Transcribing Deaf Folklore from the 1981 Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Promoting Accessibility through Transcription

Young visitors learn some American Sign Language at the 1981 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photo by Jeff Ploskonka, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives.

In 1981, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival included programming about folklore from the Deaf community—often represented with a capital D. Presentations featured Deaf theater, poetry, “signlore,” puns, and many other forms of Deaf folklore. Participants recalled experiences from their childhood, what it’s like to be “deaf in a hearing world,” and some of the challenges they face daily. Overall, the Festival provided attendees with a glimpse into what it’s like to live as a deaf or hard-of-hearing American.

Until now, the audio recordings of discussions and presentations at the Folklore of the Deaf program have been archived in the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections but inaccessible to non-hearing people. Now, the Smithsonian Transcription Center is working to caption the audio recordings so that everybody can learn from and enjoy these resources.

Since the launch of the Transcription Center’s “#TCSound” project in June 2019, online “volunpeers” have been hard at work transcribing these valuable Festival recordings. However, audio files present some unique transcription problems that those familiar with transcribing text documents might not encounter. One of the biggest hurdles in transcribing audio files is correctly identifying speakers. Unless a speaker is explicitly introduced, it’s hard to know who is talking when. And if a sudden new voice you don’t recognize enters the recording, it can seem impossible to identify it.

With the Folklore of the Deaf audio projects, this issue is compounded by the fact that many of the speakers are deaf, so the voice we hear is actually an American Sign Language interpreter. It can certainly make your head spin trying to keep track of each interpreter’s voice while simultaneously inferring who they’re interpreting for. We want to make sure that we’re preserving everybody’s contributions to Deaf programming at the Folklife Festival, and that means crediting both the speakers who were signing to the audience as well as the interpreters who provided the voices we hear on the recordings. But with so many names to keep track of and sometimes unclear transitions between speakers, it can seem impossible to make sure you’re crediting the correct speaker and interpreter.

The answers aren't always conveyed in content of the audio recordings. The Rinzler Archives also holds in its collections supplementary text documents, called audio log sheets, recorded by Festival volunteers about each presentation. These detailed notes reveal specifics about who participated in each event and other specifics about what took place on the National Mall. For the Folklore of the Deaf sessions, these notes are especially helpful because they detail not only the presenters’ and interpreters’ names, but also, in many cases, which presenter signed which portion of the program. These log sheets are often the key needed to correctly identify speaker and interpreter names, allowing our transcriptions to be as accurate as possible and properly credit people for their contributions.

 
Example audio log sheets and can also be found here.

But how can we ensure that these connections between audio files and text documents are made? How can we make sure that volunpeers have easy access to supplemental information that will make their transcription job much easier? For us at the Rinzler Archives, this meant first having volunpeers transcribe the log sheets, then providing a link to these documents within the description of each audio project posted by the Transcription Center. That way, all the relevant information about who that mysterious speaker is in the “Deaf Theater: Kaleidoscope” recording is just one click away! Having trouble spelling a presenter’s name? (Does the linguist from Gallaudet University spell her name Barbara Kanapell? Or maybe Kannapell? Or even Canapell? Ahh!) Take a look at the audio log sheets to see how the audio documentation volunteers spelled each presenter’s name. While these notes aren’t always perfect or comprehensive, the information they contain is still invaluable for creating accurate transcriptions.

Connections between materials like this exist all over the Smithsonian’s collections. Transcribing documents and audio recordings to make them more searchable will aid users in making these connections themselves as well. Finding that connection that makes everything clear is one of the great joys of using archival materials, whether you’re a professional researcher, a history buff, or a first-time Smithsonian collections user.

Lastly, be on the lookout for more upcoming #TCSound projects from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, including more Folklore of the Deaf recordings. The Rinzler Archives thanks you for every contribution that makes our materials more accessible! Click here to start transcribing today.

*Note: this blog uses both “Big D and little d” spellings of the word “deaf.” The lowercase “d” refers to those who are audiologically deaf, while the uppercase “D” tends to refer to those who identify both culturally and linguistically with the Deaf community.

Sammy Strootman, Archives Intern
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

Come Join Us at the 2017 Archives Fair!

As an archivist, ethnomusicologist, and musician working at the Smithsonian, I feel inspired when I have opportunities to work with colleagues within and beyond the Institution to provide public-facing platforms for dialogue. I get particularly enthusiastic when these events relate to the power of archival collections to provide context for the customs and traditions that shape the cultures in which we live. On Saturday, October 21, 2017, I will be participating in such an event at the National Museum of American History in the Coulter Performance Plaza and the SC Johnson Conference Center.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the public is invited to celebrate American Archives Month at the 2017 Archives Fair with the theme Performance and Preservation. As described on the National Archives webpage, participants will explore “the ways in which the preservation of archival collections translates into the preservation of culture through the performance and artistry of individuals and communities across the United States and around the world.”

