About AFS

Our Mission

The American Folklore Society (AFS) is a membership organization dedicated to the study of folklore and expressive cultural traditions in the United States of America and throughout the world. AFS serves its members and the general public by providing programming, publications, policies, and resources examining and affirming the diversity of human creativity across time, heritages, and places.

Who we are

• The largest and oldest professional folklore society in North America. Founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1888 with over 1100 current members.
• Members include academic folklorists teaching as faculty in universities, professional folklorists serving as arts administrators, museum curators, directors of non-profits, librarians, and freelance researchers, and cultural practitioners working in communities across the country. 
• Currently headquartered on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington
• Member of the American Council of Learned Societies and participant in the activities of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

What we do

• Host the largest single gathering of folklorists in the world at the AFS Meeting each October 
• Publish the Journal of American Folklore, one of the oldest and most respected folklore journals in the world, among numerous other journals and publications
• Manage more than 30 special-interest groups for members with common interests in the field
• Lead major initiatives and projects including the Veterans History Project, the China-US Folklore and Intangible Heritage Project, and the Civil Rights Oral History Survey, among others.
• Advocate for the field of folklore and provide a portal to news and research from the field, including issues in the arts, culture, politics, public policy, and the media.
• Sponsor research funded by the National Endowment of the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Ford Foundation, Teagle Foundation, and Henry Luce Foundation, among many others. 

Our Vision

The American Folklore Society (AFS) embraces an inclusive view of cultural creativity, advocating for respect and mutual understanding of the world’s diverse cultures as well as for the conditions that enable communities and traditions to flourish. 

AFS examines artful communication across boundaries of time, distance, and identity, studying expressive life as both an end in itself and a multifaceted resource in social worlds.  

AFS educates the public and policymakers with the field’s distinctive view into societal concerns, amplifying the insights of both folklore and folklorists.

The AFS draws upon its engagement with vibrant expressive life to nurture the broader values of cultural equity, democratic process, and the defense of human rights.

History of the American Folklore Society

While the study of folklore pre-dates the society, AFS counts itself among the oldest of academic societies in the United States. Members of three groups made common cause by creating the AFS in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1888: scholars in then-developing humanities departments at colleges and universities, museum anthropologists, and private citizens with an interest in the subject. With over 1100 members in the present day, AFS has counted among its members many notable scholars: Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, and John and Alan Lomax. Members today work in universities around the world, in arts and humanities councils across the United States, and in positions of government, non-profit organizations, museums, and more. 

For a more detailed history of the society, download 100 Years of Folklore Studies: A Conceptual History, edited by William M. Clements (AFS Centennial Publication, 1988). Essays on the history of the field.