Geography of Folk Culture
Lecture Outline

California State University, Northridge
What is Folk Culture?
Popular
large and ever changing mass of people
division of labor
money based economy
police and army maintain order
heterogeneity and individualism	
Folk
traditional ways
often rural
cohesive and homogenous
little labor specialization
family maintains order
subsistence economy
Is it so simple to tell?
Exactly what is folk and what is popular is sometimes “a distinction without a difference”.
Consider “Old School” Hip Hop 
What is the role of space and place?
Local is __________
What? - Cultural Features
Material Culture-things that can be touched and tasted (artifacts).
Non-material-things that can’t be seen, touched or tasted such as, songs or folk tales (mentifacts).
Some Geographers study nothing but folk material items.
Raked Cemetery (fig)
Folk Culture Regions
Defined on the basis of their individual cultural elements.
Included among these traits are:
Foodways
Song, dance and stories
Holidays, celebrations
Housing stock

American Folk Regions (fig)
Folk Food Regions
Geography of “spiciness” – Why?
Do any folk food regions still exist in the United States?
What would be a regional specialty for Southern California?
Why do many areas with hot climates have spicy cuisines?  Pick the one that is INCORRECT.
A.  It is easy to grow hot peppers in hot climates.
B.  In hot climates, spoilage is common and pickling with peppers helps prevent spoilage.
C.  In hot climates, sweating helps cool you down.  Hot peppers make you sweat.
D.  In hot climates, spicy peppers help cover the taste of spoiled food.

Folk Medicine 
Roots, barks and fruits of plants used to cure ailments.
Still preserved in parts of Appalachia, Indian reservations and the Hispanic borderlands.
Also in the Asian culture groups.
Digging for Roots (fig)
Why dig?
COLUMBUS, Ohio      (AP) - State wildlife officers have identified dozens of ginseng harvesting violations in their effort to protect the medicinal herb. 

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources      says officers have uncovered over 60 violations involving more than 30 people. No one has been charged. 

Ron Rogers, wildlife law-enforcement supervisor for central Ohio, says the state regulates ginseng to discourage over-harvesting, preserve the wild plants and allow them to reach maturity. 

Last year, 3,626 pounds of ginseng were legally harvested in Ohio's mature woodlands. The dried roots sell for $400 a pound. 

Potential violations include digging ginseng without landowner permission, off-season collecting or possession, failure to maintain accurate records and failure to certify ginseng prior to export.
Geophagy 
Dirt and clay eating
Still practiced in Africa and some parts of the American South.
Why?
Parasites, nutrition, religion.
Distribution of Geophagy (fig)
Geophagy: US Southland
http://whitedirt.samsbiz.com/

Folk Music
Folk music is that music that is produced largely for local consumption.
Profit motive is low.
Often uses homemade, or modest instrumentation (or none)
Often reflects the peculiarities of the local culture, local performance venues and even local climate conditions.
In class, which of these music genres was called “folk”.
A. Opera
B. Heavy Metal
C. Old School (early) Hip Hop
D. Disco
Lining Out – Folk Style Gospel
The  “lining out” style of church singing is an ancient folk singing style brought from the British Isles to the United States.
It has long since died out in New England where it was once most popular.
It can still be found in two types of places:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jByWbxIg7OI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNOIY5lqepA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o0NoCAHpvg 

Diffusion of Yankee Folk Singing (fig)
Why is it “here and not there”
Still most popular in the Upland South and among black churches.  Why?
Camp meetings and Yankee teachers.
Why has this style diminished in the source area?
Why did it not spread to South Louisiana, or Southern California?
Cultural Integration in Folk Geography
Many folk practices are accepted into the larger world, and sometimes money is earned.
Popular culture frequently derived from folk materials.
Folk cultures also absorb popular culture
Example: Mountain Moonshine
Came with the Scots-Irish in the 1700s
Enjoyed much popularity during the prohibition era.
Often most popular in devout Baptist/Methodist areas and in dry counties.
Good money maker-much better than corn!
What is the geographic factor?
Major bust in July 2000 in Carolinas, TN.
Stock car racing and Moonshiners?
Whiskey and Fast Cars (fig)
Map of Moonshine Busts (fig)

Country & Western Music
We got bof’ kinds of music hyear...
Derived from Scots-Irish roots.
Fiddle heavy-bagpipe substitute?
Stayed in the mountains for decades
Mixed with African elements
Role of Ralph Peer  and WSM.
Popularized, electrified and homogenized by Nashville.
Example: Bluegrass
Bill Monroe
Scottish Church singing
Mountain Jazz
Arnold Shultz and Uncle Pen
Place oriented
Voice pitch and sexual mores?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2XT9u7iw9o&feature=related

