The Festival of American Folklife: Building on Tradition Richard Kurin

Home , Senegalese Americans, Swedish Americans

This summer marks the 25th annual Festival of Mary McGrory, then a reporter for The Evening American Folklife. Over the years more than Star, wrote, 16,000 musicians, dancers, craftspeople, storytell Thanks to S. Dillon Ripley, Secretary of the ers, cooks, workers, and other bearers of tradi Smithsonian Institution, thousands of tional culture from every region of the United people have been having a ball on the States and every part of the globe have come to Mall, watching dulcimer-makers, quilters, the National Mall in Washington to illustrate the potters and woodcarvers and listing to art, knowledge, skill and wisdom developed music. "My thought," said Ripley, "is that within their local communities. They have sung we have dulcimers in cases in the mu and woven, cooked and danced, spun and seum, but how many people have actually stitched a tapestry of human cultural diversity; heard one or seen one being made?" they have aptly demonstrated its priceless value. Their presence has changed the National Mall During the mid-1960s the Smithsonian Institu and the Smithsonian Institution. Their perform tion re-evaluated its approach to understanding ances and demonstrations have shown millions and interpreting American culture and its atten of people a larger world. And their success has dant institutional responsibilities. Secretary Ripley encouraged actions, policies and laws that pro reported his initiative to mount the first Festival mote human cultural rights. The Festival has been to the Board of Regents, the Smithsonian's gov a vehicle for this. And while it has changed in erning body, in February, 1967: various ways over the years, sometimes only to A program sponsored by the Smithsonian change back once again, the Festival's basic pur should reflect the Institution's founding pose has remained the same. Its energy and philosophy and current role. Although it strength is rooted in the very communities and has the world's largest collections of cultural exemplars it seeks to represent, and in American folk artifacts, the Smithsonian, small, but sometimes significant ways, to help. like all museums in our nation, fails to present folk culture fully and accurately. The First Festival Through the Bureau of American Ethnol The marble museums of the Smithsonian ogy, it has pioneered the collection, ar Institution are filled with beautiful hand chiving, analysis and publication of Ameri worn things made long ago by forgotten can Indian cultural data, [but] neither the American craftsmen. Nostalgic reminders Smithsonian nor any other research institu of our folk craft heritage, the museum tion has employed the methods of cultural exhibits are discreetly displayed, precisely anthropology in an extensive fieldwork labeled, and dead. program in American folk cultures. But the folk craft tradition has not died. The lack of museum expertise and the Yesterday it burst into life before the as absence of adequate field programs in tonished eyes of hundreds of visitors on American folklife studies has resulted from the Mall. (Paul Richard in The Washington a general ignorance of the abundance of Post, July 2, 1967, on the first Festival of our traditional cultures. Related to the American Folklife) collections and based on the philosophy of the Smithsonian, an exposition of the

7 Dejan 's Olympia Brass Band from Louisiana performs on the National Mall at the first Festival in 1967. Festival stages have generally remained small, encouraging intimate audience interaction. Photo Smithsonian Institution

folk aesthetic on the Mall accompanied by Festival's Director and Marion Hope became the a seminar would be provocative. project assistant and then Festival coordinator A program presenting traditional crafts and assistant director. men and dancers as well as musicians Some in the U.S. Congress felt that Ripley's would convincingly demonstrate the vigor plans for the National Mall - which in addition of our folk traditions. At an interdiscipli to a Festival of American Folklife included a nary seminar, individuals with mutual carousel, outdoor evening concerts at the muse interests who are not ordinarily in commu ums, and a kite-flying contest - were frivolous, nication - including scholars, government that they would turn the Mall into a "midway." and foundation representatives as well as But Ripley and his supporters prevailed. Ripley concerned laymen - will explore the thought it made sense for the Smithsonian to go significance of the traditions displayed. outdoors and establish what some members of Secretary Ripley also envisioned the eventual Congress termed "a living museum." Education formation of an American Folklife Institute that could be fun. Serious purposes could be accom would establish "standards for research and inter plished on the nation's front lawn, historically pretation of our folkways" and "enable the Smith known as "Smithsonian Park." The Civil Rights sonian to provide the basis for a total view of marches had already dramatically demonstrated American culture." this. James Morris, then Director of the Professors and scientists had their universities Smithsonian's Museum Service, Ralph Rinzler, and publications; fine artists had their art galleries coming from the Newport Folk Foundation as an and museums; fine musicians had their sympho applied folklore consultant, and others took up nies and operas. The work of popular and com the task and the leadership of the project. Morris mercial artists was proclaimed in the mass media became Director of the newly constituted Divi of television, radio, recordings and magazines. sion of Performing Arts, Rinzler became the Where could the voices of "folks back home" be

8 heard so they too would contribute to our sense tors, folklorists D. K. Wilgus, Richard Dorson, of national culture, wisdom and art? Simply, the Roger Abrahams, Austin Fife, Archie Green and National Mall provided just such a platform for Don Yoder, anthropologist Ward Goodenough, people to speak to the rest of the nation. cantometrician Alan Lomax, cultural geographer Through the Festival, everyone could be repre Fred Kniffen, architect James Marston Fitch, rec sented; it made good sense as part of the na ord producer Moses Asch, historians, educators tiona! museum charged with presenting the story and other scholars from Mexico, Ireland, Canada, of human accomplishments. Members of Con and Switzerland. The conference addressed top gress understood this meant that their constitu- ics of American and international folklife studies, . ents, the people, the folks back home, would the relationship between folklife and history, have a place in the cultural life of the nation. applied folklife, and folklife in schools, museums, Texans and Ohioans, Mississippians and Hawai communities and government agencies. ians, Anglo-Americans