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Sea Songs and Shanties: Resources in the American Folklife Center

Related Online Resources

Through blog posts, podcasts and videos presentations of public programs and concerts, you can learn more about the American Folklife Center's collections directly from folklorists, specialists, and performers.

Folklife Today Blog

Folklife Today is a blog for people interested in folklore, folklife, and oral history. The blog features brief articles on folklife topics, highlighting the unparalleled collections of the Library of Congress, especially the American Folklife Center and the Veterans History Project.

Highlighted Blog Posts

The highlighted blog posts below focus on the topic of “sea shanties.”

American Folklife Center Podcasts

Discover the treasures of the Library through its experts and special guests. Find full podcast series produced by the American Folklife Center by following the links below.

Highlighted Podcasts

The selected podcast below focuses on the topics of sea songs and shanteys in the American Folklife Center collections.

Public Programs

Since its inception in 1976, the American Folklife Center has routinely hosted public programs at the Library of Congress in the form of concerts, lectures, panels, and symposia. From 2006 on, most of these public programs have been video recorded and made available online.

Playlists and Series

There are a number of playlists available on the YouTube page that gather videos from certain seasons of our Homegrown Concert series External or pull together various lectures as a sampler External of the types of topics covered. You can also simply search "folklife" on the YouTube page External to pull up hundreds of videos.

It is also possible to view entire series of American Folklife Center videos on the Library's website. Those links are provided below. Many (if not all) of the same videos can be found on the Library's YouTube channel.

Highlighted Public Programs

As part of the celebration of the life and achievements of labor folklorist Archive Green, the Northern Neck Chantey Singers presented work songs of menhaden fishermen during "Legends and Legacies: An American Folklife Center Celebration of Public Folklore." (Event date: September 10, 2009).

This Archive Challenge concert features four invited presenters drawing material from the American Folklife Center Archive. The artists are Jaimeo Brown, Huda Asfour & Kamyar Arsani, Elena & Los Fulanos, and the Ship's Company Chanteymen. The Ship's Company Chanteymen, a group specializing in traditional songs from maritime communities, is first to perform. In the days of wooden sailing vessels, sailors sang work songs, known as chanteys, for the purpose of coordinating their actions during heavy labor. Often, they did this with the help of a chanteyman, a song specialist who traded his expertise in singing for a reduction in the hard labor of raising sails and climbing masts. Maritime communities also had other song traditions, from fishing songs to ballads of seafaring life. For 20 years, the singers of Ship's Company Chanteymen have shared these old salts’ songs with audiences up and down the East Coast. Often dressed in 19th century naval uniforms, they perform for historical reenactments, at historic venues, on board ships large and small, and at dockside bars, maritime museums, pirate festivals, and concert venues. The Chanteymen also organize chantey sings throughout the region at which everyone is invited to sing. The Chanteymen are a program of Ship’s Company, a nonprofit organization devoted to living history and nautical education. (Event date: September 20, 2018)