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                      Folklife Center News
                    American Folklife Center
                    The Library of Congress  
                           Winter 1999
                      Volume XXI, Number 1
           ISSN 0149-6840  Catalog Card No. 77-649628

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The American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S.
Congress to "preserve and present American folklife" through
programs of research, documentation, archival preservation,
reference service, live performance, exhibition, publication, and
training. The Center incorporates the Archive of Folk Culture,
which was established in the Music Division of the Library of
Congress in 1928 and is now one of the largest collections of
ethnographic material from the United States and around the
world.

Administration
Alan Jabbour, Director
Doris Craig, Administrative Assistant

Acquisitions
Vacant

Processing
Catherine Hiebert Kerst, Archivist
Nora Yeh, Archivist

Programs
Peter T. Bartis, Folklife Specialist
Camila Bryce-Laporte, Program Coordinator
Mary Hufford, Folklife Specialist
David A. Taylor, Folklife Specialist

Publications
James Hardin, Editor

Public Events
Theadocia Austen, Coordinator

Reference
Jennifer A. Cutting, Folklife Specialist
Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist, Coordinator
Stephanie A. Hall, Automation
Ann Hoog, Folklife Specialist

Administrative Office
Fax: 202 707-2076
Reference Service
Tel: 202 707-5510
E-mail: folklife@loc.gov 
Board of Trustees

Congressional Appointees

William L. Kinney Jr., Chair, South Carolina
James F. Hoy, Vice-chair, Kansas
Judith McCulloh, Illinois
David Robinson, New Hampshire
Charles E. Trimble, Nebraska

Librarian Appointees

Jane Beck, Vermont
Norma Cant, Teas
Tom Rankin, North Carolina
John W. Roberts, Ohio

Ex Officio Members  

James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress
I. Michael Heyman, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Bill Ivey, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts
William Ferris, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities
Jo Radner, President, American Folklore Society
Kay Kaufman Shelemay, President, Society for Ethnomusicology
Alan Jabbour, Director, American Folklife Center


FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS

James Hardin, Editor
David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor
John Biggs, Library of Congress Graphics Unit, Designer
Folklife Center News publishes articles on the programs and
activities of the American Folklife Center, as well as other
articles on traditional expressive culture. It is available free
of charge from the Library of Congress, American Folklife Center,
Washington, D.C. 20540-4610. Folklife Center News does not
publish announcements from other institutions or reviews of books
from publishers other than the Library of Congress. Readers who
would like to comment on Center activities or newsletter articles
may address their remarks to the editor.

TELEPHONE AND ONLINE INFORMATION RESOURCES

American Folklife Center publications (including Folklife Center
News), a calendar of events, collection guides, general
information, and connections to a selection of other Internet
services related to folklife are available on the Internet.

LC Web is available through the World Wide Web service
(http://lcweb.loc.gov/). The Center's home page can be accessed
from the Library's main menu. The direct URL for the Center's
home page is: http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife/

Folkline, an information service providing timely information on
the field of folklore and folklife, including training and
professional opportunities and news items of national interest,
is available through the above Internet server. For telephone
service, call the Folklife Reading Room: 202 707-5510.

EDITOR'S NOTES

New Director Named to Head American Folklife Center

Margaret Anne (Peggy) Bulger will become the second director of
the American Folklife Center, beginning July 6. Currently senior
program officer of the Southern Arts Federation in Atlanta,
Georgia, Bulger holds a Ph.D. in folklore and folklife from the
University of Pennsylvania. Bulger has been involved in
public sector folklore work for over twenty years, and is also
president-elect of the American Folklore Society.


Ethnographic Documentation in the Thirties

One of the ironies of American history is that the thirties, the
period of the Great Depression, of immense trial and hardship for
so many, should also be a time when programs and projects, such
as those sponsored by the Works Projects Administration,
stimulated a new understanding of the rich cultural fabric of
the American nation. Documentation during the thirties by private
citizens and government workers resulted in ethnographic
collections from a panoply of racial and ethnic groups, and many
of these collections have found a home at the Library of Congress
in the Archive of Folk Culture. The new publications described in
this issue of Folklife Center News--online presentations of
collection material, a new book on the ex-slave narratives, and
CDs produced by Rounder Records--make possible a new and wider
sharing of this wealth of cultural material.


Cover: Fannie Moore, formerly a slave in South Carolina. Prints
and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Juan Bautista Rael, 1900-1993: Pioneer Hispano Folklorist
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Enrique R. Lamadrid

Linguist and folklorist Juan Bautista Rael, highly regarded for
his pioneering work in collecting and documenting the Hispano
folk stories, plays, and religious traditions of northern New
Mexico and southern Colorado, was born on August 14,
1900, in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico. Famous for its spectacular
setting north of Taos, the village lies in a deep, narrow valley
between Taos Mountain and the gorge of the Rio Grande to the
west. His family prospered in sheep and cattle ranching and owned
a mercantile business that served surrounding Hispano communities
as well as nearby Taos Pueblo.