from Appalachia and In the first Festival and Conference, several American Indians from the Plains, new and older important ideas emerged. The study of grassroots urban immigrants, children and elders, miners, traditional cultures was a multidisciplinary proj cowboys, carpenters and many others would all ect; factors affecting the survival of cultural tradi have a place - a special place - to represent tions in contemporary life had to be addressed; their cultural contributions. the study and presentation of cultures, through The first Festival included a variety of musi schools and other institutions was an essential cians and craftspeople from across the country part of public education; the Festival provided a -Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Sing collaborative means for scholars and culture bear ers, Moving Star Hall Singer Janie Hunter and ers to discuss and present their understandings of coil basketmaker Louise Jones from South Caro particular traditions and communities. lina, dulcimer maker Edd Presenell from North The Festival and Conference project was Carolina, Dejan's Olympia Brass Band from New viewed in 1967 as part of a larger strategy to Orleans, Navajo sandpainter Harry Belone, study, present and conserve traditional grassroots Acoma Pueblo potter Marie Chino, the Y omo cultures. The last session of the conference was Toro Puerto Rican Band and an Irish Ceilidh devoted to planning for a National, or American Band from New York, cowboy singer Glenn Folklore Institute. The Institute would sponsor Ohrlin, bluesman John Jackson, Libba Cotton, intensive scholarly fieldwork on American folk Russian Glinka dancers from New Jersey, King cultures, stimulate and preserve folk traditions Island Eskimo dancers from Alaska, and country through economic and educational assistance, blues singer Fred McDowell among many others. produce an annual festival, encourage regional The first Festival represented a convergence festivals and seminars, publish scholarly mono and distillation of several ideas. The name, graphs and seminar proceedings as well as more "folklife" was taken from the Pennsylvania popular works, produce documentary films, Folklife Festival and Don Yoder's scholarly adop maintain an archive, compile resource guides for tion of the European term. The Festival's juxta folk culture, disseminate educational materials to position of musical performance with crafts, nar schools, advise other government agencies on rative sessions, foodways and sales came from cultural conditions related to their programs, and Rinzler's pioneering experience at the Newport develop proposals for a national folk perform Festival. The dominant idea - that of a festival ance company and a national folklife museum. combining art, education and the struggle for The first Festival was indeed a public success, cultural recognition - came from Rinzler with more than 431,000 visitors attending. As through the influences of ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax said, Charles Seeger, social activist and educator Myles In affairs like this we realize our strength. Horton, and folklorist A. L. Lloyd. We realize how beautiful we are. Black is From its inception, the Festival was to have a beautiful. Appalachia is beautiful and even strong scholarly base. Festival presentations old, tired, Washington sometimes is beau would indicate the cultural and social history of tiful when the American people gather to featured traditions. It would represent them ac sing and fall in love with each other again. curately. Concurrent with the first Festival was an American Folklife Conference, organized by Mor At the Festival people do talk, meet, and un ris, Rinzler and Henry Glassie, then state folklor derstand something of each other as they easily ist for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Con cross social boundaries usually not negotiated in ference participants included Smithsonian cura- their everyday life. And through the Festival,

9 Ernie Cornelison from Bybee, Kentucky, demonstrates a Dutch American pottery tradition, preserved in his family for generations, at the 1968 Festival. Crafts processes demonstrated at the Festival typically invite close observation and questions. Photo by Robert Yellin, Smithsonian Institution

writer Julius Lester and others to develop programs through which African Americans in Washington might see the Festival and the Smithsonian as worthy of their par ticipation. Similar efforts were di rected toward other communities traditionally left out of Smithsonian museums and activities. These efforts led to the appoint- ment of Clydia Nahwooksy, the first tradition bearers enlarge the measure of cultural Native American professional at the Smithsonian, pride they brought with them to the Mall and and to the establishment of the Festival's American bring it back home, energized by the experience Indian Awareness program. Portions of the 1968 of presenting their traditions in a national con Festival were held at the Anacostia Neighborhood text. While not all of the suggestions developed Museum. An African Diaspora Advisory Group in the 1967 American Folklife Conference have was formed in 1971 to develop programs on Afri been realized, most of them have indeed come to can-derived cultures, foster community involve pass. ment, and engage scholars in finding solutions to questions of cultural representation. Gerald Davis, Festival Benchmarks Reagan, James Early, Worth Long, Roland Free It is difficult, if not impossible, to summarize man, and many others became involved. Over the all the milestones, all the accomplishments of the years, the Festival played an important role of Festival of American Folklife. Key benchmarks bringing scholars and cultural thinkers to the merely signal its scope and contributions to Smithsonian from previously unrepresented or scholarship, museology, government policy and underrepresented communities. Many, such as the life of cultural communities themselves. Reagan, Early, Manuel Melendez, Alicia Gonzalez, Rayna Green, Fred Nahwooksy have held posi Community Involvement and Staffing tions of increasing responsibility and scope within The Festival was intended to help present and the Smithsonian. interpret in a direct, public way the sometimes The Festival also provided an opportunity for overlooked artistic creations of America's diverse, networks of minority scholars to develop. Free grassroots cultural communities. Influenced by man, a documentary photographer, and Long, a the Civil Rights Movement, the Festival was to civil rights community organizer, teamed up in provide a means whereby many Americans could 1974 to survey and document the folklife of tell their story and exhibit their aesthetics, their Mississippi's Black communities for the Festival; knowledge, their skill and their wisdom to the over the years they have collaborated on many rest of the nation. Crucial to this process was the projects, and are working together again this year. involvement of community members, not only as The Festival has long attempted to provide performers, but also as audience and as curatorial research, training and presentational experience to and professional staff. members of minority communities. This has In the late 1960s, the Smithsonian museums served two purposes. On one hand the Festival attracted very few visitors from minority commu has helped enhance community self-documenta nities and had only one minority curator. Follow tion and presentation. On the other, the dis ing the first Festival, Rinzler met with civil rights courses of the Festival, the Smithsonian and a activist, singer and cultural historian Bernice Rea broad public have been enriched with the per gon, Anacostia Museum Director John Kinard, spectives of minority professional and lay scholars

