Folklife Today Podcast

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, and their guest Jennifer Cutting, introduce two more hidden folklorists, writer Charles J. Finger and filmmaker Nicholas Ray. Finger collected folklore for award-winning books such as "Tales from Silver Lands," "Sailor Chanties and Cowboy Songs," "Frontier Ballads," and "Robin Hood and his Merry Men." Ray was employed by the Works Progress Administration to collect folklore in 1938 and 1939, before embarking on a career as a filmmaker and directing "Rebel Without a Cause," "They Live by Night," "On Dangerous Ground," and "Johnny Guitar." Ray also directed the radio series "Back Where I Come From" with Alan Lomax. The episode includes four songs sung by Finger, identified by him as three chanties and a forecastle song, and three selections recorded by Ray, on one of which Ray himself sings.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick discuss children's songs, and in particular "Ring Around the Rosie." They interview Carolyn Bennett, the Library of Congress Teacher-in-Residence, and play versions of children's songs recorded in the field in 1939 and in 2019. They talk about the story that the origin of "Ring Around the Rosie" is related to plague symptoms in English history. They conclude that the plague story is folklore, and that specifically it is "metafolklore," meaning folklore about folklore. They also conclude that it's probably not true. Nevertheless it tells us interesting things about the way folklore is told, spread, and used by various kinds of people, including children.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick discuss occupational folklife in general, and the American Folklife Center's Occupational Folklife Project in particular. Topics covered include occupational songs, labor scholar and activist Archie Green, and the Occupational Folklife Project's oral histories with American workers. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi provides a moving tribute to labor folklorist Archie Green. Other interviewees include American Folklife center director Betsy Peterson, who was a fieldworker on the Occupational Folklife Project, archivists who take care of the recordings, and the coordinator of the project, Nancy Groce. The program includes excerpts from three workers in the Port of Houston, and with one circus worker reminiscing about elephants. It also includes a mining song performed by Blind Jim Howard and two versions of the railroad song "Rock Island Line," one by Kelly Pace and the other by the popular singer-songwriter Billy Bragg.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick Discuss the work of Agnes Vanderburg, a Salish elder from Montana who began an outdoor school to teach traditional native American ways, including Salish language, food preparation, crafting with porcupine quills, making tipis, and traditional medicine. They interview Stephanie Hall, who researched Vanderburg for the Folklife Today blog, Trelani Duncan, who did further research for this podcast, Carl Fleischhauer, who knew and photographed Vanderburg in the 1970s, Judith Gray, who gives an overview of Native American field recordings in the Library of Congress, and Oscar-winning filmmaker Marjorie Hunt, who worked with Agnes Vanderburg in the 1980s. They play and discuss Kay Young's interviews from 1979 with Agnes Vanderburg and Vanderburg's student Rachel Bowers. Vanderburg stands out as an important example of the passing of traditions between generations and between members of different communities. Incidental music is provided by the fiddling of Mary Trotchie, also recorded in Montana in 1979.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, along with Library of Congress staff members Stephanie Hall, Michelle Stefano, and Muhannad Salhi, explore the work of "hidden folklorists," that is, people whose folklore work is sometimes overlooked because they came from marginalized communities and/or were more famous for other activities. This episode looks at four folklorists or folklore families. The famous 19th century detective Allan Pinkerton and his wife Joan compiled an early book of Scottish ballads, and were featured in a blog post by Stephen Winick. King David Kalakaua and his sister Queen Liliuokalani, last monarchs of Hawai'i, published and translated the sacred chants of their people, and were featured in blogs by Stephanie Hall. Sarah P. Jamali, an English professor and wife of an Iraqi prime minister, collected audio recordings of Iraqi folktales and published them in English translation, and was written about by Michelle Stefano; and Ralph Ellison, prominent novelist, whose Invisible Man was partly inspired by a story he collected in New York, as revealed by Stephen Winick.

With the help of AFC staff, John Fenn and Stephen Winick will finally get to the bottom of the pesky question: what is the origin of folklore? They will also explore the infamous holiday of April Fools' Day. You'll learn about the history of April Fools' day along with the legends that accompany it. John, Stephen, and AFC staff will talk about the different tricks and pranks associated with the Fools' day, specifically the pranks that students played on their teachers in the early 20th century. You'll also learn about the intricate April Fools' pranks AFC staff play on each other at the Library, and hear a traditional Irish ballad associated with April Fools' Day.

With the help of colleagues from the National Museum of African American History and Culture as well as AFC staff, Stephen Winick and John Fenn explore the collaborative collection known as the Civil Rights History Project. You’ll learn about the piece of Congressional legislation that mandated the project, as well as the various roles that the Smithsonian Institution and Library of Congress have played in generating and maintaining the collection. You’ll find out about some of the fieldwork behind the interviews, as well as the more technical concerns that run through a born-digital collection. And you’ll hear several interview clips from the collection, all chosen by guests on the episode. The Civil Rights History Project is a valuable and rich collection hosted on the Library’s website, and this episode will help you understand a bit about what goes on behind the scenes when it comes to making such a collection available to the public.

With the help of AFC archivists, Stephen Winick and John Fenn reveal the history of a great work of African American folk creativity: the spiritual "Kumbaya" or "Come By Here." You'll hear how it was collected from oral tradition in Georgia and North Carolina in the 1920s, and hear it become the first State Historical Song of Georgia on the floor of the Georgia State Senate. You'll find out how the words "come by here," sung in a regional dialect, came to be spelled "Kumbaya" around the world. You'll hear how some people came to believe the song was written by a white evangelist from New York, while others thought it came to America from Angola. And you'll enjoy performances and commentary from Grammy-winning recording artists, expert archivists, and self-described library nerds. This is the story that got the Folklife Today blog covered by the New York Times!

Today we explore festive food traditions, including Thanksgiving and other holiday meals. Stephen Winick reveals what the Pilgrims REALLY ate at the 1621 event many Americans call "The First Thanksgiving." Megan Harris of the Veterans History Project shares interviews with wartime veterans about festive holiday meals in the military. Mackenzie Kwok brings interviews about ramps, a stinky wild onion that's at the center of its own festivals in some Appalachian communities.

This episode shares some of our favorite haunting or spooky songs for the Halloween season. It includes songs about vengeful ghosts, haunted fiddles, and our inevitable final confrontation with death. There's even a spooky story about a skeleton that plays the fiddle, complete with its favorite tune! Guests include Halloween expert Jack Santino and folksingers Jeff and Gerret Warner.