Jimmy Garrison at the 1972 Ann Arbor Jazz and Blues Festival. Photo by Ira Lax. Part of the documentation in Michigan's Local Legacies project.

Michigan

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 rich and varied materials from Michigan that document the diversity of the state's folk traditions. Among its unique recordings are cylinders of Ottawa Indian music and speech; Finnish immigrant songs and folklore; Lithuanian folk music; interviews with migrant farm workers; lumber camp songs; Detroit blues music; and Irish musicians on Beaver Island.

• Michigan Material in the Archive of Folk Culture [full text]

Michigan 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 Michigan's Local Legacies projects

Publications

• "Reverend C.L. Franklin: Black American Preacher Poet," Folklife Annual 1987. [catalog record]
• "Immigrant to Ethnic: Symbols of Identity Among Finnish-Americans" and "Via Dolorosa" (a life story), Folklife Annual 1986. [catalog record]

Published Recordings

• Songs of the Michigan Lumberjacks, Library of Congress AFS L56. [audiocassette]