The Fair has four main features. First, a diverse range of musicians, dancers, singers, and performers will take the stage throughout the day in the Coulter Performance Plaza to illuminate the ways in which the archival record informs their work as artists. Second, a series of panel discussions in the SC Johnson Conference Center will reveal how archival documentation influences artistic expression, dance (bodies in motion), and access. Third, we will have representatives of over 20 archives and organizational repositories exhibiting at tables set up throughout Coulter Performance Plaza, sharing information about their archival work in a wide range of institutional, regional, and community contexts. Last (but definitely not least), visitors will have the rare opportunity to participate in a behind-the-scenes archives tour at the National Museum of American History’s Archives Center, home to some of the country’s most valuable archival collections.

Ultimately, this year’s event would not be happening were it not for the vision and collaboration between members of the National Archives Assembly, the Smithsonian Institution Archives and Special Collections Council, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference DC and Maryland Caucuses. For more information about the schedule-of-events and a full list of the Fair’s participants, please visit the Archives Fair website and plan on arriving at the National Museum of American History when it opens at 10 a.m. The official welcoming and opening remarks will begin at 10:45 with the first performances and panel discussions taking place at 11!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Greg C. Adams, Assistant Archivist
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

In the Heart of the Storm: The Resilience of Culture

This post originally appeared on September 19, 2017 in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival's blog. In honor of October being American Archives Month, we republish it here as an example of how the archival record can help us focus on the importance of cultural resilience in times of catastrophe. The photographs and audio used in this piece are all a part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records .

Young people of the U.S. Virgin Islands march along in a carnival parade, amid the destruction of Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

When news started coming in about the catastrophic damage Hurricane Irma brought to the Caribbean, I happened to be filing materials from the 1990 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s program about the U.S. Virgin Islands. In my twenty-nine years at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, I’ve produced a healthy amount of research, but in going through those particular boxes, I felt odd reverberations.

On September 17, 1989, in the midst of ongoing research for the U.S. Virgin Islands program, Hurricane Hugo struck the islands, with the greatest damage occurring in St. Croix. As described in a Washington Post special report, “Not only was Christiansted strewn with uprooted trees, broken utility poles, shattered cars and tons of debris from buildings that looked bombed, but the verdant tropical island suddenly had turned brown. So strong were Hugo’s winds that most trees still standing were shorn of leaves.” While St. Croix suffered the brunt of the storm, St. Thomas and St. John were also significantly damaged.

We wondered if we should cancel or defer the Festival program to let the region recuperate, physically and financially. But our partners in the Virgin Islands responded with one voice: now, more than ever, the people of the Virgin Islands needed a cultural event to raise their spirits, remind them of their resilience, and tell the world they were recovering. It is particularly in times of disaster that people turn to culture not only for solace but for survival.

“The recent disaster of Hurricane Hugo made fieldwork a little more difficult than usual,” reported Mary Jane Soule, who was doing research on musicians in St. Croix. “I was unable to rent a car for the first five days I was there, which limited my mobility. Many phones were still not working, so getting in touch with informants was harder than usual. However, once I actually located the individuals I wanted to see, I found most of them willing to talk.”

Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

A local press announced that, regardless of the circumstances, the Three Kings Day Parade would not be canceled: “Neither rain or hurricane nor winds nor controversy will stop the Crucian Christmas Fiesta.” In her field research tape log, Soule lists the role of Hugo in the fiesta, adding that calypso bands had recorded songs about it.

“Eve’s Garden troop is depicting Hugo,” she wrote. “The No Nonsense (music and dance) troop is doing ‘The Hugo Family’ depicting the looting and tourists on the run. Mighty Pat’s song ‘Hurricane Hugo’ played from speakers on one of the numerous trucks. Sound Effex (band) can be heard playing ‘Hugo Gi Yo’ (Hugo Gives You).”

Several months later when staff returned to the islands, “Hugo Gi Yo” was still very popular, as were the black, monographed sailors’ caps that proclaimed “Stress Free Recovery for 1990, St. Thomas, V.I.” 

Songs about Hugo relieved anxiety. Many people had lost everything. But like all good calypso tunes, they comically contributed to the oral history of the islands. Look at the verses of “Hugo Gi Yo”:

It was the seventeenth of September 1989 Hugo take over.
Hey, that hurricane was a big surprise,
When it hit St. Croix from the southeast side.
Hey rantanantantan man the roof fall down.
Rantanantantan galvanize around…
No water, no power, no telephone a ring.
We people we dead; there’s nothing to drink….

The band Sound Effex plays for bystanders in a carnival parade in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Listen to "Hugo Gi Yo", played by Sound Effex at Children’s Parade in Christiansted, St. Croix, January 5, 1990:

Calypso songs are noted for their social commentary on events as well as on responses from mainstream society. The Washington Post reported on St. Croix following the hurricane: “The plunder started on the day after the Sunday night storm, as panicky islanders sought to stock up on food. It quickly degenerated into a free-for-all grab of all sorts of consumer goods that some witnesses likened to a ‘feeding frenzy.’ Three days of near-anarchy followed Hugo’s terrible passage during the night of Sept. 17-18 and prompted President Bush to dispatch about 1,100 Army military police and 170 federal law-enforcement officers, including 75 FBI and a ‘special operations group’ of U.S. Marshalls Service.”

In turn, “Hugo Gi Yo” responds:

You no broke nothing.
You no thief nothing.
You no take nothing.
Hugo give you. 

As program research advisor Gilbert Sprauve explained, calypsonians “lend themselves heartily to expressing the underclass’s frustrations and cynicism. They make their mark with lyrics that strike at the heart of the system’s dual standards.”

A parade goer prepares her sign, jokingly addressing the post-hurricane looting that plagued the island of St. Croix. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Another resident readies her sarcastic sign for the parade. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Mighty Pat’s parade float encourages fellow residents to “stay positive.” Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Soule transcribed existing racial and economic tensions in St. Croix expressed in Mighty Pat’s “Hurricane Hugo”:

After the hurricane pass, people telling me to sing a song quickly.
Sing about the looting, sing about the thiefing, black and white people doing.
Sing about them Arabs, up on the Plaza rooftop
With grenade and gun, threaten to shoot the old and the young.
Curfew a big problem, impose on only a few, poor people like me and you.
Rich man roaming nightly, poor man stop by army, getting bust__________
Brutality by marshal, send some to hospital,
Some break down you door, shoot down and plenty more.
When I looked around and saw the condition
of our Virgin Island.
I tell myself advantage can’t done.
One day you rich. Next day you poor.
One day you up the ladder. Next day you
crawling on the floor.
Beauty is skin deep; material things is for a time.
A corrupted soul will find no peace of mind
I think that is all our gale Hugo was trying to say
to all mankind.
Don’t blame me. Hugo did that.

The ubiquitous coal pot depicted on the side of a snack shack in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Hurricane Hugo also came up in conversations about craft. Knowing the importance of charcoal making, especially in St. Croix, researcher Cassandra Dunn interviewed Gabriel Whitney St. Jules who had been making coal for at least forty years and was teaching his son the tradition. In Dunn’s summary report, thoughts of the hurricane are not far away.

“Cooking food by burning charcoal in a coal pot is a technique utilized in the West Indies and Caribbean from the mid-1800s,” she wrote. “Charcoal makers learned the techniques of using a wide variety of woods including that from mango, tibet, mahogany, and saman trees. After Hurricane Hugo, those in St. Croix who had lost access to gas or electricity reverted to charcoal and the coal pot.”

With similar stories from St. Thomas, it became clear that this quotidian cultural artifact that reconnected islanders with their heritage served as an essential item for survival with dignity. The image of the coal pot became central to the themes of the Festival program, both as a useful utensil and a symbol of resilience. To our surprise, the coal pot, which looks much like a cast iron Dutch oven, was identical to that used by participants in the Senegal program featured that same year and led to increased cultural interaction between the two groups. This prompted a re-staging of both programs in St. Croix a year later.

From St. Croix to Washington, D.C., Virgin Islanders bring their parade to the National Mall for the 1990 Folklife Festival. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

The cultural responses to Hurricane Hugo and those I suspect we’ll see following the calamitous hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria remind us that when disaster strikes, whether natural, social, political, or economic, communities often turn to shared cultural resources. Stories, experiences, and traditional skills prove useful, inspiring us to overcome obstacles and help our communities regain their footing.

Olivia Cadaval was the program curator for the U.S. Virgin Islands program at the 1990 Folklife Festival and is currently a curator and chair of cultural research and education at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

View the original post here.

Reference
Sprauve, Gilbert. “About Man Betta Man, fission and Fusion, and Creole, Calypso and Cultural Survival in the Virgin Islands, 1990 Festival of American Folklife, edited by Peter Seitel, Smithsonian, 1990.

"Whatever Follows the Age of the Dinosaurs": Lee Hays, Bob Dylan, and the Folk Revival

Given the theme for this month is transitions, it makes sense to note the ever-morphing artist, and the recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, Bob Dylan. In a career noted for transitions, Dylan has adeptly moved across musical genres, from protest singer, to rock and roller, and country crooner. With a career spanning 56 years, it’s easy to forget Dylan’s early shift from topical protest music to rock and roll reflected not only a shift in his own artistic expression, but a generational shift that rocked the folk revival scene of the mid-twentieth century.

The generation of artists before Dylan were closely connected with the leftist politics of the 1930s and ‘40s. Groups such as the Almanac Singers saw their work not only as a revival of old time music, but as an instrument for social change. [1] With an amorphous membership that at various times included Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Josh White, Bess Lomax, and Lee Hays, the Almanac Singers performed music that was unabashedly topical and political. Performing at union halls, and leftist meetings, their repertoire included such songs as “Talking Union,” “Which Side Are You On,” and “Union Maid.” While not officially connected to the Communist Party, most of the members were at the very least sympathetic to its concerns, and counted friends among the party. [2] Though Pete Seeger and Lee Hays moved into a more radio friendly direction in the 1950s, forming the Weavers with Fred Hellerman and Ronnie Gilbert, these connections would later come to haunt them. Seeger and Hays were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and the group was blacklisted and harassed. While the Weavers work was tame in comparison to the Almanac Singers, with a stronger focus on timeless lyrics and tight harmonies, the political element never left. Songs like “If I Had a Hammer,” and “Which Side are You On,” were still counter-cultural enough to provoke a reaction during the Red Scare.

