The Folklore Wiki  > About Folklore Studies / Resources for Folklorists / Organizations and Institutions > US Public Folklore Programs

 

 

ALABAMA

 Alabama State Council on the Arts Folklife Program

The Alabama State Council on the Arts Folklife Program strives to broaden understanding of Alabama’s diverse community-based traditions so that all Alabamians can be proud of this shared inheritance. It incorporates the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, which researches, documents, and preserves the state’s folk cultures.

Alabama Folklife Association

Founded in 1980, the Alabama Folklife Association is 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a partner program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA).  

Chattahoochee Folklife Project

The Chattahoochee Folklife Project documents and presents to folk cultures and traditions of the Chattahoochee River Basin.

ARKANSAS

Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts 

The Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts (AFTA) is a statewide program of the University of Arkansas Libraries, working in partnership with Arkansas stakeholder organizations and individuals, including the Arkansas Arts Council and Arkansas State University. AFTA is dedicated to building cross-cultural understanding by documenting, presenting, and sustaining Arkansas' living traditional arts and cultural heritage. AFTA develops and supports projects and programming for and featuring Arkansas citizens from all walks of life, with an emphasis on including underrepresented communities and traditions.

CALIFORNIA

Alliance for California Traditional Arts

The Alliance for California Traditional Arts works to ensure California’s future holds California’s past by supporting the state’s living cultural heritage. ACTA sustains traditional cultural arts through stewardship, connections and services to artists. ACTA, a private non-profit organization, serves as the California Arts Council’s partner in building a solid statewide communication and knowledge-sharing infrastructure for the folk and traditional arts field.

CONNECTICUT

Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program

The Institute for Community Research’s Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program works with ethnic, occupational, and traditional communities throughout the state to explore their social, economic and political realities through traditional cultural and artistic expression. Serving as the official state-wide folk and traditional arts program, CHAP conducts fieldwork research in partnership with artists and other community members, and transforms research results into activities of interest to a broad audience. CHAP documents the state’s diverse ethnic and occupational artistic traditions, and supports artists and their communities through educational and public programs that communicate these traditions to Connecticut citizens.

FLORIDA

Florida Folklife Program

The Florida Folklife Program, a component of the Florida Department of State’s Division of Historical Resources, documents and presents the folklife, folklore, and folk arts of the state. It serves Floridians through Folk Heritage Awards, Folklife in Education, Folklife Apprenticeships, a calendar of special events, and a variety of other activities.

The Florida Folklore Society has a Facebook page. 

South Florida Folklife Center, HistoryMiami

The South Florida Folklife Center, a division of HistoryMiami, documents, presents and supports the region's traditional arts and culture.

GEORGIA

Chattahoochee Folklife Project

The Chattahoochee Folklife Project documents and presents to folk cultures and traditions of the Chattahoochee River Basin.

HAWAI‘I

Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts

The mission of the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (SFCA) is to promote, perpetuate, preserve and encourage culture and the arts as central to the quality of life of the people of Hawai‘i. SFCA offers folk and traditional arts grants. 

IDAHO

Idaho Commission on the Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Program

The Idaho Commission on the Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Program documents and assists in the continuation and presentation of the traditional folk arts in Idaho communities.

ILLINOIS

INDIANA

Hoosier Folklore Society

The Hoosier Folklore Society is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and studying the traditional culture of Indiana and the Midwest.

Mathers Museum of World Cultures

The Mathers Museum of World Cultures (MMWC) is Indiana University's museum of ethnography, ethnology, and cultural history. With collections, public programs, and research projects of global scope, the MMWC is active in a number of AFS special projects and works closely with folklore studies organizations and colleagues on our campus, around the U.S. and internationally.

Traditional Arts Indiana

Traditional Arts Indiana, Indiana’s state folk arts program, exists to identify, document and promote Indiana’s traditional artists and arts statewide. TAI wishes to call attention to neglected art forms - from the spoken text to the hand-made object - forms that firmly ground and deeply connect individuals to their communities.

IOWA

Iowa Arts Council Iowa Folklife Program

The Iowa Arts Council Iowa Folklife Program documents, preserves, and promotes the traditional culture of all of Iowa’s residents. There are a variety of folk & traditional arts resources available on the IAC website, including the radio series Iowa Roots, an Iowa Folklife Curriculum, Iowa Place-Based Foods, and more.

KANSAS

The Kansas Folklore Society has a Facebook page. 