10 on their own community's cultures and on on ethnicity, community musics, biographical pro broader issues of social and cultural history. files of important musicians, verbal arts, deaf cul This kind of involvement has become a regu ture, material culture, vernacular architecture, lar feature of the Festival. Field research con foodways, communities and community celebra ducted to help select traditions and participants tions, occupational folklife, children's folklore, the for the Festival is typically done by trained and folklore of the elderly, the cultures of other coun lay scholars from the studied communities them tries, and issues of cultural policy. Several articles selves. When Hawaiians, Virgin Islanders, Sene have focused on institutional practice and reflected galese, or members of a deaf community are pre on the production of the Festival itself- the ideas sented to the public at the Festival, scholars from used to develop programmatic themes, to decide those communities usually frame the presenta on who is to be represented and how and why. tions with background information. When this is Program books are broadly distributed to the gen not possible, presentations are done by scholars eral public every year and used in university class who, though not of the community, have col rooms for teaching about American cultural tradi laborated closely with local scholars. tions. Many states and locales have reprinted ar This ongoing commitment to cultural dialogue ticles for use in their schools. took the form of a Summer Folklore Institute in 1989 and 1990. Hundreds of lay scholars work in Featured State and Region communities across the United States document First in 1968 and then in ensuing years, the Fes ing, preserving and presenting their community's tival adopted and in some cases developed innova traditions without benefit of professional training, tive categories for understanding and presenting institutional networks or adequate human and fi folklife traditions. In 1968 the Festival began its nancial resources. The Institute, organized ongoing concern with the regional cultures of around the Festival, exposed fellows, most from America with a distinct, "featured state" program minority backgrounds, to techniques and meth about Texas. The program illustrated that regional ods used within the field. It also provided a culture often crosses ethnic communities and pro means whereby they could meet one another as vides a particular cultural identity and aesthetic well as academic and museum scholars and inter style. At the same time, regions generally host con ested public officials whose help they might draw siderable cultural variation and diversity. Since upon. The Festival provided a fertile field for then, Festival programs have been produced for discussing, illustrating and examining questions every region of the United States and for 17 states of cultural documentation and presentation for and territories. the Institute's fellows. Just as the Festival has, the Regional and state programs have been impor Institute has assisted community-level work on tant in projecting to the American public a knowl local cultures by encouraging its practitioners. edge of the talents, sensibilities and values of their fellow citizens and neighbors. John Waihee, Gov The Program Book ernor of Hawaii, eloquently spoke of this at the At the 1968 Festival, a program book accom 1989 Festival. panied Festival presentations. Noted scholars It is with joy that we bring what is special from a variety of disciplines addressed general about Hawaii to you, which is the spirit of issues of folklore and folklife and the specific aloha. Because we are more than wonderful traditions illustrated in the Festival in a writing weather, or beautiful beaches or powerful style accessible to public audiences. In 1970 the volcanoes. We are a people. We are people Festival program book included many documen from many different backgrounds, and yet tary photographs, recipes, statements by and one, in the middle of God's Pacific, based interviews with craftspeople and musicians. It on our native Hawaiian heritage, which attempted to bring the many voices of the Festi binds us together in a spirit of love and val event to its printed publication. Over the pride, and built upon those who came later years, the program book has included seminal for a better life, reaching out so that their and informative articles on traditions and issues children's future would be secure. All of this presented by Festival programs. The contents of we bring to Washington. To you, from the the 24 program books provide a compendium of community of communities, to the nation of multidisciplinary and multivocal folklore scholar nations, we bring our spirit of aloha. ship, with articles on regional American culture, American Indian culture, the cultures of African State and regional programs at the Festival have Americans and of other peoples of the diaspora, also been important in generating lasting institu-

