NAFOH: Arts & Crafts

Here we have finding aids for collections of accessions focused on arts and crafts. As some of these collections were created around a theme (rather than based on a single donation or class), there is some overlap in the collections.

MF 20 George Carey Collection of Student Folklore Papers
Number of accessions: 1
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1972-1992
Principal interviewers: students of George Carey and Rayna Green, 1972-1992, from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Finding aides: a list of titles
Access restrictions: Very few of the papers have release forms from either the students or their informants. Research use only.
Description: NA2597 A collection of approximately 1200 student papers from folklore classes taught by Carey at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1972-1992. The papers cover an extremely wide range of folklore; folklife; ethnic heritage; local history topics; and locations: ME, NH, MA, CT, VT. The materials were received in 1998. Text: about 1388 papers, 20,000 pp. approximately.

MF 052 “Remnants of Our Lives: Maine Women and Traditional Textile Arts” Project & Exhibit
Number of interviews: 47
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1991 – 1992
Time period covered: 20th century
Principal interviewers: Teresa Hollingsworth
Finding aides: some transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: “Remnants of Our Lives: Maine Women and Traditional Textile Arts” was an exhibition, sponsored and curated by the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History in collaboration with the Hudson Museum, the University of Maine’s anthropology museum within the Maine Center for the Arts. The exhibition celebrated the skills, talent, and creativity of fifteen Maine women, representing the state’s diversity of folklife communities, through a selection of textile objects, narrative texts based on oral history interviews with the artists, photographs, and interpretive panels. The exhibit focused on the theme of rites of passage, a motif which resonates through all of the narratives that were collected during the field research phase of the project; the textiles were presented as aesthetic expressions of life status changes. The project’s advisory panel included University of Maine faculty, outside professionals associated with textiles and folk arts, as well as two traditional artists who contributed to the selection process.

MF 063 UM-Augusta Communication Course Interviews
Number of accessions: 19
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1975, 1977, 1978
Time period covered: 19th and 20th centuries
Finding aides: indexes
Access restrictions: none
Description: The collection consists of a series of interviews done for a University of Maine at Augusta course in Speaker-Audience Communications, Fall 1977. Topics covered include: the Farnsworth Museum; the Robert Abbe Museum; Lucy Farnsworth; Rockland, Maine, in the early 1900s; Northport in the War of 1812; Waldoboro News Stand; Knox Arboretum in Warren, Maine; lace mills and the lace business in St. George, Maine; lime kilns; Clark Island Quarry and quarry stone cutting; farm life in Vassalboro in the 1930s and 1940s; the Children’s Aid Society; Sweetser Children’s Home in Saco, Maine; Fleming’s Upholstery Shop in Rockland; Stockton Springs; work as a town clerk; Rockland, Thomaston, and Camden Street Railway; teaching in Warren and Northport; Butler’s Boatyard; Snow’s Shipyard; Graffam Island; lobstering; Belfast, Maine; recreational activities in Thomaston, Maine, in the 1930s; sawmills; school systems; transportation of blueberries to market; and the Christmas tree business.

