Rural Free Delivery Collection Now Available via the Library of Congress

I'm pleased to share that my 2021 Archie Green Fellowship Occupational Folklife project Rural Free Delivery: Mail Carriers in Central Appalachia is now accessible via the Library of Congress.

The project documents the value of rural carriers to their communities and includes interviews with 25 rural mail carriers and clerks in Appalachian regions of Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio, as well as photos of rural post offices.

There are also some choice videos of retired rural mail carrier, guitar maker, and National Heritage Fellow Wayne Henderson jamming with current rural carrier Brian Grim, and Merle Haggard's guitarist Redd Volkaert (I found that many rural mail carriers are also musicians).

Read more about the project in this interview on the American Folklife Center blog.

West Virginia Folklife Collection Now Online Via WVU Libraries

I'm so thrilled that the West Virginia Folklife Program's digital archives collection, The West Virginia Folklife Collection, is now accessible online to the general public and available for research via WVU Libraries at https://wvfolklife.lib.wvu.edu/.

The original, ongoing collection consists of over 2,500 items and constitutes a significant part of our work in folklife fieldwork and programs since November 2015.

Those items include unique primary source material such as field-recorded interviews and other audio recordings, transcriptions, photo and video documentation, ephemera, and some material objects documenting the vernacular culture, beliefs, occupational skills, and expressive culture of contemporary tradition bearers, folk and traditional artists, and cultural communities across West Virginia.

Collection highlights include documentation of the 2018 WV Teachers' Strike, UFCW Local 400 Kroger workers during COVID, the Scotts Run Museum and Trail community, foodways and community celebrations in the Swiss community of Helvetia, Summers County collector Jim Costa’s collection of 18th and 19th century farm tools and objects of rural life, and participants in the West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program.

Learn more via the West Virginia Folklife Program