The Weavers perform at the Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, January 13, 1968. Photograph by Robert C. Malone, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives.

One of the main intellectual forces behind the Almanac Singers and the Weavers, was the writer and singer, Lee Hays. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives is fortunate to house his works and papers, which have recently been digitized and are now available online. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1914 to a Methodist Minister, Hays rejected his father’s faith and politics after reading Upton Sinclair, and experiencing the hardships of the Great Depression. [3] In the 1930s, Hays joined Claude Williams, the leftist radical and preacher, and worked to help organize the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. While working for Williams, Hays discovered that art, and particularly music, could be enlisted in the struggle for social justice, and began to write what he called “zipper songs.” [4] Using hymns familiar to southern sharecroppers, Lee would “zip” in a few union phrases, transforming them into something subversive and powerful. For example, the refrain from “Old Ship of Zion,” a spiritual about the imminent Kingdom of God, was turned by Hays into a song of protest, replacing “old ship” with “union train”: “It’s that union train a-coming—coming—coming; It will carry us to freedom—freedom—.” [5] In the 1940s and ‘50s, Hays would find a home within a music scene which shared his political sensibilities, and his belief in the power of music to affect social change.

Lee Hays and Pete Seeger. Lee Hays Papers, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. 

As the folk revival exploded in popularity in 1958, with the hit single “Tom Dooley” by the Kingston Trio, a new generation of revival artists had arrived. While some artists affected a “folk” aesthetic, hoping to profit on a new fad, others shared their forebears’ counter-cultural concerns, seeking an authenticity in a post-war boom that seemed only to offer a vacuous consumerism. In 1961, Bob Dylan arrived in New York looking every bit the part of a new Woody Guthrie, with a constructed biography mirroring his idol. Dylan’s first two albums were much a piece with the earlier generation, comprised of folk standards and protest songs. However, by 1965 Dylan was moving in another direction. Dubbed “the voice of a generation,” Dylan was restricted, and unnerved by such heightened expectations. [6] Feeling used and constrained, Dylan was increasingly suspicious of institutions, movements, and parties, with a growing sense of the naiveté surrounding protest music. At the height of the folk revival, in a perceived betrayal of its aims and sensibilities, Dylan debuted at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival with an electric set, stunning the crowd into angry taunts and jeers. In a story that that is largely apocryphal, it was said that Pete Seeger was so incensed that he threatened to take an axe to the speaker cables, whether out of protest over the music’s volume or content, will forever be in dispute. [8] Regardless of what actually happened that day, what was clear was that what had been that generation’s best and brightest star, carrying the mantle of Guthrie and Seeger, had become a type of “Judas,” as one concert-goer famously shouted.

Shots of Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Photographs by Diana Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections.

Lee Hays’ correspondence offers a fascinating window into this transition, as the older artists attempted to get a handle on this new generation. In an open letter from February 1964, Hays writes:

The question of the day is, what do you think of Bob Dylan? I’d be more sure if I knew what he thinks of himself. There is a lot of cynicism in his songs; but if he contradicts himself, he is entitled to it. There’s a lot of desert ground in many a young artist before you get to the occasional mountain peak. In whatever follows the age of dinosaurs, the ones who give thought to meanings and origins and who sing with respect for the songs will do the most. I am impressed by the songs of Ian and Sylvia for those reasons.

Coming just on the heels of Dylan’s album, The Times They Are a-Changin’, Hays is likely reacting to the more introspective and darker material, though much of his songs remains topical and political. Even before Highway 61’, Dylan’s concerns were already departing from the parent generation, with more introspective and existential themes. [9]

While Dylan may have left the topical protest songs behind, it’s not clear that Hays and Dylan moved apart on a more fundamental level. While Hays hoped for “people’s songs” that would serve as “battle hymns” against “the powers of evil,” he also felt that above all it should be “true.” [10] Moreover, Hays was wary of those who would see folk music as a “static” genre, relegated to fiddles, banjos, and old country melodies:

Who am I, or who is anyone, to say that the music of the juke box, the beetle organ, which the millions of Americans listen to, and drink their beer to, and dance to, and argue by, and make love by, and relax by, and make up their minds who to vote for by, is trash? […] if the only real music were the pure ‘folk music,’ this would be a darn dead country, and I for one would have to leave it and go back to Arkansas […] I believe in creativeness and experiment, in Picasso as in Woody Guthrie, in Bach as in Pete Johnson, in Verdi as in Blitzstein. [11]

While Dylan’s career moved beyond the topical protests of Hay’s generation, there’s no denying that in drawing from “the jukebox” of American song, he has written songs that are true. It is Dylan’s “respect for the songs,” as Hays writes, that continues to bind him to the previous generation, and earned him the rightful place as one of America’s greatest songwriters.