     Juan's parents, Jose Ignacio Rael and Soledad Santistevan,
raised a family of four sons (Sofio, Melecio, Juan B., and Eli)
and a daughter (Carolina). Jose Ignacio had the foresight to
recognize the changes that were coming with the increasing
Americanization of New Mexico and realized that a fluent
knowledge of English and a good education would be necessary for
his family to excel. Since local schools were rudimentary at
best, the family relied upon its own resources to get the best
possible education for the children. Juan was a dedicated student
from his earliest years, and his father's ambition was for him to
become a lawyer and tend to the family lands and business. His
elementary schooling was at Saint Michael's College in Santa Fe,
and his high school studies were at the Christian Brothers'
College in St. Louis, Missouri.

     The boy's semester-long absences from his family led him to
treasure the simple pleasures of village life. Summers are
especially beautiful in Arroyo Hondo, and Christmas and Easter
vacations were filled with colorful festivities and solemn
ceremony. Rael later reminisced about how much the Pastores, or
Shepherds' plays of Christmas, impressed him as a child.
Undoubtedly, the instincts and sympathies of Rael the folklorist
can be traced to these beginnings--watching rehearsals and
performances depicting shepherds, angels, hermits, and devils.

     What became clear in his post-secondary studies is that he
was attracted to literature, philology, and the emerging
disciplines of linguistics and folklore. His Bachelor's degree,
from St. Mary's College in Oakland in 1923, led to a Master's
degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1927. In
the meantime in 1923 he married the beautiful Qurina Espinoza of
Antonito, Colorado. Rael's first inclination was to become an
English teacher, but his bride helped convince him that his
opportunities and strengths would be as an Hispanist. After
deciding on a university career of teaching and research, Rael
relinquished his family inheritance in land, cattle, and sheep to
his three brothers and his sister.

     Rael realized that the wealth in northern New Mexico that
interested him was the vast repertory of folk narrative, song,
and custom that had scarcely been documented. While teaching at
the University of Oregon, he returned to Arroyo Hondo in the
summer of 1930 to begin compiling his famous collection of over
five hundred Nuevo Mexicano folk tales.

     By then his work had attracted the attention of pioneer
Hispano folklorist and mentor Aurelio Espinosa, who invited Rael
to Stanford in 1933. Rael completed his doctoral studies in 1937
with a dissertation on the phonology and morphology of New Mexico
Spanish that amplified the dialectological work of Espinosa with
the huge corpus of folk tales later published as Cuentos
Espanoles de Colorado y Nuevo Mexico: Spanish Folk Tales of
Colorado and New Mexico.

     Well versed in the historic-geographic theory of
transmission and diffusion of motifs, tale types, and genres, Dr.
Rael set out on the formidable, almost quixotic task of gathering
all the possible versions and texts of the tales, hymns, and
plays he was studying. The vast majority of tales are of European
provenance, with only minimal local references. He meticulously
traced the shepherds' plays to several root sources in Mexico;
and his study The Sources and Diffusion of the Mexican Shepherds'
Plays is a standard reference on the subject.  His
ground-breaking study of the alabado hymn, The New Mexican
Alabado, is also a prime resource. But inevitably the
historic-geographic approach led more to collection building than
to analysis. Later generations of scholars would develop
interests in performance-centered studies, but the collections 
of Rael continue to be an indispensable landmark in the field.

     Dr. Rael's academic achievements include a distinguished
teaching career in Spanish composition, Spanish American
literature, and Mexican culture. In addition, he founded and
directed an international program, the University of Guadalajara
School. He was also elected to the Academia Norteamericana de la
Lengua Espanola in 1974 and to the Academia Real de la Lengua
Espanola in 1983. 

     Juan and Quirina or "Nina" Rael raised a family of four
children, Maximina Rael Traynor, Jose Ignacio Rael, Juan B. Rael
Jr., and Maria Soledad Rael Nowell. After sixty-seven years of
marriage, Nina died on June 1, 1990. At the time of his own
passing at age ninety-three on November 8, 1993, in Menlo Park,
California, Rael was survived by his sister Carolina Rael
Dominguez, his daughters, one son Jose Ignacio, sixteen
grandchildren, and twenty-five great grandchildren. True to
family tradition, all of his children and several of his
grandchildren have graduated from Stanford University.

Enrique R. Lamadrid is associate professor of Spanish at the
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Juan B. Rael interviewing Manuela "Mela" Martinez, Taos, New
Mexico, about 1930. Photo courtesy of the Rael family.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Juan B. Rael collection: New Online
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B.
Rael Collection is a new online presentation from the Library's
National Digital Library Program. The collection includes
religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents
of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. In 1940, Juan
Rael used disc recording equipment supplied by the Archive of
American Folk Song to document alabados (hymns), folk drama,
wedding songs, and dance tunes. The recordings included in the
Folk Archive collection were made in Alamosa, Manassa, and
Antonito, Colorado, and in Cerro and Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico. In
addition to these recordings, the collection includes manuscript
materials and publications authored by Rael that provide insight
into the rich musical heritage and cultural traditions of the
region. The presentation was made possible through the generous
support of the Texaco Foundation. 

