History Burgoo

Archiving the Kentucky Folklife Program Archive

What is Folklife???

                     

            If you have been to the Kentucky Folklife Festival held here in Frankfort, every  September for the last decade you may know a thing or two about the Kentucky Folklife Program.  The mission of the program is to identify, document, present and conserve the Commonwealth’s diverse cultural traditions, generally referred to as folklife.   The Kentucky Folklife Program acts to facilitate lifelong cultural education and maximize learning and research opportunities for Kentuckians through workshops, grants and traveling exhibits.  Over the last two decades, a team of Folklorists here at KHS have documented the traditions, culture and heritage of the great state of Kentucky.  I was recently hired under a National Historic Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant as the Project Archivist to process the Kentucky Folklife Program Collection.  My job is to help organize the programs records and documentation that they have produced.

                    My first task when I took on this project was to inventory the collection, to see what types of materials and how many materials I would be processing.  Since I began the project this past November I have gone through over 200 cubic feet of materials.  Roughly 3 months of inventorying this extensive collection.  The collection is made up of a wide array of materials including but not limiting: paper records, electronic records, photographs, floppy disks, mini DVs, cassette tapes, VHS, CDs and more!  These materials are the documentation that has been produced since the Kentucky Folklife Program began in 1989 in Berea, KY.  Everything from administrative records such as grant applications for the Apprenticeship program and Community Scholars program to actual field notes which can comprise of notes, photographs, slides, negatives, sound recordings and video (with decades of changing formats).  Although this is a challenging project, I am very excited to learn more about the Bluegrass state and some of the culture and traditions that are treasured here. 

                Many people may think of  bluegrass music and tobacco farming when it comes to the Folklife of Kentucky; however, the Kentucky Folklife Program has researched and surveyed a wide spectrum of folks and cultural ways that can describe Kentucky.  Within the collection I have found records on bluegrass and tobacco farming, but I have also found documentation on BBQ, Burgoo, Kentucky Derby Hats, Mammoth Cave, Basket making, and Story telling.  Even documentation of immigrant communities that have settled here in Kentucky over the years including: German, Chinese, Latino, Indian and Bosnian.  The Folklorists have traveled to close to 50 counties (still counting) across the state of Kentucky to document how Kentuckians live.  Even some big names such as Eddie Pennington, Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush, and Folklorist Mike Seeger, have appeared throughout the collection.

            Now that I have a better grasp of the quantity of materials that makes up the collection the next step is to begin piecing the puzzle together.  My job is to gather and organize all of the materials based on projects and if you can believe it I have discovered close to 200 projects so far. It has been estimated that there could be close to 400 total projects that the Kentucky Folklife Program has actually been a part of.  As I begin to piece together the large number of projects the Folklife Department has produced/participated in, my other goal is to evaluate the archival materials.  Part of my job is to create an Assessment Tool to be used to evaluate the archival materials and to note what will still need to be done for the future.  Since the collection contains a wide variety of materials I had to gather from multiple assessment tools that other archival repositories use and create one that would work for this collection specifically.  After doing research on methods of assessment and discovering a plethora of documents, I was able to create an evaluation form for the collection by merging several other repository's forms together.  The evaluation form will contain the project name, quantity of materials within each project, a check list for types of materials as well as several pages to evaluate storage conditions and material conditions.  For every project that the Kentucky Folklife Program has created or participated in, it will have its own evaluation form.   These forms will be helpful for the future archivists who will work with the collection and to assist them with looking more closely into preservation needs of the collection as a whole.   In the end I am trying to preserve the hard work that has been done to document the people and cultural ways of Kentuckians, in hopes that researchers can use the materials in the future. 

"People must know the past to understand the present and face the future."—Nellie McClung  

--Archivist Heather Stone

p.s. The Kentucky Folklife Program will be hosting the next Community Scholar Training Session at the Center for African American Heritage in Louisville, KY, March 12-April 23, 2012.  If you or anyone you know are interested please see flyer:   Download Community Scholars_Louisville.  For more information you can contact Amanda Hardeman--(502) 564-1792 ext. 4555 or amanda.hardeman@ky.gov.  The program welcomes anyone to apply, regardless of age or cultural background.  The more diversity the better!

*Video and photographs were provided by the Kentucky Historical Society. 

