Folklife on the Air

Since at least the 1940s, producers of radio material have drawn on traditions and community anchors to appeal to listeners. Sometimes radio programs were produced by and for communities themselves, sometimes to engage broader audiences. The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress has acquired a range of collections over the past several decades connected to radio programming anchored in cultural heritage materials. In this essay, several staff from the AFC offer descriptive overviews of four such collections spanning multiple eras, geographies, and cultural spaces.