Bitter Southerner guest editors April and Lance Ledbetter spoke with Sarah Bryan, executive director of the North Carolina Folklife Institute and editor of the Old-Time Herald, and Emily Hilliard, program officer, Folk and Traditional Arts at Mid Atlantic Arts and former West Virginia state folklorist at the West Virginia Humanities Council, about tradition, authenticity, validation, and building creative cultural communities in our digital age.
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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
West Virginia Mine Wars Museum's Blair 100 Kickoff Event
I’m really looking forward to the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum's Battle of Blair Mountain Centennial Kickoff Event, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain, and focusing specifically on the importance of music and poetry as expressions of solidarity during the Mine Wars.
Featured musicians include blues harmonica player and National Heritage Fellow Phil Wiggins & West Virginia folklorist and musician Gerry Milnes, both of whom are featured in the film and soundtrack of John Sayles' 1987 film Matewan. Honored to be saying a few words alongside Crystal Good, Doris A. Fields, and more.
Folklorist Archie Green, courtesy American Folklife Center
2021-2022 American Folklife Center Archie Green Fellowships
I'm so honored to be awarded an American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress 2021-2022 Archie Green Fellowship for my occupational folklife oral history project “Rural Free Delivery: Mail Carriers in Central Appalachia.” I've long admired Archie's work in occupational folklore and aspired to this fellowship, so I'm very grateful for this recognition and support.
Over the next year, I'll be documenting the expressive culture and experiences of approximately 25 rural mail carriers and clerks (formerly known as postmasters) in the upper mountain South (VA, WV, KY, OH, NC, and TN). The project will focus, in particular, on the function mail carriers serve as lifelines in their community, as well as how their place of work—rural post offices—are invaluable community hubs in remote rural areas. I'm also interested in recording how, through their regular routes, long-time rural mail carriers may have witnessed changes in the landscape—due to farm loss, deforestation, climate change, mountaintop removal mining, and other factors. The interviews and other project materials will be archived at the Library of Congress.
Thank you to Brett Ratliff at WMMT FM/ Appalshop for their support, past fellows Katy Clune & Kim Stryker for their guidance, and everyone at the AFC, especially Nancy Groce & John Fenn.
Read more about this year’s American Folklife Center fellowship awardees via Folklife Today.
Mountaineers are Always Free Book Launch
A new book by folklorist Rosemary Hathaway explores the history and potent symbolism of the iconic West Virginia University Mountaineer. The book launch for “Mountaineers Are Always Free: Heritage, Dissent, and a West Virginia Icon” ( WVU Press, 2020) will be held in the Event Hall at the WVU College of Law on February 24 at 4 p.m. Admission is free and the public is invited to attend.
Hathaway, an associate professor of English, will lead a discussion about the Mountaineer with Travis Stimeling, associate professor of music, and Emily Hilliard of the West Virginia Folklife Program.
Learn more via West Virginia University’s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences