2022

Mary Abigail Kawenaʻulaokalaniohiʻiakaikapoliopelekawahineʻaihonua Pukui

Photo of Mary Kawena Pukui taken when she worked at the Bishop Museum. She is working on the Hawaiian-language newspaper titled “Ka Na’i Aupuni.” Courtesy of Nanea Armstrong-Wassel and Kawena Pukui’s daughter, Patience Namaka Bacon. Native Hawaiian, Folklore, Narrative, Linguistics, Dance, Music Mary Abigail Kawenaʻulaokalaniohiʻiakaikapoliopelekawahineʻaihonua Pukui (1895-1986) Mary Abigail Kawenaʻulaokalaniohiʻiakaikapoliopelekawahineʻaihonua Pukui was born in 1895, during the […]

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John Brother Cade

Image from Southern University and A&M College, https://www.subr.edu/page/2510 African American, Ethnography, History John Brother Cade (1894-1970) John Brother Cade led one of the earliest oral history collections of ex-slave narratives in the United States. Born near Elberton, Georgia, in 1894, he graduated from Knox Institute and Industrial School in Athens, Georgia in 1915. After he

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Aurora Lucero-White Lea

Photo from the National Women’s History Museum Nuevo Mexicana, Folklore, Federal Writers’ Project, Activism Aurora Lucero-White Lea (1894-1963) Aurora Lucero-White Lea was born to parents Julia Romero and Antonio Lucero in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Throughout her life, Lucero-White was committed to the Hispanic community of New Mexico, and she strived to maintain and continue

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Andrew Polk Watson

Image from unknown 1937 university yearbook. Caption reads “Andrew P. Watson | A.B., M.A., Fisk University | Professor of History” African American, Ethnography Andrew Polk Watson (1894-1969) Andrew Polk Watson collected and analyzed one of the earliest and most significant collections of African American religious conversion narratives in the 20th century.  Born in Franklin, Tennessee,

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Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert

American Association of University Women-New Mexico. “Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert.” (1976). MSS 303 BC, Women of New Mexico, Catalog of AAUW exhibit on “Women in New Mexico”, Albuquerque Museum, February 1-June 6, 1976, Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Nuevo Mexicana, Folklore, Foodways, Federal Writers’ Project Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert

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Charles S. Johnson

Portrait of Dr. Charles Johnson, sociologist at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee [between 1935 and 1945]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Call Number: LC-USW3- 019352-C [P&P], Reproduction Number: LC-USW3-019352-C (b&w film neg.) African American, Sociology, Education, Ethnography, Activism Charles S. Johnson (1893-1956) Charles S. Johnson, born in Bristol, Virginia in 1893, was the son

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William John Faulkner

Photo courtesy of Fisk University, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library, Special Collections, Fisk Photograph Collection, William J. Faulkner ful.out.pho001.  Congregational Minister, Civil Rights Activist, Folklorist, Master Storyteller William John Faulkner (1891-1987) The Reverend Dr.William John Faulkner collected, preserved, and shared a significant repertoire of folktales and stories of slavery learned directly from a former slave.

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Lorenzo Dow Turner

Lorenzo Dow Turner papers, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Lois Turner Williams. African American, Linguistics, Ethnography Lorenzo Dow Turner (1890-1972) Dr. Lorenzo Dow Turner was a groundbreaking scholar who transformed paradigms for studying African American cultures by linking Gullah language and cultures to African languages and cultures. He co-founded the first African

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María Cadilla de Martínez

Image from EnciclopediaPR, enciclopediapr.org. Puerto Rican, Folklore María Cadilla de Martínez, PhD (1886-1951) María Cadilla de Martínez was born in 1886 in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, thirteen years before Puerto Rico’s official independence from Spain in 1898.  Cadilla’s life and career focused on promoting Boricua (an indigenous term often used to refer to Puerto Rican-ness) folklore,

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Samuel Shinkle Taylor

Photo courtesy of Phyllis C Beatty-Yasutake African American, Ethnography, Activism Samuel Shinkle Taylor (1886-1956) Samuel S. Taylor has been widely acclaimed as one of the most effective interviewers of ex-slaves in the Federal Writers Project of the 1930s. Born in 1886 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Reverend Marshall W. Taylor and Catherine Hester Taylor, Samuel Taylor

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