Adrian Vaagenes, Intern

Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

[1] Cohen, Ronald D., and Dave Samuelson. Songs For Political Action: Folkmusic, Topical Songs and the American Left 1926-1953. Bear Family Records, 1996. (pgs. 9-11);

[2]  Ibid. (pgs. 15-20).

[3] Willens, Doris. Lonesome Traveler: The Life of Lee Hays. W.W. Norton 7 Company, 1988, (pgs. 9; 20-21)

[4] Ibid, pgs. 56-59

[5] Hays, Lee. “Sing Out, Warning! Sing Out, Love!”: The Writings of Lee Hays. Edited by Robert S. Koppelman, University of Massachusetts Press, 2003, (pgs. 63-64).

[6] Petrus, Stephen and Ronald Cohen. Folk City: New York and the American Folk Music Revival. Oxford University Press, 2015. (pgs. 286, 289). 

[7] Ibid. (pgs. 288-289); Dunaway, David King, and Molly Beer. Singing Out: An Oral History of America’s Folk Music Revivals. Oxford University Press, 2010. (pg. 151).

[8] Dunaway, David King. How Can I Keep From Singing: The Ballad of Pete Seeger. Villard Books, 2008. (pgs. 306-308).

[9] Folk City. (pg. 288).

[10] “Sing Out, Warning! Sing Out, Love!” (pgs 89-90).

[11] Ibid. (pgs. 148-149).

The Little Lady with the Art Cart

In celebration of the 2016 Smithsonian Folklife Festival opening today on the National Mall, we are publishing this piece by summer 2015 intern Erin Enos. Erin recently graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a Masters in Library Science with a focus in Archives and Records Management.

Lily Spandorf at the 1995 Festival of American Folklife. Photo by Smithsonian Photographer. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

For about thirty summers, she made her entrance onto Washington D.C.’s National Mall and went about her typical painting routine.  Squeak-squeak-squeak went her easel cart as she dragged it behind her.  The heat of the District's summer would beat down her as she walked.  She brought all the art supplies she needed in her efficiently packed cart: her pens, her ink, her charcoal, her cardboard "easel," and most importantly, her detailed and meticulous artful eye.  The tiny woman would find a lovely spot under a big shady tree and would get out her sketch pad of paper, pick up her black ink pen, and start to draw. Her name was Lily Spandorf, and with every line and wash of color carefully drawn and painted onto paper, she illuminated the world of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (formerly the Festival of American Folklife) as she saw it.

Astou Adje braids a young woman's hair during the 1990 Senegal program at the Festival of American Folklife. Lily Spandorf drawings, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution. 

My name is Erin Enos and I am a 2^nd year graduate student at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  This past summer, I had the pleasure of working with the artworks of the incredibly talented Lily Spandorf in the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFCH).  When I first arrived at the Smithsonian on my first day, I did not know who Lily Spandorf was. That all changed one day when archivists Cecilia Peterson, Greg Adams, and I carefully laid out Lily’s artwork on an office table.  What we saw was incredible.  Laid out before us was a plethora of drawings Lily had done during her visits to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.  On numerous sheets of paper were sketches of men and women happily dancing in traditional dress from all over the world, musical bands playing guitars and banjos for on-looking crowds, and even simple scenes of Festival visitors enjoying wedges of watermelon. As a summer intern, it was my job to help to re-house, process, and describe Lily’s 750 pieces of art.

As I worked on processing the artwork, I also learned a little more about Lily herself.  She was born in Austria in 1914 and as she grew into a young lady, it was clear that she had real talent for art--an honors graduate of the Vienna Academy of Arts, she left Austria in 1938 to continue her art education at London’s St. Martin’s School of Art. She moved to Washington D.C.'s Dupont Circle neighborhood where she created  a huge body of work that included countless paintings and drawings of streetscapes from around the city; she intentionally sought out and painted many older buildings slated for demolition. Her work captured moments in time in her adopted city, where she spent the rest of her life until her passing in 2000.

Puppeteers put on puppet show for three children, date unknown. Lily Spandorf drawings, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Lily worked in a distinctive style.  Her mode of drawing was mostly in black ink, sometimes with splashes of watercolor and acrylic paint. My favorite piece of hers is a scene of two puppeteers putting on a small show for two or three children.  I love the detail that Lily put into the design of one the puppeteers' dress, the clothing and strings of the marionettes, and the playfulness and smiles of the laughing children’s faces.  If there were two words to describe her work, I would describe the art as “delightfully magical”.  It really is.

