Collection Summary

Title: Jo Daviess County Folk Arts in Education Project Collection
Dates: 1990-1991

Creator:

• Illinois Arts Council Ethnic and Folk Arts Programs

Unique Identifier: CSUMC0009-CG

Contents: American Folklife Center: 1 folder, 9 audiocassette masters, 130 slides, approximately 160 negatives, approximately 5 contact sheets (3 sets); Galena History Museum: 1 folder, 9 copy audiocassettes, 75 slide duplicates, 37 photographs, 10 internegatives, 5 contact sheets (3 sets); and Janet C. Gilmore: 4 folders, 9 copy audiocassettes, 91 slides, 5 contact sheets (3 sets), 4 mounted photographs, 2 computer diskettes

Publisher:

Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures

432 East Campus Mall, Room 332
Madison, Wisconsin 53706
608-262-8180
Web site: http://csumc.wisc.edu

Archival Locations:

American Folklife Center (Map)

Galena History Museum (Map)

Summary:

The Jo Daviess County Folk Arts in Education Project generated field reports, sound recordings, and photographic images from a one-month folk art survey of Jo Daviess County, Illinois, in 1990, and modest communications, student work, and related manuscript materials from two two-week folk arts educational programs in the River Ridge (Elizabeth and Hanover) and Galena school districts in 1991. With Illinois Arts Council initiative and funding and Galena/Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum sponsorship, folklorist Janet C. Gilmore documented 12 traditional practitioners including 7 quilters, a number of quilting groups, a rag-rug weaver, a horse-farming family, trappers, and a genuine local character and "river rat," several of whom additionally contributed information about farm life, commercial fishing, waterfowling, railroading, foundry work, leather work, knife-making, and decoy-carving in the area.

Language: Manuscripts and sound recordings are in English.

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-csumc-csumc0009cg

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Quantity	Physical Description	Location
Manuscript Materials
1	folder	American Folklife Center
1	folder	Galena History Museum
4	folders	Janet C. Gilmore
Sound Recordings
9	original audiocassettes	American Folklife Center
9	copy audiocassettes (unconfirmed)	Galena History Museum
9	copy audiocassettes	Janet C. Gilmore
Graphic Materials
130	35 mm color slides	American Folklife Center
75	35 mm color slide duplicates	Galena History Museum
91	35 mm color slides	Janet C. Gilmore
10	4x5 color internegatives	Galena History Museum
7	7x10 color photographs	Galena History Museum
7	5x7 color photographs	Galena History Museum
2	7x10 mounted color photographs	Janet C. Gilmore
approximately 160	35 mm black-and-white negatives	American Folklife Center
approximately 5	black-and-white contact sheets (3 sets)	American Folklife Center
5	black-and-white contact sheets	Galena History Museum
5	black-and-white contact sheets	Janet C. Gilmore
23	5x7 black-and-white photographs	Galena History Museum
2	5x7 mounted black-and-white photographs	Janet C. Gilmore
Electronic Media
2	3.5-inch computer diskettes	Janet C. Gilmore

Staff/Fieldworkers

Loretta Rhoads Brockmeier, Ethnic and Folk Arts Programs Director for the Illinois Arts Council (1989-2000), initiated the project. She enlisted folklorist Janet C. Gilmore to find a sponsoring non-profit organization and cooperative school districts in the northwestern Illinois region to conduct the field survey work, and to work with teachers and folk artists to complete folk arts programs in schools. Gilmore had previously worked with Daryl Watson, Director of the Galena/Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum, during an earlier "River Harvest" project similarly initiated by the Illinois Arts Council, so she sought his aid, and the Museum became the sponsoring non-profit. Art teacher Mary Auman, 4th grade teachers Mary Steffenson and Ray Kumer, and 5th grade teacher Greg Hopton of the River Ridge School District in Hanover and Elizabeth, and 5th and 6th grade art teacher John Shober of the Galena Middle School offered programs involving horse farmer Kenneth Koester and quilters Dorothy Droegmiller, Camilla Furlong, Dorothy Oldenburg, Gladys Pooley, Alyce Roberts, and Maurine Sheppard.

Project History

The Ethnic and Folk Arts Programs of the Illinois Arts Council offered a round of short-term grants in 1990 to fund folk arts survey work and follow-up school programming throughout the state. The purposes of the initiative were to document folk arts and traditional practices in the state, to integrate local folk arts and artists into school programming, and to contribute materials to a folk arts-in-education curriculum guide for Illinois teachers, which Ethnic and Folk Arts Programs Director Loretta Rhoads Brockmeier hoped to produce. Rhoads hired folklorist Janet C. Gilmore to do the fieldwork and school programming in Jo Daviess County, and locate agreeable school districts and a sponsoring non-profit organization.

