Folklife Today Podcast

In this episode for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, John Fenn and Steve Winick invite guests to talk about Asian collections in the American Folklife Center. Allina Migoni talks about the earliest known recordings of Korean music, playing segments of a lecture by Robert Provine and a song sung by Ahn Jeong-Sik. Sara Ludewig discusses the Linda LaMacchia collection, including recordings made of Tibetan singers in India. Steve discusses Asian and Pacific Island collections in the Homegrown concert series, and plays a song, a story, and a flute composition by Grammy-nominated Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal. More information on the performers and the selections can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife

In this episode for Women's History Month, Allina Migoni and Michelle Stefano take a look through the collections of the American Folklife Center to find insights into how women have shaped those around them and passed down their cultural traditions, and to listen to reflections about their identities and lives. The episode honors women in the American Folklife Center archive, including homemaker and cook Yoshiko Nagashima, craftsperson Iyo Nagashima, farmer Sarah Sohn, quilters Donna Choate and Zenna Todd, hooked rug artist Mary Sheppard Burton, and ethnographers Theadocia Austen, Geraldine Niva Johnson, Kay Turner, Miiko Toelken, and Christine Cartwright. More information on the performers and the selections can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife

In this episode, John Fenn, Michelle Stefano, and Stephen Winick discuss Groundhog Day traditions. Drawing on the research of Don Yoder, they discuss the history and folklore of the holiday, including groundhog traditions among the Pennsylvania Dutch, groundhog songs, weather proverbs, and even cooking and eating groundhogs! Songs include two versions of “Groundhog,” one of “Fod,” and one of “Prowling Groundhog.” More information on the performers and the selections can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

In this episode, hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick introduce three scary stories for you to enjoy: a witch tale told by Appalachian singer and activist Aunt Molly Jackson, a ghost story told by blues musician and gravedigger John Jackson, and the story of Jack O Lantern told by folklorist Jack Santino. Steve and John also discuss a little of the history of Halloween, and introduce the Library of Congress's updated Halloween research guide. More information on the performers and the selections can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

In this episode, hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick talk with Jennifer Cutting about items that caught their eyes and ears. Cutting discusses commercial recordings of tunes collected by Cecil Sharp, and Winick tells stories of the recording sessions, which Sharp personally supervised and described in his diaries. Cutting discusses her friend, the late Tony Barrand, an important collector of morris dances. John Fenn discusses the Nagra IV portable tape deck, and Winick discusses a picture of the late Mick Moloney using the Nagra in 1977. Winick discusses Moloney, and they play music recorded by Moloney on the Nagra, including jigs played on fiddle and accordion by Liz Carroll and Tommy Maguire, and reels played on the flute by Michael Flatley. More information on the performers and the selections can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

In this episode, hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick interview American Folklife Center interns Bryan Jenkins and Elisa Alfonso. Jenkins discusses AFC's Web Cultures Web Archive, and interviews AFC reference librarian Allina Migoni about it. Alfonso discusses several versions of the Latin American children's song “Señora Santana,” and speaks of its association with the 1960s Cuban children's exodus that later became known as Operación Pedro Pan. The episode presents several versions of the song from Cuban, Mexican, and Spanish Americans in Florida, Texas, and California. More information on the performers and the selections can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

In this episode, hosts John Fenn and Michelle Stefano, with guest Thea Austen, explore Ukrainian materials in the American Folklife Center Archive. Interview segments include a discussion of Ukrainian embroidery and dance, between Geraldine Johnson and Taissa Decyk; and a discussion of a Ukrainian family bandura band who immigrated to the United States as refugees in the late 1940s, between Stephen Winick and Julian Kytasty. Musical selections include a song with bandura accompaniment by Kytasty and a set of instrumental tunes by Gerdan ensemble. More information on the performers and the selections can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

In this episode, hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn, with guests Betsy Peterson, Jennifer Cutting, and Melanie Zeck, explore songs and music from Irish American women in the American Folklife Center archive. Performances include Maggie Hammons Parker singing “Ireland's Green Shore,” Hattie Scott Gould playing “The Irish Washerwoman” on the fiddle, May Mulcahy playing “Nori from Gibberland” and “Put Your Little Foot Right There” on the concertina, Carrie Grover singing “Arthur McBride,” Eileen Gannon playing “O'Carolan's Receipt” and “Niall Gannon's Favorite” on the Celtic harp, and Liz Carroll and Tommy Maguire playing a set of reels on the fiddle and the accordion. More information on the performers and the selections can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

