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American Folklife Resources

Pathfinder: American Folklife Resources

General Purpose

This guide is for students and teachers who want to find out more about American Folklife Studies. It will define what American Folklife is and then provide a pathway through print materials and network resources that together will give you basis from which you can prepare lesson plans, syllabi or research a specific topic.

What is Folklife?

The folklife concept is associated with Scandinavian and German speaking countries. It is a branch of anthropology called regional ethnology and concentrates on customs, beliefs, stories, crafts, foods, rituals, and types of architecture, and analyzes them as interrelated units within particular groups. European Folklife scholars document these traditions among their own people, unlike their counterparts, the anthropologists, who study exotics living elsewhere in the world.

Until recently folklife did not have many adherents in the United States. American scholars used the terms folklore to deal with oral traditions or material culture to focus on particular crafts, foods, types of architecture, and other material manifestations of traditional life. However, with the introduction of the European concept of folklife into university folklore programs, folklore and material culture are being integrated into the folklife discipline. This process has not been acceptable to all. Numerous debates concerning definitions and boundaries have arisen and this situation is something you should keep in mind when you read and go through electronic sources.

Printed Materials

If you want to orient yourself to the folklife idea, then I suggest that you first look at the American definitions of folklore written by folklore scholars in Collier's Encyclopedia; The Encyclopedia Americana; and The New Encyclopedia Britannica. Also keep by your side as a reference source the Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore Mythology and Legend (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1972).

Next you should browse two folklife anthologies. One is Don Yoder's Discovering American Folklife: Studies in Ethnic, Religious, and Regional Culture (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1990). This work focuses on Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania German folk cultures. The other is Warren Robert's Viewpoints on Folklife: Looking at the Overlooked (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1988), an anthology that surveys the folk cultural forms of Southern Indiana. Yoder and Roberts write in a direct jargon free style that they are able to sustain in their theoretical essays, as well as in their field analyses, which, though local in subject matter, have universal application.

A third useful source is Eliot Wigginton's editions of the Foxfire series. Wigginton, a rural Georgia high school teacher, got his students to interview family, neighbors, and friends about Appalachian folkways and had them write up their field experiences into articles that were published in the Foxfiremagazine. Starting out, I would recommend Foxfire 8, a 500 page anthology, edited by Eliot Wigginton and Margie Bennett (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, c1983). It contains the same articles that were published in the first issue of the series plus additional material.

The advanced student interested in folklife theory would find the late Richard Dorson's anthology Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1972) a valuable reference tool. In his Introduction, Dorson reviews folklore and folklife scholarship in the United States and divides the twenty-six articles into four fields--oral folklore, social folk custom, material culture, and folk arts--and areas of folklife methodology that include fieldwork, archiving, mapping, museum organization, and cultural geographical analyses. Thirteen years later Simon Bronner edited American Material Culture and Folklife: A Prologue and Dialogue (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985). This monograph updates Dorson's work and includes participant dialogues to resolve the on-going definitional debate concerning folklore,folklife, and material culture . A recent work by Henry Glassie, geared for undergraduate students and teachers, Material Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), integrates the traditional material culture genres-- folk art, vernacular architecture, crafts, food, narrative, and custom--with folklife theory and method.

For the historically minded, Thomas J. Schlereth compilation, Material Culture Studies in America (Nashville: The American Association for State and Local History, 1982), consists of thirty-nine essays that survey American material culture studies as practiced by historians, museum specialists, and folklife researchers. Schlereth's opening survey essay, "Material Culture Studies in America, 1876-1976," gives an detailed introduction to this marginal interdisciplinary field.

Periodicals that contain folklife articles are the Journal of American Folklore, Western Folklore, Journal of Folklore Research (formerly the Journal of the Folklore Institute), Folklore Forum, Indiana Folklore, Pennsylvania Folklife, Kentucky Folklore Record, New York Folklore, Material Culture, American Culture, Journal of Popular Culture, American Quarterly, and the Winterthur Portfolio. The most readable are the state folklore journals. The others are geared to college and scholarly audiences. All have annual cumulative indexes. The Journal of American Folklore came out with The Centennial Indexin 1988 (Vol. 101, No. 402) and an updated supplement in 1994 (Vol. 107, No. 426) that list every article, note, and review according to serial date, volume and number and author, subject, and title.

