skip navigation  The Library of Congress >> Research Centers
AFC Logo The American Folklife Center
A - Z Index
home >> about the center >>folklife in your state >> indiana
Boy at a pie eating contest at the Grabill County Fair.
Boy at a pie eating contest at the Grabill County Fair.
Part of the documentation in Indiana's Local Legacies projects.

Indiana

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

Indiana's folk culture is well represented in the collections of the American Folklife Center. Among the Center's recordings are fiddle tunes and other folk music; oral histories and storytelling about life in Indiana at the turn of the century; the Indiana field recordings and notes by well-known folklore collector Alan Lomax; Amish and French songs; and blues music from Indianapolis.

  • Indiana Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture [full text]

Indiana 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 School

In the summer of 2000 an ethnographic field school was conducted in Bloomington in co-operation with Indiana University's Folklore Institute. The student researchers looked at the history, uses, and meaning of Bloomington's Courthouse Square. To read more about this field school, read "Indiana Field School Explores Life 'On the Square,'" by David. A. Taylor, in Folklife Center News, Fall 2000.

Exhibition

  • 1984 "Generation to Generation: Sharing the Intangible," Purdue University, Calumet Library, Hammond.

Publications

  Back to Top

 

  home >> about the center >> folklife in your state >> indiana

A - Z Index
  The Library of Congress >> Research Centers
  December 2, 2008
Contact Us:
Ask a Librarian