^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS American Folklife Center The Library of Congress Summer 1994 Volume XVI, Number 3 ISSN 0149-6840 Catalog Card No. 77-649628 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 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 Timothy Lloyd, Acting Deputy Director Doris Craig, Administrative Assistant Stephanie Parks, Clerk Camila Bryce-Laporte, Program Coordinator Jennifer A. Cutting, Program Coordinator Acquisitions Joseph C. Hickerson, Head Processing Stephanie A. Hall, Archivist Catherine Hiebert Kerst, American Memory Project Programs Peter T. Bartis, Folklife Specialist Mary Hufford, Folklife Specialist David A. Taylor, Folklife Specialist Publications James Hardin, Editor Public Events Theadocia Austen, Coordinator Reference Gerald E. Parsons, Reference Librarian Judith A. Gray, Folklife Specialist Administrative Office Tel: 202 707-6590 Fax: 202 707-2076 Reference Service Tel: 202 707-5510 Federal Cylinder Project Tel: 202 707-1740 Board of Trustees Juris Ubans, Chair, Maine Robert Malir, Jr., Vice-chair, Kansas Nina Archabal, Minnesota Lindy Boggs, Louisiana; Washington, D.C. Carolyn Hecker, Maine Judith McCulloh, Illinois Ex Officio Members James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress Robert McCormick Adams, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Jane Alexander, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts Sheldon Hackney, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities Alan Jabbour, Director, American Folklife Center FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS James Hardin, Editor David A. Taylor, Editorial Advisor Timothy Lloyd, Editorial Review 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. 20540-8100. The text of issues of Folklife Center News from Spring 1992 to the present are available on LC MARVEL, the Library of Congress's Internet Gopher server. LC MARVEL is available through your local Gopher server. Or you may connect directly through Telnet to marvel.loc.gov, and then login as marvel. From the main menu, choose "Research and Reference," then "Reading Rooms," then "American Folklife Center," then "Publications," then "Folklife Center News." 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. FOLKLINE For timely information on the field of folklore and folklife, including training and professional opportunities and news items of national interest, a taped announcement is available around the clock, except during the hours of 9 A.M. until noon (eastern time) each Monday, when it is updated. Folkline is a joint project of the American Folklife Center and the American Folklore Society. Dial: 202 707-2000 ................................................................... EDITOR'S NOTES Legacies Folklore is resilient; it works in many ways to keep tradition going. Occasionally a little institutional help is useful, however, as in the several cases described in this issue of Folklife Center News. Norvus Miller died on May 1, 1994. But the sixteen musicians in the Kings of Harmony band he directed for seventeen years include two of his sons, who carry on the family musical tradition. Children growing up in the House of Prayer, Susan Levitas reports, "were encouraged to pick up instruments and sit in with older bands." Many learn to play by "observation, imitation, and inundation," elements in the process of traditional learning. Ralph Rinzler died on July 2, 1994. The Festival of American Folklife on the National Mall he helped to establish in 1967 continues to attract thousands of tourists each summer, providing pleasure, instruction, and insight into the diversity of American cultural life. Paterson, New Jersey, is said to be the first planned industrial center in the United States. Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, was a leading advocate for exploiting the potential of the region's Passaic River for industrial purposes. Now Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey hopes to stimulate an economic revival for Paterson and other New Jersey cities with a new project administered by the National Park Service called the Urban History Initiative. The Folklife Center is helping in the endeavor with a study of the city's occupational culture. The senator has acknowleged the Center for its role in "illuminating Paterson's past through an examination of labor and industry's contribution to community life and family values." During the Stalinist repressions, thousands of village minstrels in the Soviet Union were shot, arrested and sent to labor camps, or otherwise repressed. Fortunately a good portion of the epic songs and religious repertory they carried were recorded on wax cylinders that have now been brought to the Library of Congress for restoration, preservation, and copying. As Joe Hickerson reports, a new generation eagerly awaits access to this great legacy from the past. Memorial Walls While writing these notes, I received in the mail a copy of a new book by photographer Martha Cooper and folklorist Joseph Sciorra, R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art, a striking presentation of outdoor wall paintings done to commemorate young Latino and African American men and women who died in New York City (Henry Holt and Company, Owl Books, paper, $19.95). Joe and Marty did an article on the same subject for the Center's Folklife Annual 1990, and Marty is currently engaged to take photographs for the Center's project "Working in Paterson," reported on here. Their book is the result of a six-year study of a growing urban community tradition they first noticed in 1988. The artists documented in R.I.P have adapted a custom from Puerto Rico of marking the site of a violent death and employed an often vilified graffiti-like style; their memorial walls are arresting and disturbing signs of the times. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ American Folklife Center Documents Occupational Culture in Paterson, New Jersey By David A. Taylor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ................................................................... A team of researchers from the American Folklife Center has begun a four-month study of occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey, the nation's first planned industrial area. ................................................................... The Center is conducting the study, called "Working in Paterson," in conjunction with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office of the National Park Service (Philadelphia). It is one of several projects underway in Paterson, Perth Amboy, and Trenton, New Jersey, that derive from the 1992 federal Urban History Initiative (UHI). These projects are concerned primarily with assessing, stabilizing, and restoring historic buildings and other structures in order to revitalize deteriorating business districts and provide an enriched sense of local historic and cultural resources for residents and visitors. But "Working in Paterson" will consider living culture, and particularly the ways community life and values are shaped by work. The Urban History Initiative was sponsored in Congress by U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-New Jersey), a native of Paterson. Senator Lautenberg wrote the UHI legislation "to spark interest in New Jersey's rich urban history that can help spur the economic revitalization of our cities today." The senator says that he is "delighted that the American Folklife Center will be lending its considerable resources and expertise to illuminating Paterson's past through an examination of labor and industry's contribution to community life and family values. This will be an essential part of the UHI legislation, to help make New Jersey's cities the economic and cultural jewels they were in the past." Paterson's historic district includes the site of the first attempt in the United States to harness the power of a major river- -the Passaic--for industrial purposes. Well-known figures in the nation's history were involved in that endeavor, including Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, who was the leading advocate; and Pierre L'Enfant, the engineer-architect of Washington, D.C., who was commissioned to lay out the town and design the hydraulic system that powered the mills (although he did not carry out the commission). Paterson came into prominence as a manufacturing center in the nineteenth century, when its mills produced textiles, machinery, Colt revolvers, and locomotives. By 1870, Paterson was the leading producer of silk in the United States. Today, many of the mill buildings, where silk and other products were manufactured, still stand. The American Folklife Center--which has engaged in many studies of regional, ethnic, and occupational culture throughout the nation-- began field research in Paterson in June 1994. Four cultural specialists have been engaged to work on the project, under the direction of Center folklorist David Taylor, to discover the meaning of work as seen through the eyes of active and retired Paterson workers: folklorist and Paterson native Tom Carroll; documentary photographer Martha Cooper; folklorist Susan Levitas; and folklorist Bob McCarl. The researchers will interview retired workers who labored in the textile and other important local industries, interview contemporary workers in a number of occupations, document continuity and change in selected places of work in the city, assess the form and function of various occupational traditions, and photograph a variety of workers and work-related events. Four principal products of the study are planned: a report for the National Park Service that will discuss field research findings and make recommendations for specific publications, exhibitions, curriculum materials, and other programs and products the Park Service and cultural institutions in Paterson can use to enhance knowledge of the city's history and culture; a public event, in Paterson, that will be organized in order to inform members of the community about the conclusions of the project; an illustrated booklet, written for a general audience, that will illuminate central issues concerning work in Paterson; and an archival collection consisting of taped interviews, photographs, researchers' fieldnotes, and other documentary material collected. The collection will be preserved at the Library of Congress (a duplicate will be created for the Park Service which will, in turn, transfer it to a repository in Paterson). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "When Can I Hear the Cylinders?": Photographs from a Trip to Ukraine By Joseph C. Hickerson ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On March 22, 1994, I traveled to Kyiv to pursue a joint project the American Folklife Center and the Ryl's'kyi Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences initiated in 1992, as well as to explore additional acquisitions of Ukrainian folklore and music. The joint project with the institute seeks to preserve an important collection of wax cylinders (valiky) and other formats documenting village musicians of Ukraine from the first four decades of this century [see _Folklife Center News_, spring 1993]. While in Kyiv, I spent several days at the institute's manuscript and folklore divisions arranging for the duplication of additional cylinders and a collection of photographs, as well as the acquisition of thirty newly published monographs and ten serial publications. I also surveyed their audiotape (1,700 reels) and manuscript holdings and consulted on their duplication. I later met with the director of the V. I. Vernadsky Central Scientific Library of the Academy of Sciences and the director of its Jewish division concerning their collection of approximately 1,200 cylinders and accompanying catalogs, manuscripts, and photographs of Jewish folk music and folklore recorded between 1912 and 1967. In addition, I participated in (1) a field trip to the village of Irpen' to document current practitioners of the kobzar tradition; (2) a filming for Ukrainian TV of a concert of Ukrainian and American folksongs in the village of Skybyntsi; and (3) a ceremony inaugurating the opening of the expanded quarters for the Center for the Study of Oral History and Culture in Kyiv and the appearance of issue number 7 of Rodovid, their ethnographic journal. I also presented lecture/concerts on American folksong at the Ryl's'kyi Institute and the University of Kyiv. The cylinders of Ukrainian folk music, like those of Native Americans and others that the American Folklife Center has been preserving through its Archive of Folk Culture and the Library's Recording Laboratory, are not merely relics of a bygone age. These documents, once transferred to modern tape, can provide a dynamic link between past, present, and future. But is this connection only of interest to archivists and scholars? Not so for the eighteen- year-old apprentice who wistfully asked me as I was leaving the village of Irpen': "When can I hear the cylinders?" Soon, druzhe, very soon! The meetings and events for this trip to Ukraine were arranged by Valentyna Borysenko, director of the manuscript department and chief archivist at the institute, and American ethnomusicologist William (Bill) Noll, codirector of the study center. Travel expenses were provided by the Renaissance Fund of the Soros Foundation in Kyiv. Work on the joint project has also benefitted from generous donations by the Maria Yasinsky Murowany Foundation of Greenville, Delaware, and the Rex Foundation of San Anselmo, California. I would like to thank Naria Lassowsky Nebesh, an ethnomusicology gradute student at the University of Maryland, for her assistance on this project as part of her internship with the Folklife Center. Thanks also to Natalie A. Gawdiak of the Library of Congress's Law Library for her assistance in the preparation of this article. Photographs were taken by Bill Noll and others during my nine-day stay. PHOTOGRAPHS I first visited the Ryl's'kyi Institute of Art Studies, Folklore, and Ethnology on March 24. After presenting a number of the Center's publications and a cassette duplication of five of the cylinders thus far duplicated at the Library of Congress, I posed with staff members in the director's office. Pictured, left to right, are institute director Oleksandr H. Kostiuk, me, Valentyna Borysenko, and three of her staff members: Tanya Loboda, Svitlana Stefanovich, and Inna Shchterbak. Here Valentyna Borysenko and I are examining cylinders in the sound recording room of the institute's manuscript department. Approximately two-hundred of the cylinders have already been transported to the Folklife Center, where they are being copied onto tape by Recording Laboratory technical specialist John E. Howell. Approximately sixty remain to be brought over for duplication. On March 26, I accompanied Bill Noll and video cameraman Dmytro Klochko on a field trip to Irpen', a village thirty kilometers northwest of Kyiv. Bill has been the chief liaison and facilitator in the Folklife Center's project with the Ryl's'kyi Institute. For the past several years, he has also been documenting the current musical practice derived from the bardic traditions that were all but wiped out during the Soviet purges of the 1930s. As part of this fieldwork, he is preparing three one-hour videotapes highlighting Mykola Budnyk, one of the first musicians to apprentice with a surviving blind bardic