Hispano Music and Culture can be reached through the American
Folklife Center Home Page at http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife/  
Click on "collections available online." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nuevo Mexicanos of the Upper Rio Grande: Culture, History, and
Society 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Enrique R. Lamadrid

In the summer of 1940, Stanford professor and linguist Juan B.
Rael returned home to northern New Mexico and southern Colorado
to record the musical and religious traditions of his own 
people, the Spanish-Americans, as they were called in English 
prior to World War II. The Nuevo Mexicanos or Hispanos, as 
they call themselves, developed a distinctive regional culture 
over four centuries, since the establishment of the Spanish 
colony in 1598.

     What became in time the Hispano homeland, the Upper Rio
Grande, is a vast arid region defined by a life-giving river that
descends from the steep southern ranges of the Rocky Mountains
through the barren plateaus of the north to the Chihuahuan desert
of the south. It is the ancestral homeland of sedentary Tanoan
and Keresan Pueblo Indian peoples, who diverted its waters and
farmed its valleys, as well as nomadic Athabaskans (Apaches and
Navajos) and Shoshoneans (Utes and Comanches), who roamed and
hunted its mountains and deserts, alternately raiding and trading
with the Pueblos.

     Since the fabled mineral wealth of the region turned out to
be a legend, the principal reason for the Spanish Crown to
maintain the impoverished colony was the large population of
natives, who represented a substantial harvest of souls for the
Church. However, the over-zealous methods of the Franciscan
fathers entrusted with the project led in 1680 to the Pueblo
Revolt, which totally restored native religion. After the
reconquest of 1692 and the resettlement of the province,
differences were set aside as the Pueblos and the Spanish Mexican
settlers united to defend their communities from the depredations
of the nomadic tribes that surrounded the Rio Grande Valley.
Better armed and better mounted, these enemies put the future of
the colony into question on many occasions.

     After the devastating Comanche wars ended with the treaty of
1786, the frontiers of the colony became safe enough for
settlement. With the presence of the United States Army after
1846, protection from the Utes, Navajos, and Apaches was achieved
as well. Within a century, a colony the size of Connecticut
expanded in all directions into a homeland the size of Utah. In
1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the Southwest, from
Texas to California, to the United States. Despite the American
government's reluctance to protect Hispano treaty rights and land
titles, Hispanos pioneered the settlement of Colorado. By the
1880s, this expansion was checked by competition from Anglo
immigrants and a massive loss of land through action in the U.S.
court system. During the controversial deliberations of the U.S.
Court of Private Land Claims between 1891 and 1904, as many as 33
million acres were lost to the lawyers of the notorious Santa Fe
Ring and a federal government still acting under the powerful
influence of Manifest Destiny. Many new villages did survive,
however, even though they were cut off from their land grants.

     Since the protective alliance with the Pueblo was no longer
necessary to survive, Hispano settlers moved beyond Taos Valley
looking for new lands to graze their flocks. By 1815, Juan B.
Rael's home village of Arroyo Hondo was founded north of Taos. In
the 1850s, the San Luis Valley of Colorado was settled despite
initial differences with the Utes. The enterprising villagers
were familiar with the rigors of frontier life and had always
been responsible for their own welfare, the defense of their
communities, and even the sustenance of their religious
traditions.

Since the few priests that came to New Mexico were assigned to
the Pueblo missions, Hispano settlers who moved into outlying
areas only rarely enjoyed their services. In the last quarter of
the eighteenth century, this institutional void was filled by the
appearance of a lay religious organization whose social
and cultural influence became the hallmark of the nineteenth
century in the region. The Hermandad Piadosa de Nuestro Padre
Jesus Nazareno (Pious Brotherhood of Our Father Jesus the
Nazarene), commonly known as the Penitentes, fulfilled
the same functions that confraternities, sodalities, and lay
religious groups did all over Latin America. In frontier areas
such as New Mexico, they became central to the very survival of
the communities they served.

     The Penitente brothers led saint's day festivities, Lenten
and Holy Week services, rosaries, prayer vigils, wedding
ceremonies, and wakes for the dead on a year-round basis in their
Moradas or chapels. With the permission of their mothers and
wives, boys and young men joined and learned to respect the moral
and civic authority of the leadership of the confraternity. The
Hermanos or brothers, as they refer to themselves, were involved
in the resolution of disputes, the allocation of water, and
virtually all group decisions that needed to be made.
They also saw to it that families in need or distress were
provided for. As the strongest organization at the village level,
they became the basis for organized participation in the
political process and formed effective voting blocks during
elections.

     The origins of the Brotherhood are still a mystery. Some
scholars have emphasized similarities with the Third Order of
Saint Francis, especially since New Mexico is a Franciscan
province. Others suspect that the organization arrived
fully developed from southern Spain, since there are similar
confraternities with the same name in the area of Seville. The
Hermanos are dedicated to the example and self-sacrifice of Jesus
in his Passion, and observe penitential devotions that are
widespread in Spain and Spanish America. Feeling culturally and
politically threatened by the Hermanos, American newcomers to New
Mexico condemned and sensationalized the Brotherhood, which then
retreated into semi-secrecy. After generations of ostracism, the
American Catholic church finally made its peace with the Hermanos
in 1948, and has since formally recognized the contributions and
leadership of the Brotherhood. After a decline in membership
after World War II and into the 1960s, the Brotherhood has
experienced a resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s.