Behind the scenes at the opening of "The Makings of a Master: Kentucky Folk Art Apprenticeships"

        I’ve had some interesting assignments in the two and a half years I’ve been a volunteer at the Kentucky Historical Society. One of the most enjoyable was spending an evening with Bobby Osborne and the Rocky Top X-Press.

        Since I’m a bluegrass music fan it wasn’t a hard decision when the call came for volunteers to help with the September 15th opening of ”The Makings of a Master: Kentucky Folk Art Apprenticeships” exhibition and the concert to mark the Bill Monroe centennial.

     Bob Gates, director of the Kentucky Folklife Program, surprised me with the assignment of looking after the musicians -- showing them where the food and soft drinks were and making sure they could get in and out of the locked doors to their tour bus.

     What a nice group of guys!

     When I informed Bobby Osborne about the cold sweet tea in the “green room” (the education rooms off the main lobby), he told me how he had gone off tea while fighting as a Marine in Korea. He said he had gotten too many cups of lukewarm tea when what he really wanted was something cold. 

     Bobby passed on the food and tea, but other members of the band dug into the fried chicken box suppers.

     While waiting with the band members until time to go onstage, I spotted a small electronic device clipped to the neck of Joe Miller’s guitar. Miller explained that the digital readout allowed him to tune his guitar, even when the rest of the band was playing. Bobby Osborne Jr. also had one on his five-string bass.

     It was a great concert! One of the highlights was the appearance with Osborne and the X-Press by Cory May, a young musician from Kentucky.

     I had a chance to talk to Cory early in the evening. It’s easy to tell he’s very passionate about his music. His talent and long hours of practice were evident when he played both guitar and mandolin and sang with Osborne and his band.

     "The Makings of a Master: Kentucky Folk Art Apprenticeships" will be open at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History through December 10 and will then tour the state through 2014.

     The next concert in the Folklife series will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, and feature the Reel World String Band, Carla Gover and Jeri Katherine Howell. The exhibition and concert are free with admission to the Kentucky Historical Society.

     I’m looking forward to it!

-Jim Gill, KHS volunteer since 2009. Jim also blogs at Searchin' for Kinfolk.

All photos by the Kentucky Folklife Program.

On the Byway Again

 

 
 
Crazy is a word I woke up to this morning at 5:00 A.M. Crazy as in “I must be crazy to do this” or to quote Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles, “this just might be crazy enough to work.”  Anyway, my “crazy” challenge is to do one of my infamous road trips where I extend a conference trip into a family vacation.  Such as driving to New York City for a National Association for State Arts Agency (the other NASAA) and finishing the trip with a family drive through upstate New York and Niagara Falls. My family has taken these kind of trips with me so often that my kids think it is the only way to do a vacation.  They work for me.  There is the fun of exploring and the exquisite joy you feel of finally delivering your paper at a conference, allowing you to be mentally free to enjoy the rest of your trip. 

My self-imposed challenge this summer is to deliver a paper at the National Scenic Byways Conference in Minnesota by first driving there with my wife on National Scenic Byways and at the same time blogging about it.  It doesn’t sound too hard; I have my presentation about our driving tour More the Music: A Heritage Driving Tour of Kentucky’s Route 23 all ready (two copies of the power point stowed away in my luggage), and I have my routes pretty well mapped out to include a part of Indiana’s “Historic Pathways” out of Louisville on Highway 150 through Paoli and French Lick to finish at the George Rogers’ Clark National Historic Park in Vincennes.  From here we will cross Illinois to pick up a portion of the Great River Road along the Mississippi River from somewhere around historic Nauvoo, snaking all the way north to my final destination in Minneapolis. I am just not too sure about the writing part of the project.  I have told myself if it works I will do it and if it doesn’t I will just quit and enjoy the scenery of these National Scenic Highways. 

I have been recently inspired to write about a trip like this by reading Blue Highways: A Journey Into America by William Least Heat Moon.  In the book, the author drives an old van across the United States, going from Columbia, Missouri through Kentucky, he visits Shelbyville and Frankfort, before he continues out to South Carolina, takes a left and basically circles the whole county.  He travels only on Blue Highways, a name he coined for back roads (older maps showed main routes as red and back roads as blue). He had great adventures on his trip often springing from his interest in a strange sounding town or his efforts to live in the moment. 