In this episode, hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn, with guest Theadocia Austen, talk about songs of springtime, from agricultural and pastoral songs about farms and flowers to love ballads…and one dance tune. They also play the songs, including Pearl Nye's version of “Early in the Spring,” the Copper Family's rendition of “When Spring Comes On,” Baptiste Pierre's version of the Haitian song “Fleurs, Certaines Jolies Fleurs” Rubén Cobos's version of the alabanza hymn “El Alba,” Warde Ford's version of “Nightingales of Spring,” and the Chicago Zither Club's “Spring Polka.” More information on the songs can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

This episode examines the story of La Llorona, the Weeping Woman of Mexican and Latin American ghostlore. Hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn discuss Winick's research into the legend for the Folklife Today blog, and interview three guests. Camille Acosta, who wrote a thesis about the Llorona legend, talks about her research and the meanings the story has for kids and adults. Allina Migoni, the Latinx subject specialist for the American Folklife Center, talks about the importance of the La Llorona story for Mexican and Mexican American identity, as well as the connections between La Llorona and La Malinche, the enslaved Indigenous woman whose work as a translator helped Hernán Cortés conquer Mexico. Juan Dies speaks about La Llorona songs, as well as the figure of La Llorona in Mexican pop culture. More information on the songs as well as photos of some the singers and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

This episode looks back at the 2021 Homegrown at Home Concert series. Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick interview the series producer Theadocia Austen and folklife interns Kennedi Johnson and Camille Acosta. The participants talk about the series as a whole, and each picks one or two songs for us to hear. The episode contains songs from Neli Andreeva (Bulgarian traditional song), Brother Arnold Hadd and Radiance Choir (Shaker hymn), Martin Carthy (English ballad with guitar), harbanger (turntable septet hip-hop composition), Samite (Ugandan song with African lyre or litungu), Hubby Jenkins (Blues with guitar), and Mamselle Ruiz (traditional Mexican song with small ensemble). More information on the songs as well as photos of some the singers and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

This episode continues our look at songs about summer, from the amorous adventures of young lovers to the backbreaking work done by convicts in the sun. Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, along with guest Jennifer Cutting, present their favorite summer songs. Songs include the English “Sweet Primroses;” the Trinidadian “One Fine Summer's Morning” and “June Come, You No Marry;” the Tuvan “In Summer Pastures;” the African American work song “Worked All Summer Long;” and the Basque “When the Sun Shines Everywhere, How Good the Shade is!” More information on the songs as well as photos of some the singers and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

This episode looks at songs about summer, from the amorous adventures of young lovers to the backbreaking work done by convicts in the sun. Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, along with guests Nicki Saylor and Jennifer Cutting, present their favorite summer songs. Songs include the Finnish “Kesa Ilta,” the Tuvan “Let The Sun Shine On My Verdant Summer,” the African American work song “Long Hot Summer Day,” the Appalachian nonsense song “On a Bright and Summer's Morning,” the Anglo-Canadian lament “As I Walked Out One Fine Summer's Evening,” and the Irish love song “Wild Mountain Thyme.” More information on the songs as well as videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

This episode looks at a “Hidden Folklorist” renowned as a poet and playwright: Langston Hughes. It includes interviews with folklorist Langston Collin Wilkins and Hughes scholar Sophie Abramowitz. Wilkins and Abramowitz show us how Langston Hughes's folklore work was grounded in song collecting and vernacular expression, and committed to the visionary futurity of Black folkloric creativity. We also explore Hughes's connections to the American Folklife Center archive, especially correspondence between Hughes and Alan Lomax that preserves perhaps the only known copies of some of Hughes's collected songs, right here in the Library of Congress.