Valdur Tilk, woodworker from Elena, Estonia, at the 1998 Baltic Nations program. Lily Spandorf drawings, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

By the time my internship was over, it was amazing to me how fast the time went!  Working with Lily’s art was a pleasure and I truly wished for more time to work on the project. Although I was sad to leave the project, it made me very proud to know that I played a part in preserving Lily’s beautiful Festival art and the legacy that she left behind.  Fortunately, her collection is now accessible to the public online. It was the first digital collection released by the CFCH.  My wish is that others will enjoy and appreciate her talent and artwork as much as I did.  

Erin Enos
Intern
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

Deep Cuts from Deep Gap: A Doc Watson Playlist

“Ralph… Rosa Lee has made up a list of Folkways records which I now have and I am enclosing it with this letter.” 

—Doc Watson to Ralph Rinzler, June 1963.

Ralph Rinzler Papers and Audio Recordings, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

For the past six months, I’ve been examining the Ralph Rinzler Papers, page by page, to write a descriptive record of its contents. While combing through his correspondence with Doc Watson, I discovered the above list of albums, representing each Folkways album Doc owned in 1963. That was a pivotal year in his career, when he first performed at the Newport Folk Festival and recorded his first solo album with Vanguard Records.

It’s rare to have the chance to peek into an icon’s record collection at the very moment of his emergence as a commercial artist. Doc gravitated toward playing electric guitar in rockabilly bands in his early years, but his return to the traditional music of his childhood is what brought him widespread attention. These albums might have been his first from Folkways Records, representing the label’s focus on documentation of traditional American music. It’s intriguing to see which albums from the original Folkways Records catalog were earmarked for Doc’s appreciation.

Undated letter, circa 1963.

Ralph Rinzler Papers and Audio Recordings, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

The Rinzler Archives staff selected their favorite songs from Doc’s collection to create this playlist. Doc weighed in as well: “Thanks a lot for the records you had Folkways send me,” he wrote to Ralph. “My favorite is the one by Pete Seeger and Sonny Terry. Of course that doesn’t include the last of the Ashley group. My opinion is, that Folkways won’t turn out a better example of all around old time music.”

It was while recording Clarence Ashley in 1960 that Doc and Ralph first met. Ralph was producing the recordings, which Folkways ultimately released, and Doc was playing in Ashley’s band. While Doc was being a bit cheeky in his appraisal of the Ashley albums given his involvement, we can’t say that we disagree with his opinion or his performance.

Eugene Earle, noted discographer, answers Rinzler’s questions about the origins of the Mama Blues.

Ralph Rinzler Papers and Audio Recordings, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Nor did Ralph disagree with the importance of Doc’s opinions and musicianship. His letters are peppered with questions that probe Doc’s lived experience of traditional music. “Have you ever heard anyone but Olin Miller play ‘Memphis Blues’ that way…?” he asked. “Was that the first tune he taught to you in finger-style guitar? Can you tell me the names of the people who recorded both ‘Otto Wood’ and ‘Little Stream of Whiskey’? … Can you tell me anything about the actual case of ‘Otto Wood’…? Whose record of ‘Mama Blues’ did you learn that piece from? Who used to sing ‘The Faithful Soldier’ that you remember from when you were a boy?” (Rinzler to Watson, November 25, 1964).

Now we wonder: are there connections between the answers Doc provided and the music Ralph sent in return? You can read more about Doc and Ralph’s relationship here.

From left: Merle Watson,  Doc Watson, and Ralph Rinzler perform at the 1984 Folklife Festival. Photo by Dane Penland, Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

In the same letter Ralph reemphasizes Doc’s significance as a tradition bearer saying, “people get more of a message from you than they do from an entertainer, and they believe in you. Now, you can say amen and forgive the sermon.”

Amen, and enjoy the music.

—Rori Smith, Processing Technician, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

Always with the Banjo: Rapid Capture Digitization at the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

How we roll: live banjo music during the RCPP open house. Photograph by Ben Sullivan.

The last week of April, after months of preparation, the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections participated in a week-long Rapid Capture Pilot Project (RCPP) supported by the Smithsonian's Digitization Program Office (DPO).  The DPO has organized these projects at a variety of Smithsonian units, and we were very excited to join the club.

Colin Moore placing a mechanical board on the copy stand as Ed and Diana Coderre of Digital Ark get ready to capture it. Photograph by Ben Sullivan.

The goal of a RCPP is to digitize a large volume of similarly-sized objects using high-throughput digitization workflows and equipment and make them available to the public online in their highest resolution. The Rinzler Archives chose to digitize a large portion of the cover design mechanicals, or pasteup boards, for Folkways Records, due to their importance in the history of design and the beautiful original artwork found on many. Though it required months of preparation, the RRFAC was able to digitize 1,022 oversized folders of cover designs during the 5-day pilot, creating 2,345 unique images (some mechanicals contained multiple layers that required multiple shots). These images were embedded with metadata, sent to the Smithsonian's digital asset management system, and linked to the Collections Search Center for public viewing during the same week.