singer (kobzar), and several of the musicians who have learned from him. The audio- and videotaping is taking place at Budnyk's home, which functions as a combination workshop, social club, and mecca for a number of younger apprentices who are learning to make and play the bandura and lyra and to sing the dumy and psal'my (epics and religious songs) in the style of the old masters. After the recording session, I posed with a number of the musicians and apprentices, including Mykhail Khai (on my right), Oleksandr ("Smyk") Sanin (upper right), and Budnyk (far right). Here I am enjoying a midday meal on March 27 at the apartment of Bill and his wife, Lidiia (Leda) Lykhach. Leda is an anthropologist who edits and publishes Rodovid, volume 6 of which featured an article on the cylinder project and an interview with me. Bill and Leda are codirectors of the Center for the Study of Oral History and Culture. Later that day Bill and Leda took me to several historic sites, including Babi (Babin) Yar. The monument there commemorates the martyrdom of the hundred-thousand Jews and others who were slaughtered at this ravine by the Nazis during World War II. On March 29, we traveled over two hours to the west of Kyiv to the village of Skybyntsi. There approximately 150 residents assembled in their cultural center to witness a filming by a Ukrainian TV crew of interviews and performances by a group of ten village women, singer Nina Matvienko, and myself. In this photo they are singing (and I am humming) one of their songs. On my right is Kateryna Bozhko, a director from Ukrainian TV; on my immediate left are Matvienko and Borysenko. After a program in a village cultural center in Ukraine, in March 1994, Joe Hickerson and Valentyna Borysenko were treated to a variety of local foods and toasted with glasses of samohonka, a homemade distillation. Here the two archivists appear to be enjoying some of the latter. A photographic journal of Joe's trip to Ukraine begins on page On March 30, I visited the Jewish department of the Institute of Manuscripts of the Vernadsky Library, where I examined a collection and catalog of 1,200 cylinders of Jewish folk music and narrative. This collection was amassed by folklorist Moshe Beregovski and his students beginning in 1927. It includes over 600 cylinders made during two expeditions conducted in 1913 and 1913 by Shlomo Ansky, assisted by Iulii Engel, Solomon (Sergei) Iudovin, and Zinoii Kiselgof. I am pictured here with department director Irina Sergeeva and staff members Ludmila Sholochova (who is doing a dissertation on the collection), Yohanan Petrovsky, and Elena Galtchenko. On March 31, I met with Oleksii S. Onyschenko, director of the Vernadsky Library, to discuss the possibilities of setting up a recording laboratory at their library or finding other means of transferring their cylinders onto tape. Here I pose with Onyschenko and Sergeeva under the watchful eye of V. I. Vernadsky. During my sojourn in Ukraine, I stayed at the home of Valentyna Borysenko and her son, Myroslav (Slava), and enjoyed their gracious hospitality. Slava acted as a splendid guide and interpreter. Here we are about to have my farewell lunch at their home on March 31. Thank you, Valentyna and Slava! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kings of Harmony Brings Jubilant Music to "God's White House" By Susan Levitas ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ................................................................... The Kings of Harmony played at the Library of Congress on July 21, 1994. The concert was dedicated to the loving memory of the group's leader, Norvus Miller, who died on May 1. ................................................................... One of the enduring images of "official" Washington, D.C., is a parade marching down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House, with several military-style brass bands belting out patriotic standards. For members of the United House of Prayer for All People, however, gospel brass bands make jubilant music in a neighborhood located some distance from the presidential mansion. The Kings of Harmony is the premiere brass band at "God's White House," in northwest Washington, the headquarters church of the United House of Prayer for All People, and they have been enlivening services there for thirty-four years. The Kings of Harmony is one of several hundred gospel brass bands at the more than one hundred thirty-five United Houses of Prayer nationwide. The gospel brass band tradition is unique to this denomination. It was introduced into services by charismatic church founder Bishop Charles M. "Sweet Daddy" Grace, a native of the Cape Verde Islands who was known for his healing powers and his exotic appearance, including four-inch fingernails painted red, white, and blue, and long curly hair. Grace was a patent medicine salesman and chicken factory worker who established his first congregation in 1919 in West Wareham, Massachusetts, with an emphasis on the direct, physical experience of the spirit. Music and "shouting"--a form of ecstatic worship in which congregants "catch" the spirit, and then shake, run, or jump in place, spin and speak in tongues-- were central to worship services. All manner of musical instruments are used, as Daddy Grace interpreted Psalm 150 literally: "Praise ye the Lord. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise Him with psaltery and harp. Praise Him with timbrel and dance. Praise Him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise ye the Lord." From the 1920s onward, as the church spread rapidly throughout the South, Grace used brass instruments as the centerpiece of his all- day-all-night services. In the early days, bands were comprised of six male musicians playing some combination of trombone, trumpet, sax, piano, drums, tambourine, and washboard, and drawing on the jazz influences of the day. Repertoire included hymns, rearrangements of earlier spirituals, and eventually gospel tunes. The instruments played the parts of voices, and arrangements were modeled after quartets and small vocal ensembles. No singing accompanied the songs; rather, the music was considered a conduit for the spirit to come through the church and into the bodies of its congregants. The intensity and newness of the music and Daddy Grace's services prompted one South Carolina community to sue the church as a public nuisance. In ordering the church to close, the State Supreme Court wrote: the evidence showed that there is dancing carried on in the church, weird noises and music, shouting, stamping of the feet, unearthly sounds, use of drums, trombones, horns and scrubbing boards. Despite this setback, the music and the church took hold with several dozen churches located today in the Carolinas. By the 1960s, trombones became the instrument of choice for House of Prayer bands, and groups were expanded to create a fuller, more multi-layered sound in the vein of large gospel choirs. The Kings of Harmony was formed during this period and Norvus Miller emerged as the group's leader. Miller, the late George Holland, leader of the Happyland Band from Newport News, Virginia, and Eddie Babb, leader of the Sons of Thunder band from Harlem, came to be seen as the most exemplary trombonists in the church, each with his own sound. These men are referred to as "the three stars in the Kingdom," and their bands are called "copy bands," because all other groups model themselves after one of their styles. A recent program entitled "Legend of Leaders," organized by members of God's White House and a congregation in Charlotte, North Carolina, honored these three men for their contributions to the church and its music. Norvus "Butch Littlejohn" Miller described this music as "inspirational gospel whose purpose is to edify and glorify the Lord." As president of the Kings of Harmony for seventeen years, he traveled thousands of miles with the group to play for services across the country, often driving all night in order to be at the next location. The current group is composed of sixteen musicians including two of Miller's sons, who play first and second lead trombones. Instruments include three lead trombones (with two playing at a time), two sets of "run" horns--two trombones playing harmony parts, background trombones that simulate the body of the choir, sousaphone, baritone horn, and a percussion section with bass drum, snare drum, and cymbals. The instrumental "voices" are arranged in three- and four-part harmonies with the lead horns playing on top of the run horns. The music builds slowly through each song to a sustained crescendo known as "thundering," with lead players improvising and blowing with great intensity. Miller said his style was influenced by jazz, rhythm and blues, and country music. As with most House of Prayer bands, members of the Kings of Harmony learned to play by observation, imitation, and inundation. As youngsters growing up in the House of Prayer, they heard the music often and were encouraged to pick-up instruments and sit in with older bands. Norvus Miller recalled those early days: I started back, I guess I was about six years old, and I blew pipes, you know the water pipes. My father had the water pipes. I put them together--they had the little fittings--and I started blowing the pipes. My father did construction. Back in those times, things were a little rough, but my parents decided they should buy me a trumpet. To this day, it is common to see toddlers at services holding plastic toy trombones, and children of six or more blowing on their first real horns. Like many African American sacred music traditions, brass band music from the United House of Prayer has reached audiences beyond the church. In recent years, groups have been featured at concert series and folk festivals from Lowell, Massachusetts, to New Orleans. In these settings, bands tend to emphasize skill and virtuosity in order to reach and inspire a diverse crowd. Susan Levitas is an independent folklorists based in Washington, D.C. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Lasting Contributions of Ralph Rinzler by Alan Jabbour ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ralph Rinzler, who passed away this summer, made a lasting contribution to American civilization in the latter decades of the twentieth century. What follows are my own thoughts on his lasting contributions. Ralph was centrally responsible for the evolution of the "folk festival" into a major form for American cultural celebration and interaction. Folk festivals preceded him, of course; the term can be traced back at least to the 1930s. But we have him to thank for a refinement and sophistication of the concept that enabled it to flower, proliferate, and communicate effectively in a generation characterized by sophistication in technology and performance standards. Folklorists are acutely aware that most true folk festivals do not use the term folk to describe themselves. Since they are normally culturally specific, they are likely to be named by reference to the occasion or artistic tradition they commemorate: St. Joseph's Day, Oldtime Fiddlers Convention, Fourth of July, Mardis Gras, Blessing of the Fleet, Syrian Picnic, or Juneteenth. What we came to call "folk festivals" were in fact a multicultural and intercultural form devised to bring together, present, and share the salient traditions of more than one culture. These festivals were self-consciously grassroots in content and style, yet they sought to share cultural expression across social and cultural lines. Such festivals called for a term that was not culturally specific, so folk festival it was. No doubt Ralph was conscious of this complex history of the folk festival genre. In 1967 he named the Smithsonian Institution's new festival on the National Mall the Festival of American Folklife. The name carefully avoids calling the event a folk festival, and instead characterizes it as a festival of folklife. He was conscious, too, of the resonances of the term folklife, which had been introduced to American folklore scholarship from Europe by Pennsylvanian Don Yoder. But though the concept Yoder espoused was culturally encompassing, in practice European scholars had come to see folklife as material culture and customary behavior, as opposed to the oral forms of folklore. In America, the tilt of the term folklife toward material culture never occurred; instead, we see folklife as encompassing both oral and material expression. A case can be made that the growing use of folklife in America to embrace all traditional cultural forms is accounted for, not by conceptual developments within the academy, but by the Festival of American Folklife and all the public programs inspired by it. The Festival of American Folklife had, I believe, a profound impact on America. A host of state and regional festivals were inspired by it, and it trained a legion of young cultural specialists who, as time passed, fanned out around the country carrying with them its memories and its lessons. Occasionally it went on the road itself, re-presenting components of the Mall edition at regional sites. But though many professionals urged the festival staff to pursue local and regional "feedback" more energetically, in the final analysis the festival achieved more local and regional impact simply by being itself on the Mall than it ever achieved by targeting communities for feedback. Festivals-- as Archibald MacLeish said of poems--"should not mean, but be." The essence of this festival has been as a national symbol on the National Mall. One of the hallmarks of the festival is its development of what might be called the intimate public style in America. Most nations, including our own, have a formal or ceremonial style for large public events. Part of the special genius of twentieth-century American culture, I believe, has been its knack for making the capacious seem intimate and the formal seem colloquial. Our public media are particularly fond of the intimate style, having come to realize that they are speaking not to millions of people, but to one or two people in their home or car. Informality--that is, cultivation of a style that seems informal--has become an American hallmark. In the genre of the folk festival, it was critical to the success of the enterprise to imbue the event with a style that conveys and symbolizes the intimacy of vernacular culture, and that fosters a sense of intimacy with vernacular culture. The Festival of American Folklife was enormously successful in this symbolic task. In dozens of ways, the festival made visitors feel a personal bond with the people and traditions they encountered. Principally, it seized upon and greatly elaborated the idea of "workshops"--an organizational concept that implies a working-together style that blurs the lines between presenters and audience, and a sense of events-in-the- making rather than finished presentations. The techniques of the intimate style may not have been wholly invented by the festival, but the festival unquestionably contributed both to the development of the style and to its diffusion throughout the country in the hands of a sophisticated younger generation for whom the style was a generational trademark. Most of us in the field are so imbued with these stylistic practices that we take them for granted, but the techniques of the intimate style are part of our repertory only becasue the festival helped us invent and refine them as