Scholarly approach beginning in the 19th century emphasizing the “folk cultural” or
holistic study of everyday practices, artifacts, and expressions in community context. The
roots of the movement date to the use of the Swedish word folkliv (folklife) in 1847,
when it appeared in a Swedish book, Folklivet i Skytts harad (The Folklife of the
Jurisdictional District of Skytt). By 1878 it was used in the title of a new periodical,
Svenska Landsmal och Svenskt Folkliv (Swedish Dialects and Swedish Folklife). The
German equivalents of folklife were Volksleben and Volkskunde, which regularly
appeared after 1806. Volkskunde was variously defined, but a significant meaning for it
emerged emphasizing everyday life and tradition of individuals and communities in
ethnic-regional contexts. Richard Weiss defined Volkskunde in 1946 as “the study of the
interrelationships between the folk and folk-culture, in so far as they are determined by
community and tradition” (Weiss 1946:11). Influenced by German and Swedish models
of folklife research, Don Yoder proposed that folklife study in American scholarship “is
oriented toward holistic studies of culture regionally delimited and toward ‘life,’ the life
of the society under study and of the individual within that society” (Yoder 1976:4).
The first general book on American folklife, Zur Amerikanischen Volkskunde (1905)
was written by Karl Knortz (1841–1918) and was translated into English as American
Folklore in 1988. Early English-language folklife titles included Heli Chatelain’s
“African Folklife” (1897), William Greenough’s Canadian Folk-Life and Folk-Lore
(1897), and Martha Warren Beckwith’s Black Roadways: A Study of Jamaican Folk Life
(1929). In addition to folklife, terms such as “folk culture” and “regional ethnology” also
are used to refer to holistic studies of traditional societies, particularly of regional-ethnic
groups. From its relatively minor role in English American folklore scholarship during
the late 19th century, folklife study has gained prominence in the United States,
particularly after World War II.
The English scholarly approach of “folklore” inherited by the founders of the
American Folklore Society was to limit the materials of folklore to oral tradition and to
emphasize the organization of the subject by genres. Concentrating on the accumulation
of narrative texts, English American scholars often constructed histories of literary types
and themes. Folklife scholars expanded the cultural materials under study to all products
of tradition, including rituals, customs, crafts, architecture, clothing, furnishing, and art.
They also included the mental aspects of culture, such as concepts of shelter, settlement,
space, and time. They organized the subject by cultures or culture areas and attempted to
integrate the many aspects of culture in a regional or community context, taking into
account cultural patterns, historical and geographical conditions, and social changes and
movements. Using the active social references of “life” and “culture” as keywords, they
examined their subject as a living tradition and, therefore, applied a combination of
sociological, ethnographic, and historical methods.
German, Swedish, and Irish scholars used folklife and folk-culture research
particularly in relation to enclosed peasant societies. Rooted in place and conducting their lives according to tradition, peasants appeared to live in a community-bound folk culture.
Because such cultures were considered stable over time but variable over space, they
were examined to map the extent of regional and ethnic influence and relationships of
cultures to one another. Within the communities, scholars analyzed the integrative
functions of traditions within a society. Comparing the patterns of customs, narratives,
architecture, and crafts, folklife scholars also sought to uncover guiding concepts (also
called “base concepts” or “worldview”) of space, behavior, and time. In some nations,
peasant societies were considered to constitute the cultural roots of the nation, and
uncovering such concepts was thought to offer insights into the social patterns of national
societies.
In the United States, European-type peasant societies were thought not to exist, but
folklife scholarship found adherents particularly among Pennsylvania German
researchers, who found the model appropriate to studying the community and regional
variations within an ethnic-agricultural settlement. The Pennsylvania German folklife
scholars emphasized die formation of traditional community life. As early as 1882, Phebe
Earle Gibbons brought together descriptions of language, religion, festivals, quiltings,
farming, holidays, and manners and customs to discuss communities of Pennsylvania
Germans (Gibbons 1882). In 1888 Walter James Hoffman departed from the typical
contents of the Journal of American Folklore by including considerations of foodways,
architecture, and custom alongside speech and narrative (Hoffman 1888). In 1900 F.J.F
Schantz published The Domestic Life and Characteristics of the Pennsylvania-German
Pioneer under the imprint of the Pennsylvania German Society, and up to World War II,
Pennsylvania German researchers such as John Baer Stoudt, Preston Barba, and Thomas
Brendle made substantial contributions to the study of Pennsylvania German folklife.
