Showing 25 results

Archival description
S0004 · Series · 1986 May 23-25
Part of South Florida Folklife Collection - 1985-2014

In 1952, Mrs. Ada Holding Miller, President of the National Federation of Music Clubs, suggested to Mrs. (W.A.) Lillian Saunders of White Springs that the grounds of the nearby Stephen Foster Memorial (now known as Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park) would be an ideal setting to hold a folk festival. The Florida Folk Festival Association, organized in 1953, was officially sponsored by the Florida Folk Festival Association for more than 10 years. After the Florida Department of State established the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs in White Springs in 1976, the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs coordinated the Festival and continued in that role until 1995. At that time, the Florida Folklife Program was re-located to Tallahassee and the Museum of Florida History undertook the general festival administration though the Florida Folklife Program. In 2002, the Florida Park Service assumed full responsibility for coordinating and producing the Annual Florida Folk Festival, beginning with the 50th anniversary presentation that year.

The Florida Folk Festival takes place annually at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center in White Springs, Hamilton County, in northern Florida. During the 34[sup]th[/sup] Annual Florida Folk Festival, which took place in 1986, a special space, the Miami-Dade Folklife Area, was set aside to showcase Miami-Dade artists. This was the first time that Dade County had any significant representation at the festival. The area included space for craft demonstrations and the Folklife Stage where artists made presentations. The approximately 20 artists showcased in the Miami-Dade Folklife Area were asked to participate based on their earlier performances at the first annual Traditions:  The South Florida Folklife Festival held in Miami in March. The participants in Traditions had in turn been chosen from among the artists discovered during fieldwork for the 1985 Miami-Dade Folklife Survey conducted by Lauri Sommers, Tina Bucuvalas, and Nancy Nusz.

Original documents including images and audio recordings chronicling activities in the Miami-Dade Folklife Area are on deposit at the State Archives of Florida in Tallahassee.  These audio tapes and images have been digitized and made available through the Florida Memory Project. [url=http://www.Floridamemory.com/]http://www.Floridamemory.com/[/url]  The South Florida Folklife Collection at HistoryMiami has copies of the recordings on audiocassettes.

Folk Art of the Keys - 1990
S0012 · Series · 1990
Part of South Florida Folklife Collection - 1985-2014

During 1990 The South Florida Folklife Program surveyed folklife in the Florida Keys. During the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Writer’s Project had conducted a previous general survey during the 1930s; since then, only limited and sporatic efforts had been made to document Keys folklife.

The isolation and mix of Anglo, Bahamian, and Cuban settlers combined to produce unique folkways. The oldest and most developed traditional arts in the Keys are associated with maritime industries and occupations.

Brent Cantrell conducted the survey.

S0006 · Series · 1987-1989
Part of South Florida Folklife Collection - 1985-2014

The Historical Association of Southern Florida and Dade County Public Schools initiated the Folk Arts in the Schools Program in order to create an appreciation for traditional arts among the various Hispanic, Afro-American, Caribbean, Asian, European, and other folk groups in the county. The Program also endeavored to bolster students’ aesthetic sensibilities and self-esteem by presenting quality examples of traditional arts created by skilled practitioners from their cultural group’ and develop students’ knowledge of folk arts as distinct from art forms normally taught in the schools. Schools with large ethnic and minority populations were targeted for participation. The Program’s initial pilot project developed curriculum materials based on the fieldwork and bibliographic research amassed by the Traditions: The South Florida Folk Festival and was specifically tailored to the needs of the Haitian/Latino/African-American population of Edison Senior High School in Miami. The project was seen as providing cultural enrichment activities and counteracting the low morale of students from families that had recently immigrated to the United States and those living below the poverty level.

Schools contracted with The Historical Association of Southern Florida for her services of their folklife curator, Tina Bucuvalas, to create and present the Folk Arts in the Schools Program and to lend support in other ways. The Associate secured a grant from the Arts in Education Program of the Florida Arts Council to provide funding for this program. The project received funding through an Arts in Education grant and as a component of National Endowment for the Arts grant that also helped to fund Traditions: The South Florida Folk Festival (see grant application, Box 3, Folder 10). In 1987 folklife curator Tina Bucuvalas wrote a teacher guide for a folk arts course and collaborated with teacher Connie Favret to create exercises aimed at elementary and secondary students. They conducted classroom sessions and a teacher workshop.

Harvest Festival - 1989-1992
S0007 · Series · 1989-1992
Part of South Florida Folklife Collection - 1985-2014

The Harvest Festival was held annually at the Dade County Youth Fairground at Tamiami Park from 1976 through 2007. One of the purposes of the festival was to acquaint South Floridians with history and local traditional culture. The event attracted a general, multi-ethnic, family-oriented audience.

