Dates

• Majority of material found within 1800 - 2000

Extent

54 boxes Linear Feet (In 1987, federal legislation was passed to establish the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission within the Department of Interior. This Commission coordinates what was then named America's Industrial Heritage Project (AIHP), a regional effort to preserve, promote, and interpret the sites and stories of America's industrial heritage in southwestern Pennsylvania with a special focus on the railroad, coal mining, and steel industries. Other transportation and heavy industries are included in the project's purview along with the impact of industry on agriculture and rural community life in the region and its social history and the influx of Eastern Europeans and southern African Americans who came to work in these industries and the role ethnicity has played and continues to play in shaping the region. AIHP encompasses Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Fayette, Fulton, Huntingdon, Indiana, Somerset and Westmoreland counties. The Commission serves as the catalyst for the project's partnership efforts and, through the conservation and commemoration of these industrial sites, the Commission will spark economic development in the region. The Folklife Division of AIHP was developed by the Pennsylvania Heritage Affairs Commission in cooperation with the National Park Service and local cultural organizations. It was one of three teams of research specialists involved in documenting and interpreting various aspects of the industrial and ethnic heritage of the Allegheny Highlands. The other teams focused on the historic sites and archaeology of the region. The Folklife Division was directed by James Abrams from 1989 to 1994. The Division's archivist was Susan Kalcik, who prepared a Folklife Resource Guide and this inventory under the direction of AIHP Archivist, Denise Visconti. Kathy Kimiecik joined the staff as Education Specialist and Danny Pfeilstucker worked with the Division on a labor project. The Division worked with local organizations, retired workers, community members, and trained historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and folklorists to document, present, and interpret the folklife of the region. By folklife is meant the social and cultural histories, as well as the on-going expressive practices that structure the experience and identity of groups within the region. The group may be a labor union, a work crew, an ethnic group, a religious order, a family, or people living in the same geographic location. This work was carried on by the staff members listed above and during the summers of 1990 and 1991 by a number of professional and non-professional scholars who conducted cultural surveys of the 9 counties and worked on a number of special projects. In addition, several Folklife Documentation Centers were identified in regional institutions to conduct in-depth fieldwork on specific topics relevant to AIHP's mission, document folklife practices and practitioners, and develop public programs to present and interpret the results of their work. The Folklife Division Director worked closely with each center providing direction and technical assistance. These centers included at different times: The Folklife Documentation Center for Coal Indiana University of Pennsylvania James Dougherty, Coordinator. The Folklife Documentation Center for Transportation Railroaders Memorial Museum Cummins McNitt, Coordinator. The Folklife Documentation Center for Agriculture Somerset Historical Center Cynthia Mason, Coordinator. The Documentation Center for Steel Johnstown Area Heritage Association Curt Miner, Coordinator. The Documentation Center for Gender Seton Hill College Christine Mueseler, Coordinator. The Documentation Center for Coal and Coke Penn State Fayette Evelyn Hovanec, Coordinator. This collection was created by the Folklife Division of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission. This collection consists of the records of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission's Division of Folklife and includes fieldwork materials collected by the Division and by some of the Documentation Centers as well as some administrative files. Materials collected by the Folklife Division come from the 9 counties of Pennsylvania delineated as the America's Industrial Heritage area: Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Fayette, Fulton, Huntingdon, Indiana, Somerset and Westmoreland. The collection includes examples of a variety of folklife genres especially occupational, ethnic, religious, regional, gender, and community lore; oral, life, and local history; arts and crafts; music, song, and dance; narrative; material culture such as vernacular architecture and foodways; customs, practices, and traditions; beliefs and values. Subject matter includes the occupations of coal, steel, railroad, agriculture. Other subjects covered are immigration, ethnicity, race, class, discrimination, religion, organizations and institutions, work, labor, growing up, child rearing, men's and women's and children's roles, sports, games, entertainment, holiday celebrations, food, gardens, deindustrialization, displacement, heritage, and place. Many ethnic groups are mentioned, most often are Irish, German, Scotch Irish, Poles, Slovaks, Italians, Slovenians and African Americans. Fieldworkers included folklorists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, local scholars, community leaders, students, professional photographers. In general, the strongest collections were made by trained ethnographers. Some problematic areas include Burket's materials which could not be taped directly for the most part, Miner's recording logs which seem in some cases to have been typed by someone not familiar with the interviews, the Patton materials (see note below), the Harris and Moore photographs which have little or no documentation, and the narrow scope of the Coal Documentation Center collection. Collected materials consist mainly of written materials, audio tape recordings, photographs, slides, video tape. In addition, fieldworkers sometimes acquired miscellaneous materials such as books, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, etc. These materials were collected in cultural surveys of the 9 counties, in work on specific projects, and as part of the work of the various documentation centers. In 1990 and 1991 the Division conducted cultural or ethnographic surveys of the 9 counties to gather information that would be used later by AIHP in interpretive or public programs. Their focus was on occupation and ethnicity. Fieldworkers were instructed to identify significant individuals in their counties, ethnic communities/culture/heritage, organizations (ethnic, rural, community, labor, religious), and to focus on the project's occupational interests: coal, steel, transportation, agriculture. Their work ideally began with some preliminary research; continued with fieldwork or field investigation that involved interviewing, participant observation, and photography; and ended with the writing of a final report. Interviews covered biography, sense of place, work and occupation, community life, artistic traditions and other subjects. The survey report was to include background information on the county's climate, geography, industrial and agricultural economies, population, organizations, and ceremonial calendar. It also was to contain a list of contacts and significant organizations in the county, the fieldworker's preliminary research findings, and recommendations for further investigation. Survey fieldworkers were also asked to focus some attention on a special project or "case study" and these are reflected in the reports as well. Some fieldworkers only did special projects and did not survey the county as a whole. Fieldworkers were required to turn in fieldnotes, various logs, tapes, photographs and slides collected during fieldwork. They were not required to transcribe the tapes, although some logs and reports contain direct quotations from the interviews. These survey reports were not considered final polished or publishable documents but rather working papers. Time as well as travel constraints meant many have more breadth than depth. Those that have more depth tend to have focused on a narrower subject matter.)

Language of Materials

English