Folklore Fair: Your Story, Our Story

NYTimes August 19, 1979

Family heirlooms are often precious artifacts linking the present to your family’s heritage. They hold stories and memories from the past about the lives of loved ones that are no longer around.

The end of World War I brought a new sense of freedom and independence to women in the United States. It was during this decade that the “flapper” emerged, a new type of young American woman whose clothing screamed modernity.

Most of this generation of Italian immigrants took their first steps on U.S. soil in a place that has now become a legend—Ellis Island. In the 1880s, they numbered 300,000; in the 1890s, 600,000; in the decade after that, more than two million. By 1920, when immigration began to taper off, more than 4 million Italians had come to the United States, and represented more than 10 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population

America Quilts, a 60-minute PBS documentary, shows the beauty and inspiration of America's quilts including the stirring stories from those working to preserve the art and history of American Quilts

The best trunks were waterproofed with canvas or tree sap, as steamships were a reigning mode of travel.

During the Second World War, submarines comprised less than 2 percent of the U.S. Navy, but sank over 30 percent of Japan's navy, including eight aircraft carriers. More important, American submarines contributed to the virtual strangling of the Japanese economy by sinking almost five million tons of shipping—over 60 percent of the Japanese merchant marine. Victory at sea did not come cheaply. The Submarine Force lost 52 boats and 3,506 men.

It is one of the most recognized and respected medals awarded to members of the U.S.
armed forces.

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Mother-of-pearl is the hard, silvery, internal layer of several kinds of shells, especially oysters, the large varieties of which in the Indian Seas secrete this coat of sufficient thickness to render the shell an object of manufacture.

American Cookery, published by the “orphan” Amelia Simmons in 1796, was the first cookbook by an American to be published in the United States. Its 47 pages (in the first edition) contained fine recipes for roasts—stuffed goose, stuffed leg of veal, roast lamb. There were stews, too, and all manner of pies.

The Kodak "Brownie" camera made its debut at the turn of the twentieth century and sold for one dollar. One hundred thousand of them were purchased during the first year alone. The Brownie helped to put photography into the hands of amateurs and allowed the middle class to take their own "snapshots" as well.

NYT review of cameras 1971

We suggest five ways to think about artifacts in history:

Artifacts tell their own stories.
Artifacts connect people.
Artifacts mean many things.
Artifacts capture moments.
Artifacts reflect changes.