The big boost for the folklife movement in the United States came in 1948 when
Alfred L.Shoemaker, who had studied folk culture in Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, and
Sweden, established the first Department of Folklore in the United States at Franklin and
Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and organized it around a folklife approach.
With Don Yoder and J.William Frey, he directed the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore
Center, which published the Pennsylvania Dutchman (subtitled Devoted to Pennsylvania
Dutch Folk-Culture) and held seminars on the “Folk Culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch
Country” (intended for “serious students of American folk-life”). In addition, the center
compiled an archive called the “folk-cultural index,” organized what came to be
America’s largest folk festival, and began the Pennsylvania Folklife Museum. Shoemaker
published studies in folk culture, including books on the Pennsylvania barn and on
Christmas and Easter customs. “The center” Don Yoder recalled, “was based on
European models and its purposes included the collecting, archiving, and disseminating
of scholarly information on every aspect of the Pennsylvania German culture. In 1956,
under the influence of the European Volkskunde and folklife (regional ethnology)
movements, we changed the title of our organization to the Pennsylvania Folklife Society
and the name of the periodical published by our society from the Pennsylvania Dutchman
to Pennsylvania Folklife. In this way we felt that we might do justice to all of
Pennsylvania’s ethnic groups” (Yoder 1982:18). Inspired by the appearance of Ulster
Folklife in 1955, Pennsylvania Folklife became the first in the United States with
“folklife” in its title.
In 1963 Yoder proclaimed the “folklife-studies movement” to be launched, and he
called for research in regions outside Pennsylvania and applications in colleges,
museums, and historical societies. At the University of Pennsylvania, Yoder became part
of the first Ph.D.-granting institution with folklife in its title—the Department of Folklore
and Folklife. Influenced by events in Pennsylvania, die Cooperstown graduate program,
granting the M.A. degree in American folk culture with required courses in folklife
research (sponsored jointly by the New York State Historical Association and the State
University of New York at Oneonta from 1964 to 1979), was established by Louis
C.Jones. In the Midwest, the Folklore Institute at Indiana University included folklife
courses taught by Warren Roberts. In 1965 Jones helped bridge European and American
folklife (Wildhaber 1965), research by publishing a translation of European Volkskunde
schohr Robert Wildhaber’s bibliography of American folklife (Wildhaber 1965), and
further communication was heralded in 1967 by the publication of “An Approach to
Folklife Studies,” by Scottish folklife specialist Alexander Fenton, in the Pennsylvania
journal Keystone Folklore.
A major contribution of folklife research to the English American model of folklore
scholarship was a broadening of scope to include material culture. Norbert F.Riedl in
1965 made a special plea for the use of German Volkskunde research and its use of
material evidence in American scholarship. In 1968 Henry Glassie, a product of the
Cooperstown and Pennsylvania programs, demonstrated the appropriateness of folklife
and material-culture research for a diverse American society in Pattern in the Material
Folk Culture of the Eastern United States. On the basis of diffusion patterns evident from
architecture, food, and craft, Glassie identified regional cultures emanating from four
historic cultural “hearths” on the Eastern seaboard: North, Mid-Atlantic, Lowland South,
and Upland South. Whereas Glassie emphasized historical development of regional
cultures, more of the ethnographic approach to the individual in folk art and material
culture was evident in the work of Michael Owen Jones, who studied at Indiana
University and later taught in the Ph.D. program at UCLA. From the 1960s to the 1980s
anthologies appeared—such as Forms upon the Frontier (1969), edited by Austin E. and
Alta S.Fife and Henry Glassie; Folklore and Folklife (1972), edited by Richard
M.Dorson; American Folklife (1976), edited by Don Yoder; and American Material
Culture and Folklife (1992), edited by Simon J.Bronner—including both historical and
ethnographic approaches to folklife and covering a broad range of groups, communities,
and regions in North America. The scope of folklife research extended to Louisiana
Cajuns, inner-city Blacks, Mexican Americans in northwest Mexico, African Americans
from the South Carolina Sea Islands, and upstate New York Yankees. Indicating this
expanded scope, a Ph.D. folklife program was established in the American Civilization
Department at George Washington University in the nation’s capital.
