Phoebe Mason with her salmon catch, 1949. Photo from the Carver Collection, Whatcom Museum of History and Art. Part of the cultural documentation found in Washington's Local Legacy projects.

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.

• View Washington's Local Legacies projects

Field Research Projects

• 1982 Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools (Islamic School). [catalog record] [finding aid]
• 1989-90 Italian-American Folklife in the West. [catalog record]

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]