The best print index for folklife books and articles is Volume 5 of the Modern Language Association International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures. This index is divided into the topics of folklore , folk literature , ethnomusicology , folk belief systems , folk rituals , and material culture --categories the purist would say belong to Folklife . The citations are accurate, thorough, international, and include festschriftenand the most obscure journals. Its electronic counterpart, the Modern Language Association Bibliography index (MLAB), works well because it can handle complex searches. However, precision is often difficult due to the overlapping citations that occur when the user employs folklore , folklife , or material culture in the title, subject or keyword fields.

There are several folklifedissertation indexes. One is Don Yoder's Discovering American Folklife, pages 303-305, that includes Ph.D. dissertations conducted under Yoder's direction as University of Pennsylvania Folklife Professor from 1962 through 1989. This resource would be limited if it were not for the fact that Yoder was the first proponent of the field in this country and many of his students have gone on to become noted scholars. Alan Dundes's dated Folklore Theses and Dissertations in the United States (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976) covers M.A. theses and Ph.D. dissertations from 1860 through 1976. The work is arranged chronologically and is inconsistently indexed by subject, author, and institution. The most current and reliable source is the electronic Dissertation Abstracts International database that has author, title, subject, keyword, year, university, and advisor access points that allow the user to find a known item or browse Ph.D. dissertations that focus on folklife topics.

Specialized bibliographies are few. One is Robert A. Georges and Stephen Stern's American and Canadian Immigrant and Ethnic Folklore : An Annotated Bibliography(New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1982), and the other is Simon J. Bronner's American Folk Art: A Guide to Sources (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984). Both have adopted the interdisciplinary folklife approach to the study of ethnic groups and folk art and are still regarded as reliable resources.

The folklife organizations that the individual can join are local or national. All the journals mentioned above except for the Journal of Folklore Research are publications of their respective societies and you can receive these periodicals for the cost of organizational membership.

Many of the books, articles, dissertations, bibliographies, periodicals and festschriftenlisted in this pathfinder are so esoteric that they would only be found in large public or academic libraries. Smaller ones would not have them and you would have to resort to interlibrary loan to get them. Many folklife works can be purchased through major on-line bookstores such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Borders. For out of print books, try Abebooks or Alibris. Both sites give the price and condition of each multiple listed work and you can order directly or email a request to the bookseller. For the more difficult-to-find studies call Book Search at 800-776-4732 or email the service at hammonds@i1.net. Finally, if you know the author, title, date, or university of a folklife dissertation, go to the ProQuest web site, and click on the Dissertations Services link to search or purchase a copy.

Network Resources

The printed materials will give you the background to understand and interpret folklife theory and data. Network resources have not yet reached this level of intellectual sophistication. However, they are helpful in making connections to folklife's public and applied faces. These include: The Professional Society, Research Directories, Regional and State Programs, University Departments, Teaching Resources, Online Exhibits, Folklife Artists, Folklife Genres, Electronic Journals and Papers, Careers, and Comprehensive Search and Listservs.

The Professional Society

  • American Folklore Society http://www.afsnet.org is the professional home for folklorists and folklife scholars. The American Folklore Society stimulates interest and research through its main publication, The Journal of American Folklore, publication series, and its annual meetings and special conferences. The page allows you to join online and register and propose papers, panels, and other presentations at the annual American Folklore Society Meetings.