11 Horsemen race down the Mall for the Oklahoma program featured at the 1982 Festival. The Festival's presentations attempt to contextualize performances and skills, sometimes through large-scale structures, often through directed attention to a particular individual. Photo by Jeff Tinsley, Smithsonian Institution tional effects back home. Working in concert Smithsonian are worthy of respect, cele with the Folk Arts Program at the National En bration and scholarship on the home turf. dowment for the Arts, the Festival has provided a For a century, I believe the Smithsonian useful means of encouraging folk arts programs has been noted primarily for the collection within various states. of artifacts of the American experience Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon spoke of this and has become the nation's attic. But it is impact at the 1978 Festival: the life of the American folk that we cele brate here today, not their encased arti This is a national Festival, but not just for facts as important as they may be. For it is Washington, D.C. My congressional col the people themselves here in festivals leagues and I are very much aware of the like this across the country that provide us impact this Festival has had on our own with an understanding of our own com states and regions. For example, my state, munity. No curator can convey through a Oregon, has had two successful folklife glass display case what the people them festivals as a result of the Festival here. A selves can say to us directly. young woman who did the fieldwork for the 1976 Bicentennial Festival returned Most states have remounted a Festival program home to Oregon to direct a north coast back home - Oklahoma in 1982, Michigan, ev festival in Astoria in 1977 and a central ery year since being on the Mall in 1987, Massa Oregon festival this year. The festival dem chusetts in 1988, and Hawaii in 1990. The U.S. onstrated the breadth of folkways in just Virgin Islands plans to remount the Festival on St. one state. From loggers and fishermen on Croix later this year and next year on St. Thomas. the coast to buckeroos and smoke jumpers States have also used the Festival to develop their in the rugged central part of the state. own on-going programs for the study, presenta These regional festivals demonstrate that tion and conservation of local cultures. Michigan the cultural traditions brought out by the has done this effectively; Hawaii is now consider- 12 Iroquois teenagers play and demon strate the Indian-originated game of lacrosse at the 1975 Festival. Th e Festival's presentation ofAmerican Indian culture has spanned music and dance, crafts, foodways, architecture, storytelling, ritual performance, subsis tence activities, sports and efforts at self documentation and cultural revitaliza tion. Photo by Jim Pickerell, Smithsonian Institution

ing a collaboration with the Smith sonian for a cultural institute; and the Virgin Islands, based upon its experience, is poised to establish a state folk arts program, pass a Cul tural Preservation Act and establish a Virgin Islands Cultural Institute. The impact of such state and re gional programs is not limited to formal institutions, but also extends to participating artists, cultural ex emplars and scholars. For some, the Festival represents a personal highlight, a benchmark from which they take encouragement and inspiration. tial Wild Rice and the Ojibway People. The American Indian program at this year's Native American Programs Festival examines use and knowledge of the land The 1970 Festival expanded to include a uni among Native American groups from Alaska and fied program focussed on Native American cul the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, the Andes, and tures. While the Smithsonian's long established Ecuadorian rainforest. In a continuation of the Bureau of American Ethnology had collected and dialogue begun through the Festival model, Na documented evidences of previous lifeways, the tive American Festival participants will, during Festival's thrust was to complement this with the and after the Festival, work with staff and cura rich dance, craft, foodways and ritual traditions of tors of the Smithsonian's new National Museum contemporary Indian peoples. The Festival of the American Indian to help shape its opera worked closely with members of American In tions and plan its initial exhibits. dian tribes to document and present traditions on the Mall. Collaboration in planning the Festival, Working Americans and in training community people, and having Ameri Occupational Folklife can Indians speak directly to the public marked The 1971 Festival marked the beginning of the development of these programs over the another series of programs, one concerned with years. the occupational folklife of working Americans. Since 1970, representatives from more than Rarely presented publically as culture prior to the 130 Native American tribes have illustrated their Festival of American Folklife, occupational cultures at the Festival. Survey programs were folklife consists of the skills, knowledge and lore followed with thematic presentations, so that in people develop as members of occupational 1978, 1979 and 1980, American Indians demon groups or communities. In 1971 , during a sum strated the uses of vernacular architecture, the mer of great national division, young people skills and knowledge needed for its construction harboring stereotypes of people in hard hats had and its ecological soundness. In 1989 an Ameri the opportunity to meet, talk with and reach a can Indian program examined the access to natu greater understanding of construction workers. ral resources necessary for the continuity of tribal Since then, Festival programs have illustrated the cultures; that year's program was accompanied folklife of meat cutters, bakers, garment workers, by the publication of Thomas Vennum's influen- carpenters and joiners, cowboys, farmers, stone 13 Folklife Legislation The 1971 Festival also was the setting for what Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris called, "a folk hearing down on the Mall. " Senator Harris, co sponsor of a bill called the American Folklife Foundation Act, felt that American cultures have not been viewed with the pride they warrant; too often, they have been scorned as the life-style of an uncultured lower class. Nothing Ameri can was allowed to bear the label "cul ture." We had no national policy of appre ciation and support for America's folklife. The legislation was proposed as an effort to invest in the culture of America's common man. The bill, according to Harris, says that the country fiddler need not feel uncultured simply because his fiddle does not produce a concert tone; it says that the pottery of Jugtown, North Carolina, and the sandpainting of the southwestern Indi ans are artistic treasures in the same sense as those from the dynasties of China; it says that the black bluesmen along the Brazos Valley in Texas are recognized as pure artists and welcome as a national treasure; it says that the American Indian philosopher has something urgently im portant for America today and that society Logger Gary Winnop of Sitka, Alaska, checks rigging at the 1984 wants to hear him as well as the ancient Festival. Occupational presentations have seen barns, threshers, Greeks; it says that the total lifestyles of livestock, railroad tracks and cars, buildingframes, boats Swedish Americans in Milwaukee, of Pol and computers on the Mall to help workers demonstrate ish Americans in Chicago and of Italian and explain how they work for a living. Americans in Boston have brought a per Photo by Jeff Ploskonka, Smithsonian Institution spective and a contribution to this country that has enabled us as a society; and it says that the bluegrass band has devel oped a music with a complexity and rich masons, oil and gas workers, sheet metal work ness that will grow and that