search for archival spoken word!

[MeagnSound@xxxxxxx]

Dear ARSC list members,

Sound Portraits Productions and City Lore (New York's center for urban folk 
culture) recently received funding from the Corporation for Public 
Broadcasting to find wonderful spoken word 'moments' from archival field 
recordings for broadcast on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday as a part of our 
American Talkers series. To learn more about Sound Portraits and our radio 
programs on NPR, see our website: www.soundportraits.org.
To date, we've broadcast four segments: the street cries of fish monger Clyde 
"Kingfish" Smith recorded in Harlem in 1939 by Herbert Halpert, excerpts from 
Alan Lomax's first interviews with Woody Guthrie in 1940, the stories of 
ex-slave Fountain Hughes, and most recently, interviews with marines on 
Valentine's Day, 1945, sending poems and messages to their loved ones back 
home. 
We're hoping you can help us as we continue our search for poetry in the 
voices of everyday people, people who happen to be exceptional talkers. We're 
looking for voices recorded in the 30s, 40s and 50s, often voices that speak 
from a time and a place that are fading or have since disappeared. 
We've been focusing most of our search efforts at the Folklife Center at the 
Library of Congress. Though their archive is enormous and rich, we're casting 
the net wider and hoping to delve into other collections. Do you have any 
suggestions of places to explore? People we should speak with? Websites to 
look into, recordings to listen to,  magazines to read? An American Talker 
doesn't need to be a traditional storyteller per se; any kind of great voice 
can work. Please spread the word to anyone you think might be helpful. We'll 
happily give a listen to any and all possibilities--please send them our way! 

Thanks so much for your consideration,

Meagan Howell
Associate Producer
Sound Portraits Productions
Documenting a Hidden America
www.soundportraits.org
a non-profit radio production company