To promote the use of rapid capture processes, the Rinzler Archives also held an open house for the archives, library, and museum community to come observe the work and ask questions. Talking, being on our feet, and doing repetitive movements all week could have made for very long days, but we're lucky enough to work with some amazing musicians at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, including processing archivist Greg Adams. Greg got us through the week by playing his banjo for us and our 125 visitors throughout the week. When a visitor asked Jessica Beauchamp, a program officer from the DPO, why we had live music at our open house, Jessica replied, "It's just their way here."

Cover mechanical for FW04237 (FE 4237), Music of the Miskito Indians of Honduras and Nicaragua, c. 1981. Moses and Frances Asch Collection, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

The Rinzler Archives has never before been able to push digitized content out to the public in this quantity or quality--this, combined with the live music and beautiful materials, energized and motivated us, and made the RCCP week the most fun in the archives in recent memory.

Special thanks to the Digitization Program Office, OCIO, the DAMS team, and the Digital Ark for all their support for this project. This was truly a (BIG) team effort, and we are so proud to have been a part of it.

To view the materials digitized for this project, search for your favorite Folkways album cover by its number in the Collections Search Center, or see some of our favorites here:
FW02319 American Ballads sung by Pete Seeger
FW03863 Radio Programme III: Courlander's Almanac: Familiar Music in Strange Places
FW04008 Songs and Dances of Norway
FW07451 Jill Gallina - Lovin' Kindness
FW06846 Jamaican Folk Songs sung by Louise Bennett

Cecilia Peterson, Digitization Archivist
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

Dumping the Bosses off your Back: Collector Records and Labor Song

Brochure from the Coalition of Labor Union Women, 1980. Collector Records business papers, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

In the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, I often have the good luck to work with the papers of individuals and record labels full of materials that are rooted in history and continue to stay topical today.  For the past few months, I have been working with the Collector Records business records , and I've enjoyed exploring the materials that intended to inspire and capture the music of the labor movement.  Joe Glazer, often referred to as “Labor’s Troubador," founded Collector Records in 1970 in order to share his own recordings of labor songs as well as those of other musicians.  He set out to explore workplace issues, such as women's struggles through the release of albums like Bread and Raises: Songs for Working Women sung by Bobbie McGee. Glazer also released albums that were meant to laud and inspire union members such as with his celebration of the United Auto Workers in his album The UAW: Fifty Years in Song and Story.

                       

Paste-up for Songs of Steel & Struggle, 1975. Collector Records business papers. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Although it is a historical collection, the songs, sentiments, and commitment to the Labor Movement by Glazer and Collector Records are still applicable today.  I was a member of Transportation Workers Union of America: Local 100 and a colleague was previously a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local: 30.  In a lunchtime anecdote, he recalled the time he brought his banjo to the picket line and led striking workers (UPS strike 1997) in the singing of protest songs such as "Solidarity Forever". This particular song appears on at least eleven of Collector Records' commercial records and has been an important tool in the movement.  Labor songs such as "Solidarity Forever" can be effective on many fronts, but especially for education, relaying a message, and political organizing. This uniqueness is found through the song's abilities to both teach and keep morale high while on the picket line.

          

Songs of the Wobblies, 1977. Collector Records business papers, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Oppressed groups have historically addressed their oppressors through song.  Folk song, and labor song, are a reflection of the community from which they are created.  They reflect the values, social norms, and concerns of the surrounding community.  For particular social movements and historical time periods where printed media could not carry a message fast enough, or for communities in which literacy is not a given, folk music served as substitute for mass media and a way to relay social and political messages off the wire.  The idea of using music as a political unifier has deep roots and Glazer recognized that idea through the release of albums such as I Will Win: Songs of the Wobblies which contains songs published as early as 1909 in the Wobblies' original hymnal I.W.W. Songs: To Fan the Flames of Discontent. 


Nichole Procopenko
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archive and Collections

From Sambusas to Pupusas: Washington, D.C. Foodways at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival

This October, the Smithsonian Collections Blog is celebrating American Archives Month with a month-long blogathon! We will be posting new content almost every weekday with the theme Discover and Connect. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

In the Foodways and Home Life area of the African Immigrant Culture in Metropolitan Washington, D.C., program, African cooks prepare traditional meals and talk about how food plays an important role in affirming ethnic identities at the 1997 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

When I travel, the first thing on my mind is what I'm going to eat. The minute breakfast is over, I'm thinking about lunch, and then I'm onto answering the eternal question, "How many snacks can I physically manage without getting too full for dinner?" (I truly live life on the edge). I probably have a list of foods to check off in my pocket--I shudder to think of missing out on anything delicious that I can't get anywhere else. That might make me very grumpy.

Unfortunately, I'm no jetsetter, so I get my kicks in my own Washington, D.C. Fortunately, I work at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the unit that puts on the Smithsonian Folklife Festival every summer on the National Mall, and for two beautiful and scorching weeks every year I make my way down to the foodways tents to learn how to make something new. As an archivist, I can easily look through extensive documentation of these demonstrations from past Festivals: from the very beginning, the organizers of the Folklife Festival knew that food is one of the most meaningful ways humans can connect to each other.

