Preserving the Stories of America

During the 1960s, filmmakers from around the world came to Appalachia to document the dire conditions of the region’s poorest residents. Media focused the nation’s attention on…

Film of the singer/faith healer and folk artist Fannie Bell Chapman from Centreville, Mississippi. Footage includes Chapman and her family singing and praying during church…

This video documents the passions of 80 year old "Red" Alexander: building ships (both model and real), wood working, and story telling. Red was encouraged by the sale of one of…

The freshwater pearl industry once flourished along Indiana's inland waterways. The Wabash, flowing south from Lafayette to join the Ohio at Mt. Vernon, bustled with the shallow…

Henry Elijah "Lige" Langston was born in 1908 in the Great Basin outback on a homestead. He worked his entire life as a wrangler and rawhide braider in the region known as the…