     Over the centuries the Hermanos have developed an
extraordinary cycle of rituals and prayers, culminating in the
Holy Week Passion Play and Tenebrae services. Every moment in
this ritual process is accompanied by a beautiful repertory of
alabados or hymns of praise unique to the region. It is this
remarkable repertory of religious music that attracted the
interest of Juan B. Rael, not as a musicologist, but as a
linguist interested in dialectology.

     The dialect of Spanish unique to the region is a reflection
of the culture, blending seventeenth-century peninsular Spanish
elements with vocabulary deriving from contact with indigenous
languages, especially Aztecan Nahuatl, and having a contemporary
relation with English so intimate the two languages are sometimes
used in alternating sequences by speakers. Rael gathered most of
his linguistic data by collecting folk stories, but in the summer
of 1940, he was drawn home to record the alabados as well as the
songs from the cycle of Autos or folk plays, notably "Los
Pastores" ("The Shepherds") and "El Nio Perdido" ("The Lost
Child").

     Summers are brief and exuberant in the high inter-mountain
valleys and plateaus of the upper Ro Grande and the southern
range of the Rockies known as the Sangre de Cristos, the
Mountains of the Blood of Christ. Dry-farmed fields of wheat and
pinto beans, carefully irrigated apple orchards, and long narrow
plots of potatoes, corn, and high-altitude crops like habas or
fava beans were especially well-tended. By June, or as soon as
the snow pack melted, young men and boys were in the mountains
tending large flocks of sheep. After hard times, only a few
animals were actually owned by the shepherds, who toiled under
strict sharecropping arrangements. Wool was the sole cash crop
and local link to the national economy. In Nuevo Mexicano
Spanish, lana (wool) is still a common term for money. With the
collapse of the regional economy in the 1930s, people turned
to what had always sustained them in the past--subsistence
agriculture.

In 1940, signs of the approaching conflagration of World War II
seemed far off. The devastating course of the Depression had been
stemmed by the New Deal. The cash income lost from the decline in
seasonal work in the mines and sugar beet fields of Colorado was
being supplanted in part by relief programs and job opportunities
with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress
Administration (WPA). The people joked about "el diablo a pie,"
the devil walking around on the loose, which is what the initials
"WPA" sound like in Spanish. Hispanos were flattered by the
respect shown to their cultural and oral literary traditions by
the fieldworkers of the folklore projects and the organizers of
the folk arts workshops. They were quite willing to share their
music with Rael, the young man from Arroyo Hondo who had gone so
far with his education.

     For generations after the American invasion of 1846,
education had taken place in the home, where parents used Spanish
language newspapers to teach their children to read. In 1880, the
year that public education began in New Mexico, there were over
forty Spanish newspapers available, and all of them published
poetry, local ballads, and literary selections in addition to the
news. A humorous song in the Rael collection pokes fun at
newspaper subscribers and readers, both male and female, for
thinking they knew so much. In two elections prior to 1880,
public education had been defeated by the people, who concluded
that the Spanish language and local culture would be eliminated
from the classroom as soon as possible.

     World War II put an abrupt end to the Depression, and
created a mass exodus, not only of soldiers, but of whole
families moving to the cities to work in defense industries. The
1950s saw not only a decline in village population, but strong
pressure to assimilate and Americanize. The post-war generation
experienced a pronounced trend towards language loss and cultural
devaluation. Then, with the social and political movements of the
late 1960s and 1970s, a resurgence in regional and ethnic pride
led to a cultural, literary, and artistic renaissance. Several
waves of Anglo immigration  prompted Hispano communities to
reevaluate their place in American society, and a shift in
educational policy from assimilation to cultural plurality helped
create a space in which Hispanos can be themselves and honor
their own cultural traditions.

     Much of the music that Juan B. Rael recorded in the summer
of 1940 can still be heard today, not as a relic from the past
but as a reflection of a new-found sense of continuity and
cultural survival. The religious repertory is intact and
regularly performed in the morada chapels of the Penitente
Brotherhood. Although the waltzes and polkas Rael found in dance
halls have been eclipsed by American country, rock, and
Spanish-language popular music from radios and jukeboxes, the
classic, old, violin and guitar tunes continue to be played in
senior centers and at folk festivals. The culture, language, and
music of the Nuevo Mexicanos of the Upper Rio Grande are still
flourishing.

Enrique R. Lamadrid is associate professor of Spanish at the
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. 

Spanish American musicians playing at a fiesta, Taos, New Mexico,
July 1940. Photo by Russell Lee, Prints and Photographs Division,
Library of Congress


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Remembering Slavery: Ex-Slave Narratives from the WPA Federal
Writers 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By James Hardin

In Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their
Personal Experiences of Slavery and Emancipation, a
book-and-audiotape set published by  The New Press, the Library
of Congress, and Smithsonian Productions of the Smithsonian
Institution, interviewer Hermond Norwood asks former slave
Fountain Hughes which he would rather be, slave or free, given
the terrible difficulties many slaves faced in trying to make
their own way after the Civil War. Without hesitation,
Hughes answers:

Which I'd rather be? You know what I'd rather do? If I thought,
had any idea, that I'd ever be a slave again, I'd take a gun an'
jus' end it all right away. Because you're nothing but a dog.
You're not a thing but a dog (page 305).

