Digital Collections

The Library of Congress has been digitizing unique primary source collection materials since the 1990s. The following digital collections focus on ethnographic documentation of Latinxs and the Latin American diaspora from the perspective of traditional arts and culture.

Selected Digital Collections

California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties Collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell
This online presentation, California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties, comprises 35 hours of folk music recorded in 12 languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians. It includes sound recordings, still photographs of the performers, drawings of folk instruments, and written documentation from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in northern California in the 1930s. This New Deal project was organized and directed by folk music collector Sidney Robertson Cowell for the Northern California Work Projects Administration. Sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley, and cosponsored by the Archive of American Folk Song (now the American Folklife Center archive), this undertaking was one of the earliest ethnographic field projects to document European, Slavic, Middle Eastern, and English- and Spanish-language folk music in one region of the United States.
Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection
The collection consists of approximately 344 sound recordings, 14,141 photographs, 269 folders of manuscript materials, 2 videorecordings, publications, ephemera, administrative files, and field notes produced and collected during the 1977 Chicago Ethnic Arts Project field survey from 1976-1981; but primarily during fieldwork conducted by fourteen folklorists directed by the American Folklife Center in 1977.
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection is an online presentation of an ethnographic field collection documenting religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. In 1940, Juan Bautista Rael of Stanford University, a native of Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico, used disc recording equipment supplied by the Archive of American Folk Song (American Folklife Center archive) to document alabados (hymns), folk drama, wedding songs, and dance tunes. The recordings included in the collection were made in Alamosa, Manassa, and Antonito, Colorado, and in Cerro and Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico. In addition to these recordings, the collection includes manuscript materials and publications authored by Rael which provide insight into the rich musical heritage and cultural traditions of this region.
New Mexico Folklife Project Collection
The New Mexico Folklife Project was conducted by Carl Fleischhauer of the American Folklife Center, in the summers of 1984 and 1985. In 1984, the effort supported the work of the folklorist Laurie Beth Kalb, representing the Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and focused on three Hispanic santeros in northern part of the state: Felix Lopez, La Mesilla; Eulogio Ortega, Velarde; and Horacio Valdez, Dixon, with additional documentation of the work of the artist Clem "Pop" Shaffer in Mountainair, New Mexico. In 1985, Fleischhauer supported Kalb and Boyd Pratt, representing the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, part of the state's Department of Cultural Affairs, to record information about selected sites in the northeastern quadrant of the state, including Clayton, Mora, Mosquero, and Mosquero Canyon, New Mexico.
Working in Paterson: Occupational Heritage in an Urban Setting
This collection presents 470 interview excerpts and 3882 photographs from the Working in Paterson Folklife Project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The four-month study of occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey, was conducted in 1994. The documentary materials presented in this online collection explore how Paterson's industrial heritage expresses itself in Paterson: in its work sites, work processes, and memories of workers. The Paterson Folklife Project resulted in approximately 97 hours of recorded interviews (90 cassette and digital audio tapes) with people in their homes and places of work; 6,192 still photographs (3,420 35-mm color slides and 2,772 black-and-white images) documenting informants, work processes, work sites, industrial and commercial architecture, and other visible elements of occupational culture, including historic photos, documents, and memorabilia; and 1,004 manuscript pages of documentation, including 700 pages of audio and photo logs, and 314 pages of fieldnotes, in addition to administrative correspondence, maps, publications, and ephemera.
Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools in America Project
The Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools in America Project was conducted in 1982 by the American Folklife Center to survey selected religious and secular ethnic community-based schools conducted, at least in part, in a language other than English to document the continued ethnolinguistic and cultural diversity of the United States. 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, including a Portuguese school in Taunton, Massachusetts and the East Harlem Music School in New York, New York.
Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1937 to 1942
Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections combines sound recordings and manuscript materials from four discrete archival collections made by Work Projects Administration (WPA) workers from the Joint Committee on Folk Arts, the Federal Writers' Project, and the Federal Music Project from 1937-42. This online presentation provides access to 376 sound recordings and 106 accompanying materials, including recording logs, transcripts, correspondence between Florida WPA workers and Library of Congress personnel, and a proposal to survey Florida folklore by Zora Neale Hurston. It features sound recordings in many languages, includes blues and work songs from menhaden fishing boats, railroad gangs, and turpentine camps; children's songs, dance music, and religious music of many cultures.
Lowell Folklife Project Collection
The Lowell Folklife Project was conducted in 1987-1988 as a cooperative project of the American Folklife Center and the Lowell Historic Preservation Commission, with support from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, to document contemporary ethnic neighborhoods, occupations, and community life related to the history of industrialization in Lowell, Massachusetts. This year-long study yielded an ethnographic collection consisting of 196 hours of sound recordings covering a wide range of subjects and activities, including oral history interviews, religious services and festivals, such as the Puerto Rican festival, musical events, parades, ethnic restaurants, and neighborhood tours.

Special Presentation

Story Maps at the Library of Congress are immersive web presentations that tell the incredible stories of the Library’s collections through narrative, multimedia, and interactive maps. The American Folklife Center publishes Story Maps that provide curated access to our online collections.

The below Story Map, Self-Publishing from Brazil's Margins: Literatura de Cordel in the Library of Congress, published by the Hispanic Division, highlights the American Folklife Center’s Literatura de cordel Brazilian chapbook collection (AFC 1970/002). The latter two Story Maps, published by the AFC, draw upon archival documentation of Latinx cultural traditions found throughout our collections. Raíces y Rutas highlights performance traditions, audiovisual recordings, song text, and photographs to provide a window into the astonishing diversity, cultural dynamics, and geographical spread of Hispanic cultural traditions throughout the nation. In Tonada del País: The American Folklife Center's Juan B. Rael Collection, readers can follow Juan B. Rael's recording trip in the Northern Rio Grande region, listening to religious hymns, songs from folk dramas and weddings, and dance tunes along the way.

Self-Publishing from Brazil's Margins: Literatura de Cordel in the Library of Congress
This Story Map highlights and contextualizes the Library of Congress' collections of literatura de cordel, a form of popular poetry from the Northeast of Brazil. This form of folk poetry and song was brought to Brazil by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. It took root in the Northeast where African and Indigenous influences were incorporated. Printed on paper pamphlets, these chapbooks functioned as a valuable source of news. Writings were printed and displayed in marketplaces, usually hung on a string (cordel), hence the name “literatura de cordel”.
Raíces y Rutas: Roots & Routes of Hispanic Cultural Performances
American Folklife Center and broader Library collections illustrate the depth and breadth of the expressive culture and artistry of the nation's Hispanic communities
Tonada del País: The American Folklife Center's Juan B. Rael Collection
This story map explores the 1940 music recording trip of scholar Juan B. Rael across the Northern Rio Grande region of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado.

Latinx and Latin American Collections: Resources in the American Folklife Center

American Folklife Center: Ask a Librarian

Digital Collections

Selected Digital Collections

Special Presentation