The Historical Association of Southern Florida (HASF) provided the historical reenactment and folklife components of the Festival as an educational service. In the Traditions Folklife section, folklorists who have conducted field research in South Florida present local folk artists including demonstrations of material and verbal arts, music, and dance.

S0008 · Series · 1988-1989
Part of South Florida Folklife Collection - 1985-2014

The Jewish people of South Florida, one of the largest Jewish communities outside of New York, retain a great many religious and secular traditions. The Miami-Dade Folklife Survey of 1985, conducted by the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs, uncovered a number of Jewish folk artists in the Miami region. To explore more fully the Jewish traditions being practiced in South Florida, in 1988 HASF initiated a field research project. After obtaining a grant for the project, “Jewish Folk Arts in South Florida,” from the Florida Endowment for the Humanities (through the Florida Arts Council). The Association contracted with Jan Rosenberg to conduct field research and a document study. Interviews, notes, tape recordings, photography, field logs, and other research products were generated by the project. Rosenberg also produced a summary report and a publishable essay on aspects of Jewish folk culture in Dade and Broward counties.

Jewish artists who were contacted during the survey were featured in the Traditions Folklife component of the annual Harvest Festival (1988 November 19-20). The museum engaged some of these folk artists including Uri Goldsmith, a scribe who produces ketubahs, Jewish marriage contracts, in its sponsored program, “Folk Arts in the Schools” (1989 April 1-June 5) Goldsmith also represented South Florida’s folklife artists at the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs (1989 May 26-28). The Historical Museum also hosted “A Collection of Jewish Traditional Arts” on Sunday, July 30, 1989, to showcase the talents of practicing folk artists identified by the survey. The folk arts identified through the project were an integral part of a February 1990 exhibit, “Tropical Traditions: The Folk Life of South Florida.”

S0002 · Series · 1985
Part of South Florida Folklife Collection - 1985-2014

In 1984 the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs, the Dade County Council of the Arts and Sciences, and the Historical Association of Southern Florida (now HistoryMiami) began a concerted effort to attract support for a folklife program in South Florida. Though not able to obtain funding that year, in 1985 the National Endowment for the Arts awarded the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs a grant to conduct the first folklife survey to ever be undertaken in South Florida. The project goal was to ascertain what expressive traditions were being practiced in South Florida’s diverse ethnic communities.

The Miami-Dade Folklife Survey identified 200 folk artists in the Miami area during the three-month life of the survey. This effort provided the impetus for the creation of the South Florida Folklife Center at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida. Conducted by Tina Bucuvalas, Nancy Nusz, and Laurie Sommers; the survey covered a wide range of skills and art forms primarily from the Haitian, Jamaican, Mexican, Bahamian, Cuban and Jewish communities. As part of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant, the Historical Museum of Southern Florida and the Dade County Council of Arts and Sciences agreed to sponsor a folklife festival featuring the artists discovered during the survey.

Original materials from this project are held by the State Archives of Florida. Materials include field notes, images, audiotapes, videotapes, and related materials. Many of these items have been digitized and are available at the Florida Memory Project website.

S0001 · Series · 1985-2014
Part of South Florida Folklife Collection - 1985-2014

Since the inception of the South Florida Folklife Center, individual staff members and the Center itself have been actively involved in folklife-related programs, projects, and activities. Materials generated from the activities of external organizations and entities are organized as the Miscellaneous Materials Series. Also in this series are projects that were initiated but not pursued, materials generated by activities in which the Center had input but primary were the concern of other departments or groups within HistoryMiami, and those of short duration that were not linked to folklife research. Additional materials pertain to multiple projects.

S0015 · Series · 1990-1993
Part of South Florida Folklife Collection - 1985-2014

To document the diverse and complex folk and artistic traditions practiced in the Nicaraguan communities of Miami-Dade County, The Historical Museum conducted a three-year field research project.

According to fieldworker Katherine Borland, the Nicaraguan community in Miami is comprised of three distinct culture groups: the Spanish-speaking Pacific Coast population, the southern Atlantic coast Creole English-speaking population, and the Atlantic coast Miskito population. There is limited contact across cultural lines. Although they share some foodways, their cultural heritages are quite distinct.

The project included all three populations and documented local festivals, particular religious festivals, such as the Three Kings Parade, Feista de son Sebastien, and Sacasa Purisima. Materials also included folk music and dance, decorative arts, foodways, and other expressive traditions. The research culminated in the publication of the book, [i]Nicaraguan Folklife in Miami[/i], which was published in both English and Spanish.