     Fountain Hughes was one of many ex-slaves interviewed by
fieldworkers for the Federal Writers' Project. He was born in
Charlottesville, Virginia, and his grandfather, who lived to be
115 years old, belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Hughes was
interviewed in Baltimore in 1941, when he was 101. To hear his
voice, to listen to his stories, to know his history, is to
experience a near palpable connection with a time most of us know
only through books and movies.

     Editors Ira Berlin, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller have
organized Remembering Slavery into four chapters: The Faces of
Power (on the relationships between slaves and their masters);
Work and Slave Life (on the agricultural and domestic work slaves
performed); Family Life in Slavery (on their attempts to
form and keep together families); Slave Culture (on the
distinctive beliefs and practices slaves developed in areas such
as art, food, dance, music, and religion); and Slaves No More (on
how they fared after the Civil War). Within each section, the
editors have selected from the thousands of interviews those
that are the most telling. Many of the memories are
heartrendingly vivid and immediate, although narrated by elderly
people and based on experiences of many years before.

     From the "Faces of Power": Vinnie Busby, an ex-slave who
grew up on a Mississippi plantation, recalled the brutality of
her owner (page 15-16).

Marse Easterlin wuz sho' a stern master. He believed in whippin'
his slaves. I'se seed him put my ma 'cross a barrel an' whip her.
She wuz a fiel' hand an' wuked powerfully hard. One ob de
cruelest things I ever seen done to a slave wuz done by my
Master. He wanted to punish one of de slaves what had done some
'em dat he didn't lak, a kinda subborn one. He took dat darkie
an' hitched him to a plow an' plowed him jes' lak a hors. He beat
him an' jerked him 'bout 'till he got all bloody an' sore, but
ole Marse he kept right on day after day. Finally de buzzards
went to flyin' over 'em . . . dem buzzards kept a flyin' an' old
Marse kept on a plowin him 'till one day he died. After dat Ole
Marse hot to being haunted by dat slave an' buzzards. He could
alwas' see 'em an' hear de groans ob dat darkie an' he was
hainted dat way de res' ob his life.

     From "Work and Slave Life": George Fleming, born in 1854,
grew up on a large up-country South Carolina estate. He described
the work, other than field and domestic, that slaves engaged in
for the operation of a great plantation (p. 78).

Dar was all kinds of work 'sides de field work dat went on all de
time. Everybody had di work dat he could do de best. My daddy
worked wid leather. He was de best harness maker on de place, and
he could make shoes. Dey had a place whar dey tanned cow-hides.
Dat was called de tannos. Dey didn't do much spinning and
weaving in de home quarters; most of it was done in one special
place Marse had made for dat purpose. Some of de slaves didn't do
nothing but spin and weave, and dey sho was good at it, too. Dey
was trained up jes' fer dat particular work.


     From "Family Life in Slavery": Fannie Moore recounts the
love and protectiveness expressed by her mother on the South
Carolina plantation where they lived and worked (page 133).

My mammy she work in de fiel' all day and piece and quilt all
night. Den she hab to spin enough thread to make four cuts for de
white fo'ks ebber night. . . . I never see how my mammy stan'
sech ha'd work. She stan' up fo' her chillum tho'. De ol'
overseeah he hate my mammy, case she fight him for beatin' her
chillun. Why she get more whuppins for dat den anythin' else. She
hab twelve chillun. I member I see de three oldes' stan'in de
snow up to dey knees to split rails, while de overseeah stan off
an' grin.

     From "Slave Culture": Fannie Berry describes after-hours
dancing in the slave quarters (page 177).

Used to go over to de Saunders place fo' dancin'. Musta been
hundred slaves over thar, an' they always had de bes' cances.
Mos' times fo' de dance dey had Dennis to play de banjer. Dennis
had a twisted arm, an' he couldn't do much work, but he sho'
could pick dat banjer. Gals would put on dey spare dress ef dey
had one, an' men would put a clean shirt on. Gals always tried to
fix up fo' partyin', even ef dey ain't got nothin' but a piece of
ribbon to tie in dey hair. Mos' times wear yo' shoes make too
much noise, an' hurt yo' feet. Couldn't do no steppin' in dem
field shoes.

     The two sixty-minute audiotapes, produced by Smithsonian
Productions for broadcast on Public Radio International, and
hosted by actress and professor Tonea Stewart, include original,
live recordings of interviews and dramatic readings by noted
actors James Earl Jones, Melba Moore, the late Esther Rolle,
Lou Gossett Jr., and others. 

     In their introduction to Remembering Slavery, the editors
note that  "the struggle over slavery's memory has been almost as
intense as the struggle over slavery itself."
Late-nineteenth-century attempts to romanticize slavery led some
historians to question the value of oral history interviews as
the faulty recollections of the elderly, but scholars at African
American colleges and universities and  folklorists like John A.
Lomax understood the importance of recording the stories of the
men and women who had actually experienced and endured the
institution of slavery. "The New Deal's Federal Writers'
Project," the editors tell us, "gloried in the celebration of
everyday Americans." While some of the interviewers engaged in
the project edited and arranged their material rather than making
verbatum transcripts, the narratives remain "compelling
remembrances" of the former time. Taken together with the
recordings now housed at the Archive of Folk Culture, a sample of
which are offered here, these documents are essential for a full
understanding of a period in American history whose implications
still reverberate today.

Ben Horry, formerly a slave in South Carolina. Prints and
Photographs Division, Library of Congress


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Slave Narratives at the Library of Congress
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Ann Hoog
                                 
The recent publication of Remembering Slavery and the subsequent
feature on CBS-TV's "Nightline" entitled "Found Voices"
(broadcast on January 12, 1999) have created a greater awareness
of the slave narratives at the Library of Congress and, in
particular, the sound recordings of former slaves housed in the
Archive of Folk Culture. Remembering Slavery: African Americans
Talk About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Emancipation
is the name of a book and two-hour cassette recording comprised
of former slaves' accounts of their personal experiences in
slavery. The cassettes (copies of a radio program from
Smithsonian Productions) consist of sound recordings from the
Archive as well as dramatic readings of interviews that exist
only in manuscript form. The book is comprised mainly of
manuscript interviews along with two appendices--a transcript of
the entire radio program and a list of all the sound recordings
available in the Archive.

     The majority of the slave narrative materials at the Library
were collected by workers for the Federal Writers' Project (FWP),
under the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a work-relief
program under Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The FWP, in
addition to providing employment to those in the fields of art,
music, drama, and writing, sought to prepare an "American Guide"
that would document the life experiences of Americans in each
state. A major project of the FWP included the interviewing of
former slaves, in an attempt to document the history and
experiences of African Americans in the South in their own words. 

     The collecting of slave narratives as a federal project
began in 1934 in the Ohio River Valley under the aegis of the
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the precursor to
the WPA. This project was headed by Lawrence D. Reddick, history
professor of the Kentucky State Industrial College in Frankfurt,
Kentucky. His goal was to document slavery from the perspective
of those who were enslaved, at a time when most textbook
histories of slavery did not include this point of view. This
project was conducted during a six-month period by twelve African
American college graduates working in six states of the Ohio
River Valley.

     Federal involvement in collecting slave narratives continued
with the FWP, from 1936 to 1940. The first interviews with former
slaves done under the FWP were conducted  in Georgia, Florida,
and South Carolina. This project was expanded to other states
including Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio,
Maryland, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. The FWP
officially ceased in 1939, although some slaves were interviewed
later as part of other state-level projects. It is difficult to
estimate how many total interviews were done, but well over two
thousand are known to exist.  

     John A. Lomax (head, folklore program, FWP, 1936 to 1937;
head, Archive of Folk Song, 1931 to 1937) worked with Henry
Alsberg (head, FWP) to encourage the collecting of slave
narratives by the FWP. Lomax assisted collectors with some
of the methods of oral documentation. For example, he issued
written instructions to fieldworkers in the form of a
questionnaire to be used as an interviewing guide. Interviewers
were to ask former slaves to state their name, date, place
of birth, name of owner, size of plantation, religion, and
education, and to discuss holidays, games, songs, food and
cooking, medicine, and their attitudes toward slavery. The FWP's
documentation of these interviews included not only making
written records of  the narratives but also photographing the
interviewees and their surroundings, thus adding some visual
context for the person being interviewed. 

In 1939 FWP control was passed over to the states and in October
of that year its manuscript interviews were deposited in the
Library of Congress. The FWP became the Writers' Project and
hired Benjamin A. Botkin (folklore editor, FWP, 1938 to
1939; head, Archive of Folk Song, 1941 to 1945) to direct the
final editing and indexing of the manuscript and photograph
collections of the slave narratives. Botkin arranged the
interviews by state, and then alphabetically by informant,
and deposited them in the Rare Book Room of the Library of
Congress. Additional narratives were received from the state
projects after 1939, some of which are stored in the Library and
in various state depositories.

     Publication of the FWP slave narratives began in 1945 with
Botkin's edited volume Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of
Slavery (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1945).
Numerous publications based on these narratives continued,
including Julius Lester's To Be a Slave (London: Longman
Group Limited, 1968) and Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with
Virginia Ex-Slaves, edited by Charles L. Perdue, Jr., Thomas E.
Barden, and Robert K. Phillips (Charlottesville: University Press
of Virginia, 1976). Transcriptions of the entire FWP
slave-narrative collection were published in 1972 by George
Rawick in nineteen volumes entitled The American Slave: A
Composite Autobiography (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood
Publishing Company, 1972. Rawick published a second series of
twelve volumes of narratives drawn from state archives and
Library of Congress. Another ten volumes were published over the
next two years, including some that were done at Fisk University
in the 1920s. These published volumes are also available in the
Library.

     While much attention has been paid to the manuscripts of the
slave narratives at the Library of Congress, the sound recordings
have been less well-known. In total there are about six hours of
recorded interviews by fifteen former slaves. One reason for the
relatively small number of recordings is that making them did not
fall under any one major project. While the manuscripts are
mostly all from the FWP, the only sound recordings of slave
narratives affiliated with the FWP are those that were done by
the state of Virginia by Roscoe Lewis of Hampton Institute,
Hampton, Virginia. The other recordings of interviews with
ex-slaves were made by a number of different fieldworkers working
on a variety of projects. The first of these were recorded in
June 1935 by Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, and Mary Elizabeth
Barnicle during a recording expedition through Georgia, Florida,
and the Bahamas. The intent of the trip was to record and
document African American music, stories, and other oral
traditions of these regions. While it is likely that on this
occasion (and on many other recording trips that took place
during that time period), fieldworkers came across former
slaves, only one man encountered on this trip, Wallace Quarterman
(recorded in Frederica, Georgia), discussed his experiences as a
slave. In fact, on these recording trips many former slaves
included not only monologues about their slavery experiences but
also songs that they had learned throughout their lives. 

