Marge Prehoda introduced me to celebrating Easter with pysanky. These family heirloom, hand-decorated raw eggs were an important element rounding out her family's Easter Basket. They were placed alongside the traditional foods to be eaten on Easter Day – ham and sausages, paska (a rich round bread with elaborated dough ornaments), krashanky (edible one-color hard boiled eggs), cheese, butter, salt, and grated horseradish (a reminder of Christ's bitter ordeal) . The family's E

North Country music lovers who attend our Live! Folklife Concerts know they're in for a treat whenever the magnificent Mike Merenda and Ruth Ungar come to town. Their unique brand of Americana never fails to bring down the house. The Mike + Ruthy Band's March 10, 2016 performance marked the first time we recorded a show utilizing a three-camera shoot and multi-cam editing. We were pleased with the way videos filmed that night turned out, and are happy—more than five years lat

Katie Cross (Katherine Baker Cross, 1916-1989) introduced me to buff mittens in 1987. I met her at a church bazaar in the foothills of the Adirondacks. She was an active member of the Johnsburg United Methodist Women who made and sold tied quilts to raise money for their church. Katie also made her own buff mittens and buff knitted slippers to sell at these fundraisers. Buff mittens are very thick, made by knitting an extra loop on the outside, that was then clipped to produ

Study Clubs were all the rage amongst middle & upper class women in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. Glens Falls boasted at least nine different study clubs, with other women's organizations hosting similar activities. The Monday Reading Club formed in 1905, and was like many such clubs around the country. They met bi-weekly at the home of a hostess, and another member served as the presenter of the designated topic. They rotated both positions throughout the club year w

Here's a video memory of my friend, Jack, and his mastery of Black Ash basketry and other things Adirondack. It is the second episode of a series called From the Archives, highlighting years of work documenting the folklife and traditions of our region. This grant funded research from 1986 to 1994 led to the creation of the Folklife Center, and these photographs, interviews, notes and writings continue to be archived at the Folklife Center in Glens Falls, NY. For more informa

This recently-scanned portrait comes from a glass plate negative labeled, "The Reverend Mr. Lockwood." Consulting city directories from the early 1900s, it seems likely that the gentleman in question is Reverend William W. Lockwood, who at that time was the pastor of Zion Episcopal Church in Hudson Falls. The portrait and city directories do not indicate, however, that the good Reverend was blessed with quite the green thumb. Thankfully, the June 24, 1913 edition of The Post-

Father Isaac Jogues came home last fall. I brought him back to the Folklife Center from Kasia Maroney Conservation, LLC in Trumansville, New York, where he spent a year (much of it due to Covid) at the southwestern end of Cayuga Lake. The good Father of which I speak, is a maquette, or scale model (in painted gypsum plaster, cast from a clay original) of a local, giant bronze statue of Father Isaac Jogues. You can visit this memorial statue in Lake George Battlefield Park, wh

In honor of International Women's Day, Musical Monday looks back at the 4 incredibly talented women of Fara. The ladies played to a standing-room only crowd as part of our Live! Folklife Concerts in May of 2018. Enjoy their incredible performance, and be sure to do what you can to help forge an inclusive world—today and every day! Fara brings together four musicians at the forefront of today’s Scottish folk scene — Jennifer Austin, Kristan Harvey, Jeana Leslie and Catriona Pr

We have a wide variety of collections, here at The Folklife Center. They vary by content, as well as size. Some of our collections contain 5,000 items, while others fill only a small archival box or two. We also have individual items that don't truly belong in a collection. Two such pieces of ephemera prompted today's post. The bicycle craze of the late 1800's hit the villages of the North Country hard. Local business owners eager to capitalize on the trend began manufacturin

I wrote this piece 7 years ago for my editor's column in Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, Spring-Summer 2014, Vol. 40: 1-2. It is used by permission www.nyfolklore.com. My photographs are new additions. "Sap's Running!" is a welcomed greeting in the early spring of Upstate New York. It usually happens around March, when the sun is a bit higher in the sky and is shining just that much longer each day. If there's snowpack (and there usually is), then a bit of melt has

The start of a new week on the Folklife Center Blog usually means that it's time for Musical Monday, where we feature videos from our series of Live! Folklife Concerts. Today, though, I thought it might be nice to share a portrait from our new collection of glass plate negatives (which so far have been providing us with a fascinating glimpse into the history of our community). Each negative we scan brings a new face to life, and each face comes with a story. Welcome, then, to