Palm frond hat maker Vic Simmons

Fieldwork

Beaches

Hats

Palm frond weaving

Palmetto weaving

Craft

Tourism

Tourist art

Weavers

Nineteen color slides. Images of Simmons, a former commerical fisher, making palm frond hats for tourists. He learned to make them in the 1960s as the result of a bet with a friend. The woman in the slides is Kimberly Wick, a customer. The Folk Arts in Education Project in Palm Beach County was a joint venture between the Palm Beach County School System and the Florida Folklife Program. It was conducted between 1986 and 1987 by folklorist Jan Rosenberg with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to add to existing social studies curriculum. The goal was to impart an appreciation of multi-ethnic traditions and provide a sense of place to the mobile student population. The project focused on the Florida Studies component for fourth grade students. The project consisted of field research to identify local traditions and folk artists, a series of five two-day seminars to acquaint teachers with the use of folklore and folk arts, in-school programs conducted by a folklorist and traditionalist, which included visits by local folk artists. In total, the project involved 15 schools with 779 students.

State Archives of Florida, Series S1685

1986-10-02

Florida Folklife Program

slides (photographs)

Still Image

S1685

v. 1

Palm Beach County Folk Arts in Education Project

Rosenberg, Jan

Simmons, Vic, 1941-

2921

/fpc/memory/omeka_images/thumbnails/catalog_photo.jpg