Introduction

Mary Jo McCabe, artist. *1994 Iowa State Winner.* Sampler quilt. Land's End All-American Quilt Collection. Library of Congress American Folklife Center.

American Folklife Center collections from Iowa document the diversity of its expressive culture. Among its unique recordings are hammered dulcimer music; German festival music; fiddle tunes; cylinder recordings of Mesquakie songs collected in the 1910s; Amish and Mennonite music; tapes of the 1976 Iowa Folk Festival; and duck calls. In 1982, the Center's Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools Project documented a Czech school in Cedar Rapids and a Dutch school in Pella. The September 11, 2001, Documentary Project includes interviews with Iowans. Recent Immigrant Workers in Iowa’s Meatpacking Industry is a collection of nineteen interviews including sound recordings, photographs, and interview logs and transcriptions documenting the occupational folklore and work-related experiences of recent immigrants and refugees employed in Iowa meatpacking plants and meat processing industry. It includes interviews with immigrants and refugees from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, many of whom also reflect on their lives as new Americans and how their presence is reshaping local and regional culture in Iowa and Illinois and is part of the American Folklife Center's Occupational Folklife Project.

September 11, 2001, Documentary Project

The September 11, 2001 Documentary Project captures the reactions, eyewitness accounts, and diverse opinions of Americans and others in the months that followed the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93. Patriotism and unity mixed with sadness, anger, and insecurity are common themes expressed in this online presentation of almost 200 audio and video interviews, 45 graphic items, and 21 written narratives. The project includes 16 interviews with people in Iowa.

Explore the September 11, 2001, Documentary Project Collection
The complete September 11, 2001 Documentary Project collection contains more than 400 audio and video recordings that contain about 800 interviews; 8100 manuscript materials; 421 graphic and photographic materials; 15 electronic media; and 38 artifacts.

Additional Collections of Interest

The following materials link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.

