Public Programs and Folklore Societies
This page lists US organizations by state. Type any state, or any other term, into the search box to narrow this list.
For regional, national and international folklore organizations, see the lists on What Folklorists Do.
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Alabama
Alabama State Council on the Arts Folklife Program
The Alabama State Council on the Arts Folklife Program strives to broaden understanding of Alabama’s diverse community-based traditions so that all Alabamians can be proud of this shared inheritance. It incorporates the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture , which researches, documents, and preserves the state’s folk cultures.
Alabama Folklife Association
Founded in 1980, the Alabama Folklife Association is 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a partner program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA).
Alaska
The Alaska State Council on the Arts
The Alaska State Council on the Arts established a Traditional Native Arts Program (TNAP) in March 1980. The program’s major responsibility is to serve rural, Alaska Natives. Technical assistance to organizations and individuals, Native Arts Marketing training, Master Artist and Apprentice grants and anti-fraud resources improve Native artists’ ability to achieve their creative goals. Underserved and endangered Alaska Native art forms and increasing arts programming for Alaska Native people is a program priority. Contemporary artists and Native art organizations are also served through ASCA’s Native art program.
Arizona
Southwest Folklife Alliance
Southwest Folklife Alliance (SFA) is an affiliate non-profit organization of the University of Arizona, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. They are the designated Folk Arts Partner of the Arizona Commission on the Arts with the support of the National Endowment of the Arts. SFA builds more equitable and vibrant communities by celebrating the everyday expressions of culture, heritage, and diversity in the Greater Southwest.
Arkansas
Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts
The Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts (AFTA) is a statewide public folklore program of the University of Arkansas Libraries, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and working in partnership with Arkansas stakeholder organizations and individuals, including the Arkansas Arts Council and Arkansas State University. AFTA is building on the existing legacy of folk and traditional arts programming built initially by the Arkansas Arts Council. AFTA is dedicated to building cross-cultural understanding by documenting, presenting, and sustaining Arkansas’ living traditional arts and cultural heritage. AFTA develops and supports projects and programming for and featuring Arkansas citizens from all walks of life, with an emphasis on including underrepresented communities and traditions.
California
Alliance for California Traditional Arts
The Alliance for California Traditional Arts works to ensure California’s future holds California’s past by supporting the state’s living cultural heritage. ACTA sustains traditional cultural arts through stewardship, connections, and services to artists. ACTA, a private non-profit organization, serves as the California Arts Council’s partner in building a solid statewide communication and knowledge-sharing infrastructure for the folk and traditional arts field.
Colorado
Colorado Folk Arts Council
Founded in 1968, the Colorado Folk Arts Council works to encourage the preservation of ethnic cultural arts, history, and traditions throughout educational workshops, youth team building, public performances, and community projects.
Connecticut
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program
The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program (CCHAP) based in the Connecticut Historical Society serves as the state’s official folk and traditional arts initiative. CCHAP explores the rich diversity of Connecticut’s ethnic and occupational communities and artists, developing partnerships that help to bring their deeply rooted cultural practices and artistic expressions to wider public attention. Our collaborative work fosters sustainability of traditions by encouraging tradition bearers to continue and pass on their unique cultural knowledge. Our public projects enhance understanding of the artists, art forms, histories, values, and sense of place that define Connecticut and its communities. CCHAP documents the state’s diverse ethnic and occupational artistic traditions, and supports artists and their communities through educational and public programs that communicate these traditions to Connecticut citizens.
Florida
Florida Folklife Program
The Florida Folklife Program, a component of the Florida Department of State’s Division of Historical Resources, documents and presents the folklife, folklore, and folk arts of the state. It serves Floridians through Folk Heritage Awards, Folklife in Education, Folklife Apprenticeships, a calendar of special events, and a variety of other activities.
The Florida Folklore Society
The Florida Folklore Society was incorporated in 1982 by a small group of devoted folklorists in the state. With the help of the Florida Department of State, Florida Folklife Program, the Florida Folklore Society has blossomed into a strong supporter of traditional culture and folklife projects in Florida. The mission of the Florida Folklore Society is to advance the appreciation, research and study of folklore and folklife, especially Florida folklore and folklife, in all its aspects.
South Florida Folklife Center, HistoryMiami
Founded in 1986, the South Florida Folklife Center, a division of HistoryMiami, documents, presents and supports the region’s traditional arts and culture.
