Library of Congress, American folklife center

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1978.

From the guide to the 1978 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1978, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1977.

From the guide to the 1977 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1977, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1989.

From the guide to the 1989 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1989, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1992.

From the guide to the 1992 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1992, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

On May 12, 2009, the U. S. Congress authorized a national initiative by passing The Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-19). The law directed the Library of Congress (LOC) and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to conduct a survey of existing oral history collections with relevance to the civil rights movement, and to record new interviews with people who participated in the movement. The survey database was completed in 2011 and can be accessed at http://www.loc.gov/folklife/civilrights/survey/index.php . In the fall of 2010, the Smithsonian NMAAHC sponsored six initial interviews, then contracted with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Southern Oral History Program to conduct 50 interviews in 2011. More interviews were conducted in 2013 that will be added to the collection.

From the guide to the Civil Rights History Project collection, 2010-2011, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1987.

From the guide to the 1987 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1987, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1995.

From the guide to the 1995 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1995, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1985.

From the guide to the 1985 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1985, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1983.

From the guide to the 1983 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1983, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1993.

From the guide to the 1993 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1993, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1980.

From the guide to the 1980 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1980, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1979.

From the guide to the 1979 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1979, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1991.

From the guide to the 1991 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1991, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

In anticipation of the January 20, 2009, inauguration of President Barack Obama, the American Folklife Center solicited audio and video recordings of sermons and orations that commented on the 2009 inauguration. These materials, solicited from the public through the American Folklife Center website as well as various press releases and other forms of communication, now form the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project collection. The American Folklife Center requested that recordings must be of sermons and orations that were delivered to congregations and other audiences between Friday, January 16 and Sunday, January 25, 2009. In addition to audio and video recordings, the Center also requested written texts of sermons and orations (submitted in the form of print or electronic media), as well as printed programs from the events during which the sermons and orations were delivered. When materials were damaged during delivery to the American Folklife Center, replacement materials were requested. Participants were required to submit both an information form and a release form with their collection materials.

From the guide to the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project Collection, 2008-2009, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1984.

From the guide to the 1986 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1986, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History and/or Biographical History

This collection arose out of the American Folklife Center's 1984 involvement with the House Subcommittee on Census and Population, which was then responsible for reviewing commemorative measures. This subcommittee turned to the Center for assistance and guidance in planning and developing the public hearing on H.R. 1706, a bill designating the square dance as the national dance of the United States. As an expert in American folk culture, Gerald E. Parsons, Reference Librarian for the Archive of Folk Culture, was detailed to help organize the hearing. The materials he accumulated for this task form the basis of this collection. Hearing testimonies, newspaper and magazine articles, and editorials in the collection provide insight into the perspectives of both proponents and opponents, while government documents trace the official legislative history.

From the guide to the Square Dance Legislation Collection, 1975-1995, 1984-1988, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1990.

From the guide to the 1990 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1990, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1982.

From the guide to the 1982 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1982, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1981.

From the guide to the 1981 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1981, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1988.

From the guide to the 1988 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1988, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1994.

From the guide to the 1994 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1994, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Biographical History

James Madison Carpenter (1888-1984) was born in Booneville, Mississippi. He received both a bachelor of arts degree (1913) and a master of arts degree (1914) from the University of Mississippi. He continued his graduate training at Harvard University, where he came under the tutelage of Professor George Lyman Kittredge, a ballad scholar. At Harvard, Carpenter became interested in British and American folk songs; his dissertation, Forecastle Songs and Chanties, was completed in 1929.

From 1929 to 1935 Carpenter traveled throughout England and Scotland primarily as a Harvard Fellow, collecting folk songs, folk plays, and other folklore materials. Upon his return to the United States, Carpenter taught himself to notate the tunes he had recorded, and proceeded to transcribe approximately 1000 tunes over the next few years. At the same time Carpenter became a college lecturer, giving presentations based on his research at institutions such as Harvard, Wellesley, Vassar, Smith, Radcliffe, Amherst, and the University of Vermont. In 1938 he taught English at Duke University, and continued his collecting of folk songs and children’s games, often as part of his curriculum. After five years at Duke, Carpenter taught for one year at the College of William and Mary and then became chairman of the English Department at Greensboro College. His tenure at Greensboro lasted ten years; he formally retired from the department in 1954. Carpenter returned to his hometown of Booneville in 1964, where he lived until his death on July 4, 1984.

From the guide to the James Madison Carpenter Collection, 1928-1955, 1972, 1987, 1928-1935, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

Administrative History

Documentation created and accessioned by the American Folklife Center in 1984.

From the guide to the 1984 Neptune Plaza Concert Series Collection, 1984, (Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.home)

On September 12, 2001, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress extended an invitation to folklorists and others around the nation to document, by way of oral interviews, the tragic and historic events which occurred in the United States on September 11, 2001. The goal was to initiate a nation-wide effort to record the pressing and immediate responses of the general population during this national time of devastation, sorrow, and uncertainty.

Professor Jeannie B. Thomas, a folklore professor at Utah State University, instigated this documentary project in her fall 2001 semester class(es). Some of her students participated in what was a larger (nation-wide) folklore collecting project. This project was formed in an attempt to document everyday people's reactions to the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Dr. Thomas' students interviewed a variety of people with diverse backgrounds about their feelings in response to the tragic events. This collection is a culmination of those interviews (recorded on audio tape), notes, and transcriptions. This is a closed collection.

From the guide to the September 11, 2001 USU student documentary collection, 2001-2002, (Utah State University. Merrill-Cazier Library. Special Collections and Archives)