Browse Items (23 total)

"Mrs. Roosevelt's arrival on the last day (of the 1933 festival) boosted the crowd beyond all records (by some estimates as many as 22,000 people attended). She arrived at noon and attended the special folk music program given by some of the contest…

"The reception in Abingdon was grand, with people filling the train station platform, leaning over the rope lines, reaching out to wave at Mrs. Roosevelt with their hands, hats, and handkerchiefs."
["A First Lady in a False Kingdom," p. 189]

"The present text was collected June 28, 1936 by Richard Chase and Annabel Morris Buchanan from Mrs. Maud Gentry Long, Hot Springs, North Carolina." [Southern Folk Ballads, vol. II, p 119-120]

"The idea to invite Eleanor Roosevelt to the festival came from the event's founder and director, Annabel Morris Buchanan...
"In February 1933 she wrote to the soon-to-be first lady: 'I think you and President Roosevelt might find the mountain, with…

Folklorist and musician Lamar Bascom Lunsford (1888-1973) was the creative force behind The Asheville Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. Started in 1927 as the the "Rhododendron Festival" it is thought to be the first "Folk Festival."

Photograph of the three individuals responsible for programming and promotion of the White Top Folk Festival, which took place in the 1930s in Grayson County, Virginia on property owned by John Blakemore. Annabel Morris Buchanan, who was credited as…

Image of a promotional flyer advertising the first WTFF in 1931

Broadsheet announcing details of the 1932 WTFF originally distributed as a tri-fold brocure(two sided)

Broadsheet announcing details of the 1932 WTFF originally distributed as a tri-fold brocure(two sided)

"Holy folk" settin' there? Not a bit of it. The holy folk are standing outside the ropes while a handful of city folk sit... According to Dave Whisnant, Charles Seeger was not as impressed with the White Top Folk Festival, which he attended in 1936…