Jodie Kassorla, presented by Michael Twitty, demonstrates Sephardic Jewish food traditions in the program Washington, D.C.: It’s Our Home at the 2000 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photograph by Christine Parker, Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

In his introduction to the Smithsonian Folklife Cookbook, Ralph Rinzler, the namesake of our archives, says,

The fact is, food is still one of the important ways in which people indicate that a guest is welcome in their home. In the Appalachians, Ozarks, Cajun country, Native American communities, and inner-city cultural enclaves, carefully prepared food invariably reaffirms the other assurances that you are welcome.

He also spoke of foodways in the 1971 Festival of American Folklife program book as "the more persistent of cultural traits, lasting among the descendants of immigrants  long after language, song, dance, religious and secular rituals have been eradicated or thoroughly diluted." In his introduction to the 1992 Festival of American Folklife Cookbook, James Deutsch, a curator at the Center for Folklife of Cultural Heritage, expands upon this idea:

To be sure, this does not mean that foodways are forever fixed. Like other forms of traditional behavior, foodways adapt to modern technologies and changing environments as they are passed from generation to generation and from group to group. But their persistence and durability are remarkable.

A participant in the program Migration to Metropolitan Washington: Making a New Place Home grinds corn in a metate at the 1988 Festival of American Folklife. Photograph by Laurie Minor, Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival has incorporated foodways into its programming since 1968. Every year since, the foodways programming has welcomed the public to discover and connect to food traditions from all over the world. In looking at the documentation and other materials created for the Festival over the years, I gravitated towards the times when the D.C. metropolitan area was celebrated for both its Mid Atlantic-flavored regional cuisine as well as its thriving immigrant cuisine. The Festival has presented DC-centric programming a handful of times over the years, as well as programming featuring locals with ties to the region or group being presented that year. As I've dug in to the program books, cook books, photographs, and audio recordings, I feel the need to dash out of the office and track down the nearest wat, pupusas, and pho or I'm going to  throw a tantrum.

Edith Ballou demonstrates how to make rolls in the program Washington, D.C.: It’s Our Home at the 2000 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photograph by James Di Loreto, Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

 
When researching foodways in the Rinzler Archives, the Festival documentation is our richest resource. Using the various forms of documentation of D.C.-centric foodways programming as an example, here are the ways in which you can use the Festival in your research.

The photographs in this post represent a small selection of the D.C.-flavored foodways at the Festival. These photographs, in addition to tens of thousands more, are accessible by appointment in the Rinzler Archives.

Many Festival program books are accessible in their entirety online via the Collections Search Center thanks to the efforts of Smithsonian Libraries. Program books provide context and perspective on some of the traditional foods demonstrated on the Mall. In the book for the 2000 Festival, which featured a program called "Washington, D.C.: It's Our Home,"  a college-aged Michael Twitty writes in his essay "Haroset and Hoecake: The African-American/Jewish Seder in D.C." about the joint Seder dinner held by Shiloh Baptist Church and the Adas Israel Congregation:

Matzo and hoecake sit side by side as breads of poverty and affliction. Parsley is wed with collard greens, symbolizing the bitterness of oppression. Salt water reminds us both of the tears of the Israelites and the waters of the Atlantic during the Middle Passage. Tasting haroset and hoecake, I am reminded that in both traditions food expresses the soul.

For the D.C.-centric 1988 program "African Immigrant Folklife," the essay "A Taste of Home: African Immigrant Foodways" by Nomvula Mashoai Cook and Betty J. Belanus highlights how the city's large African immigrant population has both maintained and adapted their culinary traditions:

Other types of celebrations bring communities together seasonally. one example is the braai, a South African cookout celebrated in the summer. Typically, the women congregate in the kitchen, cooking and singing. The men bond with each other and with their sons while preparing imbuzi ne mvu (goat and lamb) for the barbecue grill with such savory condiments as South African curry or cumin.

Beautiful examples of the art of Thai fruit carving by local Nit Malikul for the Asian Pacific Americans program at the 2010 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photograph by Laraine Weschler, Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Of course, there's nothing better than being physically present for the programming at the Festival, so audio and video documentation can be tremendously helpful if you find yourself without your time machine. Both are available by appointment in the Rinzler Archives, but since you've stuck with this post through to the end, here's a recording from the African Immigrant Folklife Program at the 1997 Festival of American Folklife. In this clip, Jane Musonye of Upper Marlboro, MD demonstrates how to make Kenyan chai tea and coconut mandasi, a kind of sweet fried donut. It's a bit long, but well worth a listen. Being from 1997, some questions like "Where can I find loose leaf tea?" and "Where can I find fresh ginger?" are adorably dated.



It just might convince you to come do research with us (and by "research" we do mean "cut out early and find the best mandasi in town."). If you're not able to come in person, you can still make  mandasi and chai at home, using recipes from the Kenyan program at the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Cecilia Peterson, Digitization Archivist
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections