[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 81 (Monday, May 23, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E761-E762]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMERICAN FOLKLIFE CENTER AT THE LIBRARY OF 
                                CONGRESS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EARL BLUMENAUER

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 23, 2016

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, today I ask my colleagues to join me in 
recognizing the important work of the American Folklife Center at the 
Library of Congress in its 40th anniversary year. The American Folklife 
Center was created by Congress in 1976 to ``preserve and present 
American folklife'' through research, documentation, archival 
preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibitions, 
publications, and training. The Center collects and preserves living 
traditional culture and makes its valuable resources available to 
researchers and the general public in a celebration of American 
culture.
  Many of my colleagues are familiar with the work of the American 
Folklife Center because of the Veterans History Project, created with 
unanimous, bipartisan support in 2000. In this model oral history 
project--now the largest oral history project in America--volunteers 
across the country are recording interviews and collecting diaries, 
photographs, letters, and scrapbooks about veterans' wartime 
experiences, from WWI to the present day. The growing collection tells 
the personal stories of more than 100,000 veterans and enables current 
and future generations of Americans to understand their sacrifices.
  A similar Congressional initiative through the American Folklife 
Center is the Civil Rights History Project, concluding this year. The 
Folklife Center partnered with the Smithsonian's National Museum of 
African American History and Culture on a project to record the 
experiences and memories of heroes across the country who participated 
in the historic struggles to secure freedom, equality and full 
citizenship for African Americans.
  The American Folklife Center's archive is the largest of its kind in 
the world, preserving the cultural practices of American families,

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ethnicities, religions, occupations and other groups and historical 
material from every state in the union. The collection contains more 
than 6,000 recordings of American Indian songs, chants, and prayers 
first recorded on wax cylinders dating as far back as 1890, and uses 
digital technology to preserve and ensure tribal access to this 
material.
  During its forty-year history, the American Folklife Center has 
worked closely with state and local folklife programs, local scholars, 
and cultural institutions, and has engaged the general public to 
provide expertise on preservation, archiving and public programming, 
enabling diverse ways to understand our history and cultural heritage.
  These projects and collections are just a sampling of the important 
work done in the Folklife Center by its wonderful staff to preserve and 
present American folklife and cultural history. I commend the good work 
of the American Folklife Center, and offer congratulations on forty 
years of service to this nation.

                          ____________________