     Other fieldworkers who recorded slave narratives were John
and Ruby Lomax (who were conducting fieldwork in the South in
1940), Robert Sonkin (who was documenting the African American
community of Gee's Bend, Alabama, for the Farm Security
Administration), John Henry Faulk,  Hermond Norwood (who at the
time was a sound engineer at the Library), and Elmer Sparks. The
majority of these sound recordings were originally on aluminum or
acetate discs. In the 1960s, to ensure their preservation, the
Archive of Folk Song transferred the sound recordings from these
disks onto ten-inch reel-to-reel tapes. The slave narrative
portions from the ten-inch tapes were then transferred to
seven-inch reels for use by researchers. The tapes have now been
transferred to CDs for reference use.

The manuscripts have been used heavily by folklorists,
historians, and linguists, but the sound recordings of the slave
narratives have, for the most part, only received attention from
linguists. The Emergence of Black English: Text and Commentary
(Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company,
1991), edited by linguists Guy Bailey, Natalie Maynor, and
Patricia Cukor-Avila, includes transcriptions of many of the
sound recordings. This book includes the only published
transcriptions of these sound recordings. The recent presentation
on "Nightline," which was inspired by the publication of
Remembering Slavery, focused on the sound recordings of the
former slaves and used them to touch not only on the history and
experience of slavery, but on the development of sound recording
technology. The sound recordings used in Remembering Slavery were
remastered using digital sound technology, making the sounds much
clearer and easier to listen to than was previously possible.

     The collections of the slave-narrative documentation, then,
are scattered in many areas of the Library of Congress, stored on
various decks and shelves. Remembering Slavery has united a
selection of  photographs, manuscripts, and sound recordings into
one presentation and woven them together into a history of
American slavery.


Wallace Quarterman. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress

John A. Lomax greets "Uncle Rich" Brown, near Sumpterville,
Alabama, October 1940. Prints and Photographs Division, Library
of Congress

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Federal Writers Project and the Archive of American Folk-Song
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A note by Alan Jabbour

     The Library's recorded ex-slave narratives are scattered
through several collections in the American Folklife Center's
Archive of Folk Culture (formerly the Music Division's Archive of
American Folk-Song). Joseph C. Hickerson, who retired this past
year, brought them all together onto one set of reference tapes
(about five or six hours worth) so researchers could listen to
them as a body of narrative about the experience of slavery. The
earliest recorded ex-slave narrative is from a 1935 field
expedition undertaken by the Archive: Alan Lomax, Zora Neale
Hurston, and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle recorded the recollections
of former slave Wallace Quarterman in Frederica, Georgia. The
Federal Writers Project (FWP) was just being invented at the
time.

     Lawrence Reddick of Kentucky State Industrial College is
often credited with contributing the idea to the Federal Writers
Project of interviewing former slaves, but John A. Lomax, head of
the Archive during that era, may also have been a conduit
funneling the idea to the FWP. He served on the FWP committee
that developed a comprehensive project to document the
recollections of former slaves. As that project developed, it was
done primarily by taking written notes during oral interviews.
But because of the close working relationship between the FWP
and the Archive, a few FWP project workers borrowed the Archive's
field disc-recorder to record their interviews. These pioneering
documentary efforts, by the way, were referred to in Archive
correspondence as "oral history"--a pioneering use of both the
term and the concept.

     The manuscripts of Writers Project interviews with former
slaves found their way to the Library when the WPA was shut down.
A bound, edited set of the narratives resides in the Rare Book
and Special Collections Division. The rest of the materials,
including the original typescript drafts of the interviews,
were rescued from oblivion by the same Archive that had midwifed
the original idea. For years the filing cabinets of ex-slave
narratives rested in the Archive office, where many researchers
used them. In the late 1970s, when the Manuscript Division
committed itself to consolidate and process all the Library's WPA
manuscripts, the Archive filing cabinets were consolidated with
others from other divisions and in remote storage, and they all
are now accessible in the Manuscript Division.

     So the Library is not merely the custodian of these precious
recordings and manuscripts. It created or helped create the
recordings, and its staff helped shape the project that led to
the manuscripts. Thus it helped the nation remember slavery
through the voices of those who actually experienced it, while at
the same time helping to invent the idea of oral history. Both
are among the Library's great contributions to our nation and
civilization.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two New CDs Join List of Rounder Records Reissues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rounder Records has released two new compact discs in its series
of reissues of the Library of Congress series Folk Music of the
United States, originally released in the 1940s.

African-American Spirituals, Work Songs, and Ballads, recorded by
John A. Lomax, Alan Lomax, Ruby T. Lomax, Ruby Pickens Tartt, and
Harold Spivacke. Powerful performances, by individuals and groups
in churches and prisons in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia,
recorded between 1933 and 1939. Includes the famous American
ballad "John Henry," sung by Arthur Bell at the Cummins State
Farm, Gould, Arkansas, in 1939.

