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Washington
The American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress through Public Law 94-201 and charged to "preserve and present American folklife." The Center incorporates the Archive
of Folk Culture, which was established at the Library of Congress in 1928, and is now one of the largest collections of ethnographic material from the United States and around the world.
Collections
The collections of the American Folklife Center include material documenting
the Native American traditions of Washington. Represented in its recordings
are the Chehallis, Clayoquot, Klallam, Lummi, Makah, Nooksack, Nisqualli,
Puyallup, Quileute, Samish, Skagit, Snohomish, Skokomish, Squamish, and
Yakima tribal groups. Many of these are cylinder recordings collected by
employees of the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology
in the early years of the twentieth century. Their preservation ensures
their future availability to researchers and Native Americans.
In addition, in 1982, the Center's Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools
Project documented an Islamic school in Seattle. In 1989-90, the Center
conducted a field research project documenting the culture and traditions
of Italian-Americans in the West, which culminated in a traveling exhibition
and companion book of essays. The documentary material from this project
includes hundreds of hours of interviews, thousands of photographs, and
fieldnotes, which were made in Walla Walla and nearby communities.
- Washington Field Recordings in
the Archive of Folk Culture [full text]
Washington participated in the Library's Bicentennial Local Legacies project,
which includes documentation of local traditions and celebrations for the
American Folklife Center's Archive of Folk Culture.
Field Research Projects
Public Program
- 1979 "Ethnic Heritage Workshop in Seattle" (conference), Seattle Center.
Publications
- "The Islamic School of Seattle," Ethnic Heritage and Languages Schools
in America. [catalog record]
- Federal Cylinder Project: Guide to Field Cylinder Recording in Federal
Agencies, Volume 3 (Great Basin/Plateau, Northwest Coast/Arctic
Indian Catalog). [catalog record]
- "Walla Walla Sweets: Onions and Ethnic Identity in an Italian Community
in the Northwest," Old Ties New Attachments: Italian- American Folklife
in the West. [catalog record]
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