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Massachusetts
The American Folklife Center was created by Congress in 1976 through Public
Law 94-201 and charged to "preserve and present American folklife." Part
of the Library of Congress, the Center incorporates the Library's Archive
of Folk Culture, founded in 1928. The Center carries out its mandate through
its collections, programs, and services, which have touched all fifty states.
Collections
The collections of the American Folklife Center contain rich and varied materials
from Massachusetts that document the diversity of the state's folk traditions.
Among its unique recordings are folk music dating from the 1930s to the present,
including Anglo-American ballads, shanties, and dialect; and African Methodist
Episcopal religious services. From 1987 to 1988, the Center conducted the
Lowell Folklife Project, which documented the city's many ethnic communities.
The photographs, recordings, and transcripts created during this project
include material on the Cambodian-, Greek-, French-, Irish-, Portuguese-,
Puerto Rican-, and Vietnamese-American communities. In 1982, the Center's
Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools Project documented a Polish school in
Taunton.
Massachusetts participated in the Library's Bicentennial Local Legacies
project, which includes documentation of local traditions and celebrations
for the American Folklife Center's Archive of Folk Culture.
Field Research Projects
- 1978-88 Lowell Folklife Project
- 1982 Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools Project (Armenian and Portuguese)
Publications
- "The Official Portuguese School of the Taunton Sports Club," Ethnic
Heritage and Language Schools in America
- "Report to the Lowell Historic Preservation Commission on the Lowell
Folklife Project"
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