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Record Group Number: 000158
Series/Collection Number: .S 1592
Creator: Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs. Florida Folklife Archive
Title, Dates: Maritime Industries Survey files, 1986-1987.
Amount: 3.20 cubic ft.
Medium Included: photographs
audiotapes
Organization/Arrangement: Arranged by subject.
Restrictions:
Terms Governing Use:
Biographical/Historical:     Legislation in 1979 (79-322, SB 1208) transferred the Florida Folk Arts component of the Stephen Foster Memorial to the Florida Department of State. Operating as the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs from ca. 1985 until 1995, the Bureau coordinated the annual Florida Folk Festival and directed such programs as Folk Arts Apprenticeships, Folk Arts in Education, Folk Heritage awards, annual research surveys, and numerous other projects and programs. From 1995 through June 30, 2021, the renamed and reorganized Florida Folklife Program continued the majority of these operations from within the Division of Historical Resources, Bureau of Historic Preservation in Tallahassee. During the 1995 reorganization, the State Archives of Florida acquired the Florida Folklife Collection from the Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs’ previously maintained Florida Folklife Archives. Legislation in 2021 (2021-71, L. O. F., HB 909) transferred the Florida Folklife Program and its operations from the Division of Historical Resources to the newly renamed Division of Arts and Culture, previously the Division of Cultural Resources, effective July 1, 2021. The program is charged to "identify, research, interpret, and present Florida folk arts, artists, performers, folklore, traditions, customs, and cultural heritage and make folk cultural resources and folklife projects available throughout the state."

    The Maritime Industries Survey is closely related to the Florida Folk Festival. Each year a special section, or folklife area, is established at the festival that consists of performances, demonstrations, and workshops dedicated to a special theme. As the "folklife associated with the people who live and work along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts as well as the shores of the inland lakes, rivers, and streams of the state occupies an important place in the history and culture of all Floridians," maritime heritage and traditions were featured at this folklife area for the festival in 1987. Initially referred to as the Florida Maritime Project, the survey was co-sponsored by the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, and was conducted primarily by Project Director David A. Taylor, Merri Belland, and Nancy Nusz between 1986 and 1987. Plans for the folklife area called for at least 20 representatives of maritime traditions from communities throughout the state divided into sections for craft demonstrations, foodways demonstrations, music and oral traditions performances, and exhibits.

Summary:     This series consists primarily of questionnaires, field notes, indexed audio tapes, slides, contact sheets, and negatives that pertain to informants from Apalachicola to Key West in the Maritime Heritage Survey for possible participation in the Florida Folk Festival in 1987. These materials chronicle individuals such as net makers and menders, boat builders, stone crab trap makers, mullet fish smokers, shipwheel and oyster knife craftsmen, fishermen, oyster tong makers, oyster shuckers, and even surfboard makers. There are also clippings, reports, postcards, legal instruments, newsletters, schedules, financial statements, recipies, programs, and pamphlets associated with this survey and the Florida Folk Festival of 1987. Unique in this series is a phonograph record of "Oyster Man Blues" performed by Mack Novak of Eastpoint, a collection of Cedar Key legends by residents Sally Tileston and Dottie Comfort, a book of haiku and mini thoughts by Verona Watson, also of Cedar Key, and the book Documenting Maritime Folklife: An Introductory Guide by David Taylor.

Finding Aids: Searchable index to images and sound recordings available online at http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/ #
Folder listing available. 0
Additional Physical Form:
Reproduction Note:
Location of Originals/Duplicates:
Associated Materials: For related materials, see S1716, Maritime Heritage Survey Project Coordinator's Files.
Language Notes:
Ownership/Custodial History:
Publication Note:
General Note:
Electronic Records Access:
Subject Access Fields: Florida. Stephen Foster State Folk Culture Center.
Oral biography.
Storytelling
Folklore Florida
Folk festivals Florida
Folk songs Florida
Folk music Florida
Folk singers Florida
Legends.
Folk artists Florida
Boatbuilding Florida
Fishing Societies, etc. Florida
Handicraft Florida
Folklorists Florida
Maritime anthropology Florida
Fishing villages Florida
Folklife.
Seafood industry.
Machine-readable artifacts. aat
Photographs. aat
Phonograph records. aat
Audio tapes. aat
Audio cassettes. aat
Florida Biography.
Florida Description and travel
Florida Social life and customs
Florida Songs and music
Florida Folk Festival
Added Entries Taylor, David.
Belland, Merri.
Nusz, Nancy.
Florida. Dept. of State.  --Division of Historical Resources.
Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs
Documenting Maritime Folklife : An Introductory Guide 0