Research Directories

  • The American Folklife Center of The Library of Congress http://lcweb.loc.gov/Folklife/ is a national clearing house for folklife services, information, and guides for the fifty states. Links include an in-house reference service; professional employment opportunities; training programs; grant funding opportunities; conferences and calls for papers; a directory of folklife resources in the United States; print publications available online; information about published recordings from the collection; and a guide to the collections of the Archive of Folk Culture.
  • Archives of Traditional Music http://www.indiana.edu/~libarchm/index.html at Indiana University holds commercial and field recordings of vocal and instrumental music, folktales, interviews, oral history, videotapes, photographs and manuscripts collected by folklife scholars, ethnomusicologists and doctoral graduate students. Collections are searchable through Indiana University's on-line catalog, IUCAT
  • The Center for Folklife Programs &. Cultural Studies Archive of the Smithsonian Institution http://www.folklife.si.edu/index.html provides links to three major web sites: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall, The Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections.
  • SocioSite http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/sociosite/ is a directory of scio-cultural categories such as food, folklore, society, communication, ethnicity, culture and related subjects. Based at the University of Amsterdam.
  • Tapnet Links http://afsnet.org/tapnet/ lists American public sector folklore web sites in folk arts in education, museums and archives, federal and national folk and traditional arts programs, state and regional folk arts programs and links, directories of public programs, and potential partnership organizations.
  • Voice of the Shuttle http://vos.ucsb.edu/index-netscape.aspis a humanities site that includes an anthropological category that lists teaching and research links relevant for folklife studies.

Regional and State Programs

The mission of these programs is to collect, document, preserve, present, and interpret the traditional life of their particular regions or states and to educate the public through exhibits, festivals, and workshops offered in organizational settings, libraries, schools, and local historical, cultural, and arts societies.

University Departments

Since Folklife is not an established discipline in America, most university programs do not have a curriculum leading to a degree in the subject. However, many college and universities offer courses in folklife and its allied subjects--folklore, cultural studies, ethnic studies, local history, public history, and other interdisciplinary programs. A comprehensive directory of degree granting institutions that offer major and minor concentrations in Folklife studies is the Library of Congress's Higher Education Programs in Folklore and Folklife http: lcweb.loc.gov/Folklife/source/grad.html. Each entry includes the name, address, phone, and degree offered.

The best known schools that have B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. programs in Folklore and Folklife are listed below. Visit these sites to get specific information concerning admission requirements, opening and closing dates, types of degree programs (not all have Folklore Departments), course listings, faculty, financial aid, and application forms :

Teaching Resources

  • American Folklife Center: A Teacher's Guide to Folklore Resources. www.loc.gov/folklife/teachers/provides a list of materials prepared for the classroom by folklorists and other cultural studies specialists in closely related fields.
  • CARTS: Cultural Arts Resources for Teachers and Studentswww.carts.org/is a collaborative web site that is sponsored by the National Task Force for Folk Arts in Education and City Lore's Center for Folk Arts in Education at Bank Street College of Education. CARTS is a site for sharing questions and ideas about strengthening bonds between the school and the community. It is an online clearinghouse for national and regional folklife resources, as well as a place that hosts online educational programs such as interviews with folk artists and teacher workshops.
  • Food Syllabi Set http://www.nyu.edu/education/nutrition/PDFS/ASFS_SS.PDF is a special project sponsored by the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS). The 2003 edition is edited by Jonathan Deutsch from Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York, and revised from the 2000 version by David Myhre, Princeton University, Netta Davis, Boston University, and Amy Bentley, New York University. The 612 page document in PDF format is a collection of course outlines with bibliographies and other materials from classes focusing on food studies and agriculture and society. The topics range from the sociology and anthropology of food to food in agriculture and the arts to food research methodologies.
  • Syllabus Finder http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/syllabi/ is a search engine for finding syllabi on a variety of folklife subjects for graduate and undergraduate college and university classes.

Online Exhibits

The Library of Congress and National Science Foundation Digital Libraries Initiative are sponsoring The American Memory Project http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ that consists of searchable collections (either by keyword or directory) of manuscripts, images, histories, audio and video clips, and socio-cultural data from projects conducted by the American Folklife Center and the Library of Congress and others solicited from universities, archives, libraries, and historical societies.