KENTUCKY

Kentucky Folklife Program

For over 20 years the Kentucky Folklife Program has been dedicated to the mission of identifying, documenting, and preserving the Commonwealth's diverse cultural traditions. While settling in to our new home at Western Kentucky University, Kentucky Folklife Program will stay focused on practical folklife and traditional arts projects currently in production at the same time we continue to understand the evolving needs of local constituents throughout Kentucky who have a crucial stake in documenting the intimate folk traditions of their own regions. With this new vantage point at WKU the KFP will also begin exploring exciting and innovative partnership opportunities with other universities across the nation involved in hosting folklife programs. 

LOUISIANA

Louisiana Folklife Program

The Louisiana Folklife Program within the Division of the Arts offers aids to planning and funding folklife projects, and resource lists of books, music, and videos.

Louisiana’s Living Traditions encompasses a virtual exhibit of Louisiana cultural traditions, photos, virtual books, articles and essays, and maps.

The Louisiana Voices Educator’s Guide is a pioneering set of study guides for 4th through 8th grades, integrating state educational standards for social studies and English language arts.

Louisiana Folklore Society

The Louisiana Folklore Society was founded in 1956 to encourage the study, documentation, and accurate representation of the traditional cultures of Louisiana. Their members include university professors, professional folklorists in the public sector, secondary school teachers, museum workers, graduate students, and other individuals interested in Louisiana’s traditions and cultural groups.

MAINE

Maine Folklife Center

The Maine Folklife Center of the University of Maine documents and presents the folk arts and traditions of the state.

MARYLAND

Maryland Traditions

Maryland Traditions, a partnership of the Maryland State Arts Council and the Maryland Historical Trust, is a statewide program that supports communities to discover, share, preserve and sustain traditional arts and culture. Maryland Traditions connects people to one another and to a place and works directly with individuals and cultural institutions to encourage the vitality of living traditions and folk arts. Maryland Traditions shares information through publication, interpretation, presentation and outreach.

MASSACHUSETTS

Massachusetts Cultural Council Folk Arts and Heritage Program

The Folk Arts and Heritage Program of the Massachusetts Cultural Council identifies craftspeople, performers, and cultural specialists; helps sustain the practice of traditions where they live; and increases appreciation of their artistry within the community and beyond. Through ongoing fieldwork, we locate, photograph and interview people carrying on traditional arts unique to the state’s long-settled, ethnic and new immigrant communities. The program’s traditional arts archive of fieldnotes, slides, and tape-recorded interviews reflects the diversity of the living traditions from across the Commonwealth.

MICHIGAN

Michigan Traditional Arts Program

The Michigan Traditional Arts Program, based at the Michigan State University Museum, advances cross-cultural understanding and equity in a diverse society through the documentation, preservation, and presentation of folk arts and folklife in Michigan.

MINNESOTA

Minnesota Folk and Traditional Arts Program

Minnesota State Arts Board's Folk and Traditional Arts grant program is designed to enrich Minnesota communities through folk and traditional art forms being passed on, documented, practiced and shared.

MISSISSIPPI

Mississippi Arts Commission

The Mississippi Arts Commission’s Folklife and Folk Artist Directory is part of the MAC’s ongoing effort to increase awareness in the state’s traditional arts and culture. It features information, photographs and sound clips of craftspersons, performers, community traditions and other artists in Mississippi.

MISSOURI

Missouri Folk Arts Program

The Missouri Folk Arts Program builds cross-cultural understanding by documenting, conserving and presenting our state’s living folk arts and folklife in collaboration with Missouri’s citizens.

Missouri Folklore Society

The Missouri Folklore Society was organized December 15, 1906, "to encourage the collection, preservation and study of folklore in the widest sense, including customs, institutions, beliefs, signs, legends, language, literature, musical arts, and folk arts and crafts of all ethnic groups throughout the State of Missouri."

MONTANA

Montana Arts Council Folklife Program

The Montana Arts Council Folklife Program identifies, encourages, promotes and documents the folklife and traditional arts that are a vital part of Montana’s cultural landscape.

NEBRASKA

Nebraska Folklife Network

The Nebraska Folklife Network is a statewide, nonprofit arts and humanities organization dedicated to advancing cross-cultural understanding and equity in a diverse society through the documentation, preservation, and presentation of folk arts and folklife in Nebraska.