This episode looks at three “Hidden Folklorists” from Louisiana with special guest Joshua Clegg Caffery from the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. The Hidden Folklorists are Becky Elzy and Alberta Bradford, two spiritual singers who had been born in slavery, but who years later sang over a hundred spirituals for collectors; and E.A. McIlhenny, the head of the Tabasco Sauce company, who first collected their spirituals into a book. We recount details of how a microfilm of unique, unpublished manuscript spirituals by Bradford and Elzy came to be part of the American Folklife Center archive, and how Bradford and Elzy came to be recorded on audio discs for the Library of Congress by Alan Lomax in 1934, with the resulting recordings also coming to the AFC Archive. It’s an amusing story in which the 19-year-old Alan Lomax is forced to leave his father, the seasoned collector John A. Lomax “by the side of the road” and drive 40 miles with the 73 year old Bradford to try to find the 82 year old Elzy so they can sing together for the Library’s recording machine. The episode also presents several of their spirituals, and ends with the very moving recording of two women who had been born in slavery singing “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, got free at last!”

This episode Presents the poem “Colorado Morton’s Ride,” also known as “Colorado Morton’s Last Ride.” It’s a ten-minute narrative poem recited by Fred Soule at the Farm Security Administration (FSA) camp in Visalia, California on September 2, 1941. The poem was recorded on an instantaneous disc by Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin, two fieldworkers collecting folksongs for the Library of Congress. It was written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Leonard Bacon and Montana Cowboy Rivers Browne. It’s a great, colorful example of cowboy poetry, and we hope you enjoy it.

This episode looks at folk poetry, with discussions of four poetry-themed collections in the American Folklife Center. Guest Anne Holmes of the Library of Congress Literary Initiatives Division discusses “Living Nations, Living Words,” the signature project of the Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Harjo, the first Native American Poet Laureate, has curated a collection of poetry by Native American poets, which includes recordings of the poets reading their work. The recordings are part of the American Folklife Center archive. The Literary Initiatives division has also created a Story Map to place the poets and poems in a geographic context. The poet M.L. Smoker reads her work “The Book of the Missing, Murdered, and Indigenous—Chapter 1.” Guest Michelle Stefano of the American Folklife Center discusses “Rhyming the Archive,” an event in which members of the poetry slam team Split This Rock wrote poems inspired by materials in the archive and performed them at an event at the Library of Congress. The poet Marjan Naderi reads her work “The Lessons My Mother Taught Me While Preparing Dinner.” Guest Kerry Ward of the Veterans History Project introduces VHP and discusses VHP’s November, 2019, Occupational Poetry Panel, which brought together four Veteran poets to perform their work. Meezie Hermansen performs her work “Tools of the Trade.” Stephen Winick and John Fenn discuss a poem in the American Folklife Center’s archive called “Colorado Morton’s Last Ride.” It’s a ten-minute narrative poem recited by a man named Fred Soule at the Farm Security Administration (FSA) camp in Visalia, California on September 2, 1941. The poem was recorded on an instantaneous disc by Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin, two fieldworkers collecting folksongs for the Library of Congress. Winick discusses the research that led him to discover that the poem, whose original title was “Colorado Morton’s Ride,” was written by Pulitzer-Prize-winner Leonard Bacon and Montana cowboy Rivers Browne. He also reveals the identity of Soule, a public information officer for the FSA. We hear Soule read an excerpt of the poem, and Winick and Fenn promise to release the full poem as a bonus episode.

This episode presents an interview with Candacy Taylor, whose latest project is documenting sites associated with the Negro Motorist Green Book, a travel guide for African Americans during the Jim Crow era. Taylor discusses the dangers inherent in travel for Black people during an era where racial discrimination was legal and open racism was common. She fills us in on the origins of the Green Book. We discuss sites such as Dooky Chase’s restaurant in New Orleans, where owner Leah Chase slapped the hand of President Barack Obama for adding hot sauce to her famous gumbo, and where she fed a young Michael Jackson her signature sweet potato pies. We also discuss the Historic Hampton House, a Jewish-owned hotel in Miami, where a young boxer named Cassius Clay met Malcolm X and changed his name to Muhammad Ali, and where Martin Luther King, Jr. practiced his most famous speech. We hear parts of interviews with Enid Pinkney, who restored the Hampton House; Jerry Markowitz, whose parents owned the Hampton House; Leah Chase of Dooky Chase’s; and Nelson Malden, Dr. King’s barber in Montgomery, Alabama.