Other online exhibitsfocus on themes that would interest the folklife researcher are:

  • Beyond Face Value http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/BeyondFaceValue/ is a iconographic site that depicts images of slavery on monetary notes issued before, during, and after the American Civil War. Each image set is documented within the economic, social, and cultural contexts of the period.
  • Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/ is a digital archive of 76 cookbooks, published between 1798 and 1922, that include page images, full-text transcriptions, and indexed searching. A joint project of The Michigan State University Museum and Special Collections Division of the Michigan State University Library.
  • "Hezzie" Goes To War: World War I Through the Eyes Of A Mid-Missourian http://coas.missour.edu/anthromuseum/pattrickwwi/ is an exhibit that tells the story of John Hezekiah Pattrick--who volunteered for civilian support work for the Great War in 1917-- in letters, photographs, postcards, and clothing. A joint project of the University of Missouri-Columbia Western Historical Manuscript Collection and the Museum of Anthropology.
  • Rearview Mirror detnews.com/history/index.htm is an urban history project from The Detroit News story and photo archives that documents everyday life and events important to the city from its founding in 1701 to the present.
  • The Valley of the Shadowhttp://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/ takes two counties in the Shenandoah Valley, Franklin, Pennsylvania, and Augusta, Virginia, and chronicles their experiences before, during, and after the American Civil War through a variety of primary sources that includes newspapers, letters, diaries, church, military, and public records, photographs, and maps. The site is thoroughly documented and contains lesson plans and topics with linked materials for middle and high school students and college undergraduates.

Folklife Artists

  • DC Blues Musical Groupswww.dcblues.org/is an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting the traditional blues groups and singers.
  • Four Florida Folk Artistshttp://www.interestingideas.com/out/florida.htm is a site that presents the works of four self described Florida folk painters living in Lakeland.
  • John Moretto, storytellerwww-personal.umich.edu/~acicala/john.html is an immigrant Venetian who tells in his own words how he got to the United States in the style of the traditional life history.
  • Rose Selvaggio, ceremonial cookwww-personal.umich.edu/~acicala/rose.html is a daughter from a family born in Sicily who shows how she makes a ceremonial dish common to her parents' native region of Trapani located in the Northwest area of the island.
  • Silvio Barile, folk sculptorwww-personal.umich.edu/~acicala/silvio.html is an immigrant Neopolitan who discusses the personal and cultural meanings of the large cement sculptures he has created in his backyard.