In addition to making inroads into American academe, folklife became well
established in the public sector during the 1960s and 1970s. Begun in 1967, the Festival
of American Folklife on the National Mall in Washington, DC, led to the formation of the
Office of Folklife Programs at the Smithsonian Institution in 1977. In 1974 the National
Endowment for the Arts developed its folk-arts program to award grants for the
presentation of community-based traditional arts and artists. In 1976 the American
Folklife Preservation Act was passed establishing the American Folklife Center in the
Library of Congress. The act defined folklife as “the traditional expressive culture shared
within the various groups in the United States: familial, ethnic, occupational, religious,
regional” and directed the center to “preserve and present American folklife” through
programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, live presentation, exhibition,
and publication. As a result of these developments, the folklife movement is especially
evident in the public sector. Of the forty-four public programs listed in the 1992
American Folklore Society directory, thirty-seven use folklife, folk culture, or folk arts in
their titles. Museums employing folklife research, sometimes called “folk museums,”
representing regional and ethnic cultures abound. Many museums such as Old World
Wisconsin or the Museum of Frontier Cultures present outdoor village settings and
demonstrate customs and practices of traditional cultures.
The folklife movement during the 1990s has been successful in introducing
ethnographic concerns for individual and community contexts into American folkloristic
practice. It has broadened the scope of the materials that folklorists study. Folklife has
become an addendum rather than a replacement or umbrella term for text-based folklore
research; as the titles of Dorson’s textbook Folklore and Folklife (1972) and the
University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Folklore and Folklife indicate, it is
frequently paired with, but second to, folklore in descriptions of the studies that
folklorists undertake. Contrary to the agenda of the pioneer American folklife scholars,
“folklore” has not been categorically subsumed by folklife. One indication is the handling
of the potential confusion between folklore and folklife in Jan Harold Brunvand’s
influential textbook The Study of American Folklore (1968, 1978, 1986). While
conceptually defining folklife broadly as “the full traditional lore, behavior, and material
culture of any folk group, with emphasis on the customary and material categories,”
Brunvand, under the heading of “Folklife and Folklore,” nevertheless invoked “current
usage” in his narrower operational characterization of folklife “to mean only customary
and material folk traditions, even though there is good reason to substitute the word
immediately and permanently for the much-abused term ‘folklore.’” (Brunvand
1986:401).
While widely employed, the keyword of “folklife” often lacks clarity, for it may be
used loosely for the concern for context or the use of material evidence, or more
specifically for an interpretation using the sociocultural idea of traditions serving
integrative functions in a community. Folklife research originally claimed a distinction
years ago because it focused on local social context and behavior in contrast to the kind
of literary treatment that sought the global view of tradition. Yet, built into the folklife
effort was the assumption that data could become comparative, even quantifiable, and
that the role of the researcher was to systematically compile data and interpret the
patterns of everyday life for individuals and their communities across time and space.
Europeans had a head start, pioneer American folklife scholars opined, but with the
rapidly growing vigor of American folklife studies, they imagined that traditional culture
on the American continent could be charted and analyzed. The message of the the 1990s
has been that, while promising, carrying out the social philosophy of accounting for each
traditional community and activity in nations as complex as the United States and Canada
is immense and problematic. In addition, the important psycho logical concern for
investigating individual lives in the practice of tradition brings even more burden to this
great task. Attempts to coordinate folklife research in the form of a cultural atlas for the United States have not been successful, and efforts to organize team research in
communities has been all too infrequent.
The lobbying efforts of the American folklife movement has taken different turns. In
the mid- 1990s, there is still an active discussion of a single term—folklore, folklife, folk
culture, regional ethnology—to describe what American folklorists do. Whether folklore
is paired with folklife or subsumed under folklife implies certain strategies and directions
for American students of tradition. Another point of discussion is the adaptation of
folklife methods typically oriented toward bounded rural communities to diverse urban
and postindustrial settings. The ethnography of organizations such as corporate cultures,
boys’ groups, and universities suggested by Michael Owen Jones, Gary Alan Fine, Jay
Mechling, and others addresses large issues of how and why subcultures are created.