Songs and Ballads of American History and of the Assassination of
American Presidents, recorded between 1937 and 1949 by John A.
Lomax, Alan Lomax, Elizabeth Lomax, Sidney Robertson, Duncan
Emrich, George Steele, and Herman Norwood, combines five Civil
War songs and one patriotic song about George Washington with
five songs about the assassinations of William McKinley, James
Garfield, and Abraham Lincoln. Two of the Civil War songs were
sung by Judge Learned Hand (1862-1971), who learned it in the
oral tradition in the 1880s on a farm near Elizabethtown, New
York.  The assassination songs were performed by Bascom Lamar
Lunsford (1882-1973), of South Turkey Creek, North Carolina, the
organizer and director of the Asheville, North Carolina, Mountain
Dance and Folk Festival, who spent his life collecting and
performing the folksongs and dances of the Southern Appalachians.

Rounder Records is located at One Camp Street, Cambridge,
Massachusetts 02140. Telephone (617) 354-0700, or on the World
Wide Web at: http://www.rounder.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Buckaroos in Paradise": Cowboys on the Internet
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Buckaroos in Paradise,  now an online presentation from the
Library of Congress National Digital Library Program,  has taken
many shapes and forms. Between 1978 and 1982, American Folklife
Center staffers Carl Fleischhauer and Howard W. Marshall made
seasonal visits to Paradise Valley, Nevada, where they conducted
a field documentation project with the help of Richard Ahlborn of
the Smithsonian Institution and a number of folklorists from the
region.

     In October 1980, the Smithsonian opened an exhibition at its
National Museum of History and Technology entitled "Buckaroos in
Paradise: Cowboy Life in Northern Nevada," with an exhibit
catalog of the same name.  In March 1983, the Library of Congress
opened a much larger exhibition entitled "The American Cowboy"
that drew upon the Paradise Valley Folklife Project, in addition
to a great variety of material from various divisions of the
Library and other institutions.

     At about the same time, the Library was experimenting with
laserdisc technology and selected the Paradise Valley documentary
material for its pilot project, a decision that resulted in a
two-sided laser videodisc and accompanying booklet entitled The
Ninety-Six: A Cattle Ranch in Northern Nevada (still available
from the Folklife Center for $75).

     Now an online version of the Nevada cowboy material is
available. Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern
Nevada, 1945-1982 presents documentary material from the Nevada
cattle-ranching community of Paradise Valley, with a focus on the
family-run Ninety-Six Ranch. The presentation offers 41 motion
pictures and 28 sound recordings, including motion picture
footage from 1945 to 1965 by Leslie Stewart, owner of the
Ninety-Six Ranch. An archive of 2,400 still photographs portrays
the people, sites, and traditions of other ranches and the larger
community, which is home to persons of Anglo-American,
Italian, German, Basque, Swiss, Northern Paiute Indian, and
Chinese heritage. Background texts provide historical and
cultural context for this window into the occupational and
cultural traditions of this Nevada ranching community. 

     You can reach Buckaroos in Paradise through the American
Folklife Center Home Page: http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife/ Click
on "collections available online."

Henry and Clay Taylor feeding cattle on their ranch in Paradise
Valley, Nevada, March 1980. Photo by William Smock from the
Paradise Valley Folklife Project

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the American Folklife Center
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During a recent visit, ethnomusicologist Vida Chenoweth of Enid,
Oklahoma, professor emerita of Wheaton College, inventoried
materials she has donated to the Archive of Folk Culture. Items
donated include sound recordings, manuscripts, and photographs
documenting musical traditions of East Africa, West Africa,
Central Africa, Papua New Guinea, and several South Pacific
islands. With her in the Folklife Reading Room is David Taylor,
acting head of acquisitions. Photo by James Hardin

Carl Lindahl transcribes and annotates British- and
Irish-American folktales from audio recordings in the Archive of
Folk Culture, January 1999. Lindahl received
a 1998 Parsons Fund award to support his work. Plans are underway
for a publication by ABC-CLIO entitled "Treasury of American
Folktales: From the Collections of the Library of Congress."
Photo by James Hardin

On September 9, 1998, Anne Dowling, president of the Texaco
Foundation, visited the American Folklife Center to present the
Library with the foundation's second and final check representing
its $300,000 grant to the National Digital Library
for placing the Center's collections online. The Texaco grant has
helped to fund the presentation of the Juan Rael collection
materials described in this issue of Folklife Center News.

Christa Maher, digital conversion specialist, and Ms. Dowling.
Photo by David Taylor

Alan Jabbour, director of the Center; Laurel McIntyre, digital
conversion specialist;   Library Development Office; and Ms.
Dowling examine materials from a publication of Omaha Indian
music. Photo by David Taylor 


Back Cover:

Paiute Indian cowboy Myron Smart on the Ninety-Six Ranch in
Paradise Valley, Nevada. An online presentation of documentary
material from the Folklife Center's Paradise Valley Folklife
Project is now available. See page . Photo by Carl
Fleischhauer

(Note: diacritics have been removed from this version of FCN 
for ascii presentation)