will endure ers, railroad workers, seafarers, truck and taxi always as a living monument to American drivers, bartenders, firefighters and in 1986, even musical genius. In short, the bill says that trial lawyers, who demonstrated their dramatic, there is a vast cultural treasure in strategic, storytelling and people-reading skills. America's common man, and that our Some occupational groups and organizations, society will be a better one if we focus on such as the AFL-CIO Labor Studies Center and that treasure and build on it. the American Trial Lawyers Association, have used their Festival experience in self-presenta The bill defined folklife and called for the tion, in turning work skills into performance, to establishment of an American Folklife Foundation study and interpret their occupational culture. that would give grants, loans and scholarships to Programs in the Festival have also resulted in groups and individuals to organize folklife festi longer term research studies and documentary vals, exhibits and workshops, to support re films, such as Robert McCarl's D.C. Firefighters for search, scholarship and training, to establish ar the Smithsonian Folklife Studies series, and Mar chives and material and documentary collections, jorie Hunt's 1984 Academy and Emmy Award and to develop and to disseminate educational winning film, The Stone Carvers. materials relating to folklife. It was modeled on a 14 bill first proposed by Texas Senator Ralph Yar of view at the 1982 Festival. Said Balfa, borough in 1969 and inspired by the Festival of It matters not what part or what nationality American Folklife, by the initial 1967 conference you are. You should be proud of your na and by the subsequent interest the conference tionality, you should be proud of your re had generated. Sen. Harris and Rep. Thompson gion . I want to respect your culture, you of New Jersey, the sponsor of the companion bill respect my culture. And if we ever learn to in the House of Representatives, chaired the pub do this, America is a beautiful country, but lic "folk hearing" on the Mall at the Festival. Festi it would be even more beautiful. And we val participants Dewey Balfa, a Cajun fiddler from can do that. Some of us has some work to Louisiana, Barbara Farmet and Rosetta Ruyle, do, but I think we are all together. We can American Indians from the Northwest Coast, do that. Florence Reece a coal-mining wife and singer from Tennessee, building tradesman Phil Ricos, Balfa, now retired as a school bus driver, but and others testified at the hearing as did singer still playing his fiddle, was recently appointed an and folk documentor Mike Seeger, folklorists adjunct professor at Southwest Louisiana State Archie Green and Francis Utely, and Festival College to convey his knowledge of Cajun culture American Indian programs coordinator, Clydia to the next generation. Nahwooksy. Old Ways in the New World programs from The bill was not voted upon in 1971 but laid 1973 to 1976 focused on ethnic groups with roots the legislative groundwork for the establishment in Great Britain, Yugoslavia, Sweden, Norway, of two other federal programs - the Folk Arts Finland, Tunisia, Greece, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Program at the National Endowment for the Arts, Japan and Mexico. They generally reunited Ameri and the American Folklife Center at the Library of can communities with cultural exemplars from Congress. The former assumed responsibility for "back home." The connection between an Ameri grant-making to individuals and local, state and can immigrant group, whether newly arrived or regional arts agencies, while the latter, under the long settled , and its root population has continued terms of the 1976 American Folklife Preservation to be important in Festival research and program Act, concentrated on archival collections, folklife ming. The impact of these combinations on per research and other programs. forming artists, craftspeople and musicians was sometimes profound. Said Balfa in 1989 when at Old Ways in the New World the Festival with French-style fiddlers from West While the emphasis of the Festival was on ern France, Quebec, New England, North Dakota American folk traditions, staff folklorists and oth and Louisiana, ers had interests in the root traditions from which This afternoon we were all [together] doing many American traditions had derived. In 1973 a w orkshop. I imagined in my mind while the Festival initiated the first of a series of annual this was going on how long it would have programs on "Old Ways in the New World. " taken me to travel all these miles and hear These programs sought to research and present this music. I got it in one hour on the Mall, the ways in which traditional practices of com and I think that is beautiful. munity and ethnic identity, rooted in the "old world," were perserved and transformed in the The Old Ways in the New World concept American context. Programs like the one on framed the need to include in our cultural history Cajun culture in Louisiana examined this process the new immigrant groups reaching American through music, and rather than seeing immigrants shores as a result of the 1965 immigration act and as dispossessed of culture, presented examples of the war in Southeast Asia. Presentations of these living cultural continuity, vitality and creativity. groups at the Festival coincided with the These programs fostered pride and, in some Smithsonian's establishment of a Research Institute cases such as among Cajuns and Irish Americans, on Immigration and Ethnic Studies headed by Roy local renaissances of traditional cultural fo rms. Bryce-Laporte. Folks whose traditions had been devalued even Recognizing similarities in the immigrant experi by themselves and their children reinvested en ence between different eras and from different ergy in those traditions. Cajun fiddler Dewey continents prompted a program at the 1988 Festi Balfa, who appreared at the 1964 Newport Folk val on "Migration to Metropolitan Washington: Festival at the urging of Rinzler and came away Making a New Place Home." African American, promising "to take the applause that echoed in Chinese, Oromo, Amhara, Salvadoran and other my ears back to Louisiana," expressed this point immigrant communities were brought together to 15 illustrate cultural processes which they all African Diaspora shared, and which, when understood, could A similar impulse informed the founding of the help promote neighborly intercultural ex African Diaspora program conceived in 1970 and changes in an urban environment. produced at the 1974 Festival. The African Dias Programmatic interest in newly immigrant pora program, first proposed by Gerald Davis and communities and their interactions has contin developed in collaboration with the African Dias ued in the research work carried out by staff pora Advisory Group, which included Bernice folklorist Olivia Cadaval on Salvadoran