In my mind National Scenic Byways are some of our best blue highways.  Their website describes it as  “a grass-roots collaborative effort established to help recognize, preserve and enhance selected roads throughout the United States.” Besides the ones that are deemed National, each state also designates other scenic byways. In Kentucky we have six National Scenic Byways and 16 state designated byways.  The National Byways include a 60-mile portion of the Great River Road, the Red River Gorge Scenic Highway, the Woodlands Trace Byway in Land between the Lakes, the Lincoln Heritage Scenic Highway, the Wilderness Road Heritage Highway, and my favorite, the Country Music Highway. 

Although I have traveled them all, The County Music Highway is my favorite because we at the Kentucky Folklife Program spent so much time and energy working with the local communities a few years back to document the traditional cultures found there and to produce our driving tour: More than Music: A Heritage Driving Tour of Kentucky’s Route 23.  This book and four cd collection, written by Judy Sizemore and narrated by Ricky Skaggs, guides you along the route with stories and oral histories based on fieldwork by young folklorists out of the graduate program at WKU. The tour is sold at venues along Highway 23 and is available through our office. 

It is also the subject of my talk at the National Scenic Byways next week.  I am hoping this trip will help me enjoy other roads as much as I have the Country Music Highway. I hope that I can share some of what I find with you as I try to blog this crazy trip.

-Bob Gates

California Burgoo

 
 First, I have to admit…As a native Californian, I had never heard of “burgoo” until I started digitizing some archival video footage of Kentucky Folklife Program director, Bob Gates, interviewing participants at the 2007 Kentucky Colonels Bar-B-Que event in Louisville. This is a small reminder that one full year as a resident of Kentucky still leaves me with quite a lot of regional folkways to learn about. So…where and how can I try the best burgoo? Perhaps you know the answer (leave a comment!).

 As the Kentucky Folklife Program’s summer graduate intern, I’m working at one of the epicenters of public sector folklife research and programming in the state. The 2011 summer season marks the half-way point in the completion of my Master’s degree in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University (the same program which has excellently yielded the full-time folklorists of KFP)--a continuation of my undergraduate degree in folklore and ethnomusicology from Indiana University.

 Building on experiences working in folklife studies and programming at Indiana’s state folklife agency, Traditional Arts Indiana, and with the Smithsonian Institution’s Folkways Recordings, and the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, I’m now very glad to be here at the Kentucky Historical Society, diving into the rich heritage of Kentucky's folk and traditional arts as a seasonal member of the Folklife team.

 Over the summer, I’m helping with a few different projects. A couple days out of the week I organize materials from KFP’s archives. On my first day of work I was organizing release forms from our “More than Music” project—a heritage driving tour of Kentucky’s Route 23, the Country Music Highway—and I stumbled upon the signatures of Loretta Lynn, Patty Loveless and other important Kentucky performers involved in the project. I admit I let out a squeal. (Contact us to purchase your copy of the driving tour, 502-564-1792, attn: Bob Gates)  

I’m also helping with our upcoming traveling exhibit, “The Makings of A Master,” commemorating the 20^th anniversary of KFP’s Folk Arts Apprenticeship program. From editorial assistance for the upcoming exhibit, to deconstructing, moving and reconstructing our current traveling exhibit on Kentucky luthiers, it’s been a baptism-by-fire into the joys and mishaps that come with curating and managing a dynamic folklife exhibit. This hands-on experience is particularly timely for me as I’m independently curating a small exhibit at WKU on Freeman Kitchens—a Warren Co., Ky. record collector who founded the official fan club of the America’s beloved Carter Family, producing an important legacy of early music journalism and grassroots documentation of 20th century country music culture in and around Kentucky. The exhibit opens August 27, 2011 at the Kentucky Museum & Library at WKU.

 
Beyond the horizon of these projects, I’ll be going out into the field, for KFP, to document and report on the arts and folk traditions of the western portion of the state in support of a future Kentucky Folklife Festival program on Western Kentucky. I'm thrilled at the responsibilities that have and will be sent my way during my internship with the Kentucky Folklife Program, as I'm swiftly gaining important insight about the everyday life of a public sector folklorist--from grant-writing, to project coordination, to curatorial duties, to the application of disciplinary theory, to archival processes, to fieldwork--it's safe to say I've got a thorough head start on my "Public Sector Folklore" course this fall.

