Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia added to American Memory online collections

[Danna Bell-Russel]

Good afternoon,

The National Digital Library is having a busy end of September and with
pleasure announces the release of another American Memory historical
collection.  This announcement is being sent to a number of lists.
Please accept our apologies for any duplicate announcements.

Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia is
based on the American Folklife Center’s Coal River Folklife Project
(1992-99).  The project documents traditional land use in the mountains
surrounding Southern West Virginia’s Big Coal River Valley.  Functioning
as a de facto commons, the mountains have supported a way of life that
for many generations has included hunting, gathering, and subsistence
gardening, as well as coal mining and timbering.  Articulated through
stories, place names, artifacts, and seasonal practices, the commons
powerfully evokes collective memory and anchors community life.  The
commons is situated in a temperate-zone hardwood forest system unrivaled
for its biological diversity. Consequently it supports an unusually
diverse seasonal round of activities.  Tending the
Commons includes extensive interviews on native forest species and the
seasonal round of traditional harvesting (including spring greens;
summer berries and fish; fall nuts, roots such as ginseng, fruits, and
game) and documents community cultural events such as storytelling,
baptisms in the river, cemetery customs, and the spring “ramp” feasts
using the region’s native wild leek.

The collection can be found at the following URL:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cmnshtml/

Other folklife-related online collections, selected publications of the
American Folklife Center, and information about its products and
services are available from the center's homepage:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/folklife

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress was created by
Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife." The center
incorporates the Archive of Folk Culture, which was established at the
Library in 1928 as a repository for American folk music. The center and
its collections have grown to encompass all aspects of folklife from the
United States and around the world.

The National Digital Library, of which American Memory is a part, is one
of the Library’s Gifts to the Nation as it celebrates its bicentennial.
This five-year program will make available more than 5 million items of
primary source materials from the library’s collections that relate to
American history.

Please direct any questions to ndlpcoll at loc.gov.