Georgia
Chattahoochee Folklife Project
The Chattahoochee Folklife Project documents and presents folk cultures and traditions of the Chattahoochee River Basin.
Hawaii
Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts
The mission of the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (SFCA) is to promote, perpetuate, preserve and encourage culture and the arts as central to the quality of life of the people of Hawai‘i. SFCA offers folk and traditional arts grants.
Idaho
Idaho Commission on the Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Program
The Idaho Commission on the Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Program documents and assists in the continuation and presentation of the traditional folk arts in Idaho communities.
Illinois
Illinois Arts Council
The Illinois Arts Council, an agency of the state of Illinois, assists in the continuation and presentation of the ethnic and folk arts in Illinois by providing grants to ethnic and folk artists and organizations. We also promote public knowledge and appreciation of Illinois’ ethnic and folk arts by producing educational materials and special events, and by offering technical assistance to individuals, groups, and communities.
Company of Folk
Company of Folk was founded and incorporated in 2007 through a partnership of folklorists and humanities experts interested in researching, preserving and presenting local and folk culture of the Chicago region. Company of Folk now extends that mission to a wider region that includes Illinois and the Upper Midwest.
Indiana
Traditional Arts Indiana
Traditional Arts Indiana (TAI), Indiana’s state folk arts program, is a partnership established in 1998 between Indiana University Bloomington and the Indiana Arts Commission. TAI is dedicated to expanding public awareness of Indiana’s traditional practices and nurturing a sense of pride among Indiana’s traditional artists. TAI identifies, documents, and seeks to understand more fully the any ways in which cultural values are embedded in daily life.
Iowa
Iowa Arts Council Iowa Folklife Program
The Iowa Arts Council Iowa Folklife Program documents, preserves, and promotes the traditional culture of all of Iowa’s residents. There are a variety of folk and traditional arts resources available on the IAC website, including the radio series Iowa Roots, an Iowa Folklife Curriculum, Iowa Place-Based Foods, and more.
Kansas
Kansas Folklore Society
The Kansas Folklore Society is a state not-for-profit organization which encouraging and celebrating folklore since 1957.
Kentucky
Kentucky Folklife Program
For over 30 years, the Kentucky Folklife Program has been dedicated to the mission of identifying, documenting, and preserving the Commonwealth’s diverse cultural traditions. Founded in 1989 as an inter-agency partnership between the Kentucky Historical Society and Kentucky Arts Council, KFP moved to is current home at Western Kentucky University (WKU) in 2012 and is housed in the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology.
Kentucky Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Program
The Kentucky Arts Council offers folk and traditional arts apprenticeship grants. The purpose of the Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Grant is to honor traditional artists and encourage the continuation of Kentucky’s living traditional arts by funding master artists to teach skills and practices vital to their cultural heritage to less experienced artists within their communities.
Louisiana
Louisiana Folklife Program
The Louisiana Folklife Program within the Division of the Arts offers aids to planning and funding folklife projects, resource lists of books, music, and videos. The Louisiana Folklife Commission, a 22-member body, is appointed by the Governor to address the special needs of Louisiana’s traditional communities and advise the Folklife Program.
Louisiana Folklife Center
The Louisiana Folklife Center, based at Northwestern State University of Louisiana, was founded in 1976. Its mission is to identify, document, and present Louisiana’s folklore and folklife.
Louisiana Folklore Society
The Louisiana Folklore Society was founded in 1956 to encourage the study, documentation, and accurate representation of the traditional cultures of Louisiana. Their members include university professors, professional folklorists in the public sector, secondary school teachers, museum workers, graduate students, and other individuals interested in Louisiana’s traditions and cultural groups.
Maine
Maine Arts Commission Traditional and Folk Arts Program
The Traditional Arts Program of the Maine Arts Commission works with communities on strengthening and presenting their cultural traditions through apprenticeship, fellowships, program development, and project support.
Maine Folklife Center
The Maine Folklife Center is an independent unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Maine. The mission of the Center is to enhance understanding of the folklife, folklore, history, and vernacular arts and culture of Maine and the Maritime Provinces; to encourage appreciation of the diverse cultures and heritage of the region; and by so doing, to strengthen and enrich our communities.
