To ensure the preservation and accessibility of the records of government. To provide assistance to government agencies. To provide leadership to ensure the preservation and accessibility of Massachusetts's historical heritage. To develop appreciation of the value of historical records. The Massachusetts Archives serves the Commonwealth and its citizens by preserving and making accessible the records documenting government action and by assisting government agencies in managing their permanent records. The Archives provides leadership in preserving historical records and ensuring that those records are known and valued by citizens, students, and scholars.

Collections

AF10/870x, Massachusetts Folklife Interview Files; AF10/871X, Massachusetts Folklife Audiocassettes; TR12/2670, Folk Arts and Heritage Collection 1999 – 2014

Web

www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcidx.htm

Address

Massachusetts Archives 220 Morrissey Blvd. Boston, MA 02125

Telephone: 617-727-2816

Fax: 617-288-8429

In 1958, Edward “Sandy” Ives founded the Northeast Folklore Society and began publishing Northeast Folklore. He soon found he needed a repository for the material from both student fieldwork and from his own. Thus, he founded the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History (NAFOH). In the late 1970s, Ives began to get involved with the field of public folklore. Ives organized the Maine Folklife Center in 1992, combining the Northeast Folklore Society, NAFOH, and public programming into one unit. In 1996, the Center hired an archivist who set up the computer database system and archival procedures that we follow today. In 2011, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress purchased the original collection held by NAFOH in exchange for funding to digitize the collection.

Collections

All materials acquired by the Maine Folklife Center are managed by the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History. Within the 200 collections containing 4,000 individual accessions (which includes roughly 12,600 photographs, 2,500 slides, 3,000 audio recordings, and 325,000 pages of printed materials) of the Archives, the range of topics covered is broad. Our holdings are especially strong in documentation of occupations, foodways, community histories, lore and legends, traditional music, social activities, ritual and worship, material culture, and expressive arts. Other topics include logging and the lumbering industry, fishing and lobstering, women in Maine, country and western music, northeastern multi-ethnic culture, labor history, Native Americans, and tourism and hunting.

Web

umaine.edu/folklife/archives/

digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/folklife/

facebook.com/mainefolklife

Email
northeast.archives(at)umit.maine.edu

Address

5773 South Stevens Hall

University of Maine

Orono, ME 04469-5773

Phone number: 001-207-581-1844