During the mid-20th century, the Berkeley Folk Music Festival energized the University of California campus by bringing together West Coast folk aficionados. The Berkeley Folk Music Festival Project archives and further explores the rich history of the festival. The project takes on many mediums (including in-person programming, a digital archive and exhibit, and audio recordings). Readers may want to begin by reading the introductory paragraphs at the link above. As noted, the festival's impact is about more than musical melodies. It also encapsulates a moment in history representative of cultural shifts and historical struggles for liberation. With this background in mind, readers will find the various pieces of the project linked at the top of the page. The Berkeley Folk Music Festival Digital Repository, housed within Northwestern University's digital collection, provides more than 30,000 archive records (ranging from text and pictures to audio clips). Other sections include: a blog, social media accounts, and information about the Digitizing Folk Music History Research Seminar. Michael J. Kramer, an assistant professor of History at SUNY Brockport, is the principal investigator for the project.
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