After making arrangements to route the project through the Galena/Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum, Gilmore spent a month during the summer of 1990 surveying folk artists in the largely rural Jo Daviess County. After many phone calls and some visits to superintendents, principals, and teachers at school districts throughout the county, Gilmore found five teachers in the River Ridge and Galena school districts who then hosted the folk arts in the schools component of the project during Spring 1991. Gilmore spent two weeks at each school system coordinating art and social studies classes for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders that involved visits and instruction from several folk artists: Horse farmer Kenneth Koester brought his workhorses, and explained their handling, harnesses, and use in farming, while quilters Dorothy Droegmiller, Camilla Furlong, Dorothy Oldenburg, Gladys Pooley, Alyce Roberts, and Maurine Sheppard helped students experience piecing and quilting Nine-Patch blocks.

Daryl Watson invited Gilmore to give a slide presentation based on her experience, "Folk Arts in the Schools: From Quilters to Work Horses," for the Galena/Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum's annual Volunteer Program, January 7, 1992. Some of the traditional artists attended the event.

The traditional practitioners surveyed continue to participate in traditional, diversified farming and rural support systems. They exemplify the mostly rural and small village character of the county, and residents' continuous connection with the outdoors and the adjacent Mississippi River. Included are members of three long-lived quilting groups, a family that still farms with workhorses, a rag rug weaver, trappers, and a local character, "river rat," waterfowler, and former railroad worker who carved duck and goose decoys.

The audiocassettes record interviews with nine of the people who contributed to the survey. The interview with Charles Allen covers trapping, knife-making, leather work, and foundry work. Ralph Brunner's interview deals with the skill of trapping. The interviews with Dorothy Droegmiller, Camilla Furlong, Dorothy Oldenburg, and Gladys Pooley, all members of church quilting groups, cover the tradition of quilting. Jacob "Jake" Gerlach, a former railroad worker, was interviewed about woodcarving duck/goose decoys. Dorothy Hess was interviewed about rag-rug weaving. Kenneth Koester was interviewed about horse handling and farming.

Corresponding logs can be found in the manuscript folders.

The American Folklife Center collection is unprocessed but a collection inventory exists. The materials at the Galena History Museum are arranged in folders alphabetically by subject in a filing cabinet in Director Daryl Watson's office. Gilmore's project materials remain in original folders, and the slides together in numerical order; additional separate files were created for traditional practitioners Dorothy Droegmiller and Dorothy Hess because of later contact including, for Hess, the "Work at Rest" exhibit at the Wisconsin Folk Museum.

River Harvest Project Collection (CSUMC0017-CG)

Wisconsin Folk Museum "From Comforts to Fancy Quilts" Exhibit (2nd edition, 1991).

Wisconsin Folk Museum "Work at Rest" Exhibit (1992), a version of which is published as: Janet C. Gilmore, "Work at Rest," in Wisconsin Folklore, ed. James P. Leary (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998): 407-31.

Groups (Ethnic, National, Cultural, Religious, etc.)

• English Americans
• French Americans
• German Americans
• Irish Americans
• Luxembourg Americans
• Pennsylvania Dutch
• Swiss Americans

Note: Listings indicate ethnic/national origins and background, not necessarily traditions that are (self-consciously) expressive of the particular ethnic groups.

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Languages

• English language

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Locations

• Illinois
• Jo Daviess County (Ill.)
• Elizabeth (Ill.)
• Galena (Ill.)
• Guilford (Jo Daviess County, Ill. : Township)
• Hanover (Ill.)
• Scales Mound (Ill.)
• Schapville (Ill.)
• Stockton (Ill.)
• Warren (Ill.)

