Performer in the Dia De las Muertos celebration, 1999. Photo by Evelyn and Janet Johnson. Part of the documentation in California's Local Legacies projects.

California

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 Center contain rich and varied material from California that documents the diversity of the state's folk traditions. Among its unique collections are cylinder recordings from the early twentieth century of music from Karuk, Chumash, Pomo, Costanoan, Luisena, and many other Indian communities; music and stories of migrant workers from the Depression including the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection [online presentation]; the W.P.A. California Folk Music Project Collection, 1938-1940 [online presentation]; Yiddish songs; tales of early pioneer life; cowboy music; songs and lore of urban minorities collected in the 1950s; material from numerous folk festivals held throughout the state; and photographs of blues musicians and venues in Oakland.

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

In 1989 and 1991, the American Folklife 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 created during the project includes hundreds of hours of recordings, thousands of photographs, and a large quantity of documents, especially from Gilroy, San Jose, Santa Clara Valley, San Pedro, and neighboring communities. The Center's Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools Project also documented a Hupa Indian school and a Japanese school in California.

California 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 California's Local Legacies projects

Field Research Projects

• 1982 Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools (Hupa Indian Reservation School; Japanese School). [catalog record] [finding aid].
• 1989-91 Italian-Americans Folklife in the West. [catalog record] [finding aid]

Exhibitions

• 1993 "Old Ties, New Attachments: Italian-American Folklife in the West," Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles.
• 1992 "Old Ties, New Attachments: Italian-American Folklife in the West," de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara.
• 1984 "The American Cowboy," San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose.
• 1983 "Generation to Generation: Sharing the Intangible," Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum, Vallejo, California.
• 1983 "Generation to Generation: Sharing the Intangible," California State College Library, San Bernadino, California.
• 1982 "Generation to Generation: Sharing the Intangible," California Museum of Afro-American History, Los Angeles.

Publications

• "The Senshin Gakuin and the Dharma School of the Senshin Buddhist Church of Los Angeles" in Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools in America. [catalog record]
• "Hupa Indian Language School of Hoopa Valley, California," in Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools in America. [catalog record]
• Federal Cylinder Project: A Guide to Field Cylinder Recordings in Federal Agencies, Volume 5 ("California Indian Catalog"). [catalog record]
• Old Ties, New Attachments: Italian-American Folklife in the West. [catalog record]

Published Recordings

• Anglo-American Shanties, Lyric Songs, Dance Tunes, and Spirituals, Library of Congress AFS L2. [audiocassette]
• Anglo-American Songs and Ballads, Library of Congress AFS L20 and L21. [audiocassette]
• American Sea Songs and Shanties, Library of Congress AFS L26 and L27. [audiocassette] [compact disc]
• Songs of the Mormons and Songs of the West, Library of Congress AFS L30. [audiocassette] [compact disc]
• Child Ballads Traditional in the United States, I and II, Library of Congress AFS L57 and L58. [audiocassette]
• Folk-Songs of America: The Robert Winslow Gordon Collection 1922-32, Library of Congress AFS L68. [online presentation]