Scope and Content
The Pinelands Folklife Project collection represents the culmination of a three-year effort to identify and record the cultural traditions of the inhabitants in and around the Pinelands National Reserve in the Pine Barrens region of southern New Jersey in the mid-1980s. The collection comprises ethnographic documentation which examines the relationship between the local culture and the surrounding environment. The collection contains the administrative records, planning documents, and published materials related to the management of the field project. The bulk of the collection consists of field documentation recorded in a range of formats, including typed field notes and logs, sound recordings, graphic materials, moving images, and one artifact. The collection also includes promotional materials, project publications, slide presentations, video programs, and documentation related to the museum exhibition and conference, New Jersey Pinelands: Tradition and Environment.
The Pinelands Folklife Project was the first ethnographic study undertaken by the American Folklife Center to use computers in the field, and the computer disks and computer tape cartridges which contain field data and the project database are included as part of the collection. A t-shirt with a design which commemorates the use of computers to manage and execute the project is also included in the collection.
A copy of the final published report, One Space, Many Places: Folklife and Land Use in New Jersey's Pinelands National Reserve, written by project director Mary Hufford, is located in folder number 183 of the collection. A copy of the Inventory to the Pinelands Folklife Project and Geographic Index, prepared by Ann Dancy as a supplement to the final report, is located in the first folder of the collection.