Folklife Genres

  • Archive Xhttp://www.wirenot.net/X/is an archive of traditional supernatural stories from all over the country.
  • The Cinderella Project www.usm.edu/english/fairytales/cinderella/cinderella.html is an academic text and image archives containing 12 English variants of the Cinderella Tale (Aarne-Thompson Tale Type 510, 510 A&B) common during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. These materials come from the de Grummond Children's Literature Research Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi.
  • The Electronic Vernacularwww.nyu.edu/classes/bkg/electronic.html is Professor Barbara Kirsheblatt-Gimblett's (NYU) folkloristic classification and definition of electronic vernacular forms.
  • Folklore http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&topic=Quitting&detail=medium contains categories of narratives that have as their subject the original Macintosh Computer, its development, and the people who created it.
  • Folklore and Mythology Electronic Textspitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.htmlis an academic site that contains international full text variants of folk and mythological narratives according to Aarne-Thompson numbers, as well as new legendary material. It is arranged alphabetically by category, theme, and title and edited and translated by Professor D. L. Ashliman from the German Department at the University of Pittsburgh.
  • Food Habits http://lilt.ilstu.edu/rtdirks/is an academic site devoted to the bibliographic resources for the anthropological and folkloristic study of food and food-related behaviors. The materials are organized by region and topic. Complied by Robert Dirks, Anthropology Program, Illinois State University.
  • Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales and Storieshca.gilead.org.il/ is the creation of the faculty of the Israel Institute of Technology who constructed this scholarly site complete with introductory notes, annotations, bibliography, and 168 of Hans Christian Andersen's full text tales in chronological order.
  • Italian Rap and Hip Hop www.italianrap.comis a comprehensive site dedicated to the global research of Italian Hip Hop and the history and vernacular culture of Italian Americans.
  • Southern Arizona Folk Artsdizzy.library.arizona.edu/images/folkarts/folkhome.htmlis an exhibit that features the folk arts of the Southwest including quilts, egg decorating, cowboy art, Chicano murals, low riders, Mexican-American paperwork, and Mexican food.
  • St. Pat's Homepage www.umr.edu/~stpats/ is a 92 year old college folk festival at the University of Missouri, Rolla, where the students celebrate St. Patrick's Day in their own traditional way.
  • Swapping Stories: Folktales From Louisiana http://www.lpb.org/programs/swappingstories/ examines Louisiana's cultural diversity through its traditional storytellers. Sponsored by the Louisiana Folklife Program, the Swapping Stories project includes biographies of the storytellers, video clips, and transcriptions of a variety oral genres including animal/magic and tall tales, jokes, myths, and legends.
  • Tales Collected by the Brothers Grimm http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~wbarker/fairies/grimm/ is a collection of the 209 tales from the 1884 text translated by Margaret Hunt. Tales can be downloaded in two differently formatted versions.
  • Tales of the Wooden Spoon www.snopes2.com/spoons/spoons.htmis a collection of traditional urban legends, faxlore, and news stories presented and analyzed by the site creators, Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.
  • Urban Legendswww.urbanlegends.com/is an archive of urban legends from alt.folklore.urbanusenet group.
  • Urban Legends and Folkloreurbanlegends.miningco.com/is a directory that archives newsgroups, news letters, lists, bulletin boards, and chat rooms that deal with current traditional urban legends, rumors, and hoaxes.
  • Urban Legends: The Christian Arsenal http://www.christianarsenal.com/UrbanLegends.htm#UrbanLegends is a Christian oriented web site that provides links to sites that debunk distinguishes hoaxes from the truth in legendary material disseminated verbally and electronically.

Full-Text Electronic Journals and Papers

  • American Folkwww.americanfolk.com/ is a commercial electronic journal that has articles and features on folklore and popular culture.
  • American Folklife: A Commonwealth of Cultureshttp://www.loc.gov/folklife/cwc/ is the revised version of Mary Hufford's 1991 essay onfolklife and multiculturalism.
  • The Barn Journalhttp://www.thebarnjournal.org is an online journal that deals with all traditional aspects of barns.
  • Cultural Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Folklore and Popular Culture http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~caforum/ is an interdisciplinary refereed ejournal that investigates everyday expressive culture through articles, notes, reviews, and responses.Volume 1, 2000 through Volume 3, 2002.
  • De Proverbiohttp://info.utas.edu.au/docs/flonta/ is a scholarly multilingual electronic publication of proverb studies and collections. Ten online issues are available from Volume 1, no. 1 1995 through Volume 7, No. 1, 2001.
  • Ethnologieshttp://www.fl.ulaval.ca/celat/acef/revue.htm is a government bilingual journal (French and English), published by the Folklore Studies Association of Canada, that includes selected full text articles, book reviews, notes, and other information dealing with the Canadian folklore scene. Archived are Volumes 1/2 1979 through 24/2 /2002.
  • Folkife Center Newshttp://www.loc.gov/folklife/fcn/fcnhome.html is a collection of American Folklife Center Newsletters archived from Volume 14, no 2 1992 to Volume 24, no. 3, 2002.
  • Folklifeand Fieldwork: A Layman's Introduction to Field Techniques http://www.loc.gov/folklife/fieldwork/is the 1990 revised and expanded second edition of Peter Bartis's work on folklife field research.
  • Folklorehttp://haldjas.folklore.ee/folkloreis a government electronic journal of folklore published in English by the Institute of the Estonian Language and edited by Mare Koiva & Andres Kuperjanov. The e-journal focuses on shamanism, urban legends, ethnomusicology, paremiology, popular calendar data, and folk beliefs. Articles are archived from Volume 1, June 1996, through Volume 22, December 2002.
  • Music & Anthropologyhttp://www.provincia.venezia.it/levi/ma/ is an academic online full text multimedia interactive journal that focuses on the traditional music of Mediterranean cultures. Annual online publication from Volume 1,1996, through Volume 8, 2003. Founded by the Study Group on Anthropology and Music of the International Council for Traditional Music, the site is sponsored by the Dipartimento di Music e Spettacolo (University of Bologna) and the Fondazione Olga e Urgo Levi, Venice.
  • Newfolk: New Directions in Folklore temple.edu/isllc/newfolk/journal.html is Editor Camille Bacon-Smith's academic e-journal that features articles on folklore in the modern world. Archived: Issue 1, July 1997 to Issue 6, June 2002.
  • FOLKORICA: Journal of the Slavic and East European Folklore Association http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/SEEFA/ an e-journal devoted to research in Slavic and East European folklore, anthropology, ethnic studies, history, literature, and traditional music. The journal archive contains all articles, bookreviews, and other contributions prior to Fall 1997 through Fall 2003.

