Collections and Special Presentations Available Online

The American Folklife Center is making selected collections from the Archive of Folk Culture available via the Internet. In addition, the Center has created online exhibitions on various topics from materials selected from the Archive and other collections in the Library of Congress. Collection materials presented here include photographs, manuscripts, and audio- and video-recordings.

John Botica playing the misnice. From the online collection "California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties."

After the Day of Infamy: "Man on the Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. A presentation of approximately twelve hours of opinions recorded the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from over two hundred individuals in cities and towns across the United States. American Memory presentation.

Alan Lomax Collection. A presentation of selected images, sound, and manuscripts. In March 2004, the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress acquired the Alan Lomax Collection, which comprises the unparalleled ethnographic documentation collected by the legendary folklorist over a period of sixty years. The collection is in process.

Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-82. Documentation of a Nevada ranching community. The bulk of the online presentation was collected as part of an American Folklife Center field project from 1978-82. American Memory Presentation.

California Gold: Northern California Folk Music From the Thirties. Materials from the WPA California Folk Music Project Collection, including sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in Northern California. The collection comprises 35 hours of folk music recorded in twelve languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians. American Memory Presentation.

Community Roots: Selections from the Local Legacies Project (online presentation). The Local Legacies Project documented local traditions from all fifty states, as well as United States trusts, territories, and the District of Columbia. Members of Congress and individuals across the nation were involved in the celebration of the Library of Congress Bicentennial and America's richly diverse culture through the Local Legacies Project. The Community Roots presentation of Local Legacies was developed from the materials collected and the Bicentennial Web site. The Library of Congress Bicentenial version of Local Legacies is currently still available.

Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection. Traditional fiddle tunes performed by Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia. Recorded by folklorist Alan Jabbour in 1966-67, when Reed was over eighty years old, the tunes represent the music and evoke the history and spirit of Virginia's Appalachian frontier. Many of the tunes have passed back into circulation during the fiddling revival of the later twentieth century. American Memory Presentation.

Hethu'shka dancer at the Neptune Plaza, Library of Congress, August 22, 1985. Photo by John Gibbs. From the online collection "Omaha Indian Music."

Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1937-1942. Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections is an ethnographic field collection documenting African-American, Arabic, Bahamian, British-American, Cuban, Greek, Italian, Minorcan, Seminole, and Slavic cultures throughout Florida. Recorded by Robert Cook, Herbert Halpert, Zora Neale Hurston, Stetson Kennedy, Alton Morris, and others in conjunction with the Florida Federal Writers' Project, the Florida Music Project, and the Joint Committee on Folk Arts of the Work Projects Administration, it features folksongs and folk tales in many languages. American Memory Presentation.

Folk-Songs of America: The Robert Winslow Gordon Collection, 1922-1932. Cylinder recordings of folksongs collected by the first head of the Archive of Folk Culture, Robert Winslow Gordon. This presentation of recordings and photographs from the 1978 LP is made in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Archive.

Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection. Documentation of religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. American Memory Presentation.

"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943. Approximately one hundred sound recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia. The documentation was created by John Wesley Work III in 1941 and by Lewis Jones and Willis Laurence James in March, June, and July 1943. Also included are recordings made in Tennessee and Alabama by John Work between September 1938 and 1941. American Memory Presentation.

Mary Louise Rasmuson, born 1911. Served in the U.S. Womens Army Corps during World War II and the Korean War. Recorded at her home in Fairbanks, Alaska for the Veterans History Project.

Omaha Indian Music. This multiformat ethnographic field collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985 Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress. American Memory Presentation.

Quilts and Quiltmaking in America, 1978-1996. Showcases materials from two American Folklife Center collections: The Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project, and the "All American Quilt Contest" sponsored by Lands' End and Good Housekeeping. Together these collections provide a glimpse into America's diverse quilting tradition. American Memory Presentation.

Sights and Sounds: Voices from the Veterans History Project. Audio and video clips from interviews with veterans selected from materials donated to the Library as part of the Veterans History Project which was established in October, 2000.

Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip. Folk singers and folksongs documented during a three-month trip through the southern United States. American Memory Presentation.

Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia. The American Folklife Center's Coal River Folklife Project (1992-99) documenting traditional uses of the mountains in Southern West Virginia's Big Coal River Valley. Functioning as a de facto commons, the mountains have supported a way of life that for many generations has entailed hunting, gathering, and subsistence gardening, as well as coal mining and timbering. American Memory Presentation.

Machinist Bert Reales uses grinder at Watson Machine International. Part of the documentation in Working in Paterson: Occupational Heritage in an Urban Setting. Photo by Martha Cooper, 1994.

Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories Interviews conducted between 1932 and 1975 capturing the recollections of twenty-three identifiable people born between 1823 and the early 1860s known to have been former slaves.

Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection is an online presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. This collection consists of audio recordings, photographs, manuscript materials, publications, and ephemera generated during two separate documentation trips supported by the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center). American Memory Presentation.

Woody Guthrie and the Archive of American Folk Song, Correspondence 1940-1950 highlights letters between Woody Guthrie and staff of the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center) at the Library of Congress. The letters were written primarily in the early 1940s, shortly after Guthrie had moved to New York City and met the Archive's assistant in charge, Alan Lomax. The presentation includes a biographical essay; a timeline of Guthrie's life; and an encoded finding aid of Guthrie archival materials at the Library of Congress. Digital Preservation Project.

Working in Paterson: Occupational Heritage in an Urban Setting presents 470 interview excerpts and 3882 photographs from the Working in Paterson Folklife Project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The four-month study of occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey, was conducted in 1994. The documentary materials presented in this online collection explore how this industrial heritage expresses itself in Paterson today: in its work sites, work processes, and memories of workers. American Memory Presentation.

Related Links

• Archive of Folk Culture Finding Aids
• Published Recordings from Archive of Folk Culture Collections
• Background: What is an Ethnographic Field Collection?