Maryland
Maryland Traditions
Maryland Traditions, a partnership of the Maryland State Arts Council and the Maryland Historical Trust, is a statewide program that supports communities to discover, share, preserve, and sustain traditional arts and culture. Maryland Traditions connects people to one another and to a place and works directly with individuals and cultural institutions to encourage the vitality of living traditions and folk arts. Maryland Traditions shares information through publications, interpretation, presentation, and outreach.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts Cultural Council Folk Arts and Heritage Program
The Folk Arts and Heritage Program of the Massachusetts Cultural Council identifies craftspeople, performers, and cultural specialists; helps sustain the practice of traditions where they live; and increases appreciation of their artistry within the community and beyond. Through ongoing fieldwork, we locate, photograph, and interview people carrying on traditional arts unique to the state’s long-settled, ethnic and new immigrant communities. The program’s traditional arts archive of field-notes, slides, and tape-recorded interviews reflects the diversity of the living traditions from across the Commonwealth.
Michigan
Michigan Traditional Arts Program
Founded in 1985, the Michigan Traditional Arts Program, based at the Michigan State University, advances cross-cultural understanding and equity in a diverse society through the documentation, preservation, and presentation of folk arts and folklife in Michigan.
Minnesota
Minnesota Folk and Traditional Arts Program
Minnesota State Arts Board’s Folk and Traditional Arts grant program is designed to enrich Minnesota communities through folk and traditional art forms being passed on, documented, practiced and shared.
Mississippi
Mississippi Arts Commission Folk and Traditional Arts Program
The Mississippi Arts Commission’s Folklife and Folk Artist Directory is part of the MAC’s ongoing effort to increase awareness in the state’s traditional arts and culture. It features information, photographs, and sound clips of craftspersons, performers, community traditions, and other artists in Mississippi.
Missouri
Missouri Folk Arts Program
The Missouri Folk Arts Program (MFAP) is a program of the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and the Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Established in 1984, MFAP builds cross-cultural understanding by documenting, sustaining, and presenting our state’s living folk arts and folklife in collaboration with Missouri’s citizens.
Missouri Folklore Society
The Missouri Folklore Society was organized December 15, 1906, “to encourage the collection, preservation and study of folklore in the widest sense, including customs, institutions, beliefs, signs, legends, language, literature, musical arts, and folk arts and crafts of all ethnic groups throughout the State of Missouri.”
Montana
Montana Arts Council Folklife Program
The Montana Arts Council Folklife Program identifies, encourages, promotes, and documents the folklife and traditional arts that are a vital part of Montana’s cultural landscape.
Nebraska
Nebraska Folklife Network
Founded in 2003, the Nebraska Folklife Network (NFN) is a nonprofit arts and humanities organization that serves as the state’s public folk and traditional arts program. NFN’s mission is to foster, sustain, and increase awareness of Nebraska’s living cultural heritage.
Nevada
Nevada Arts Council Folklife Program
The Nevada Arts Council Folklife Program documents Nevada’s valuable heritage and cultural traditions and shares the work and words of ethnic and traditional artists with the public through exhibitions, publications, educational activities, and partnerships.
Western Folklife Center
A regional nonprofit organization based in Elko, Nevada, the Western Folklife Center works to expand out understanding of ourselves and our neighbors by celebrating the everyday traditions of people who live in work in the American West. The Center is the headquarters of the Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Voices of the West Radio, and many other program.
New Hampshire
New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Traditional Arts Program
The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Traditional Arts Program offers the New Hampshire Folklife website, including educational resources and information on folklife and traditional arts in New Hampshire, the role of a folklorist, an interactive Learning Center, and a searchable database on recordings of traditional music.
New Jersey
Down Jersey Folklife Program
The Down Jersey Folklife Center (DJFC) based at WheatonArts was initiated 1995, in conjunction with a major New Jersey State Council on the Arts initiative to create a state-wide Folklife Infrastructure. The Center has presented programming to diverse audiences at WheatonArts, in area schools, and at other sites. The DJFC explores and relates the activities and international perspectives of those people whose creativity has informed the cultural wealth of our region; and of those who inform it now.
Jersey Shore Folklife Center
The Jersey Shore Folklife Center of the Tuckerton Seaport and Baymen’s Museum documents, supports, and presents the diverse communities and traditions of the Jersey Shore and the Pinelands.
Middlesex County’s Folklife Program for New Jersey
The Folklife Program for New Jersey (FPNJ), a project of the Division of Arts & History, identifies, preserves and broadens the appreciation of folk arts and traditions and offers performances, workshops, storytelling, exhibits and more. The FPNJ identifies, preserves and broadens the appreciation of folk arts and traditions expressed by community, and encourages public involvement through cross-cultural exchange, interactive participation and development of educational materials.
New Jersey State Council on the Arts Folk Arts Program
Diversity is one of New Jersey’s most significant and valuable characteristics. The state’s many geographic and demographic settings are interwoven with ethnic, cultural and occupational networks, creating a dynamic array of communities. In them, traditional folk arts are valued ways of expressing identity and strengthening group ties. To support this cultural richness, as well as the broader public appreciation and understanding of it, the Council has established a multi-faceted Folk Arts Program.
Perkins Folklife Center
Serving Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties, the Perkins Folklife Center at the Perkins Center for the Arts works to preserve, perpetuate and build awareness of South Jersey’s rich cultural history, traditions and folk art.
New Mexico
New Mexico Arts Folk Arts Program
The Folk Arts Program preserves and perpetuates traditional performing and visual art forms practiced in New Mexico. The program provides grants for folk arts projects and folk art apprenticeships; conducts fieldwork and documentation of the traditional arts in New Mexico and regionally; and presents workshops, lectures, panels, and events to further highlight traditional art forms in the region.
New York
ArtsWestchester Folk Arts Program
The ArtsWestchester Folk Arts Program began in 1996, documenting the work of stonemasons. Since then, the program has presented at least half a dozen public programs each year, documenting and highlighting the diverse cultures of Westchester, collaborating with partner organizations and offering promotional and cultural development services to those committed to the preservation and cultivation of folk arts.
ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes Folk Arts Program
The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes Folk Arts Program in Corning, New York, supports folk art traditions practiced in the Southern Finger Lakes through public programs, documentations, and advocacy. With funding from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), and working with the New York Folklore Society, this program is part of a network of Folk Arts programs throughout New York State.
Arts Mid Hudson Folk Arts Program
The Arts Mid Hudson Folk Arts Program, based in Poughkeepsie, works with Mid-Hudson Valley-based folk artists and traditional bearers to preserve and present the rich heritage and diversity of area residents.
Brooklyn Arts Council Folk Arts Program
The Brooklyn Arts Council Folk Arts Program with folk and traditional artists, and the communities which recognize them, to preserve and present arts expressive of the borough’s diverse living heritage—folk song, storytelling, social dance, foodways, material culture, and more.
Castellani Art Museum Folk Arts Program
The Castellani Art Museum Folk Arts Program of Niagara University is home to the only full-time Folk Arts Program on the Niagara Frontier. The program works in partnership with local artists and community scholars to document and present their cultural traditions through exhibitions, publications, artist demonstrations, performances, workshops and other activities.
City Lore
Founded in 1986, City Lore is New York City’s center for urban folk culture. Their mission is to foster New York City – and America’s – living cultural heritage through education and public programs in service of cultural equity and social justice.
Staten Island Arts Folklife Program
The Staten Island Arts Folklife program is dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and safeguarding of traditional arts, through programming and technical assistance.
Crandall Library Center for Folklife, History and Cultural Programs
The Crandall Library Center for Folklife, History and Cultural Programs in Glen Falls is an award-winning program created in 1993, charged with the mission to research and present the cultural traditions of the upper Hudson Valley and southern Adirondacks of upstate New York. Its core programs–Special Collections, Exhibitions, and Cultural Events–are largely supported by grants, and have attracted a large, diverse regional audience to its gallery, research room, and cultural programs.
Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council Folk Arts Program
GLOW Traditions supports the area’s living cultural heritage through documentation and public programming of traditional arts. GLOW Traditions is a shared program with the Arts Council for Wyoming County, the Genesee Valley Council on the Arts, and the Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council.
Long Island Traditions
Long Island Traditions, based in Port Washington, documents and preserves the living cultural traditions of Long Island’s ethnic, occupational, and architectural heritage.
New York Folklore Society
The New York Folklore (NYF), headquartered in Schenectady, was founded in 1944 as New York Folklore Society. NYF is a membership organization, open to all, concerned with furthering cultural equity and strengthening the understanding of the role of folk and traditional arts in our lives, supporting folk and traditional artists, community cultural experts, community-based cultural organizations, and academic and public sector folklorists.
New York State Council on the Arts Folk Arts Program
The New York State Council on the Arts Folk Arts Program aims to safeguard and revitalize the folk arts within the communities where they originate and to broaden opportunities to experience these traditions among general audiences.
Traditional Arts in Upstate New York
Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, based in Canton, collects, preserves, interprets, and presents the customs and traditions of the North Country (the 14-county region north of the Mohawk River, from Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River to Lake Champlain, including the Adirondack Mountains). With archives, exhibits, and programs in Canton and throughout the region, TAUNY celebrates the diversity of living traditions inherited from the past, maintained in the present, and passed on to the future.