symbolic tools for public communication. Many helped, but ultimately the credit is due to Ralph. Ralph's other great accomplishment, I believe, was in seeking out and finding ways to spotlight extraordinary artists and art forms within grassroots culture. Here his milieu was less the public sector and more the private sector world of record companies, promoters, and the like. The festival called for enormous organizational talents; one must assert one's vision, yet allow for the creativity of others, the demands of institutional interests, the need for fund-raising and public relations, the cultural debates of academics, devotees, and communities. Identifying and promoting great artistry in the private sector is a different skill, as exemplified by the great A & R (artist and repertory) men of the record industry. Such a person is remembered by the success of the artists sponsored, and Ralph had stunning successes in this mode: for Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, Dewey Balfa, and others, Ralph made the critical difference in the development of their art and their careers. One can compare his achievements to those of the great art connoisseurs, whose contributions have been to identify great art heretofore unrecognized. Indeed, Ralph's skills in this area extended into the visual arts, and a whole field of artistic expression, traditional Southern pottery, was shepherded into a new relationship with the public thanks to Ralph's endeavors with the Meaders family, Jugtown, and other potteries. Out of these achievements--building a great national festival, and identifying and sponsoring great but unrecognized artists--grew Ralph's many other accomplishments as a builder of institutions. The Folk and Traditional Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Folklife Center both owe a profound debt to Ralph and the festival as founding forces. Indeed, the Smithsonian Institution itself, to which he was so devoted, has been shaped by his participation in it. The festival staff grew into the Center for Folklife Programs and Intercultural Studies; the larger public programming of the Smithsonian was deeply influenced by the festival and by Ralph's concept of public service; and even the museums and curators, who began by regarding him as a public relations gambit, have paid him the highest compliment by imitating and replicating his program ideas. Other organizations have been blessed by his caring for them. But the highest tribute to his accomplishments is to observe that, for every institution that he touched directly, he touched dozens more indirectly, by the radiation of his powerful vision through the accomplishments of others and into the larger fabric of our lives as Americans. ................................................................. Summer 1994 Captions Cover: Paterson mill worker uses a machine to make special punched cards that, when laced together, will be used to program a complicated pattern for fabric woven on a Jacquard loom, ca. 1930. As he works, he refers to a designer's pattern, printed on "punch paper," mounted in front of him. The design shown here is an inverted image of the Great Falls on the Passaic River, and the small bridge above them, in Paterson. Courtesy of The Paterson Museum Young girls transfer "hard silk" from skeins onto bobbins at a Paterson "throwing" mill, ca. 1900. In mills of this kind, raw silk fibers were made into thread for weaving and sewing. Courtesy of The Paterson Museum Statue of Alexander Hamilton gazing at the Passaic Falls, Paterson, New Jersey. Photo by David Taylor "Even during the Revolution Hamilton had been impressed by the site of the Great Falls of the Passaic. His fertile imagination envisioned a great manufacturing center, a great Federal City, to supply the needs of the country. Here was water-power to turn the mill wheels and the navigable river to carry manufactured goods to the market centers: a national manufactory." From _Paterson_, book II, section II, by William Carlos Williams The Kings of Harmony gospel brass band at the United House of Prayer, Washington, D.C., during regular Sunday service. Far left is Norvus Miller. Photo by Nick Spitzer Purcell "Rob" Miller at the Library of Congress, July 21. Photo by Yusef El-Amin Norvus Miller Jr. at the Library of Congress, July 21. Photo by Yusef El-Amin Ralph Rinzler joined Folklife Center staffers to perform at the opening ceremonies for the Library's James Madison Memorial Building, May 28, 1980. Left to right: Joe Hickerson; Rinzler; Carl Fleischhauer, now coordinator of the Library's American Memory Project; Alan Jabbour; and Howard W. "Rusty" Marshall, now professor of folklore at the University of Missouri. Photo by John Gibbs Antonio "Chico" Garcia, "In Memory of Jenny [and] Evelyn," 1988. From _R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art_. Photo by Martha Cooper -------------------------------END TEXT--------------------------- Note: This text has been prepared in ascii for Internet distribution. Fonts and diacritics have been removed. For a free printed copy please write to The American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540-8100.