This episode presents an introduction to sea shanties, including a discussion of the word “shanty” or “chantey;” a discussion of the roots of shanties; the history of shanties; the subtypes of short-haul shanties, halyard shanties, and capstan shanties; the importance of the African American and Afro-Caribbean communities to shanties; and the prevalence of women singing shanties. The episode presents six shanties, “Pay Me My Money Down” by the Georgia Sea Island Singers, “Haul the Bowline” by Richard Maitland, “Dead Horse” or “Poor Old Man” by Leighton Robinson, “The Amsterdam Maid” by Charles J. Finger,” “We All Going Ashore” by a group of women from Anguilla, and “Blow the Man Down” by Ship’s Company Chanteymen.

This episode presents the American Folklife Center’s 2020 mummers’ play, “The Peaceful Transfer of Mumming.” Every year, in the week or two before Christmas, staff members of the American Folklife Center put our research and performance skills into play, bringing collections to life in a dramatic performance that tours the halls of the Library of Congress. The performance is based on traditional mummers’ plays. This year, since we can’t perform our mummers’ play live, we present it here as a podcast episode, like an old-time radio play. “Mumming” is an old word for a tradition of getting dressed up in costumes and going from house to house, doing a performance in exchange for food, drink, and money. In Britain, sometime in the 17th century, it took the form of a particular kind of play which includes music, and dance, and rhymes. In the play, several characters get in a fight, one or more are killed, and a doctor arrives and revives the dead characters. This 2020 mummers’ play features Stephen Winick as Father Christmas, Stephanie Hall as Beelzebub, Valda Morris as Linear Feet, Michelle Stefano as Thomas Jefferson, George Thuronyi as John Adams, Hope O’Keeffe as George Washington, Theadocia Austen as Doctor Dolley Madison, and Jennifer Cutting as Abigail Adams. Accordion music is provided by Jennifer Cutting.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick are joined by staff member Jennifer Cutting to discuss and play some of their favorite ballads and songs about ghosts, goblins, fairies, and elves—not to mention the Devil himself. Songs include “The Unquiet Grave” sung by Jean Ritchie; “Polly Vaughan” sung by Albert Lancaster “Bert” Lloyd; “The Three Babes” or “The Wife of Usher’s Well” sung by Isaac Garfield “Ike” Greer and accompanied by Willie Spainhour Greer on a mountain dulcimer; “Bolakins,” also known as “Lamkin” or “Long Lankin,” sung by Lena Bare Turbyfill; “The Stolen Bride” or “A Bhean Úd Thíos (The Woman Of The Fairy Mound)” sung by Séamus Ennis; and “Tom Devil” sung by James Carter, Ed Lewis, Henry Mason, Johnny Lee Moore. All the recordings are from the American Folklife Center archive at the Library of Congress, and the hosts and guests talk about the songs, the singers, and the archive.

Barbara Miller Byrd, the third-generation owner of the Carson and Barnes Circus based in the small town of Hugo, Oklahoma, talks about growing up in the traveling circus founded by her grandparents more than 75 years ago. She shares great memories and stories and offers in-sights into the colorful and complex occupations that are needed to sustain a traveling circus in contemporary America.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick are joined by staff members Theadocia Austen and Jennifer Cutting to discuss two initiatives of the American Folklife Center during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the At-Home Archive Challenge, AFC has been encouraging people to learn or be inspired by material from the American Folklife Center archive at the Library of Congress and to share the results on social media with a tag. For the 2020 Homegrown Concert Series, the Center has moved to an online format with artists recording videos of themselves either at home or on location. The concerts also have an Archive Challenge aspect, as most of the artists have learned material from the AFC archive. The hosts and guests discuss both programs and play musical examples from the challenges and the Homegrown concerts, providing a beautiful cross-section of the music recorded by this year’s artists.

New from the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress: “America Works” features the voices of contemporary workers from throughout the United States talking about their lives, their workplaces, and their on-the-job experiences. Premieres September 3.

Hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn interview American Folklife Center staff members about what inspires them about AFC collections while they are working from home during the stay-at-home orders imposed by the covid-19 virus crisis. Alda Allina Migoni speaks about Spanish-language collections from California recorded in 1939 by Sidney Robertson Cowell, including versions of “Cielito Lindo.” Michelle Stefano speaks about blues musicians interviewed as part of the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project survey in 1977. Stephen Winick speaks about recordings of Zora Neale Hurston made in 1939, including one of her singing the song “Uncle Bud.” Maya Lerman speaks about the John Cohen collection and the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection, including the old-time music in the collections and especially interviews with Tommy Jarrell. John Fenn speaks about the Juan B. Rael Collection of Hispano music and culture from New Mexico and Colorado. More information on the songs as well as full audio and videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn discuss “On the Road with Alan Lomax” a campaign in the Library of Congress “By the People” program, which crowdsources transcriptions of Lomax’s field notes. Alan Lomax was a prominent folklorist who made iconic field recordings around the world. The hosts interview Victoria Van Hyning, Lauren Algee, and Todd Harvey of the Library of Congress, and play some of Lomax’s best recordings, including the earliest recordings of Muddy Waters and Honeyboy Edwards, interviews with Jelly Roll Morton, classic recordings of Vera Hall, Bessie Jones, Seamus Ennis, and The Copper Family, and music from Grenada, Haiti, Finland, and all over the U.S. More information on the songs as well as full audio and videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn, along with guests Stephanie Hall and Jennifer Cutting discuss and play their favorite songs of winter. Songs include “Footprints in the Snow,” “Ice Skating Song,” “Fair Charlotte,” “Young Charlotte,” “The Wind Blows High,” and “Time to Remember the Poor.” More information on the songs as well as videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts Stephen Winick and John Fenn, along with guest Theadocia Austen, discuss and play their favorite songs of winter. Songs include an old-time love song by Virginian Hettie Swindel, an urban blues from Detroit songsters Sampson Pittman and Calvin Frazier, a Hardanger fiddle tune from Loretta Kelley, an example of rich vocal polyphony from the Republic of Georgia, and a lumberjack song by Carl Lathrop. More information on the songs as well as videos of some of the performances, photos of some the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts Stephen Winick and Thea Austen and guest Jennifer Cutting discuss the folksong “The Candidate’s a Dodger,” also known as “The Dodger.” They talk about the song’s meanings in oral tradition, its use by Aaron Copland as an art song, and its involvement in political controversy in the 1930s, when Charles Seeger first published it. They examine the song’s history and lay out brand-new evidence about its relationships to other folksongs and to a musical theater song from 1840s England. They also discuss the possibility that Charles Seeger, a founder of ethnomusicology and a pioneering federal folklorist, was himself a “dodger!” The episode includes performances by folksingers Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, and Peggy Seeger, as well as baritone Thomas Hampson, and five field recordings from the Library of Congress. More information on “The Dodger,” as well as videos of some of the performances, photos of the singers, and links to all the archival sources, can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick introduce three spooky stories to celebrate Halloween: Award-winning storyteller and author Jackie Torrence telling "The Golden Arm," groundbreaking folklorist Mary Celestia Parler telling "The Witch Who Kept a Hotel," and Connie Regan Blake, one of today's leading professional storytellers, telling "Mr. Fox." Much more about the storytellers and the tales can be found at the blog Folklife Today, https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.

Hosts John Fenn and Stephen Winick, and their guests Ann Hoog, Carl Fleischhauer, and Michelle Stefano, discuss the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection, created as part of the American Folklife Center's first fieldwork project in 1977. The collection, featuring sound recordings, manuscripts, and photographs from 25 ethnic communities in Chicago, is online at loc.gov They discuss the challenges of getting the collection online and of making connections between the collection and the current Chicago community. They play excerpts of interviews with artists from the Greek American, Puerto Rican, African American, and Icelandic American communities, and music from the Greek American, African American, and Irish American communities.

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.

This episode shares some of our favorite songs of the Christmas season. It includes songs derived from English and Spanish medieval mystery plays, children's songs, cumulative carols, and other fun songs of the season. There's even a performance by the American Folklife Center mummers, who sing and perform a Christmas play every year at the Library of Congress.