Collection

Lowell Folklife Project collection

The Lowell Folklife Project collection documents life in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1987 and 1988, including Cambodian weddings and New Year celebrations.[1][2] It is held in the Archive of Folk Culture at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, in Washington, D.C.[1]

History

The Lowell Historic Preservation Commission invited the American Folklife Center to develop and run a cultural survey of present-day ethnic and neighborhood life in Lowell. The survey was meant to help the commission with its planning and programs, to support the interpretive programs of the State Heritage Park and the National Historical Park, and to create an archive.[1] The center carried out the year-long study in 1987 and 1988 as a joint project with the commission, which sponsored it, with support from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. It recorded ethnic neighborhoods, occupations and community life tied to the city's industrial history.[3]

The fieldworkers were Peter Bartis, Michael E. Bell, Douglas DeNatale, Barbara Fertig, Carl Fleischhauer, John Lueders-Booth, Mario Montaño, Martha K. Norkunas, Tom Rankin, David Alan Taylor and Eleanor F. Wachs, working with members of the Refugee Arts Group.[3] Their field data became the basis of the center's "Report to the Lowell Historic Preservation Commission," and a copy of the report is in the collection. A reference copy of the collection went to the commission for a planned folklife archive at the Patrick J. Mogan Cultural Center.[1][4]

Cambodian material

The recordings include a Cambodian Buddhist wedding ceremony and Cambodian and Laotian New Year celebrations.[2] John Lueders-Booth photographed the wedding of Pen Hing and Sopheap Kuth at the home of Chhoun Chen in Lowell on September 26, 1987.[2] On April 16, 1988, Michael Edward Bell photographed the Cambodian New Year celebration at Trairatanaram Temple in Lowell, with a lay leader at the microphone and a woman beside a money tree, and the Laotian New Year celebration at the Lowell Girls Club.[5] The collection's subjects include the marriage customs and social life of Cambodian Americans, and Khmer songs.[1]

Material coverage

The collection holds about 17,000 items in ten containers, filling 4 linear feet (about 1.2 meters).[1] Its 196 hours of sound recordings cover oral history interviews, religious services, musical events, parades and processions, ethnic festivals, restaurants and neighborhood tours. A further 23 hours of musical events and oral history interviews were copied from originals lent by Lowell residents.[1] The recordings are on 90 cassettes and 247 reel-to-reel tapes.[1]

There are about 13,500 photographs: some 10,000 black-and-white images and 3,500 color slides and prints.[3] About 6,750 pages of print and manuscript material include correspondence, field notes, questionnaires, neighborhood maps, reports, publications, administrative files and interview transcripts, in 158 folders. Fifteen computer disks hold electronic copies of the manuscripts, including a collection inventory and an index to the sound recordings, and ephemera complete the collection.[1] The material is in English, French, Greek, Laotian, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese and Cambodian.[1]

Catalog and access

The call number is AFC 1987/042.[1] Most of the sound recordings and photographs are in the Library of Congress online presentation, along with selected fieldworker logs, field notes and final reports. The rest of the collection is available in the Folklife Reading Room at the Library of Congress.[3] Access restrictions apply, and some content is stored offsite. Copying may be governed by copyright and other restrictions.[1] The fieldwork is in the public domain in the United States, while other material needs the written permission of its copyright owners, and privacy and publicity rights may apply to some uses.[5] The Southeast Asian Digital Archive lists the material as the Lowell Folklife Collection, 1987 to 1988.[6]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Lowell Folklife Project finding aid
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Library of Congress Cambodia folklife guide
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Library of Congress, About this Collection: Lowell Folklife Project
  4. ↑ American Folklife Center Cambodia guide
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Library of Congress, Cambodian New Year's celebration, Trairatanaram Temple, Lowell (AFC 1987/042: LFP-MB-461)
  6. ↑ Southeast Asian Digital Archive
Retrieved from "https://dev.khmerconnection.com/w/index.php?title=Lowell_Folklife_Project_collection&oldid=7390"
This page was last edited on 26 September 2026, at 23:32.