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Organizations

• St. Matthew's Lutheran Church (Galena, Ill.)
• Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church Ladies Aid (Schapville, Ill.)
• Guilford Sunbeam Quilting Club
• Timpe Sewing Circle

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Subjects

• Fisheries
• Decoys (Hunting)
• Agriculture
• Foundry workers
• Horse farms
• Knives--Design and construction
• Leatherwork
• Occupational folk art
• Quilting
• Rag rugs
• Railroad--Employees
• Trapping
• Waterfowl
• Weaving
• Wood-carving

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Traditional Practitioners

• Allen, Charles
• Brunner, Ralph
• Droegmiller, Dorothy
• Furlong, Camilla
• Gerlach, Jacob
• Hess, Dorothy
• Koester, Kenneth
• Oldenburg, Dorothy
• Pooley, Gladys
• Roberts, Alyce
• Sheppard, Maurine

Loretta Rhoads Brockmeier, Illinois Arts Council Ethnic and Folk Arts Programs Director from October 1988 to March 2000, transferred the majority of original materials produced during this survey to the American Folklife Center. Janet C. Gilmore retained originals of color slide out-takes. Galena History Museum received copies of the sound recordings, best color slides, and enlargements of the best color and black and white images, along with copies of the field reports, prior to the final submission of project materials to Brockmeier at the Illinois Arts Council.

Contact records custodians for access information.

American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Attn: Judith Gray
101 Independence Avenue, SE
Washington, D.C. 20540-4610
Email: folklife@loc.gov
Phone: (202) 707-5510
Fax: (202) 707-2076
Web site: http://www.loc.gov/folklife

Galena History Museum
Nancy Breed, Director
211 S. Bench St.
Galena, Illinois 61036
Email: info@galenahistorymuseum.org
Phone: (815) 777-9129
Fax: (815) 777-9131
Web site: http://www.galenahistorymuseum.org

Janet C. Gilmore, Folklorist
209 S 4th St.
Mount Horeb, Wisconsin 53572
Email: jgilmore@facstaff.wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 437-4816

Consult institutional repositories for specific information on use restrictions. The Galena History Museum requires users to fill out a standardized form stating the research purpose and other relevant information. Review of the materials held by Janet C. Gilmore for non-profit personal, educational, and research purposes may be arranged. Duplication for public presentation, publication, and production requires negotiation with Gilmore and the people documented or their representatives.

Please consult repositories for guidelines. We suggest the following citation form when using direct quotes from a person documented: [Name of person documented]. [Date]. [Tape/video/other]-recorded interview by [Fieldworker name]. [Place interviewed]. [Name of collection/project]. [Repository, city, state]. When using a specific image: [Identify subject matter/people in caption]. Photo/image by [Photographer/fieldworker name]. [Date]. Courtesy of [repository]. To quote fieldworker, follow bibliographical style.

	Series: I: MANUSCRIPT MATERIALS. American Folklife Center. Jo Daviess County Folk Arts in Education Project.
Folder   1	Field reports, trip logs, sound recording logs, photo logs, slide logs
	Series: II: MANUSCRIPT MATERIALS. Galena History Museum. Jo Daviess County Folk Arts in Education Project.	⇧
Folder   1	Field reports, sound recording logs, photo logs, slide logs
	Series: III: MANUSCRIPT MATERIALS. Janet C. Gilmore. Jo Daviess County Folk Arts in Education Project.	⇧
Folder   1	Original field notes, field reports, trip logs, sound recording logs, photo logs, slide logs
Folder   2	Curriculum plan, correspondence with teachers, student writings including thank you letters, color photos of students with completed nine-patches from Mary Auman
Folder   3	Dorothy Hess artist file: field notes, field report, tape log, Wisconsin Folk Museum release form, exhibit text, correspondence
Folder   4	Dorothy Droegmiller artist file: field notes, field report, tape log, Wisconsin Folk Museum release form, exhibit text, correspondence
	Series: IV: SOUND RECORDINGS. Jo Daviess County Folk Arts in Education Project. Note: Each of the following repositories holds copies of the materials in this series: American Folklife Center, Galena History Museum, Janet C. Gilmore	⇧
Cassette   1	Hess, Dorothy, 1990 July 19
Cassette   2	Furlong, Camilla
Cassette   3	Pooley, Gladys, 1990 July 30
Cassette   4	Brunner, Ralph, 1991 April 3
Cassette   5	Koester, Kenneth, 1990 July 17
Cassette   6	Gerlach, Jacob, 1991 April 4
Cassette   7	Allen, Charles, 1991 April 4
Cassette   8	Oldenburg, Dorothy, 1991 April 5
Cassette   9	Droegmiller, Dorothy, 1991 April 9
	Series: V: GRAPHIC MATERIALS. Jo Daviess County Folk Arts in Education Project. Note: Each of the following repositories holds materials in this series: American Folklife Center, Galena History Museum, Janet C. Gilmore	⇧
	Series: VII: ELECTRONIC MEDIA. Janet C. Gilmore. Jo Daviess County Folk Arts in Education Project.	⇧
	Physical Description: 2 3-1/2-inch computer diskettes