, the history of American folklore and making them available the national repository of grass- studies. Peter Bartis’s “A Histo- through concerts, books, radio, roots cultural tradition, now cel- ry of the Archive of Folk Song at and published recordings. In ebrating its seventy-fifth birth- the Library of Congress: The 1942 Alan Lomax launched the day. First Fifty Years” (Ph.D. diss., Library of Congress LP-record- The twentieth century was a University of Pennsylvania, ings series Folk Music of the great period for the documenta- 1982) chronicles the tenures of United States. Lomax feared tion of traditional music, and at the men and women who built that modern life was “sweeping the start of the twenty-first it is the Folk Archive. Alan Jabbour’s completely off the globe what the responsibility of archives “The American Folklife Center: unspoiled folklore is left,” and libraries to find ways to pre- A Twenty-Year Retrospective” replacing it with “just one type serve a great legacy of recorded (Folklife Center News 18: 1–2, of diet and one available kind of sound. Richly illustrated with winter–spring 1996, part 1; music.” Moses Asch, a Polish historic photographs, Song- 18:3–4, summer–fall 1996, part immigrant to New York in 1910, catchers: In Search of the World’s 2) offers a lucid and insightful had a similar view. Inspired as a Music tells the story of those history of the Center.

Spring 2003 15 Carrie B. Grover, Gorham, Maine, 1943.The Eloise Hubbard Linscott Collection of New England folksongs and folklore comprises the life’s work of an amateur collector devot- ed to the preservation of the traditional music of her region.The collection includes the performances of several New England fiddlers, including Carrie B. Grover, the only woman among them. The Linscott Collection is one of more than three thousand col- lections in the Archive of Folk Culture, which marks its seventy-fifth anniversary this year. Photo probably by Eliose Hubbard Linscott

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRESORTED STANDARD AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER POSTAGE & FEES PAID LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 101 INDEPENDENCE AVENUE, S.E. WASHINGTON, D.C. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20540–4610 PERMIT No. G–103

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Archive of Folk Culture Seventy-fifth Anniversary 1928–2003

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