Another issue is the role of the individual adapting to communities by negotiating
between personal creativity and social tradition (Bronner 1992). This aspect is especially
important to American folklife researchers commonly working within a field with mobile
social networks, individuals with multiple cultural heritages and identities, and extended,
often temporary, communities. The applications of folklife activity in public settings
continues to be another concern of the new folklife movement, and new uses of folklife
besides museums and historical societies in areas of education, human services, and
government are actively being pursued (Jones 1993).
Simon J.Bronner
References
Bronner, Simon J., ed. 1987. Folklife Studies from the Gilded Age: Object, Rite, and Custom in
Victorian America. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press.
——. 1989. Folklife Starts Here: The Background of Material Culture Scholarship in Pennsylvania.
In The Old Traditional Way of Life: Essays in Honor of Warren E. Roberts, ed. Robert E.Walls
and George H. Schoemaker. Bloomington, IN: Trickster, pp. 283–296.
——. 1990. The Fragmentation of American Folklife Studies. Journal of America n Folklore
103:209–214.
——. 1991. A Prophetic Vision of Public and Academic Folklifq: Alfred Shoemaker and
America’s First Department of Folklore. Folklore Historian 8:38–55.
——, ed. 1992. Creativity and Tradition in Folklore: New Directions. Logan: Utah State
University Press.
Erixon, Sigurd. 1950. An Introduction to Folklife Research or Nordic Ethnology. Folk Liv 14:5–15.
Fenton, Alexander. 1973. The Scope of Regional Ethnology. Folk Life 11:5–14.
Fine, Gary Alan. 1987. With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Gibbons, Phebe Earle. 1882. “Pennsylvania Dutch” and Other Essays. 3d. ed. Philadelphia:
J.B.Lippincott.
Hines, Donald M. 1972. The Development of Folklife Research in the United Kingdom.
Pennsylvania Folklife 21:8–20.
Hoffman, W.J. 1888. Folklore of the Pennsylvania Germans. Journal of American Folklore 1:125–
135.
Hufford, Mary. 1991. American Folklife: A Commonwealth of Cultures. Washington, DC:
American Folklife Center.
Hultkrantz, Ake. 1960. General Ethnological Concepts. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger.
Jones, Michael Owen. 1975. The Handmade Object and Its Maker. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
——. 1985. Exploring Folk Art: Twenty Years of Thought on Craft, Work, and Aesthetics. Logan:
Utah State University Press.
——, ed. 1993. Putting Folklore to Use. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
Jones, Michael Owen, Michael Dane Moore, and Richard Christopher Snyder, eds. Inside
Organizations: Understanding the Human Dimension. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Knortz, Karl. 1988. American Folklore, trans. by Helga B. Van Iten and James Dow. Folklore
Historian 5:1–43.
Loomis, Ormond H. 1983. Cultural Conservation: The Protection of Cultural Heritage in the
United States. Washington, DC: Library of Congress.
Riedl, Norbert F. 1965. Folklore vs. Volkskundc. A Plea for More Concern with the Study of
American Folk Culture on the Part of Anthropologists. Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin
31:47–53.
——. 1966. Folklore and the Study of Material Aspects of Folk Culture. Journal of American
Folkiore 79:557–563.
Roberts, Warren E. 1988. Viewpoints on Folklife: Looking at the Overlooked. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI
Research Press.
Weiss, Richard. 1946. Volkskunde der Schweiz: Grundriss. Erlenback and Zurich: Eugen Rentsch
Verlag.
Wildhaber, Robert. 1965. A Bibliographical Introduction to American Folklife. New York Folklore
Quarterly 21:259–302.
Yoder, Don. 1963. The Folklife Studies Movement. Pennsylvania Folklife 13:43–56.
——. 1982. Folklife in Pennsylvania: An Historical Survey. Keystone Folklore, n.s., 1:8–20.
——. 1990. Discovering American Folklife: Studies in Ethnic, Religious, and Regional Culture.
Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press.