MF 071 Pride of Maine Fair, 1979
Number of accessions: 1
Dates when interviews were conducted: 1979
Time period covered: 1979
Principal interviewer: Judith Blank
Finding aides: index
Access restrictions: yes
Description: 2535 Jim Connors, George and Claudette Beaulieu, Guy Dubay, Theresa St. Onge Albert, Madame Martha Cyr Genest, Lionel Chamberlain, Ned Laundry, Emil Beaulieu, and Sarah Beaulieu, Wayne Newall, Fred Tomah, Martin Dana, David Francis, Sr., Robert Leavitt, Blanche Socabasin, Joan Dana, Lee Cremo, Vincent Joe, Elizabeth Sopiel, Dyke Sopiel, and Irene Newall, Ron Beard, Glenn Hadlock, Ralph Stanley, and Charles Nevels, recorded by Judith Blank, summer 1979, Bar Harbor, Maine. Music performances and narrative workshops recorded at the Pride of Maine Fair held at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, July, 1979. The festival presented traditions representing the St. John River Valley, Native American cultures, and the Maine coast. Tapes feature ballad singing in English and French, fiddle music, recitations, Native American lore and crafts, boat building and coastal occupations, foodways, and other aspects of Maine life. Accession includes a program booklet giving schedules, contextual information, and participant biographical information. Participants representing the St. John Valley include: Jim Connors (poetry), George and Claudette Beaulieu (foodways & wood sculpture), Guy Dubay (French history, language, culture), Theresa St. Onge Albert (weaving), Madame Martha Cyr Genest (living history), Lionel Chamberlain (accordion), Ned Laundry (fiddle), Emil Beaulieu (fiddle), and Sarah Beaulieu (jig & step dancing); Native American representatives include: Wayne Newall (Passamaquoddy music & traditions), Fred Tomah (herbal medicine), Martin Dana (drum making and ceremonial arts), David Francis, Sr. (Passamaquoddy language), Robert Leavitt (Passamaquoddy language), Blanche Socabasin (foodways & music), Joan Dana (foodways), Lee Cremo (Micmac fiddle music), Vincent Joe (guitar & fiddle), Elizabeth Sopiel (basket making), Dyke Sopiel (ash pounding for baskets), and Irene Newall (basket making). Coastal Maine is represented by: Ron Beard (coastal issues & Yankee culture), Glenn Hadlock (foodways of Little Cranberry Island), Ralph Stanley (boat building), and Charles Nevels (fishing & music). Text: 21 pp. “Pride of Maine Fair.” Recording: mfc_na2535_t2535.1_01 – mfc_na2535_t2535.33_02 2,252 minutes (38 hours).

MF 082 C. Richard K. Lunt Collection (Jones Tracy & Boat Builders)
Number of accessions: 25
Dates when interviews were conducted: primarily in 1970, but also 1963 & 1964
Time period covered: 19th and 20th centuries
Principal interviewers: C. Richard K. Lunt
Finding aides: indexes/transcripts
Access restrictions: none
Description: This collection consists of two series. The first deals with storyteller Jones Tracy (NA2968- 2976). The second series is about boat builders (NA0582, 2827-2837), conducted by Lunt in 1970, relates to boat building and were done in preparation for his doctoral dissertation, Lobsterboat Building on the Eastern Coast of Maine: a comparative study, Indiana University, 1975. These interviews are fully transcribed. Interviewees include Ronald Rich, Southwest Harbor; Malcolm McDuffy, Bernard; Len Pierce, Southwest Harbor; Clarence Harding, Bernard; Oscar Smith, Jonesport; Ralph Stanley, Bernard; James. E. Beal, Jonesport; Erwin Alley, Jonesport; Harold Gower, Jonesport; Alvin Beal, Jonesport; Bert Frost, Jonesport; Richard Alley, Jonesport; Harry Beal, Jonesport; Clinton Beal, Jonesport; and Raymond Bunker, Southwest Harbor.

MF 135 National Folk Festival
Number of accessions: 14
Dates when interviews were conducted: 2002-2004
Time period covered: 20th and 21st century
Principal interviewers: various staff of the Maine Folklife Center
Finding aides: some transcripts
Access restrictions: NA3636
Description: Accessions from the three years (2002-2004) that the festival on the Bangor Waterfront was part of the National Folk Festival.

MF 136 The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront
Number of accessions: 40
Dates when interviews were conducted: 2005-current
Time period covered: 20th and early 21st century
Principal interviewers: various Maine Folklife Center staff
Finding aides: some transcripts
Access restrictions: NA3598, 3599, 3603 (copyright was retained by interviewees)
Description: Accessions related to the American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront 2005 – 2016 (after it ceased to be the National Folk Festival).