Florida Folklife Collection

Florida Folk Festival Recordings

1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959
1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969
1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979
> 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2006 2007
About this Audio

The annual Florida Folk Festival in White Springs brings together performers from all over the country to demonstrate their diverse folk traditions, including music, dance, storytelling, crafts and foodways, to thousands of festival attendees. The first festival was organized in 1953 under the direction of Sara Gertrude Knott, founder of the National Folk Festival. In 1955, Thelma Boltin became director of the festival, and she coordinated the event for the next two decades.

The Bureau of Florida Folklife Programs organized the festival from 1976 until 1995, when the bureau relocated to Tallahassee. The Museum of Florida History then assumed leadership of general festival administration while the Florida Folklife Program continued to organize the Folklife and Apprenticeship Areas. Since 2002, the Florida Park Service has coordinated and run the festival.

These audio recordings represent the entirety of Florida Folk Festival recordings found in the collections of the State Archives of Florida.

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