NEVADA

Nevada Arts Council Folklife Program

The Nevada Arts Council Folklife Program honors, preserves, and supports Nevada’s traditional art forms and cultural expressions that are handed down within families, occupations, religions, tribes, ethnicities and other community groups. The Folklife Program documents Nevada’s valuable heritage and cultural traditions and shares the work and words of ethnic and traditional artists with the public through exhibitions, publications, educational activities and partnerships.

Western Folklife Center

A regional nonprofit organization based in Elko, Nevada, the Western Folklife Center works to expand our understanding of ourselves and our neighbors by celebrating the everyday traditions of people who live and work in the American West. The Center is the headquarters of the Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Voices of the West Radio, and many other programs.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Traditional Arts Program

The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Traditional Arts Program offers the New Hampshire Folklife website, including educational resources and information on folklife and traditional arts in New Hampshire, the role of a folklorist, an interactive Learning Center, and a searchable database on recordings of traditional music.

NEW JERSEY

New Jersey Folklife Partners

The New Jersey Folklife Partners includes six folklife programs that focus on a specific region of the state, and three statewide programs. The NJFP strengthens the rich diversity of cultural expressions, encourages cross cultural understanding, and supports community traditions across the state.

NEW YORK

ArtsWestchester Folk Arts Program

The ArtsWestchester Folk Arts Program, based in White Plains, seeks to acknowledge the role of family traditions in local cultural life, and to honor the places of origin of Westchester’s County’s many immigrant communities, and how they enrich our lives, our communities and culture.

ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes Folk Arts Program

The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes Folk Arts Program in Corning, New York, supports folk art traditions practiced in the Southern Tier region, and develops and supports programming that enables the public to experience these traditions as well as those of other parts of the world.

Arts Council for Wyoming County

The Arts Council for Wyoming County in Perry, New York, has a local folk arts program.

Arts Mid Hudson Folk Arts Program

The Arts Mid Hudson Folk Arts Program, based in Poughkeepsie, works with Mid-Hudson Valley-based folk artists and traditional bearers to preserve and present the rich heritage and diversity of area residents.

Asian Cultural Council

The Asian Cultural Council in New York City supports cultural exchange between Asia and the United States in the performing and visual arts, primarily by providing individual fellowship grants which allow artists, scholars, students, and specialists from Asia to travel to the US, and Americans to travel to Asia for study, research, and creative work.

Association for Cultural Equity

Founded by Alan Lomax, the Association for Cultural Equity, headquartered in New York City, facilitates cultural equity: the right of every culture to express and develop its distinctive heritage. The Association realizes its mission through a configuration of feedback projects that creatively use and expand upon Lomax’s collected works, and research on music and other forms of expressive culture.

Black Crow Network

The Black Crow Network, based in Saratoga County, organizes popular events focused on the folk music and story-telling traditions of the Adirondack and eastern New York areas. The organization combines displays of traditional cultural artifacts with these performances, and collects stories and documents of rural life in the region. [link lost]

Brooklyn Arts Council Folk Arts Program

The Brooklyn Arts Council Folk Arts Program works with Brooklyn-based folk and traditional artists and their communities to preserve and present arts that express the borough’s diverse living heritage.

Calandra Institute

The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of Queens College in New York City organizes conferences, exhibitions, lectures, performances, seminars, symposia, and other public programs on the Italian American experience.

Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute

The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, based in New York City, produces exhibitions, conferences, performances, and in-school and after school programs to celebrate the rich history, legacy and continued creative force that Africans and their descendants in the Americans represent.

Castellani Art Museum Folk Arts Program

The Castellani Art Museum Folk Arts Program of Niagara University is home to the only full-time Folk Arts Program on the Niagara Frontier. The programs works in partnership with local artists and community scholars to document and present their cultural traditions through exhibitions, publications, artist demonstrations, performances, workshops and other activities.

Center for Traditional Music and Dance

The Center for Traditional Music and Dance in New York City serves thousands of New Yorkers through a full calendar of programs that provide unique opportunities to experience and participate in the City’s rich cultural traditions: festivals, audio and video productions, concerts and concert tours, social dance programs, lectures, workshops, and other collaborative projects with artists, cultural activists and educational and cultural institutions in the New York metropolitan area.

City Lore

City Lore in New York City produces programs and publications that convey the richness of New York City’s cultural heritage to local and national audiences. Its staff includes folklorists, historians, anthropologists, and ethnomusicologists, all of whom specialize in the creation of programs and materials for public education and enjoyment. In addition to staff projects, affiliated individuals and organizations work through City Lore to produce independent films, exhibits, and other media projects.

