Folklore

Dorothy Sara Lee

Photo by Carl Fleischhauer. Dorothy Sara Lee Speaks During Presentation of Wax Cylinder Recordings. United States Nebraska Macy, 1983. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/omhbib000607/. African American, Archives, Folklore, Ethnomusicology Dorothy Sara Lee (1951-2005) Dorothy Sara Lee was an African American folklorist, ethnomusicologist, archivist, and consummate scholar and ethnographer of Native American and Fijian musics and cultures. Born in […]

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woman in her 70s wearing a wide-brimmed hat and holding a microphone

Olivia Cadaval

Olivia Cadaval speaks on a panel during the fiftieth anniversary Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2017.Photo by Joe Furgal, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives. Mexican American, Activism Olivia Cadaval 1943-2025 Olivia Cadaval was a scholar, activist, and mentor who exemplified the values of cultural democracy. Committed to public sector folklore, Cadaval mentored countless young scholars interested in

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Alan Jabbour

Alan Jabbour in his office at the National Endowment for the Arts, Columbia Plaza, June 1974. Alan was the director for the new Folk Arts program. Photo by Carl Fleischhauer. Syrian American, Folklore, Music Alan Jabbour (1942-2019) Dr. Alan Jabbour’s public presentations, teaching, and the many initiatives he supervised, all championed cultural conservation, pluralism, ethnic

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Manuel Heriberto Peña

Photo from the Arhoolie Foundation Tejano, Folklore, Ethnomusicology Manuel Heriberto Peña (1942-2019) Dr. Manuel Peña contributed significantly to Greater Mexican ethnomusicology, folklore and cultural studies. Using historical, folkloristic, and ethnographic data, he provided a rigorous Marxist analysis of socioeconomic class formation and its implication for Texas-Mexican musical styles and working- and middle-class aesthetics.  Manuel Peña

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A.K. Ramanujan

Photographer unknown. Photo credit from thehindubusinessline.com, “Scanned in Chennai R.K.Sridharan” South Asian American, Literature, Linguistics, Folklore A.K. Ramanujan (1929-1993) Dr. Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan, widely known as A.K. Ramanujan, was a renowned scholar whose research spanned multiple disciplines including linguistics, poetry, mythology, translation, and folklore. Born in Mysore, India, in 1929, he pursued his education in

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Mellie Leandicho Lopez

book cover Folklorist, Newspaper Editor Mellie Leandicho Lopez (ca 1928-2017) Dr. Mellie Leandicho Lopez was a pioneer Filipina American folklorist whose influence extended beyond the academic world to the arts, journalism, and museum spheres. She was the first Asian to be enrolled in the interdisciplinary folklore program in the anthropology department of the University of

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Teodoro Vidal Santoni

Photographer unknown; promotional image used in many publications. Puerto Rican, Material Culture, Folklore, History Teodoro Vidal Santoni (1923-2016) A self-taught historian, Teodoro Vidal Santoni uncovered more than four centuries of Puerto Rican culture, traditions, and popular art, and raised them to international recognition.  Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Vidal Santoni attended the

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Samuel Clifford Adams, Jr.

Image of Samuel C. Adams, Jr. from Black Past, blackpast.org Sociologist, Ambassador, Folklorist Samuel Clifford Adams, Jr. (1920-2001) Samuel C. Adams, Jr. was born in Waco, Texas in 1920 to Samuel Clifford Adams, a laborer, and Sarah Catherine Roberts Adams, a schoolteacher. He grew up in the historic Freedman’s town in Brazos Bottoms of the

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Lee-hsia Hsu Ting and Nai-tung Ting

Images from The University of Texas at Austin Development Office, Dr. Lee-hsia Hsu Ting Endowed Graduate Fellowship in Information Studies Chinese American, Folklore, Narrative, Library Science Nai-tung Ting (1915-1989) Lee-hsia Hsu Ting (1923-2005) Dr. Nai-tung Ting and Dr. Lee-hsia Hsu Ting, were born and raised in China and their professional careers were based in the

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Ulysses S. Young

Photo of Ulysses S. Young, Dean of Instruction at Bowie State University, 1955 courtesy of Special Collections and Archives at Thurgood Marshall Library. Anthropologist, Folklorist Ulysses S. Young (1914?-1991) Anthropologist/Folklorist Ulysses S. Young was born in Enoree, South Carolina, around 1914, and was raised in Philadelphia. He earned a B.A. (1936) from West Virginia State

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