The Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons fund was founded by American Folklife Center reference librarian Gerry Parsons (1940-1995) in honor of his parents. Parsons Fund Awards provide support to bring people to the Library of Congress to make use of primary ethnographic materials housed at AFC and elsewhere at the Library.
Emily Hilliard, West Virginia’s State Folklorist, was awarded a Parsons Fund Award for a one-week research trip to research AFC’s collection of sound recordings, photographs, field notes, and ephemera related to West Virginia, focusing particularly on archival content related to African Americans and other cultural communities whose “presence and contributions are often marginalized in historical and vernacular culture narratives of the Mountain State.” Her research will inform ongoing and future work of the West Virginia Folklife Program and culminate in a series of multimedia blog posts.