[4] Working with Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam, Engel raised private funds to support the first post of Chair of American Folk Music.
[3] However, the Great Depression decimated the country's economy and private donations that fund the post ran out in 1932 and Gordon left the Library of Congress.
He made a deal with Engel; in exchange for borrowing a phonograph from the Library of Congress and providing recording blanks Lomax would deposit his materials into the Archive of American Folk Song.
Making use of the Library of Congress' Coolidge Auditorium in 1938, Lomax Jr recorded the biography of jazz pianist, bandleader and composer Jelly Roll Morton.
[10] Alan also enabled local folk researchers by setting up an exchange whereby the Library of Congress would lend them equipment and they would deposit their recordings in the Archive.
[11] This mutually beneficial arrangement allowed collectors such as Vance Randolph, Charles Lafayette Todd, Robert Sonkin, Eloise Hubbard Linscott, Zora Neale Hurston, Herbert Halpert, Helen Creighton, William N. Fenton, Melville Herskovits, Helen Hartness Flanders and others to undertake projects while enriching the Archive's collection.
Botkin's experience with the FWP as well as his academic accomplishments as a teacher at University of Oklahoma helped shape his perspective on folklore and guided his three-year term as Head at the Archive.
On the one hand, Lomax viewed oral histories as a natural by-product of the narrative work he and his colleagues carried out as part of the WPA projects.
On the other hand, Botkin took on what was dubbed a functionalist perspective that examined folk culture from the bottom-up rather than through academic, literary hierarchies of previous Heads like Gordon and Lomax Sr.[5] He also developed and advocated a concept he called folk-say, which acts as a more general and more inclusive term than folklore.
[5] This accomplishment was partly due to Emrich's military meticulousness and inspired by a grand, international vision for the Library of Congress and The Archive, one that reflected the United States' new position in the world post-WW2, and was shared by Evans.
[5] However, at that point, Emrich and Rae Korson were the Archive's only permanent staff and thus responsible for all its activities including answering reference requests.
Emrich worked tirelessly with special interest societies, organisations and higher education institutions to expand the Folklore Section's relationships but by 1950 neither he nor Korson had managed to secure budgets for more staff or acquisitions.
By 1952 Emrich was frustrated by the shortage of staff and the number of requests from folklore collectors to use the recording equipment he had to turn down due to improper funding.
Yet Yarborough explained it was under threat and needed federal support for survival because it is transmitted "orally or by imitation from one generation to another, often without benefit of formal instruction or of written sources.
This time, the bill, known as the American Folklife Preservation Act, proposed an American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress that would be supervised by a board of trustees and be "authorized to enter into contracts, make grants and loans, and award scholarships to individuals and groups for activities including research, scholarship, training, exhibitions, performances and workshops.
He again raised the fragility of folk traditions in the face of mass media, cultural assets turned "victims of the pressures to conformity brought on by urbanization and technology.
He questioned the necessity of funding yet another cultural organisation in light of that year's National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities $64,025,000 in government appropriations.
Scalia was concerned the Act conflated these two roles because it proposed the Librarian of Congress - a congressional appointee - should carry out duties reserved for members of the Executive branch.
Nonetheless, in light of the historical practice, we think the President can responsibly sign the present legislation with the expression of his serious reservation concerning the constitutional propriety of placing such functions outside the Executive Branch.
"[34]Nonetheless, on 2 January 1976, the first working day of the United States Bicentennial, President Ford signed the American Folklife Preservation Act and H.R.6673 became P.L.