Council on the Arts for Staten Island Folk Arts Program

The Staten Island Arts Folklife program is dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and safeguarding of traditional arts, through programming and technical assistance.

Crandall Library Center for Folklife, History and Cultural Programs

The Crandall Library Center for Folklife, History and Cultural Programs in Glen Falls researches and presents the cultural traditions of the upper Hudson valley and southern Adirondacks of upstate New York through research and documentation, special collections, public programs, a gallery, and other educational services.

Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council Folk Arts Program

GLOW Traditions supports the area's living cultural heritage through documentation and public programming of traditional arts. GLOW Traditions is a shared program with the Arts Council for Wyoming County, the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts, and the Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council.

Long Island Traditions

Long Island Traditions, based in Port Washington, documents and preserves the living cultural traditions of Long Island’s ethnic, occupational, and architectural heritage.

Los Pleneros de la 21

Los Pleneros de la 21 is a not-for-profit organization which serves the Puerto Rican/Latino community. LP21 is also a performing ensemble which preserves the Afro-Puerto Rican traditions of the Bomba and Plena. They are based in "El Barrio,” East Harlem in New York City.

Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders

Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders, is a New York City-based nonprofit dedicated to celebrating Mexican culture in the United States and promoting the understanding of Mexican traditions among immigrants, artists, educators and the general public. They also have a Facebook page.

Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center

The Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center is a cultural institution in the Northeast Bronx that provides affordable rates and dynamic instructors in the performing arts for students from ages 3 to adult in a friendly family atmosphere.

New York Folklore Society

The New York Folklore Society, headquartered in Schenectady, is a statewide service organization that nurtures traditional arts and culture in New York State and fosters the sharing of folk traditions.

New York State Council on the Arts Folk Arts Program

The New York State Council on the Arts Folk Arts Program is devoted to supporting New York State’s living cultural heritage of folk arts. Its primary purpose is to maintain the extraordinary cultural and stylistic diversity of folk arts in the State, through supporting programming designed to safeguard and perpetuate traditions practiced within communities. It also supports programming that enables general audiences to experience traditional arts from New York State.

Traditional Arts in Upstate New York

Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, based in Canton, is dedicated to showcasing the folk culture and living traditions, including storytelling, music, crafts, foodways, and folk art, that make life special in New York State’s North Country, from the St. Lawrence River to the Adirondack Mountains.

World Music Institute

The World Music Institute in New York City is a not-for-profit concert presenting organization founded in 1985 and dedicated to the research, presentation and documentation of the finest in traditional and contemporary music and dance from around the world. WMI encourages cultural exchange between nations and ethnic groups and collaborates with community organizations and academic institutions in fostering greater understanding of the world’s cultural traditions.

NORTH CAROLINA

North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program

The North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program promotes public knowledge and appreciation of North Carolina’s folklife and traditional arts through planning and producing special projects, publications, recordings and films; documenting living traditions; maintaining an archive of documentary materials and other resources; and assisting individuals and organizations through a grants program and technical assistance.

North Carolina Folklife Institute

The North Carolina Folklife Institute supports programs and projects that recognize, document, and present traditional culture in North Carolina.

North Carolina Folklore Society

The North Carolina Folklore Society encourages the study and preservation of local folklife and serves as a state folklife resource center. The Society also publishes a resource listing and calendar, both in its newsletter and as part of its website.

NORTH DAKOTA

North Dakota Council on the Arts Folk Arts Program

The North Dakota Council on the Arts Folk Arts Program encourages the preservation and continuation of traditional culture and traditional/folk art throughout North Dakota through fieldwork that identifies and documents traditional art forms, and through exhibits, recordings, and other projects.

OHIO

Ohio Arts Council 

The Ohio Arts Council is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally, and economically. In order to bring a greater awareness of the important contribution of folk and traditional artists to the cultural vitality of Ohio, the Ohio Arts Council has joined with Cityfolk, the Ohio Humanities Council, and ThinkTV––Greater Dayton Public Television to make this online resource of Ohio Folk and Traditional Artists. 

OKLAHOMA

          Department of Ethnology, Sam Noble Museum

The Ethnology program at the University of Oklahoma's Sam Noble Museum curates extensive collections of traditional art and material culture from societies around the world and undertakes ethnographic research and community collaborations that focus in particular on the peoples of Oklahoma and Native American communities in the United States.

