Eleanor Dickinson collection
Scope and Content Note
This collection of video recordings, sound recordings, manuscripts, photographs, graphic materials, and artifacts documents Protestant religious revival meetings of various denominations in the southern Appalachian region, primarily in Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Georgia. The collection includes interviews with church leaders and members of congregations, and documentation of religious services, healing services, revivals, hymn singing, sermons, snake handling, and other religious rites and customs recorded by Eleanor Dickinson from 1968 to 1991. Other topics include beekeeping, church roadside signs, religious quilts, snake hunting, drinking strychnine, decorating graves in cemeteries, church dinners, and more. Included are some religious and secular radio programs recorded by Dickinson, including programs from Nashville, Tennessee, featuring bluegrass music, and a program featuring Paul Simon; and documentation of Protestant revivals in Oakland and San Francisco, California. Dickinson's interviews with visionary artist Rev. Howard Finster on various occasions between August 1, 1981 and July 25, 1991 in Summerville, Georgia, are included in the collection. The collection also includes audio logs and transcripts, video logs, the collector's powerpoint presentations (2004), documentation of Dickinson's exhibition, "Revival!," at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1970; and other manuscripts.
Dates
- Creation: 1968-1991
Language of Materials
Collection material in English.
Access and Restrictions
Collection is open for research. Access to recordings may be restricted. To request materials, please contact the Folklife Reading Room at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.contact.
Copyright Status
Duplication of the collection materials may be governed by copyright and other restrictions.
Extent
90 folders. (manuscripts)
99 sound tape reels (261 hrs. 30 min.) (preservation tapes) : analog, 2 track, various speeds ; 10 in.
86 sound cassettes : analog.
170 video reels ; various sizes.
11 videocassettes ; various sizes.
18 photographic prints : black and white ; 3 x 5 in.
17 color slides.
222 powerpoint slides : digital prints, grayscale.
2 artifacts.
Abstract
This collection of video recordings, sound recordings, manuscripts, photographs, graphic materials, and artifacts documents Protestant religious revival meetings of various denominations in the southern Appalachian region, primarily in Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Georgia. The collection includes interviews with church leaders and members of congregations, and documentation of religious services, healing services, revivals, hymn singing, sermons, snake handling, and other religious rites and customs recorded by Eleanor Dickinson from 1968 to 1991. Other topics include beekeeping, church roadside signs, religious quilts, snake hunting, drinking strychnine, decorating graves in cemeteries, church dinners, and more. Included are some religious and secular radio programs recorded by Dickinson, including programs from Nashville, Tennessee, featuring bluegrass music, and a program featuring Paul Simon; and documentation of Protestant revivals in Oakland and San Francisco, California. Dickinson's interviews with visionary artist Rev. Howard Finster on various occasions between August 1, 1981 and July 25, 1991 in Summerville, Georgia, are included in the collection. The collection also includes audio logs and transcripts, video logs, the collector's powerpoint presentations (2004), documentation of Dickinson's exhibition, "Revival!," at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1970; and other manuscripts.
Arrangement
Organized by accession in fourteen accruals, then organized by format.
Catalog Record
Acquisition
Eleanor Dickinson, collector and donor; 1970-2004.
Accruals
See Appendix A for details.
Processing History
The collection was processed by Tsai-Hong Miller, Nancy-Jean Seigel, T. Chris Aplin, and Marcia K. Segal.
Source
- Dickinson, Eleanor, 1931- (Creator, Person)
Subject
- Dickinson, Eleanor, 1931- (Person)
- Finster, Howard, 1916-2001 (Person)
- Finster, Howard, 1916-2001--Interviews. (Person)
Genre / Form
- Christian radio programs.
- Drawings.
- Ethnography.
- Field recordings.
- Interviews.
- Photographs.
- Prayers.
- Radio airchecks.
- Sermons.
- Sound recordings.
- Video recordings.
Geographic
- Appalachian Region, Southern--Social life and customs.
- Knoxville (Tenn.)--Religious life and customs.
Topical
- African American churches--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- African Americans--Religion.
- Baptism in the Holy Spirit--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Baptism in the name of Jesus--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Baptism--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Baptists--California--Oakland.
- Baptists--Religious life--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Bee culture--Tennessee.
- Cemeteries--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Christian art and symbolism--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Church of God--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Church of God--California--San Francisco.
- Church signs--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Clergy--Appalachian Region, Southern--Interviews.
- Coal miners--West Virginia--Religious life.
- Copperhead--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Easter service.
- Easter--California--Oakland.
- Evangelicalism--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Evangelistic sermons--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Exorcism--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Field recordings--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Field recordings--California.
- Glossolalia--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Healing--Religious aspects--Baptists.
- Healing--Religious aspects--Holiness churches.
- Healing--Religious aspects--Pentecostal churches.
- Holiness churches--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Hymns, English--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Old-time music--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Pentecostal churches--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Pentecostalism--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Pentecostals--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Prayer--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Quilts--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Rattlesnake hunting--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Religious dance--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Revival hymns--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Revivals--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Sermons, American--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Seventh-Day Adventists--California--San Francisco.
- Shape-note singing--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Snake cults (Holiness churches)--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Snake hunting--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Stigmatization--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Strychnine--Social aspects--Appalachian Region, Southern.
- Witness bearing (Christianity)
- Title
- Guides to the Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture
- Subtitle
- AFC 1970/001
- Author
- Prepared by Tsai-Hong Miller, Nancy-Jean Seigel, T. Chris Aplin, and Marcia K. Segal
- Date
- August 2016
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Part of the American Folklife Center Repository
American Folklife Center Reading Room
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Thomas Jefferson Building, G31
Washington, DC 20540-4810
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