Collection primarily documents American folk art collected by Frederick Fried (1908-1994) and his wife Mary McKensie Hill Fried (1914-1988). It includes photographic materials, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, research files, lecture notes, unpublished manuscripts, brochures, drawings, printed advertisements, blueprints, books, patents, cor...

The Cook Labs records, which date from 1939-2002, document the activities of audio engineer Emory Cook and his label Cook Labs. The contents include business records, materials relating to recording artists, photographs, and production materials, as well as phonograph records, master recordings and unpublished recordings produced by or associated with the Cook Labs label. The collection also contains two interviews conducted with Emory Cook in 1990: one by Jeff Place and one by Anthony Seeger and Nicholas Spitzer. There are several physical objects relating to Cook Labs including a bag of powdered vinyl, a binaural playing arm, and a condenser microphone.

Collection consists of records documenting one of the oldest advertising agencies created in Philadelphia. The company then moves to New York and expanses to international markets. During its history NW Ayer & Sons acquires a number of other advertising agencies and is eventually purchased. The largest portion of the collection is print advertisements but also includes radio and television. NW Ayer is known for some of the slogans created for major American companies.

This collection, which dates from 1968-2008, documents the professional activities of environmental activist and folk singer Tom Wisner. The collection includes original writings, correspondence, audio recordings, video recordings, interviews, and material relating to the production of Wisner's music and his musical performances.

A Collection of papers and recordings: original writings, correspondence, music production, projects and performances related to environmental advocacy and education of the Chesapeake Watershed; audio and visual recordings of Tom Wisner's professional music production, performances by Wisner and friends, interviews and documentation of the life and culture of the Chesapeake Watershed from 1968-2008.

The records of the Washington, D.C. arts and educational organization, Institute of Contemporary Arts, measure 36 linear feet and date from 1927-circa 1985, with the bulk of the material spanning the organization's active years, 1947-1967. The collection documents the arts and cultural programming organized by the ICA through correspondence, artists' files, program and exhibition files, administrative and financial records, printed materials and photographs. Also found are administrative, student, and teacher records of the ICA school; records of the Fine Arts Committee of the People-to-People Project; and some personal papers of the ICA's founder, Robert Richman.

This collection consists of 754 pen-and-ink, watercolor, and gouache drawings and paintings by artist Lily Spandorf. They depict scenes from various years of the Festival of American Folklife and its successor, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

The Smithsonian Institution Festival of American Folklife, held annually since 1967 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1998. The materials collected here document the planning, production, and execution of the annual Festival, produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (1999-present) and its predecessor offices (1967-1999). An overview of the entire Festival records group is available here: Smithsonian Folklife Festival records.

Documentary filmmaker Jorge Prelorán was best known for his intimate approach to ethnographic film, a style known as "ethnobiography." The majority of Prelorán's films were shot in rural areas of Argentina, particularly the Andean highlands and the Pampas (plains), often in communities of mixed Indian and Spanish heritage. Prelorán documented a wide range of subjects, including art, folk crafts, agriculture, ranching, markets, religious rituals and festivals, and social and cultural change. This collection contains edited films and videos, film outtakes, audio tapes, photographic prints and transparencies, digital books, correspondence, production files, scripts, project files, and press clippings spanning 1954-2008.

The John Marshall Ju/'hoan Bushman Film and Video Collection contains full film and video projects (outtake material), film production elements and edited films and videos, audio tapes, still photographs, negatives, transparencies, slides, published and unpublished writing by John Marshall and others, study guides for edited films, Nyae Nyae Development Foundation and Advocacy files, maps, and production files that include letters, shot logs, translations, transcriptions, editing logs, treatments, and proposals spanning from 1950-2000. This material comprises Marshall's long-term documentary record of the Ju/'hoansi of the Nyae Nyae region of the Kalahari Desert in northeastern Namibia. A great deal of the film and video footage focuses on one particular extended family, that of Toma Tsamko, whose ancestral home is at /Gautcha, an area with a large salt pan and a permanent waterhole. The life stories of some family members are captured in the footage; appearing as children in the 1950's, middle-aged parents in the 1980's, and pensioners in the final years of visual documentation. The Marshall Collection also documents other Ju/'hoansi living in Nyae Nyae and elsewhere, their relationships with neighboring ethnic groups, and national politics that affected Ju/'hoansi. Marshall also documented the local political body (the Nyae Nyae Farmers' Cooperative, or NNFC), the foundation he started (the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia, or NNDFN), and the ways in which both groups worked with and were affected by international development organizations and foreign aid during the 1990's.

Original photographic negatives, prints (black-and-white and color), and color slides and transparencies by Fishback, reflecting his career in advertising, calendar, and editorial photography; drafts of articles and correspondence by Fishback (typescripts), and incoming correspondence; copies of publications, such as magazines and annual reports, w...