Jane Becker discusses the relationship between tradition and concepts of folk in the US. Making correlations between traditions and American national identity, as well as tradition to folk, she explains why the Smithsonian selling the rights to "traditional" quilt patterns would cause an uproar. Yet, in her progression toward Appalachia as the epicenter of the American folk, she swings by concepts of the colonial and colonial times as becoming folk during WWI and the Depression. Highlighting concepts that the past = tradition = folk, it does not seem strange that a period such as colonial New England would insight romantic ideas and attention. This was a period when Americans were suffering and believed"Traditional practices, many believed, might be restorative, uniting body and spirit, nourishing the soul, encouraging self-reliance, and upholding the family." (5) Becker places this definition in the Depression, and rightly so. While some of these concepts maintain, it would seem to me that the connection of Americans with the Colonial period during WWI and the Depression would be tied in with a sense of shared concepts of struggle and eventual triumph. If the colonists could succeed, focused on the "simple" and the "folk," than so could the Americans of today.
Colonial New England remains folk. Becker makes passing reference to living museums early in her essay. These museums maintain today and are required field trips for every school aged child in any of the New England states. Growing up I went to five throughout grade school. In fact, no point denying my everlasting history nerd status, my first job was working at Pioneer Village 1630, the first living museum ever constructed in Massachusetts (and as my boss claimed, the US). What struck me while reading this week is how Becker frames these museums as a product of a particular time in history and the people's understanding of folk at that time, which was enlightening, yet these museums... much like the larger concept of folk... change over time. She explains how folk migrates from group to group and focus to focus based on a need for particular traditions and nostalgia that people may feel. Yet once deemed folk these meanings do not remain static, but they are always changing. Perhaps this is a response to what she calls the "ideologically constructed categories" (2) that are folk and tradition.
On a more personal note: The things I learned while working at a living history museum...
1) People don't actually want to know the history of the area of the museum but rather they want to be entertained by things that they imagined to be appropriate. For example, they want to see us sitting outside the houses spinning yarn (WHICH GETS VERY DULL, VERY QUICK), they want to see women inside the house bent over a fire cooking (WHICH IN THE SUMMER WAS EXHAUSTING AND HOT), and they want to see what they would consider "ridiculous" get-ups that colonial women would wear (WHICH MEANT I HAD TO WEAR MULTIPLE WOOL SKITS IN THE SUMMERTIME... which I am convinced no reasonable colonial women would ever have subjected herself to!)
2) People very much romanticises the colonial period, especially in New England. They take a pride in their past that is almost a little possessive and expect everyone to be equally fascinated by the "local folk"... even if they have been dead for generations. (Yet, only when outsiders come to visit, friends or family from out of town, do people feel required to pay homage to the places that embody this romantic past).
3) Goats are evil and inherently mean animals that will chase and head butt you whenever they get the chance... and tourists are little better than that.
- Sarah Howard
(Unfortunately I couldn't find the particularly embarrassing picture of me... did find this though)
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