OREGON

Oregon Folklife Network

The Oregon Folklife Network represents a collaboration of diverse and statewide culture and heritage partners to document, support, preserve, and promote Oregon’s traditional art forms and cultural practices. Unlike the state arts agency, historical society, not-for-profit, or even other university-based models for state public folk arts programs, OFN exists thanks to a variety of community, Tribal, and operational partners (Oregon Arts Commission*, Oregon Cultural Trust*, Oregon Heritage Commission*, Oregon Historical Society*, Oregon Humanities, Oregon State Library, and the broad resources of the University of Oregon) and a variety of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and those noted*. Those resources enable OFN to document Oregon’s folk and traditional artists and provide technical assistance to artists, organizations, Tribes, and communities; create new opportunities for folk artists to present their works; prepare the next generation of public folklorists; and produce high quality public programming about Oregon’s rich and diverse cultural heritage.

PENNSYLVANIA

Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Program 

The Folk and Traditional Arts Program promotes quality folk arts programs throughout Pennsylvania as a partner to the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA). The Folk & Traditional Arts Program supports traditions and practitioners that are part of a living tradition within a community. 

Philadelphia Folklore Project

The Philadelphia Folklore Project is a 23-year-old independent progressive public interest folklife agency committed to paying attention to the experiences and traditions of "ordinary” people. PFP’s focus is to build critical folk cultural knowledge, sustain vital and diverse living cultural heritage in communities in the Philadelphia region, and create equitable processes and practices for nurturing local grassroots arts and humanities.

Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area

The Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area, comprised of eight Pittsburgh-area counties in southwestern Pennsylvania, works with communities throughout the region to identify, conserve, promote and interpret the cultural, historic, recreational and other resources associated with steel and steel-related industries. The goal of the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area is to use these resources to encourage community revitalization through cultural tourism, historic preservation, natural and recreational resource conservation, cultural and educational programs and related economic development.

SOUTH CAROLINA

South Carolina Arts Commission Folklife and Traditional Arts Program

The South Carolina Arts Commission Folklife and Traditional Arts Program encourages, promotes, conserves, and honors the diverse community-based art forms that make South Carolina distinct. The major initiatives of the program serve both established and emerging cultural groups that call South Carolina home.

SOUTH DAKOTA

South Dakota Arts Council Traditional Arts Program

The South Dakota Arts Council Traditional Arts Program sponsors an apprenticeship grant program, special projects such as surveys, exhibits and cultural tourism initiatives, and maintains an archive of fieldwork conducted since the early 1980s.

TENNESSEE

Tennessee Arts Commmission

The Tennessee Arts Commission Folklife Program works with folk arts and other traditions from Tennessee’s multi-ethnic cultural heritage. In addition to oversight of TAC grant making for projects and organizations in the field, the program conducts a wide array of other services and activities. The TAC Folklife Program's website features:

• profiles of all Tennessee folk artists who have received National Heritage Fellowships and Tennessee Folklife Heritage Awards, with thorough summaries of printed, online, and media materials pertaining to them
• bibliographies of books and of unpublished studies on Tennessee folklife topics
• downladable teaching materials developed by the Folklife Program
• downloadable publications from previous Folklife Program projects
• weblinks to Tennessee organizations and events related to folklife
• a slideshow from a photo exhibit produced in the early years of the program

Tennessee Folklore Society

The Tennessee Folklore Society is a statewide organization of professional folklorists, arts presenters, community scholars, and others who share an interest in preserving, studying, and celebrating the rich folk arts and cultural traditions of the mid-South.

TEXAS

Texas Folklife

Texas Folklife is a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and presenting the diverse cultures and living heritage of the Lone Star State. For 25 years, Texas Folklife has honored the authentic cultural traditions passed down within communities and explored their importance in contemporary society.

Texas Folklore Society

The Texas Folklore Society is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing the folklore of Texas and the Southwest.

UTAH

Utah Department of Heritage and Arts

The Utah Department of Heritage and Arts is an agency of state government that presents public art events, administers grants, collects folk art, produces educational materials and provides technical assistance to individuals, groups and communities.