 Amidst all this engaging work, I still find time to take this portrait of our Director, Bob Gates "fitting in" on a work trip to Berea.

 

-Jenn Jameson
Kentucky Folklife Program Intern

Photo Credits:

Image 1: Warren May, dulcimer maker, teaching Jenn to play the dulcimer in Berea. Photo by Bob Gates.
Image 2: Installing the Made to be Played exhibit at the Behringer-Crawford Museum.
Image 3: Bob Gates, Folklife Program Director, enjoys Berea's attractions.

Are you having ham, roast beef or turkey this Easter?

Well, it is that time of year again when the KHS staff find themselves looking at the atomic bunny picture in the Digital Collections and giggling.  This year we decided to look for other amusing images in the "DC" and came across the one below.  It made us wonder what culinary masterpieces will be gracing tables this weekend at homes across the state?

 

Does your family have Easter dinner traditions?  Ham and asparagus?  Fiddlefern salad?  Lamb with mint sauce?

 

And then there is the weather.  Seriously, hail, floods, tornadoes and more, and that was just last night!  Spring is supposed to be changeable but still!  Everyone has a memory of their favorite Easter hat or dress or suit.  As staff gathered at the reference desk today we were sharing memories of Easter outfits. 

 

I remember that my mother always bought my dress to be a size too big, so I could wear long underwear if the temperature was under 30 degrees.  And how about the year the Easter Egg hunt that got cancelled because we could not find ANY Easter candy due to the 6 inches of snow on the ground. 

 

Well, before you know it, it will be summer and we will be complaining about the heat and the drought.   In the meantime, family gatherings provide the perfect opportunity to get the family to tell stories about their favorite holiday memories and traditions. 

 --Louise Jones

Images:

Fred Trosch, butcher in the Willard Rouse Jillson Photo Collection, 1987PH08

Family gathering at dinner time, Frankfort, Ky. From the Community Memories: A Glimpse of African American Life in Frankfort, Ky., 1995PH02, contributed by Clara E. Hogan.

Children in Easter outfits. From the Ohio River Portrait Project, 1990PH02, contributed by John Strattan.

Easter Egg hunt for children and faculty at Paducah Community College., date ca. 1970.  From the Ohio River Portrait Project, 1990PH02, contributed by John E.L. Robertson.

 

Winter Months - Won't Stop Oral History Outreach

(Library staff processing and rehousing the Alexander Family Papers - AKA the Woodburn Farm Collection)

In anticipation of our public reopening on Saturday (March 12th, yep – this one), we have been diligently finishing up microfilm inventory (600 records in Mercer county), cataloging records and re-housing collections in order to make the library ready for use by patrons again.

All of the fluttering around the library to complete the season has made me think about what I have accomplished in the oral history office over the winter months. Not to even get into the paper pushing, but between January and February I travelled to 11 sites outside of Frankfort – practically one trip a week. I delivered digital workstations and equipment to be used for oral history digitization (EKU and Lindsey Wilson College), I visited with groups of teachers, visited a few college classes (Transylvania and Georgetown), participated in a high school program for Black History Month with the KHS Museum Theatre Dept. (1,100 Woodford County students, yikes!), moderated an OH archival evaluation (WKU), did some actual interviews and most recently spoke with an arts group looking to document their home county through oral history (Mt. Sterling).  While I haven’t been that far Southeast or West this season (mostly because of the unpredictability of the weather and planning trips that far – in advance and distance), I have been lucky enough to get out and around.

One of these visits has been recently renewed in my mind this week, so I thought I would share. My visit (turning into an annual one) to the Transylvania University Community Engagement Through the Arts class was unique in the fact that I spent as much time learning from the students there than trying to convey the knowledge I was asked to present. I am continually impressed by the nature of this class – not only is the purpose to get the college students interacting with the North Limestone community, the campus’ neighbor (and not one where students were traditionally encouraged to wander in), but to actively engage with the residents in that community, whether through storytelling, community crafting or just participating in neighborhood events. (this would be through the arts part). The students are really setting the class direction based on the framework set by the professors, Kurt Gohde and Kremena Todorova, a model that astounds me every time I experience it. I really enjoy watching the class move as a small swarm walking down North Limestone Ave from the manicured lawns of Transy to the back of whatever space they are meeting in this week (restaurants, furniture stores, graphic design studios etc…) In the spirit of self reflection – and part of the grading system, I am sure - the students all write a series of “This I Believe” essays, based on the resurged radio series on NPR and they are encouraged to reflect on what it is they believe and how that may or may not shift as the semester wears on.

