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

UW-Madison Archives and Records Management (Map)

The Minnesota Folk Arts Program (Philip Nusbaum) Collection primarily contains photographic images, video, and sound recordings of well over 350 Minnesota folk artists and traditional musicians that resulted from John Berquist's and mainly Philip Nusbaum's tenure as Folk Arts Program associates at the Minnesota State Arts Board (1983-2003). Reaching back to 1959 and including collaborations with numerous folklorists in the region, materials relate to the Minnesota Traditional Music Series of commercial recordings, Minnesota Folk Arts radio shows, folk artist directories, apprenticeship and folklore sponsorship grant programs, festival demonstrations and performances, and teaching programs. Minnesota's diverse ethnic make-up is especially featured, including indigenous Ojibwas and older and newer immigrant groups from North and Central America, northern, western, and eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Besides an emphasis on musical traditions from bluegrass to polka, Ojibwa to Norwegian-American, Latino, African-American, Hmong-American, and Slovenian-American, artistic expressions range widely and include diverse basket-making, beadwork, needlework, papercutting, painting, and woodcarving traditions, some related to regional occupational, recreational, and subsistence pursuits like farming, icefishing, and wildricing.