<body><div>We are excited to announce that the newest campaign to join the Library of Congress By the People volunteer transcription initiative is the AFC’s own Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection! Since 2018, By the People invites one and all to transcribe, review, and tag digitized pages from the Library’s collections, and be part of this popular effort in enhancing collection accessibility – improving search, readability, and engagement with handwritten and typed collection documents for everyone. As the By the People webpage states: “transcriptions are made and reviewed by volunteers before they are returned to loc.gov, the Library’s website. You don’t even need to create an account to transcribe, but registered users can also tag and review other people’s transcriptions.”<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3OiQil_0vxU428100" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3OiQil_0vxU428100" width="1024" height="694" ><figcaption>Korean American dancers performing during the Civic Center Plaza Ethnic Dance Festival, Chicago, July 1, 1977. Photo by Jonas Dovydenas. Part of the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection. Find the image here , as well as its photo log entry here , which can be transcribed in the Chicago 1977 campaign .</figcaption></figure>The Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection is, indeed, a perfect By the People fit. It contains a wealth of type- and hand-written documents, as it is based on a cultural documentation project undertaken by over a dozen AFC fieldworkers across Chicagoland in 1977. Alongside thousands of photographs and hundreds of sound recordings, it is full of folklorists’ and photographers’ fieldnotes, logs, and reports that document roughly two-dozen cultural communities – and their many traditions, community events, places of worship, and neighborhood hubs – throughout the city. By transcribing fieldnotes, logs, and reports, one is able trace the activities, stories, and cultural livelihoods of numerous Black musicians and singers, Puerto Rican and Mexican American artists and activists, and Ukrainian American community activities of late-1970s Chicago, to truly name only a few!The Chicago 1977 campaign is organized by the different categories of collection manuscripts: that is, one can choose to delve into transcribing individual folklorist fieldnotes and/or reports, audio and/or photograph logs, as well as overall project reports. Importantly, the manuscripts not only tell stories of a diverse range of cultural communities – and their important places and spaces – in 1977 Chicago, but equally the story of the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project itself: the project goals and outcomes; the team coordination and effort; and the intriguing, and sometimes funny, experiences and personal reflections of the fieldworkers.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4Wdn8g_0vxU428100" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4Wdn8g_0vxU428100" width="1929" height="997" ><figcaption>An excerpt from the audio log notes of folklorist Beverly Robinson kindly warning a future transcriber about some loud sounds in her interview recording with musician Daddy Rabbit (Coleman Pettis, Jr.) . Robinson was one of two folklorists responsible for documenting Black musicians, singers, and artists in the 1977 Chicago Ethnic Arts Project. You can find her typewritten audio log entry here (which is available for transcription in the Chicago 1977 campaign ).</figcaption></figure>In fact, the project was the first in a long line of AFC “field surveys,” which were undertaken in regions throughout the U.S. up until the late 1990s (learn more about the Center’s 12 field surveys and resultant archival collections here). In particular, the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project developed from discussions between leadership of the AFC and the Illinois Arts Council (IAC), which – as an arts funding agency – was interested in “gathering information about ethnic groups and their arts,” and assessing the “resources and needs of the greater Chicago area ethnic community,” toward the establishment of a program with dedicated funds for supporting folk and traditional arts, as noted in the project’s final report.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=35s0pI_0vxU428100" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=35s0pI_0vxU428100" width="1024" height="689" ><figcaption>Folklorist Beverly Robinson interviewing crafts artist Ethel Lois Jackson in her family’s kitchen, May 19, 1977. Photo by Jonas Dovydenas. Part of the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection. Find the image here , as well as her interview recording with Jackson here .</figcaption></figure>Co-sponsored with the IAC, the project offered the AFC “an opportunity to demonstrate the ability of professional folklorists to observe and analyze community life at the grass roots,” especially in a such a culturally-layered, urban center like Chicago – the second most populous city in the country at the time. With recording equipment, cameras, and note paper and pens in hand, 17 project folklorists and photographers fanned out across Chicagoland over the course of 1977 to document the diversity of Chicagoans’ cultural livelihoods, traditions, and shared activities. In addition to AFC staff, additional fieldworkers were hired due to their specialized knowledge of – and pre-existing relationships with – cultural communities and social groups living and working in the city. And as reflected in the Chicago 1977 campaign, you can choose to transcribe the fieldnotes, logs, and reports of individual fieldworkers whose project responsibilities are listed in the campaign as follows:<ul><li>African American Cultures – Beverly Robinson</li><li>African American Cultures – Ralph Metcalfe</li><li>Asian American Cultures – Chungmoo Choi</li><li>German American Cultures – Antony Hellenberg</li><li>Greek American Cultures – Peter Bartis</li><li>Irish American Cultures – Mick Moloney</li><li>Italian American Cultures – Elizabeth Mathias</li><li>Jewish Cultures – Shifra Epstein</li><li>Latinx Cultures – Philip George</li><li>Lithuanian American Cultures – Elena Bradunas</li><li>Native American Cultures – Roberta Fiske-Hajnal</li><li>Polish American Cultures – Susan Kalcik</li><li>Russian American Cultures – Greta Swenson</li><li>Scandinavian American Cultures – Jens Lund</li><li>Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, and Macedonian Cultures – Richard March</li><li>U.S. Southerners in Chicago – Carl Fleischhauer</li><li>Ukrainian American Cultures – Robert Klymasz</li></ul>The Chicago Ethnic Arts Project was a significant milestone in many respects – least of which was its contributions to helping the IAC establish its Folk Arts Program by the early 1980s. Ongoing to this day, the IAC continues to support traditional artists and communities in Chicago and across the state.Fifty years later, Chicago remains a ‘city of neighborhoods,’ thanks in large part to the historical legacies of migration and immigration kept alive by its cultural communities and the many cultural centers they established at the time through strong senses of pride – so much of which is documented in the collection. We hope you join the Chicago 1977: People, Places, and Cultures transcription effort to make these important stories more accessible for all!Additional Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection resources:Chicago Blues and Jazz (Story Map)Homegrown Pride: Exploring Chicago’s Cultural Centers in 1977 and Today (Story Map)</div></body>

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By the People: Help Transcribe the AFC’s Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection!

We are excited to announce that the newest campaign to join the Library of Congress By the People volunteer transcription initiative is the AFC’s own Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection! Since 2018, By the People invites one and all to transcribe, review, and tag digitized pages from the Library’s collections, and be part of this popular effort in enhancing collection accessibility – improving search, readability, and engagement with handwritten and typed collection documents for everyone. As the By the People webpage states: “transcriptions are made and reviewed by volunteers before they are returned to loc.gov, the Library’s website. You don’t even need to create an account to transcribe, but registered users can also tag and review other people’s transcriptions.”