VERMONT

Vermont Folklife Center

The Vermont Folklife Center, founded in 1984 is dedicated to preserving and presenting the folkarts and cultural traditions of Vermont and the surrounding region. Through ongoing field research, a sound archive and an apprenticeship program, we document and conserve cultural heritage which could easily be lost; through exhibits, media, publication and educational projects, we bring recognition to the skills, talents and traditions of Vermonters, past and present. The Center has made preservation of the spoken word the core of its endeavors, and the VFC archive now comprises over 3,800 taped interviews, which have been transcribed and electronically indexed.

VIRGINIA

Blue Ridge Institute and Museum

The Blue Ridge Institute and Museum of Ferrum College documents the folkways of the people living in and around the Blue Ridge Mountains, and presents those folkways through gallery exhibits, the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival, the Blue Ridge Farm Museum, the Blue Ridge Heritage Archive, the BRI Recordings series and innovative outreach programming.

Blue Ridge Music Center

The Blue Ridge Music Center celebrates the music and musicians of the Blue Ridge. Established by the U.S. Congress in 1985, the site includes an outdoor amphitheater and indoor interpretive center that highlight an important strand of American musical culture, which is still alive and thriving in the region.

Virginia Folklife Program

The Virginia Folklife Program, a public program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is dedicated to the documentation, presentation, and support of Virginia’s rich cultural heritage.

Virginia Folklore Society

The Virginia Folklore Society is a non-profit, educational, membership organization dedicated to the discovery, collection, publication, and preservation of folklore and traditional culture in Virginia and to furthering the understanding, appreciation, and performance of the traditional arts and crafts of the state.

WEST VIRGINIA

Augusta Heritage Center

The Augusta Heritage Center of Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia is dedicated to making traditional music, crafts, dancing and folklore available to visitors and residents alike. Apprenticeship learning, field research, and documentation of Appalachian folk artists and traditional folk culture are ongoing activities of the Augusta staff.

West Virginia Folklife Program 

The West Virginia Folklife Program is dedicated to the documentation, preservation, presentation, and support of West Virginia’s vibrant cultural heritage and living traditions. West Virginia Folklife part of the West Virginia Humanities Council and is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Folk & Traditional Arts Program. The West Virginia Folklife Program employs West Virginia’s first state folklorist to carry out this work.

WASHINGTON

Center for Washington Cultural Traditions

The Center for Washington Cultural Traditions surveys, studies, and supports cultural traditions, tradition bearers, and traditional communities throughout Washington state. Housed at the state’s nonprofit humanities council, Humanities Washington, and presented in partnership with the ArtsWA/Washington State Arts Commission, the program is the statewide source for learning about Washington’s rich, diverse cultural heritage.

 Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission

The Folk & Traditional Arts Program at Washington State Parks celebrates the living cultural heritage of all Washingtonians through public events at state parks. From tribal canoe family journeys to Mexican Independence Day festivities, from fisher poetry to Ecuadorian song, from Hawaiian hula to Indian dance drama, the program brings people together -- some to celebrate a common heritage and some to learn about the traditions of others. 

WISCONSIN

Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures

The Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures of the University of Wisconsin is committed to the languages and cultural traditions of this region’s diverse peoples. It fosters research and the preservation of archival collections, and produces educational and outreach programs for a broad public audience. It also assists community groups, classrooms, and scholars with projects involving Upper Midwestern Cultures.

Down Home Dairyland

Down Home Dairyland, produced by the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures of the University of Wisconsin, provides audio clips of performances and interviews from Down Home Dairyland public radio programs on Wisconsin folk arts and traditions.

Wisconsin Folks

Wisconsin Folks, an online resource of the Wisconsin Arts Board, provides information about Wisconsin folk arts and artists.

Wisconsin Teachers of Local Culture

Wisconsin Teachers of Local Culture is a vibrant network of committed local culture educators that includes classroom teachers, administrators, museum educators, librarians, and cultural resource specialists. This network provides support in the areas of curriculum development, teaching, resource identification, communication, and advocacy.

WYOMING

American Studies Program, University of Wyoming

The American Studies Program at the University of Wyoming is host to a folklife specialist, who conducts fieldwork statewide, develops special programs and projects in cooperation with the Wyoming Arts Council’s Folk & Traditional Arts Program and other cultural entities in the state, maintains an archive, and involves students in projects.

Wyoming Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Program

The Wyoming Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Program identifies, documents, preserves, and honors folk arts and traditions throughout Wyoming. Its primary purpose is to support the exemplary artistic traditions and significant practices of Wyoming’s citizens.