Bluegrass Hometowns (fig) 
Folk Landscapes
Folk architecture  is a good indicator of past folk life activity.
Structures built from collective memory.
Functional and often specific to natural conditions
Folk Ecology and Building Materials (fig)
Thatch (fig)
Mud/Log

Dirt/Thatch (fig)
Grasslands and Mountains
Folk Housing in North America 
Little new folk construction today
Balloon framing, professional design emerges in the 1850s….Sears & Robuck Houses
Still many survive
Building Materials 
A sure clue to folk architecture is the local source materials.
Buildings made from distant materials are rarely of folk origins.
Bricks, grass, wood, sod, stone
Climate influences choice of materials
Adobe houses of the Southwest
Floor Plan
The floor plan of a house is another clue to its folk origins.
Many times the exterior of a house has been redone making it hard to determine its folk past.
Certain floor plans are common in certain regions of the United States.
Other clues
Consider the shape and pitch of the roof
Placement of the chimney (s)
Number and location of doors and windows.
Design of the porch…if there is one.
Which of these is a clue your house is NOT a folk house?
A.  It’s made of entirely local materials
B.  The walls were built with 2x4 boards.
C. The house is well designed for the local climate.
D. It was built in 1820.
Main North American Styles
Yankee – 
New England, Upper Great Lakes States
Midwestern /Mid Atlantic –
Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland.
Upland South - Appalachia
Lowland South – “Black South”
Southwest – Adobes (Texas- California)
French
Yankee
Found mostly in New England and the Great Lakes region of the Midwest.
Features typically include: 
Large central chimney
Rooms arranged around central chimney
Steeply pitched roofs
Symmetry is important
Frequent style references to Greece/Rome
New England Large
Yankee-New England Large (fig)
Yankee – New England Large (fig)
Yankee – New England Large (fig)
Yankee – Cape Cod
Similar floor plan to the New England Large.
Story and a half.
Side door.
Yankee – Cape Cod
Yankee – Cape Cod
Yankee - Saltbox
Similar floor plan
Roofline extends over an additional row of rooms across rear of home.
Yankee - Saltbox
Yankee - Saltbox
Yankee -Upright and Wing (fig)
Demonstrates the infusion of popular culture (style) into the more purely functional folk house (type).
This house is in some ways a New England Large, turned sideways, so the gabled end faces the street to give it a Classical Appearance, which became popular in the early 1800.
Later becomes fully “Greek Revival”
Yankee- Upright and Wing (fig)
Yankee -Upright and Wing (fig)
Yankee -Upright and Wing (fig)
Midwest / Mid Atlantic
The Midwest and Mid Atlantic states have only two, similar house types.
Both are one room deep and two rooms wide
Both have gable end chimneys
Both have central hallways
Hall and Parlour
The I house
Named because of the states it was common in…
Book explanation is wrong.
Most common house among farmers in the middle states
Carolina – I House
Illinois – I House
Upland South
The Upland South is the “hillbilly” south, or the part that was not dominated by plantation agriculture.
Scots-Irish and Germanic influences are primary.
The “pen” is the single room cabin.  All other configurations build from the single pen.
Upland South – Cabin and Porch (fig)
Upland South – Saddlebag
Upland South- Saddle Bag
Upland South -Dogtrot (fig)
Lowland South
The old plantation South
African and Caribbean influences are evident
Rare to find middle class housing.  Why?
Lowland South-Shotgun (fig)
Lowland South – Charleston House
What type of house is this?
A.  Cape Cod
B.  Saddlebag
C.  I house
D.  New England Large
Where might you find this house?
A.  Maine
B.  California
C.  Indiana
D.  Tennessee
Other Regional Specialties
In some regions, the ethnic heritage of the local population remained dominant because there was less influence from other ethnicities or nationalities.
They remain distinct today.

Lowland South – Creole Cottage
Pennsylvania Dutch 
Forebay Barn (fig)
North American Styles (fig)
Pennsylvania Dutch- Forebay Barn (fig)
Quebec House (fig)
Value of a porch?
A folk house’s porch design may offer clues to it utility in a variety of climate types.
This house did not have a porch.
Study Guide
http://www.csun.edu/~sg4002/courses/107/107_study_folk.html