North Carolina
North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program
The North Carolina Arts Council Folklife Program promotes public knowledge and appreciation of North Carolina’s folklife and traditional arts through planning and producing special projects, publications, recordings and films; documenting living traditions; maintaining an archive of documentary materials and other resources; and assisting individuals and organizations through a grants program and technical assistance. The North Carolina Folklife Institute supports programs and projects that recognize, document, and present traditional culture in North Carolina.
North Carolina Folklore Society
Since 1913, The North Carolina Folklore Society encourages the study and preservation of local folklife and serves as a state folklife resource center. The Society also publishes a resource listing and calendar, both in its newsletter and as part of its website.
North Dakota
North Dakota Council on the Arts Folk Arts Program
The North Dakota Council on the Arts Folk Arts Program highlights and supports traditional culture and traditional/folk art throughout the state of North Dakota. It seeks to help preserve, continue, grow, and make better known the many traditions, folk arts, and artists in the state.
Ohio
Ohio Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Program
The Ohio Arts Council (OAC) is committed to expanding the public awareness of Ohio’s rich landscape of traditional communities and nurturing a sense of pride among Ohio’s rich landscape of traditional communities and nurturing a sense of pride among Ohio’s traditional artists. The OAC identified, documents, and seeks to more fully understand the many ways in which cultural values are embedded in daily life. The OAC seeks to call attention to neglected aesthetic forms that firmly ground and deeply connect individuals to their communities—from practical and beautiful hand-made objects to stories, songs, dances, and events that bring people together. The overarching goal is to integrate and connect cultural heritage to educational activities, cultural conservation, arts and community development in order to strengthen the traditional fabric of neighborhoods, towns, and cities throughout Ohio.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Arts Council
Oklahoma Arts Council
Oregon
Oregon Folklife Network
The Oregon Folklife Network (OFN) serves as a hub for statewide folklife activities in partnership with the Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Cultural Trust, Oregon Historical Society, Oregon State Library, and Oregon Heritage Commission, along with community partners, including Oregon Tribes, community-based cultural organizations, museums, regional cultural alliances, local arts agencies, K12 schools, universities and colleges, and public libraries. OFN makes a meaningful difference in Oregon communities and Tribes by documenting, supporting, and celebrating our diverse cultural traditions and by empowering our tradition-bearers.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Folk and Traditional Arts Program
The Folk and Traditional Arts Program promotes quality folk arts programs throughout Pennsylvania as a partner to the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA). The Folk & Traditional Arts Program supports traditions and practitioners that are part of a living tradition within a community.
Philadelphia Folklore Project
Established in 1987, the Philadelphia Folklore Project (PFP) is an independent public folklife agency that documents, supports, and presents Philadelphia-area folk arts and culture – including the arts of people who have been here generations and those who have just arrived. PFP works to preserve and strengthen the folk cultural life of communities because they believe that the quality of urban life is directly related to the persistence, diversity and vitality of vernacular folk cultures.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island State Council on the Arts
The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts has a folk arts apprenticeship program.
South Carolina
South Carolina Arts Commission Folklife and Traditional Arts Program
The South Carolina Arts Commission Folklife and Traditional Arts Program encourages, promotes, conserves, and honors the diverse community-based art forms that make South Carolina distinct. The major initiatives of the program serve both established and emerging cultural groups that call South Carolina home.
South Dakota
South Dakota Arts Council Traditional Arts Program
The South Dakota Arts Council Traditional Arts Program sponsors an apprenticeship grant program, special projects such as surveys, exhibits and cultural tourism initiatives, and maintains an archive of fieldwork conducted since the early 1980s.
Tennessee
Tennessee Arts Commission
The Tennessee Arts Commission Folklife Program works with folk arts and other traditions from Tennessee’s multi-ethnic cultural heritage. In addition to oversight of TAC grant making for projects and organizations in the field, the program conducts a wide array of other services and activities.
Tennessee Folklore Society
The Tennessee Folklore Society is a statewide organization of professional folklorists, arts presenters, community scholars, and others who share an interest in preserving, studying, and celebrating the rich folk arts and cultural traditions of the mid-South.
Texas
Texas Folklife
Texas Folklife is a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and presenting the diverse cultures and living heritage of the Lone Star State. Since 1984, Texas Folklife has honored the cultural traditions passed down within communities across Texas and explored their importance in contemporary society.
