Glenn Simmons poling a glades skiff he made in the Everglades, July, 1985. Photo by Bud Lee. Part of the documentation in Florida's Local Legacies projects.

Florida

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 contain large amounts of rich and varied materials from Florida that document the diversity of the state's folk traditions. Among its unique recordings are African American music, religion and folktales collected by Zora Neale Hurston, John A. and Alan Lomax, Alton Morris, and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle in the 1930s; Seminole songs and stories; music and narrative collected by Stetson Kennedy and others during the Works Projects Administration Writers and Music projects; and the folklore of African American longshoremen. From 1986 to 1987, the American Folklife Center, in cooperation with the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs, conducted the Maritime Heritage Survey Project in Mayport, Apalachicola, and neighboring communities to document the occupational traditions of Florida's fishermen. The material created during the survey, including 50 hours of recordings and thousands of photographic images, has been incorporated into the collections of the Folklife Center.

• Florida Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture [draft available upon request]

American Folklife Center collections presented online through the American Memory Project include Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1937-1942; a presentation of materials documenting African-American, Arabic, Bahamian, British-American, Cuban, Greek, Italian, Minorcan, Seminole, and Slavic cultures throughout Florida; and Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip, which includes folksingers and folksongs documented during a three-month trip through the Southern United States. The collection includes material from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

Florida 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.

• View Florida's Local Legacies projects

Lecture Webcast

May 24, 2005: Florida native Stetson Kennedy, talks about his life and work in conversation with Dr. Peggy Bulger, Director of the American Folklife Center. [webcast and event flyer]

Field Research Projects

• 1986-87 Maritime Heritage Survey Project.

Public Programs

• 1985 "Generation to Generation: Sharing the Intangible," (exhibit) Broward County Public Library, Ft. Lauderdale.

Publications

• Zora Neale Hurston: Recordings, Manuscripts, and Ephemera in the Archive of Folk Culture and other Divisions of the Library of Congress (Finding aid)
• Documenting Maritime Folklife: An Introductory Guide [full text] [catalog record]

Published Recordings

• Child Ballads Traditional in the United States (I), Library of Congress AFS L58. [audiocassette]