This adventure has popped back up in my mind since I was recently contacted by the class to write my own “This I Believe” essay to add to the annual Community Engagements class publication of essays and projects - they continue to "engage". This year, I talked with (not so much at) the class about sense-of-place, tangible and intangible culture and meeting a community through listening to what people who live there value or dismiss. I really had to think about the question for myself long and hard….since I DO believe in this class, I would like to share.

In the mean time, you should see what the class is doing, you can visit their own blog – check out their photos of projects, read their essays, visit their sites – get inspired or at least maybe get some ideas for how this might work for something in your own community.

So, it is a bit self-gratifying to get to visit these sort of places – I tend to get as much out of it as my institution or the place I am visiting (or maybe more, who knows), especially on a non-existant travel budget. Anyone interested on details of any of my other outreach adventures? Let me know...

 

--Sarah Milligan

 

images: above right: photo from Greg Hardison, Sarah Milligan at the Woodford County High School

above left: Community Engagement Class, photo from Community Engagement blog

Horse Cave - At it Again!

 
Marti Booth and Joanna Hay in front of the introduction sign for the new cell phone tour in Horse Cave, photo courtesy Marti Booth

If you check in with this blog periodically, you may remember an early posting about all of the cool things happening in Horse Cave, KY over the last year. It seems like I am continuing to be drawn or associated with events in this small town. Last Sunday I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the opening event of a cell phone walking tour (www.horsecavestories.com) in this community. I have known the 2 individuals who were contracted by Hart County Tourism to develop and implement this tourism tool, Judy Sizemore and Joanna Hay, for a few years now and love being invited to experience whatever projects they have on their plate (they are always interesting, and always wonderful). Judy and Joanna both are Kentucky Community Scholars – which has continued on with their relationship with the Kentucky Folklife Program – and in this sense were utilizing these trained skills by conducting oral history interviews in the community in order to use them to tell the story of Horse Cave in this new tour. Over the last year, Horse Cave Development Corporation (thank you Ken Russell) received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for Judy and Joanna to create the tour. Go Ladies! I was also introduced to Marti Booth, who is providing the graphics for the project, looks great Marti - great to meet you! 

My role was to invite the donation of  the new interviews to the Kentucky Historical Society (and chase down release forms), since we already have a related collection recently deposited, African American Heritage in Southern Hart County – which focused primarily on this population in and around Horse Cave. I was absolutely impressed by the organization and excitement behind this project as well as the community support the day of the opening – between 30-40 people! It was wonderful to see the newly elected Horse Cave Mayor, Randall Curry, introduce the project and show the city’s support. Folklife director, Bob Gates and family was there to welcome the tour, support recent Horse Cave Community Scholars and document the event - great to see you Bob! The local bakery provided Delicious (yes, capital “D”) cookies and even though there was snow on the sidewalks, people took the 10-stop, 4 block walking tour.


This is a project that has been brewing for about a year and it is just Phase I, I understand Phase II starts in the next few months to add more stops to the cell phone tour dealing with the unique ecosystem of the community to go along with the unique culture already represented. Right now you can go find out who makes square donuts, what is and who started the Repertory Theatre, and what about that cave the community is built on?

So, PLEASE check out their online presence for this project. Get ideas for what you might be able to do in your own community, look and see what you find valuable – physically or culturally – and think about that all important term “sense-of-place” that folklorists and other social observers like to throw around. What would you show someone who was visiting your town? What do you have left to learn yourself about your community? Check out all of the logos and credits on the website for this project – there was a lot of buy in and support for a project like this! Don’t be afraid to think large and get started!

(look who's coming to town!)

-- Sarah Milligan

Photos Courtesy of Marti Booth - top right, community gathering for tour opening. above left, Sandra (Hart Co. Tourism and tour development team member) and Marti test out the QR function (look it up). above right, Sarah and Joanna listen in to one of the cell phone stops (#10). directly above, Kentucky Reportory Theatre

Turkey and Tradition

 

Looking outside recently, the fact that autumn is here has hit me like a ton of bricks.  Even if all the stores are already putting out Christmas merchandise, I’m just now gearing up for Thanksgiving!  This of course got me to thinking about what my family would do this year, and the traditions that make up my holiday, as odd as they are. 