Texas Folklore Society
The Texas Folklore Society, based at Tarleton State University, is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing the folklore of Texas and the Southwest.
Utah
Utah Department of Heritage and Arts
The Utah Department of Heritage and Arts (UDHA) is an agency of state government that presents public art events, administers grants, collects folk art, produces educational materials and provides technical assistance to individuals, groups and communities. UDHA preserves, fosters, and shares Utah’s diverse cultural heritage for present and future generations by encouraging and celebrating intellectual, creative, and civic contributions statewide.
Utah Division of Arts and Museums Folk Arts Program
The Folk Arts Program documents, supports, and publicly presents the traditional arts and lifeways of Utah’s cultural communities.
Vermont
Vermont Folklife Center
Founded in 1984, the Vermont Folklife Center is a nationally-known folklife education organization that uses ethnography—study of cultural experience through interviewing, participation and observation—to strengthen the understanding of the cultural and social fabric of Vermont’s diverse communities. The VFC’s mission is to broaden, strengthen, and deepen our understanding of Vermont; to assure a repository for our collective cultural memory; and to strengthen communities by building connections among the diverse peoples of Vermont.
Virginia
Blue Ridge Institute and Museum
The Blue Ridge Institute and Museum of Ferrum College documents the folkways of the people living in and around the Blue Ridge Mountains, and presents those folkways through gallery exhibits, the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival, the Blue Ridge Farm Museum, the Blue Ridge Heritage Archive, the BRI Recordings series and innovative outreach programming.
Virginia Folklife Program
The Virginia Folklife Program, a public program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is the state folklife program dedicated to the documentation, presentation, and support of Virginia’s rich cultural heritage.
Washington
Center for Washington Cultural Traditions
The Center for Washington Traditions is an arts and heritage program set up to survey, study, and support cultural traditions, tradition bearers, and traditional communities throughout Washington State. Though not a physical center, this innovative program will be a statewide, go-to source for learning about Washington’s rich, diverse cultural heritage. The Center is housed at the state’s nonprofit humanities council, Humanities Washington, and presented in partnership with the ArtsWA/ the Washington State Arts Commission.
Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission
The Folk & Traditional Arts Program at Washington State Parks celebrates the living cultural heritage of all Washingtonians through public events at state parks. From tribal canoe family journeys to Mexican Independence Day festivities, from fisher poetry to Ecuadorian song, from Hawaiian hula to Indian dance drama, the program brings people together — some to celebrate a common heritage and some to learn about the traditions of others.
West Virginia
Augusta Heritage Center
The Augusta Heritage Center of Davis & Elkins College works to promote and nurture traditional music, dance, crafts, and folklore of West Virginia and beyond. Apprenticeship learning, field research, and documentation of Appalachian folk artists and traditional folk culture are ongoing activities of the Augusta staff.
West Virginia Folklife Program
The West Virginia Folklife Program (WVFP) is dedicated to the documentation, preservation, presentation, and support of West Virginia’s vibrant cultural heritage and living traditions. WVFP, part of the West Virginia Humanities Council, is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Folk & Traditional Arts Program. The West Virginia Folklife Program employs West Virginia’s first state folklorist to carry out this work.
Wisconsin
Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures
The Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures of the University of Wisconsin is committed to the languages and cultural traditions of this region’s diverse peoples. It fosters research and the preservation of archival collections, and produces educational and outreach programs for a broad public audience. It also assists community groups, classrooms, and scholars with projects involving Upper Midwestern Cultures.
Wisconsin Arts Board Folk and Traditional Arts Program
Founded in 1981, the Folk & Traditional Arts Program is one means through which the Wisconsin Arts Board fulfills its mission to study, encourage and assist artistic and cultural activities in the state, and assist communities in creating and developing their own arts programs.
Wisconsin Folks
Wisconsin Folks, an online resource of the Wisconsin Arts Board, provides information about Wisconsin folk arts and artists.
Wyoming
American Studies Program, University of Wyoming
The American Studies Program at the University of Wyoming is host to a folklife specialist who conducts fieldwork statewide, develops special programs and projects in cooperation with the Wyoming Arts Council’s Folk & Traditional Arts Program and other cultural entities in the state, maintains an archive, and involves students in projects.
Wyoming Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Program
The Wyoming Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Program works to identify, document, conserve, and honor folk & traditional arts throughout Wyoming.