A Workshop by Michael Frisch
Civic Engagement and Voices from the Depression and the New Deal

Thursday, October 4, 2012, 6:00-8:00pm
Northwest Corner Building, Room 602
Free admission on a first come, first seated basis

Join us for “Folk Music as Oral History” featuring a performance and discussion with The 198 String Band, comprised of oral historian Michael Frisch (fiddle, guitar, vocals), Tom Naples (guitar, banjo, autoharp) and Peggy Milliron (guitar, vocals). They are musicians, historians, and researchers from Buffalo, New York, who have developed a unique repertoire of music from the Great Depression and New Deal. They present Depression Era/ New Deal music in an interactive format combining live performance and large-screen projection streaming FSA and other documentary photographs and period audio sources —excerpts from oral histories, poems, and narratives.

This workshop will explore the folks’ music “as” oral history, as well as the resonances between performed music and oral history in a multi-media format. The band will discuss these remarkable songs, lyrics, photo images, and audio documents and how they can be leveraged most productively to link history to contemporary issues and resonances.

Michael Frisch (fiddle, guitar, vocals) is Professor of History & American Studies/ Senior Research Scholar at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Frisch is the author of A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (1990) and the prizewinning Portraits in Steel (1993), in collaboration with noted documentary photographer Milton Rogovin

Tom Naples (guitar, banjo, autoharp) has researched the music of the Great Depression in archives and traveled the route of the Dust Bowl migrations, visiting migrant campsites and interviewing former camp residents.

Peggy Milliron (guitar, vocals) is a music educator and avid photographer who did the photo research for this presentation and partnered in the editing process.

SPONSORS: This presentation is part of the “Oral History Seminar Series,” co-sponsored by the Columbia Center for Oral History (CCOH), the Oral History Master of Arts Program (OHMA), Postcrypt Coffeehouse and the Graduate Student Advisory Council (GSAC). OHMA is supported by the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Center for the Social Sciences.

INFORMATION: For more information, please email Terrell Frazier at [email protected]