Careers

  • American Cultural Resources Association http://acra-crm.org/consultantspage.html is a site where Folklife scholars who have an interest documenting landscape structures can contact consultant firms that do Subsistence Studies, Anthro/Ethno TCPs, Historic Architecture, Landscape Architecture Archaeology, History, Underwater Archaeology, and other fields by clicking on various regions of the country. Entries are listed by name, contact person, address, phone, fax, email, website, and discipline.
  • Folkline http://www.afsnet.org/jobs/ is a site where Folklife specialists interested in academic positions, museum work, or non-profit and state public sector jobs can get information on current announcements and post their curriculum vitae.

Comprehensive Search and Listservs

To conduct a comprehensive search for folklore,folklife,and material cultureusing Internet sources go to Google. The search engine offers four information formats: Web ,Images , Groups , and Directory .. After selecting one, enter the appropriate term and relevant sites will appear. For example, if you choose Web and type +"folklife" you will get about 155,000 sites dealing with a variety of folklife topics. If you choose groups and enter the same term, 5,160 usenet groups will appear. Click on the group name and you get dates, subjects, and authors of a variety of messages that generally fit under the usenet theme. Each subject is linked to the postings. Select one and read the current message, see the previous ones, go to the start of the thread, post a reply, send an email, or sort the posting.

There are two major discussion lists that focus on either folklore or folklife. . Individuals who have an academic or research interest in the subject use the Folklore Listserv whereas people who work for arts councils, museums, historical societies, or city and state cultural affairs departments and focus on the public or applied aspects of folklife have lively discussions in Publore. The two moderated sites provide the same services. You can join or leave the list, search using author, subject, date, and time boxes, and access archived messages by month and year. The Folklore Listserv is updated monthly and goes back to January 1990 while Publore begins in December 1996 and archives its posts every week. Clink on the month or week and you will get a table of contents of messages, their arrangement in a classified format, and various sorting commands and other options. Clink on the title and you can read the message which includes the header along with various view and option commands. The search engine yields 50 matches at a time for the entered search terms.

Folklife materials also appear on other academic listservs that deal with similar subject matter and issues. For content close to folklife, the American Studies discussion list contains much valuable material. Information dealing with the organization, retrieval, and preservation of collected folklife data can be found on the Archives listserv. Go to each of the sites to subscribe or access the postings archives.

Conclusion

Finding folklife resources on the Internet using any search engine requires that you employ the key subject words folklore , material culture , and folklife because of overlapping historic associations that have been carried over from the print world. However it is becoming clear that in the networked public and applied sectors, folklife is becoming the standard designation for studying the traditional ways of doing things within particular cultures. In the academy where the book and article still hold sway, the newer European derived folklife is taking hold, but at a slower rate.

This pathfinder was created by John Cicala.
 
 
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