and Reagan, A. B. Spellman, Kathryn Morgan and Latino communities in Washington, D.C. An others, was a ground-breaking attempt to make a other researcher, Frank Proschan, is working on statement about the continuity of African cultural the recovery and conservation of Kmhmu ver forms in the many places in which African bal art in collaboration with elders and lay peoples live. scholars in a community widely disbursed geo African American culture forms are rooted in graphically throughout the United States. Cur Africa, often via the Caribbean and Latin America. rently, we are engaged in a research project on Some forms, such as Sea Island basket making, Soviet American and cognate Soviet cultures folktales, hair braiding, and some musical and resulting from a 1988 Festival program on So verbal styles have aesthetically and functionally viet musics. Joint teams of American and Soviet survived intact; others were synthesized and trans researchers are conducting fieldwork on formed to deal with historical and daily exigen Bukharin Jewish communities in Uzbekistan cies. The 1974 Festival program made a tri-conti and in Queens, New York; on Old Believers in nental statement, linking musicians, dancers, southern Russia and in Oregon and California; cooks, woodcarvers, hairdressers, basket weavers Ukranians in the Soviet Union and U.S. cities; and others from Ghana and Nigeria, Trinidad and and other such root and cognate communities. Tobago, and varied African American communities The project examines the transformations of in the United States. identity and folklife within these communities African Diaspora programs in 1975 and 1976 and will probably result in a Festival program in continued to look at commonalities of the African the mid-1990s. experience as found in a diversity of North Ameri The Old Ways in the New World programs can, Caribbean, South American and African set involved cultural exemplars from some 40 na tings. Participants at the Festival, millions of visi tions in the Festival and provided a means for tors, African Americans, European Americans, the American public to approach cultures and scholars and Smithsonian staff discovered the peoples usually far removed from them. In 1978 many ways in which common aesthetics in the Festival began "featured country" programs foodways, personal adornment, music, dance, use with the participation of Mexico and Mexican of language and use of space were expressed by Americans. Such country programs as those on peoples from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Zaire, and Korea, India, Japan, France, the Soviet Union, Senegal; from Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad & Tobago, Senegal and this year, Indonesia, provide Festi Surinam and Brazil; and from the Mississippi val visitors with an opportunity to see artistic Delta, from the Georgia Sea Islands, from urban and cultural expressions rarely glimpsed New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago and through mass media. These programs also pro Washington, D.C. African Diaspora programs vide an opportunity for close collaborative ties marked a major development in the scholarly and between American and international scholars public treatment of African-based cultures and and sometimes even influence cultural policies helped set the foundation for programs in the in the represented nation. The 1985 Festival National Museum of American History. program, "Mela: An Indian Fair," was accom The need and impetus for such programs con plished with strong collaboration of Indian tinues. The 1990 Festival featured a program on folklorists, community activists, designers, and Senegal involving the participation of Senegalese local communities who were struggling to and Senegalese Americans. Joined with the U.S. maintain their artistic traditions. This program, Virgin Islands at the Festival, participants, scholars conceptually and aesthetically organized by and officials "re-discovered" many of the cultural Indian principles and sensibilities, provided a commonalities - in storytelling, mocko jumbi, powerful cultural representation, which not music, narrative, foodways and adornment tradi only gave visitors a sense of Indian cultures, but tions - which unite them. At the Festival, the also influenced policies and practices aimed at Senegalese Minister of Culture and the Governor broadening human cultural rights in India. of the U.S. Virgin Islands announced plans for a 16 Yugoslavian participants and visitors join hands in dancing to tamburashi band music at the 1973 Festival Old Ways in the New World program. Photo Smithsonian Institution bilateral cultural exchange program. Staff folklor be expected, the Festival avoided massive state ist Diana N'Diaye and others are currently work spectacle and retained its intimate presentational ing on educational kits for the school systems in modes - relatively small performance stages, Senegal, the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C. narrative workshops, intimate crafts and so that children will have access to their cultural foodways demonstration areas, children's partici heritage, spanning as it does, oceans, continents pation areas and the like. and centuries. We also continue to work with The Bicentennial Festival illustrated in the Senegal in developing a West Africa Research strongest terms the living nature of folk culture Center to promote continuing studies of the link throughout the United States and the world. ages between African and African American Rather than dying in the industrial revolution, or populations. And as the Smithsonian develops its having been smothered by the influence of mass new African American Museum, and Senegal its culture, community-based, grassroots cultural Goree Island Memorial, we trust the Festival will traditions were still practiced, still meaningful in have played a role in bridging cultural connec the contemporary lives of Americans and other tions. people of the world. This was easy for millions of visitors to see and experience on the National The U.S. Bicentennial Mall. In sheer size and public impact, the 1976 Festi The Bicentennial Festival was an immense val for the U.S. Bicentennial was formidable. The undertaking and illustrated the collaboration of Festival was held over a 12-week period and the Smithsonian with literally thousands of na involved the participation of every region of the tional and international scholars, community United States, 38 foreign governments, scores of spokespeople and cultural exemplars involved in American Indian tribes, and many labor organiza the documentation, presentation, transmission tions and corporate sponsors. Despite what might and conservation of cultural traditions. The plan-