Supposedly, according to one of folklore’s big wigs, Roger Abrahams, the importance of Thanksgiving is the turkey meal and the accoutrements.  In this case, it’s quantity that matters.  Now, I can remember families talking about their turkey dinners, and goodness knows I’ve seen countless movies where the meal is sacrosanct.  By all that makes that family, there will be a turkey on that table Thanksgiving day, and they will sit down as a family, even if Aunt Marge has to drag Uncle Bill away from the game so that the family can have one meal together.  I’m pretty certain that everyone has a story like this, or at least can relate to it.

But what about those of us with non-traditional traditions?  Does it mean that our Thanksgivings are somehow less because we don’t have a turkey, big family gathering, or even celebrate on Thanksgiving?  As a folklorist and a non-traditional celebrant, I’d have to answer with a resounding NO!  It wasn’t until I was an adult that we even routinely celebrated Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day, as my army father was often deployed during this time when I was a child.  Those occasions when he was home for the holiday, we often ate at the Army post’s mess hall (believe it or not, they have a particularly good spread at Thanksgiving).  I have to say, I enjoyed those occasions far more than the one time I was forced into going to my grandparent’s house and eating brussels sprouts.  I recently read an article on Slate about someone else who had unique Thanksgiving traditions, mainly eating dinner at her parents’ second home, the local country club. The holiday is based on the theme of thankfulness for a bountiful autumn harvest and not just pilgrims, so I really don’t think the turkey is that important beyond a symbol.

What makes our traditions important is that we can’t imagine our world without them, be it always having jellied cranberries on Thanksgiving, or eating with other soldiers and their families at a mess hall.  So, what are some Thanksgiving traditions that you can’t live without?

Enjoy your turkey, tofurkey or curry next Thursday,

-Alisha Martin

Image from the Kentucky Historical Society: http://205.204.134.47:2005/u?/ORP,2774, Thanksgiving dinner at Bernard Phillip's home, 1978

Kentucky Afar

  
The last time I did a blog, we talked about how the Kentucky Folklife Program’s mission was to help conserve Kentucky’s traditional cultures.  We spoke of how conservation in this sense means to encourage the continuity of traditions through research, public presentations, and community scholar trainings.  Grants like our Apprenticeship awards and the efforts of interested people throughout the state who spend time and money help spread the word about their local folklife.  We talked at length about the extraordinary efforts of Dr.  Middleton to conserve the Mammoth Cave basketmaking traditions in the region of Hart County.

Sometimes the traditions of Kentucky find homes outside of the Commonwealth and these too need to be conserved.  The influence of migrants from Kentucky can be seen throughout the nation but especially in the industrial cities a little ways north of us.  Dayton, Ohio and the neighborhoods of south Chicago are known for their bluegrass music offerings.  A few years ago while traveling along Highway 23 in Michigan I passed  a suburb of Detroit that the locals called “Little Kentucky” because of the large population of former Kentucky Residents who followed  others in their family to take auto industry jobs in the region.  These transplanted Kentuckians often form new communities where they share similar worldviews, aesthetics for art forms like music, crafts, and food, traditions, and culture.  It is important for us to document and share the stories of these communities.  With travel budgets being what they are, the prospect of my staff traveling to these communities is remote, but it seems that there are always other ways to skin a cat.

Early this summer a friend of the Kentucky Historical Society, Pat Adkins from Owen County stopped by to talk about a little town in Wisconsin where a relative of hers lived.  It seems that Crandon, Wisconsin made a concerted effort in the early 1900s to recruit residents of Eastern Kentucky to come up and work in the lumber industry of northern Wisconsin.  Thousands of Kentuckians made the trip, worked very hard and stayed.  Pat said that you can hardly walk the streets of Crandon without bumping in to somebody with ties to Kentucky.  She says the accent is a little different, but after a few words you can still tell they are from Kentucky.  Pat said that she would be visiting her relatives this summer around the time of Crandon’s annual “Kentuck Day” festival, a celebration of the town’s Kentucky roots. 

