The Daniel Lapointe Collection consists of a single 16 mm. film, "Movie Queen," made ca. 1936 as part of a local talent production. The film consists of shots of the town's businesses and people. The so-called movie queen is a local girl who visits business proprietors in and around Van Buren, obtaining goods and services such as a milkshake and automobile towing. Automobiles and automobile service are prominent in the footage. A hotel, a lumberyard with rail service carrying the finished lumber to market, and potato fields are also included. The Gayety Theatre is shown with emerging matinee customers. The film appears to be shot toward the end of the summer as there is footage of a fair with a sideshow, an entertainment likely to travel in the summer. This version of "Movie Queen" does not have the comedic kidnapping component that is present in many other surviving versions.
Dated 4/26/82. A live one-hour call-in program. The series producers and community representatives open the telephone lines to take questions from viewers. Among the topics to be discussed: what it means to be a Franco-American today, and options for the future; how did the television series do in covering the Franco-American scene today. FOR REFERENCE ONLY.
Dated 10/26/81. Eugene Paradis recalls his earlier years in Old Town, Maine, when life was simper and run by bells, whistles and horns. Visits with other Old Town residents who speak of their lives today. FOR REFERENCE ONLY.
Collection contains [Du Mais--home movies] with a mix of family events such as vacations, holiday rituals, and sporting activities. It also captures regional subjects such as Colby College’s Mayflower Hill campus when it opened, construction activities from the early 1950s, parades, fires, summer camps in Maine, herring catches in the Sheepscot River, travel footage from Guatemala in 1954, New York City scenes, and amateur footage of the Mayo Clinic.
Unedited footage including interviews with Acadians, focusing on their daily lives, customs, food, music and dance. Original footage is 1/2-inch open reel videotape. From donor's notes: This video was done in 1979 intending to document how Christmas was celebrated on Prince Edward Island at the turn of the century. The first part of the video are interviews conducted in the Rumford, Me. area by Dr. Edward Martin (founder of Acadian heritage Society), who asked selected Acadian individuals what their Christmas celebrations were like prior to their migration to the U.S. The discussion involves foods, traditions, music, religion, and family involvement. The second part of the video documents how the Acadian Society made 'poutine' for their annual festival called the 'Fiddle Festival,' a celebration of Acadian music, foods and merryment. Poutine is a traditional Acadian food looked at with much fondness. You see that attitude reflected in the chefs preparing the poutine in the video. The last part of the video documents one of the fiddle festivals. Many of the musicians were Society members and self-taught. The step dancers were also self-taught. The festivals were always organized to include family participation.
Collection contains unedited footage including interviews with Acadians, focusing on their daily lives, customs, food, music and dance. The interviewer, Dr. Edward Martin, centers discussion around Christmas celebrations, Acadian history and life in Rumford. Footage includes documentation of the Acadian Society's cooking poutine, a traditional food, for the annual Fiddle Festival.
Interview with Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Depot, 318 Jackson Avenue, Willimantic, Connecticut, on April 7, 1975 for the Ethnic Heritage Project by Andrea Levy.
The collection contains oral histories recorded on reel to reel or cassette tapes and, for the majority of the collection, associated transcripts. The audio recordings are housed separately from the transcriptions and are not available for research. The interviews were conducted by various individuals from the center including Bruce Stave (Director of the Center), Katya Williamson, Allice Hoffman, Jane Allison, Michael Chaney, Morton Tenzer, and Leslie Frank. Interviews included in this finding aid are limited to those for whom access permission has been granted. Associated, administrative, and project related files have been processed separately and identified as part of the records for the Center for Oral History.
Collection consists of sound and video recordings, photographs, manuscript materials, printed materials, correspondence, field notes, and administrative files documenting folklife--including architecture, music, dance, storytelling, material culture, and occupational culture--in the Upper Saint John River Valley on the Maine and New Brunswick border.
This year-long study conducted by the American Folklife Center yielded an ethnographic collection consisting of 196 hours of sound recordings covering a wide range of subjects and activities, including oral history interviews, religious services, musical events, parades and religious processions, ethnic festivals, ethnic restaurants, and neighborhood tours. An additional 23 hours of sound recordings of musical events and oral history interviews were copied from originals lent by Lowell residents. Collection materials also include correspondence; field notes; questionnaires; neighborhood maps; reports; publications; administrative files; interview transcripts; black-and-white photographic prints, contact sheets, and film negatives (ca. 10,000 images); and color slides and prints, (ca. 3,500 images) which documented community life in Lowell, Massachusetts from 1987 to 1988.
An interview with Edouard Du Buron conducted 1993 March 9-May 13, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
Du Buron discusses his childhood in Worcester, Massachusetts in a poor family with an abusive father and his rearing in various Catholic orphanages; his loss of religion in his youth and growing up as a French-Canadian in New England; his career as a solo dancer in Boston (1925-32) and as a member of the Ruth St. Denis Troupe (1932-38); his dance career in New York City in the late 1930s and his job as a display designer at Filene's department store in Boston (1942-45).