Duncan Emrich autograph album collection, 1843-1956 (bulk 1843-1923)
Call Number: AFC 1955/001
Published/Created: 1843-1956
This collection was initiated through an on-air request for autograph albums on the "NBC Weekend" radio program by Duncan Emrich, then head of the Archive of Folk Song, Library of Congress, between 1955 and 1956. It consists of twenty autograph albums and related ephemera. Eight of the albums are from Independence, Iowa; others are from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and New York, with dates from 1843 to 1923. Some albums include photographs, drawings, and calligraphy.
Marcus Bach "Preserving Iowa's religious heritage" collection, part 1
Call Number: AFC 1943/013
Published/Created: 1943
The recordings in this group form part of the project field recordings. They include recordings of Amish, Mennonite, Dutch Reformed, Welsh Presbyterian, and Morman hymns and congregational singing, plus interviews with clergy and church members, including Mrs. Leonora Scholte, a direct descendent of the founder of the Dutch Christian Reformed Church community at Pella, Iowa. These recordings were made by Marcus Bach and Addison Alspach in February-May, 1943.
Marcus Bach "Preserving Iowa's religious heritage" collection, part 2
Call Number: AFC 1944/011
Published/Created: 1943
Collection of field recordings of hymns sung by Danish Lutheran, Welsh Presbyterian, Czech Presbyterian, and German Lutheran congregations at various locations; plus hymns, a litany, and parts of the office sung by Trappist monks at New Melleray, Iowa, recorded by Marcus Bach and Addison Alspach in September, October and November 1943. Includes several interviews with pastors and ministers of the congregations.
Marcus Bach "Preserving Iowa's religious heritage" collection, part 3
Published/Created: 1943-1944
The recordings in this group form part of the project field recordings. These include congregational singing and interviews with clergy and church members collected by Marcus Bach in 1943-1945. Groups recorded include Presbyterians, African Americans, Norwegian Lutherans, Danish Lutherans, Bohemian Czech clergy; Swedish Lutherans; and a U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School choral group. Interviews were conducted with Miss Dawson and John Masson of the Associate Presbyterian Church; Brother Cauldis of the A.M.E. Church; President Preus and Pastor Huff of the Norwegian Lutheran congregation, First Lutheran Church; Ottar Jorgensen of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church; Dr. Filipi and Dr. Pokoney of the Hus Memorial Church. The United States Navy Pre-Flight Choir performed the Navy Hymn and a Sanctus and Gloria Patri.
Truman Michelson collection of Fox (Mesquakie) cylinder recordings
Call Number: AFC 1948/061
Published/Created: 1912-1916
Collection of five hours of field recordings from the Fox (Mesquakie) community at Tama, Iowa, recorded by Truman Michelson in July 1912 and perhaps circa 1916 on other Bureau of American Ethnology-sponsored field trips. Approximately two-thirds of the cylinders contain songs of the Religion Dance (the Central Algonquian rite known elsewhere as the Drum or Dream Dance). Most of the cylinders were transferred from the National Archives in 1948; one additional cylinder was located and transferred from the Smithsonian Institution in 1981.
Harry Oster collection of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Iowa recordings
Call Number: AFC 1967/003
Published/Created: 1957-1966
Field recordings made by Harry Oster in Iowa, Louisiana, and Mississippi, March 11, 1957-November 12, 1966. The collection includes spirituals, hymns, and bible tales; blues, talking blues, boogie woogie, work songs, field hollers, bawdy songs, folk tales, cante fable, exempla, rhymes, street cries, ballads, folk songs, parodies, nonsense songs, lullabies, jokes, and recitations from African American, Anglo American, German American, and French- speaking Creole performers. Vocals are unaccompanied, or accompanied variously by guitar, harmonica, piano, accordion, washboard, hammered dulcimer, and glockenspiel. The collection includes interviews and conversations including discussions of racism experienced by African Americans. Son House, who was born in Mississippi, was interviewed by Oster in Iowa City and told tales, talked about his experiences as a musician, gave accounts of floods, talked about alligators and snakes, selling moss, and Creole girl friends.
Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools in America Project collection, 1982-1986
Call Number: AFC 1993/001
Published/Created: 1982-1986
The collection consists of field notes, interviews, curriculum materials, sound recordings, photographs, and one videorecording resulting from a survey conducted by the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress in 1982 which documented 23 ethnic schools in the United States.
Recent immigrant workers in Iowa's meatpacking industry : Archie Green Fellows Project, 2015-2016
Call Number: AFC 2015/026
Published/Created: 2015-2016
ollection of 20 interviews with workers, union members, and union employees, most of whom have worked in meat processing plants in Iowa. The interviewees are immigrants and refugees from Burma (via Thailand), Mexico, Morocco, Liberia and other locations. John McKerley and Jennifer Sherer and colleagues from the University of Iowa Labor Center, Iowa City, Iowa, conducted audio interviews documenting the occupational culture of foreign-born workers in Iowa's meatpacking industry. Over the last several decades, the state's meatpacking industry has been transformed by technological and organizational change and the arrival of new waves of immigrants and refugees from across the globe.

Podcasts and Blog Posts

Folklorist Harry Oster’s collection of 1950s-60s folk music ranges from English folksongs in Iowa to Delta country blues
Read a blog by Nicole Saylor, head of the American Folklife Center archive. (Folklife Today: April 2, 2014)
A Dance for the Birthday of the Buddha
Read folklorist Stephanie Hall's blog post about the performance of the Lao Natasinh Dance Troupe at the Library of Congress in 2006 (Folklife Today blog: May 12, 2016)

Public Programming

The Lao Natasinh Dance Troupe of Iowa, based in Des Moines, is a group of Lao dancers and musicians trained in the Natasinh style of performance--the traditional forms, techniques and character of performing arts taught at the Ecole National de Musique et Danse Laotien (founded in Vientiane in 1956 to preserve Lao music and dance traditions). The genre includes court music for royal ceremonies and the classical dance-drama based on the Ramayana, the Hindu epic that depicts the life and struggles of the Buddha, as well as music and dance performed for social and ritual occasions. In the early 1980s, the Natasinh Dancers and Musicians resettled in Des Moines, Iowa, thanks to Iowa's Refugee Resettlement Program and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

American Folklife Center Collections: Iowa

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Introduction

September 11, 2001, Documentary Project

Additional Collections of Interest

Podcasts and Blog Posts

Public Programming