17 American Folklife after the Bicentennial were swept aside by the enormous outpouring of pub lic support for the Festival and its educational and cultural mission. After the Bicentennial, the Smithsonian formally established the Office of Folklife Programs, with Ralph Rinzler as its founding director. The Office, now with a perma nent staff, was able to approach the larger task set out by the initial American Folklife Confer ence of extending beyond the Festival to more thorough, broad ranging and varied means of documenting, studying, presenting and dissemi nating educational materials on folk cultural tradi tions. The web of activity generated initially by the Festival and then by the Office has grown large and complex. In addition to producing the an nual Festival and mounting the archival and field research which makes it possible, the Office is Ghanaian praise singer Salisu Mahama, playing the gonje, and engaged in numerous projects. The Smithsonian group illustrate the traditional music played for the court of the Folklife Studies series, formally begun in 1976 Dagomba king at the 1975 Festival. Photo Smithsonian Institution publishes documentary studies on American and worldwide folk traditions in the form of scholarly monographs and ethnographic films. Monographs ning for the Bicentennial Festival had begun in and films such as Tbe Meaders Family: North 1974 and provided an unprecedented means of Georgia Potters, Tule Technology: Northern Paiute establishing cultural networks, training students, Uses ofMarsh Resources in Western Nevada, Tbe and providing opportunities for diverse peoples Drum maker and Tbe Korean Onggi Potter, to interpret and present their traditions. among others, are technical, documentary studies The Bicentennial also saw the flowering of a used by scholars, community people and univer touring program, originally begun in 1973, in sity educators. This series is supplemented by which groups at the Festival would tour the many other books, pamphlets and articles by United States, bringing part of the Festival to Office scholars, some related to Festival pro cities, rural areas, midwestern towns, concert grams, such as Family Folklore, others based on halls, local school classrooms, city parks and ongoing fieldwork and scholarship. shopping malls. Through these touring programs, Since its inception the Festival has collabo the Smithsonian put people across the breadth of rated with Smithsonian museums in mounting America in touch with traditional domestic and exhibitions related to folk culture. Exhibits of folk foreign cultures. While these tours are no longer art incorporating objects, photographs, song and formally done, they served as a model of taking spoken word recordings and sales were held in grassroots performance to local people for other the National Museum of American History and organizations and for the Smithsonian's own spe then toured by the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibi cial programs. For example, the Festival sent tion Service. An exhibit of Copp family textiles in contingents of American performing groups to the Museum of American History encouraged the Soviet Union in 1988 and 1990. Groups in living practitioners, like Norman Kennedy, to cluded musicians for stage performances, street work with the museum to help document and musicians, a New Orleans brass band and a girls interpret its ~ollection. Consultations between double-dutch jump rope team. On tour in the practitioners and museum curators have since Soviet Union, the Americans performed not only become a regular Festival feature. in concert halls, but also in the factories of the The Office of Folklife Programs has produced Leninski shipyards, on a collective farm, in a several traveling exhibits including Southeastern Ukranian town square, on the streets of Kiev and Pottery, Tbe Grand Generation, which presents in apartment complexes. the folklife of the elderly, and recently Stand by Me: African American Expressive Culture in The Office of Folklife Programs Philadelphia. All grew out of Festival programs Preliminary plans to discontinue the Festival of and research. In 1982-83 the Office collaborated

18 with the Renwick Gallery to mount Celebration, effort, Folkways: A Vision Shared, generated con an exhibition of objects related to human ritual siderable sales and won a Grammy Award . It also behavior curated by Victor Turner. During the 15 led to a companion music-cultural history video month-long exhibition, artifacts in the Gallery on Guthrie and Leadbelly, a release of original were contextualized by living performances, recordings from the archives, and educational demonstrations and rituals offered by numerous materials produced in concert with the Music cultural communities. The exhibit resulted in a Educators National Conference. Smithsonian/ catalog and three books and established the Folkways is keeping every title in the original groundwork for the inclusion of living people as Folkways catalog in print and is stabilizing the integral participants in museum exhibitions. This archives. More than 70 titles have been remas practice was at the center of Aditi: A Celebration tered and rereleased on CD and cassette. New of Life, mounted in 1985 at the National Museum albums and series are being researched and pro of Natural History for the Festival of India. This duced - Hawaiian Drum Dance Chants, The exhibition, one of the Smithsonian's most ambi Doc Watson Family, Musics of the Soviet Union, tious and successful, gained national and interna Lightnin' Hopkins, and many more - sometimes tional attention, set high standards for museolo in concert with Festival projects and often in gists in design, content and programming, and collaboration with local scholars and institutions. served to connect museum display with issues of With the help of the Ford Foundation, Smith cultural survival. sonian/ Folkways has worked closely with the In The Office of Folklife Programs has produced donesian ethnomusicological society to train numerous symposia, often in collaboration with fieldworkers and documentors and to produce a other Smithsonian units and with national and series of recordings surveying the musical culture international cultural and educational organiza of that diverse nation. A version of the series with tions. Symposia have ranged from those on Indonesian language notes will be produced so popular culture and traditional puppetry to those that adults, but especially children, there can for the Columbus Quincentenary on Native have access to their own, sometimes fragile tradi American agriculture and the relationship of com tions. Smithsonian/ Folkways may also be found merce and industry to expressive culture. in unlikely places - the Boston Children's Mu The Festival has always generated educational seum plays its recordings in the bathrooms and materials and media products. Many documentary computer-based educational programs use Folk films have been produced about the Festival and ways music to teach geography and cultural its particular programs over the years in different