Champion oyster shucker Ruth Smith at the St. Mary's Oyster Festival, 1981. Part of the documentation in Maryland's Local Legacies projects.

Maryland

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 Maryland that document the diversity of the state's folk traditions. Among its unique recordings are spirituals from labor camps dating from the 1940s; narratives of migrant workers and former slaves; folklore and folk music of the Eastern Shore; the Dorothy Howard Collection about Western Maryland; and interviews with local crafts people, including rug makers and decoy carvers. In 1982, the Center's Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools Project documented a Korean school in Silver Spring, and a Lithuanian school in Rockville. The material created during this project has been incorporated into the collections of the Folklife Center.

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

Maryland 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 Maryland's Local Legacies projects.

Field School

• In the summer of 2003, an ethnographic field school was taught in Crisfield, Maryland. Co-sponsoring the school with the Center were Salisbury University and the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art. The student ethnographers researched the traditions related to many occupations in the Crisfield area. To read more about the field school see "Crabs 'R Us: Field School Documents Chesapeake Bay Maritime Culture," in Folklife Center News, Fall, 2003.

Concert

• May 18, 2005: Washington Chu Shan -- Chinese Opera Institute from Maryland. [event flyer] [catalog record]

Lecture

• "From Bridge to Boardwalk: an Audio Journey Across Maryland's Eastern Shore." An illustrated lecture by Douglas Manger, Tatiana Irvine, and Elaine Eff based on the CD and book titled From Bridge to Boardwalk [catalog record], about the history and contemporary cultural traditions of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Recorded October 21, 2004. Part of the 2004 Benjamin A. Botkin Folklife Lecture Series. [catalog record]

Field Research Projects

• 1982 Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools Project (includes documentation of Lithuanian and Korean Schools in Maryland). [catalog record]

Publications

• "The First Korean School of Silver Spring, Maryland," in Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools in America. [catalog record]
• "To Keep Tradition Going: Conserving Baltimore Screen Painting," in Folklife Annual 90. [catalog record]
• A Brief Bibliography on Maryland Folksong and Dance (compiled June 1977). [full text]