Research Guides: Maryland Traditions Archives: About

This research guide provides an overview of state-sponsored traditional arts and folklife activity and materials in the Maryland Traditions Archives (MTA).

Housed in Special Collections at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, the MTA is the repository of Maryland Traditions, the state folklife program administered by the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC). MTA collections are administered using a “shared stewardship” model, in which MTA staff collaborate with members of the communities represented within the collections (“source communities”) to share curatorial authority for the collections.

These collections are open to the public. MTA collections contain institutional records from the Maryland Folklife Program (1976-2000) and Maryland Traditions (2000-present), folklorist papers, and materials documenting and/or donated by practitioners of living cultural traditions. Materials are in a variety of paper, analog media, and digital formats.

Folklore is commonly defined as the body of material, in a variety of forms, that expresses a particular group's cultural traditions handed down by example or word of mouth. Those traditional expressions can include music, dance, oral history, legends, proverbs, superstitions, jokes, material culture, foodways, occupational culture, and more. The people who study folklore and folklife are folklorists. For more information, visit the American Folklore Society's Folklife Wiki.

MTA Collections

Collection 116: Maryland Folklife Program records
The Maryland Folklife Program records contain the administrative and ethnographic fieldwork files pertaining to the Maryland Folklife Program of the Maryland State Arts Council from its inception in 1974 until 2000. It is organized into three archival series; Maryland Folklife Festival, George Carey and Charley Camp. These materials consist of ethnographic field documentation of Maryland folklife, mainly collected in advance of the Maryland Folklife Festivals (1975-1980). This documentation includes audio recordings of traditional music and oral histories, photographic prints and slides, fieldwork ledgers and other print materials. The collection also includes film footage for projects on Maryland Folklife produced with Maryland Public Television, such as The Folk Way and Calling me Home.
Collection 120: Maryland Traditions records
The Maryland Traditions records contain the administrative and ethnographic fieldwork files pertaining to the Maryland Traditions Program of the Maryland State Arts Council from 2000 to the present. This is a living archival collection that receives annual donations from Maryland Traditions. The program identifies, documents, supports, and presents the traditional arts or folk life in Maryland. Traditional arts are defined as community-based living cultural traditions handed down by example or word of mouth. All materials were collected and created for the use of the program and include oral histories, interviews, photographs, and video pertaining to ethnographic field documentation of Maryland.
Collection 121: Dorothy Howard papers
This collection includes fieldwork materials collected by folklorist Dorothy Howard and her students at Frostburg State University (circa 1940-1990), including personal correspondence; publications (drafts and final copies authored by Howard); Howard's research at the Swan Meadow School in Garrett County, MD; and materials on play-party songs, children’s folklore, herblore, and other folklife documented in Mountain Maryland.
Collection 122: Ola Belle Reed collection
The collection consists of audio, visual, and printed materials documenting the Appalachian migration to Maryland (1930s-1960s) and the career and family of musician Ola Belle Reed. The collection includes Reed's autoharp, personal effects and clothing, as well as recorded sound and photographs.
Collection 123: Jason Pate collection
The Jason Pate collection consists of audio reel-to-reel tapes and was donated to the Maryland State Arts Council in the 1980s. Tapes document music of the Appalachian migration to Maryland, in the Upper Chesapeake region, with a significant focus on songster Ola Belle Reed of Rising Sun, Maryland. Tapes also focus on the African-American jubilee gospel quartet music of the Little Wonders of Havre de Grace. Pate, whose family owned and operated radio stations WASA and WHDG in the Havre de Grace area, donated a number of radio transcriptions, air checks, feature-length broadcasts of country and gospel music, as well as an extensive collection of personal interviews/recordings made by Jason David Pate of Ola Belle Reed, her family, and her musical associates.
Collection 146: Elaine Eff papers
Program and research files from folklorist Dr. Elaine Eff, including her work with the City of Baltimore, documentation of Maryland's lighthouses, coal mining and miners in Western Maryland, Chesapeake Bay watermen, Painted Screens, the formation of the Smith Island Cultural Center, and the Historic Hampton Oral History Project. Eff's records from Maryland Traditions and the Maryland State Arts Council are located in Collection 120, Maryland Traditions records.
Collection 210: Painted Screen Society of Baltimore collection
Records contain the Painted Screen Society of Baltimore, Inc. administrative files which includes materials associated with workshops, grant proposals, general publications, special events documents, correspondence, and planning documents and publications associated with the 1989 film, “The Screen Painters.” Collection materials also include film festival submissions, flyers and announcements, film reviews, 16mm movie film, and audio reels.
Collection 308: New Media Studio collection
The New Media Studio Collection features video projects and cultural documentation materials that derive from an ongoing collaboration founded in 2012 between the New Media Studio, UMBC, and Maryland Traditions, the Maryland State Arts Council's traditional arts program. The collaboration has resulted in a series of video projects on living traditions throughout the state, recipients of the Maryland Heritage Awards, and community-based documentation and oral histories. Highlights include Mill Stories, which documents Sparrows Point Steel Mill (Baltimore County) as a place of employment and center of community life, and the Baltimore Traces series, including documentary short films on the Baltimore American Indian Center, the Arch Social Club, and Greektown Voices.
Collection 309: Edwin Remsberg collection
The Edwin Remsberg Collection consists of digital image, audio, and video files made between 2007 and 2021, documenting folklife activities sponsored by the Maryland State Arts Council. Remsberg served as official photographer for the Maryland Traditions program of the Maryland State Arts Council from 2007 to 2021. In this role, Remsberg documented people, places, art works, and performances representing community-based, living cultural traditions in the state of Maryland. Topics include Folklife Apprenticeship teams and Heritage Award winners.
Collection 320: Charles L. Wagandt II collection
The Charles L. Wagandt II collection consists of archival documentation pertaining to the history of the Oella Mill and Oella Company, Inc. Subjects include Oella Company Scrapbooks, documentation of the Oella Festival, Community Calendars, Oella Cemetery Company Ledgers, documentation of the George Ellicott House Restoration, oral histories from the Goucher College Historic Preservation Class, and documentation of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Textual and audiovisual materials (1854-2019) from the Oella Company vault were accompanied by 68 individual finding aids. Accessions include images, mill records, research materials, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, oral histories and their transcripts, objects, project planning records, mill samples, and correspondence.
Collection 332: Human Being Productions collection
The Human Being Productions collection consists of digital image files made between 2021 and the present, documenting folklife activities sponsored by the Maryland State Arts Council. Human Being Productions has served as official photographer for the Maryland Traditions program of the Maryland State Arts Council from 2021 to the present. In this role, Human Being Productions photographers document people, places, art works, and performances representing community-based, living cultural traditions located in the state of Maryland. Topics include Folklife Apprenticeship teams and Heritage Award winners.
Collection 336: Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Folklife collection
This collection contains photographs, documents, objects, oral history recordings, books, and ephemera from 1830 to 2023 (bulk 1960-2023) collected by the staff of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) in their capacity as a regional folklife center funded through the Maryland Traditions program of the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC). The museum explores and preserves the history, environment, and culture of the Chesapeake Bay region.

Unprocessed collections without finding aids: Ashley Minner collection, Kathleen Beauchesne collection.

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