Well it didn’t take long for me to convince her to do some documenting for us.  I gave her a quick overview of how folklorists conduct ethnographic observations. I described how we immerse in a culture events by objectively watching the activities, describing the context of the action and conducting interviews with participants.  A former instructor described it as pretending you were from another planet and your job is to describe to the people (beings) back home the new and wondrous events you were witnessing.  It is sometimes hard to do if you are a insider to the event because you have to pull yourself back and look at things from an outsiders perspective.  Pat was going to be an outsider and her natural curiosity about folklife prepared her well for the task.  At least this is what I told her and she bought it and vowed to take her camera, note pad and enthusiasm to her trip to Crandon.

Well, mission accomplished.  She dropped by last week with an armful of pictures, books, pamphlets, posters (picture above) and notes on her experiences.  She told me about the friendly Kentucky expatriates who welcomed her to the town, accompanied her to the local historical society and  guided her to  the many events surrounding Kentuck Days.   She showed me reprints of the original recruiting books used in the early 1900s to lure Kentuckians to the area.  We looked through recent history books about the county that talked about the cultural contributions of these settlers to the region.  Finally she described some of the events of the annual festival and how it still connects to the community.  I asked her to write up her observations for us to include in our growing files about this Crandon and other similar communities and I will follow up by recording her observation for the collection.  Maybe we can present them in a future blog. The Folklife Program depends on the help of people like Pat Akins who help to conserve the cultural traditions of the Commomwealth.

If you know about any of these Kentucky Afar communities, I would be very interested in talking with you.  Please respond to this blog or give us a call at 502-564-1792.

-Bob Gates

Annual Oral Historian Brain Swap - Whew, What a Conference!

The recent meeting of the national Oral History Association in Atlanta, GA – I must admit – was very interesting. I don’t know an exact count of participants, but it seems that there is a steady attendance for the last few years, somewhere around 400-500 participants. From what I heard and saw, the Wednesday pre-conference technical assistance workshops were well attended (digital preservation, digital audio, oral history basics, digital video and oral history and the law). The opening program was a short view of a on the WPA Federal Writers’ Project – Soul of a People: Writing America’s Story - I have been waiting to see, as well as a panel of participants discussing the topic and the documentary – including Stetson Kennedy, a Florida WPA writer and folklorist I always enjoy.

After this great start of engaging panels and technical workshops, the OHA conference itself , Thursday – Sunday, seemed to follow the lead. There was a good mixture between reports on new model projects (ie: Audio Histories and Tours of Change, Hope,and Adaptation), discussions on theoretical issues (Theoretical and Practical Challenges in Oral History, Ethical Dilemmas Undercover) and practical applications for oral history in a variety of settings (Oral History in the 21st Century Classroom, Oral History in the Reclamation of Cultural Space). There were Plenary Sessions every day, the Thursday plenary was exceptionally interesting as it dealt with oral history projects in post- Katrina Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, 5 years after the hurricane.

There were many Kentucky projects represented, as well as Kentuckians in attendance. I was pleased to see our oral historians and oral history project leaders represent their state as well as lend their support – once again – on a national stage.

There were so many things I participated in that were interesting, inspiring and just useful as far as oral history for Kentucky in the context of the global discipline. I am so grateful I was able to attend. Please let me know if you have questions about specific panels or presenters, I am happy to tell you more about what I know or connect you with those on a national level that were presenting.

Also extremely exciting is a new book by the revered oral historian, Allesandro Portelli, THEY SAY IN HARLAN COUNTY: An Oral History. Portelli is known in the oral history world for ground breaking oral history examinations and since the early 1970s has been conducting oral histories in Harlan County, KY about the people, the culture and the industry. This new publication is a culmination of this research and is getting great reviews. Although Portelli is from and lives in Italy, he often returns to Kentucky to revisit his friends and work. The original interviews are archived at the Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky.

Please, check out the online program to see more about what was discussed during the 2010 Oral History Association meeting.

Next year is in Denver the second week of October. The topic will be focused on “Memories of Conflict and Disaster: Oral History and the Politics of Truth, Trauma, and Reconciliation.” I will be sharing the call for proposals in the coming weeks. Please consider sharing our state’s oral history participation with the West. As for me, you will see me there – early and late – since I have been asked to join the conference program committee.

- Sarah Milligan