awareness. Folkways co-distributes a world music regions of the country and abroad. Radio Smith and dance encyclopedia and is about to embark sonian has featured series of programs generated on laser disc and high definition television proj from the Festival and other research projects; ects. Its archival holdings attract scholars in eth Smithsonian World has featured the Festival in its nomusicology, folklore and cultural history and television segments. A record produced from invite the attention of people from the communi music performed at the Festival was released in ties whose music, words and art it seeks to pre 1970 and helped establish the Smithsonian Re serve. cordings Division. The range of scholarly, museum, educational In 1987 the Office of Folklife Programs ac and public service activities undertaken by the quired Folkways Records from the family of Office confirms the vision of the first Festival and Moses Asch. Folkways - a long established com Conference. But there is yet more to do. pany with a 50 year archive and catalog of 2,200 titles spanning U.S. and world musics, verbal art, Cultural Conservation spoken word, and historical and scientific docu The Festival had long been conceived as pro mentary recordings - took root at the Smith moting cultural pluralism, continuity and equity. sonian under the care of musical anthropologist The concern for preserving and encouraging Anthony Seeger. To help pay for the acquisition, cultural diversity and creativity framed Rinzler's popular musicians agreed to produce a benefit work from the beginning. In 1973, Secretary album and donate their royalties to the Smith Ripley made this explicit in his statement for the sonian. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Festival program book: Harris, U2, Little Richard, Pete Seeger, Arlo We are a conservation organization, and it Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Taj Mahal and others seems to us that conservation extends to performed their versions of Woody Guthrie and human cultural practices. The possibility Leadbelly songs in the Folkways collection. The

19 of using a museum that is essentially a community-held, creatively performed grassroots historical documentary museum as a thea culture. Not all culture is or will be produced in ter of live performance where people ac Hollywood, Paris, Nashville or on Madison Ave tually show that the objects in cases were nue. Local folks, people in families, communities, made by human hands, and are still being tribes, regions and occupations continue to make made, practiced on, worked with, is a very culture. More research must be done on the con valuable asset for our role as a preserver texts within which local forms of grassroots cul and conservator of living cultural forms, ture do survive and indeed , may flourish. If we and should be understood in those terms. think cultural diversity is worth conserving, then the time is ripe to examine how economic devel Programs in 1979 and ensuing years examined opment strategies can encourage the continuity community efforts to preserve and extend their of local culture , how local cultural practices and cultural traditions in such activities as vernacular knowledge can support environmental preserva architecture, food procurement and processing, tion, how local communities can participate in and ritual life. Rinzler took this concern for cul the shaping of the images used, too often by tural conservation to larger arenas in the Smith others, to represent them, and how the wisdom, sonian when he became Assistant Secretary for knowledge and aesthetics of diverse cultures can Public Service in 1982. directly, and through innovative media, be In 1985 with Peter Seitel as Director of the brought into classrooms and other forums of Office of Folklife Programs and Diana Parker as public education. Director of the Festival, a specific program called The Festival and the Office of Folklife Pro Cultural Conservation was developed for the grams will continue its work. It will continue to Festival that examined how institutional practices tap into the great streams of tradition and creativ and pressures threatened Mayan Indian, Puerto ity which, though threatened, still abound in the Rican, Cajun, Kmhmu and other communities and United States and throughout the world. It will how local and sometimes national and interna continue to heed, honor and celebrate remark tional efforts worked to assist their cultural sur able people who, in exemplary ways, carry with vival. Cultural conservation programs continued them lessons learned by word of mouth over in following years to examine the role of local generations, so that the next generation of young social institutions, the maintenance of language artists can return to root forms when shaping and the use of natural resources in preserving new creations. And the Festival will continue to American cultural communities and allowing encourage practitioners to practice, scholars to them to define their own futures. research, and the public to learn. The concern for the conservation of cultural To museums, educational systems, community diversity and creativity has been expressed in groups, governments and the general public that various publications and through various Festival seek forms for presenting information about cul projects, and it informs ongoing and developing tural knowledge, practice, wisdom and aesthetics, collaborations with international organizations the Festival offers an important resource. And as and federal, state and local agencies. American society, and indeed societies around the world, daily confront cultural issues in Conclusion schools, homes, market places and political are As the Festival passes its 25th year it will con nas, the Festival provides a model, however tinue to experiment with presentational tech emergent, of how diverse forms of cultural ex niques and to explore categories for understand pression can be accommodated, communicated ing varieties of grassroots cultural expression. and appreciated within a broad framework that Festival staff, and the scores of officials, academic recognizes human cultural rights. colleagues, public folklorists and community people who yearly write and talk about the Festi val continue to use it as a vehicle for thinking Richard Kurin is Director of the Smithsonian Institution through issues of cultural representation and Office ofFo lklife Programs and a Professorial Lecturer conservation. at The johns Hopkins School ofAdvanced International An unfinished agenda from 1967 still resonates Studies. He is a cultural anthropologist with a Ph.D. today. It would be a mistake to think that the from the University of Chicago who has done most of his promulgation of global mass culture will inevita research work in India and Pakistan. He first worked bly wipe out all forms of tradition-generated, on the Festival ofAmerican Folklife in 1976.