WORKING AMERICANS: Contemporary Approaches to Occupational Folklife

Abstract

This issue is devoted to the study of occupational folklife, and was conceived as a necessary response to at least two independent but related developments. The first development, within folklore studies generally, is a growing interest in occupational folklife and the consequent demand for appropriate materials and courses to satisfy that interest. The second, at the Smithsonian Institution specifically, was the housing of the largest extant collection of sound tape recordings of occupational folklife. The need for some bridge between the two, a bridge that would describe this unique archive as well as suggest to folklorists new ways of looking at occupational folklife, seemed obvious. The Archive of Occupational Folklife, housed at the Smithsonian Institution's Office of American and Folklife Studies, contains over six hundred hours of recordings of narrative performances by occupational groups who participated in the Working Americans program of the 1975 and 1976 Festivals of American Folklife. On these tapes literally hundreds of workers representing over a hundred different occupations tell stories about their work which express their own perspectives on their jobs, their fellow workers, their training, and the organizations that represent them as well as their angers, their joys and their fears. They also frequently reveal aspects (metaphorical, realistic, or dramatic) of the actual work processes that inform and shape their stories. This voluminous record of occupational experience is, to be sure, one that was collected out of its natural milieu, but it has proven to be surprisingly effective in its ability to communicate the insider's view of work through verbal art; and it also suggests a strong functional and stylistic connection between physical work processes and their accompanying narratives. The entire collection has been logged; and the largest portion of it, recorded at the 1976 Festival of American Folklife, has been annotated and cross-indexed by subject, occupation and genre. This corpus of tapes is, of course, preliminary material—the barest skimming of the surface of occupational expression. While representing more groups than have ever been collected from before, it still passes over many, many more. The next step is to use the collection as an indicator of important in-depth research and fieldwork projects that will explore more fully the occupational experiences that shape our lives in so many positive and negative ways. To further this greater end the articles comprising this issue were solicited. Robert S. McCarl, Jr. presents a highly convincing operational definition of occupational folklife. Roger D. Abrahams supplies an up-to-date rationale for inquiry into occupational culture, and relates that inquiry to broader sociological and anthropological studies in the past and present. Based on my own and others' experience in the field, I have attempted to outline useful procedures for the investigation of the most typical and least studied occupations in our culture. Jack Santino illustrates one analytical approach to occupational narratives that indicates the indispensability of such narratives to students of occupational culture. And, finally, Archie Green surveys the history of occupational folkloristics, analyzes it for the lessons it contains, defines conceptual problems that cannot be avoided, and points to sources that the student of occupational culture may not ignore. Increasingly, occupational folklore and folklife are being collected, annotated and studied, but more is needed: more data and more analysis. My hope is that some of our readers will apply their talents to this exciting but often overlooked branch of contemporary folkloristics, and that this issue will suggest theoretical and practical frameworks for their activity.