Staff/Fieldworkers
Loretta Rhoads Brockmeier, Ethnic and Folk Arts Programs Director for the Illinois Arts Council (1989-2000), initiated the project. She enlisted folklorist Janet C. Gilmore to find a sponsoring non-profit organization and cooperative school districts in the northwestern Illinois region to conduct the field survey work, and to work with teachers and folk artists to complete folk arts programs in schools. Gilmore had previously worked with Daryl Watson, Director of the Galena/Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum, during an earlier "River Harvest" project similarly initiated by the Illinois Arts Council, so she sought his aid, and the Museum became the sponsoring non-profit. Art teacher Mary Auman, 4th grade teachers Mary Steffenson and Ray Kumer, and 5th grade teacher Greg Hopton of the River Ridge School District in Hanover and Elizabeth, and 5th and 6th grade art teacher John Shober of the Galena Middle School offered programs involving horse farmer Kenneth Koester and quilters Dorothy Droegmiller, Camilla Furlong, Dorothy Oldenburg, Gladys Pooley, Alyce Roberts, and Maurine Sheppard.
Project History
The Ethnic and Folk Arts Programs of the Illinois Arts Council offered a round of short-term grants in 1990 to fund folk arts survey work and follow-up school programming throughout the state. The purposes of the initiative were to document folk arts and traditional practices in the state, to integrate local folk arts and artists into school programming, and to contribute materials to a folk arts-in-education curriculum guide for Illinois teachers, which Ethnic and Folk Arts Programs Director Loretta Rhoads Brockmeier hoped to produce. Rhoads hired folklorist Janet C. Gilmore to do the fieldwork and school programming in Jo Daviess County, and locate agreeable school districts and a sponsoring non-profit organization.
After making arrangements to route the project through the Galena/Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum, Gilmore spent a month during the summer of 1990 surveying folk artists in the largely rural Jo Daviess County. After many phone calls and some visits to superintendents, principals, and teachers at school districts throughout the county, Gilmore found five teachers in the River Ridge and Galena school districts who then hosted the folk arts in the schools component of the project during Spring 1991. Gilmore spent two weeks at each school system coordinating art and social studies classes for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders that involved visits and instruction from several folk artists: Horse farmer Kenneth Koester brought his workhorses, and explained their handling, harnesses, and use in farming, while quilters Dorothy Droegmiller, Camilla Furlong, Dorothy Oldenburg, Gladys Pooley, Alyce Roberts, and Maurine Sheppard helped students experience piecing and quilting Nine-Patch blocks.
Daryl Watson invited Gilmore to give a slide presentation based on her experience, "Folk Arts in the Schools: From Quilters to Work Horses," for the Galena/Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum's annual Volunteer Program, January 7, 1992. Some of the traditional artists attended the event.
The traditional practitioners surveyed continue to participate in traditional, diversified farming and rural support systems. They exemplify the mostly rural and small village character of the county, and residents' continuous connection with the outdoors and the adjacent Mississippi River. Included are members of three long-lived quilting groups, a family that still farms with workhorses, a rag rug weaver, trappers, and a local character, "river rat," waterfowler, and former railroad worker who carved duck and goose decoys.
The audiocassettes record interviews with nine of the people who contributed to the survey. The interview with Charles Allen covers trapping, knife-making, leather work, and foundry work. Ralph Brunner's interview deals with the skill of trapping. The interviews with Dorothy Droegmiller, Camilla Furlong, Dorothy Oldenburg, and Gladys Pooley, all members of church quilting groups, cover the tradition of quilting. Jacob "Jake" Gerlach, a former railroad worker, was interviewed about woodcarving duck/goose decoys. Dorothy Hess was interviewed about rag-rug weaving. Kenneth Koester was interviewed about horse handling and farming.
Corresponding logs can be found in the manuscript folders.
The American Folklife Center collection is unprocessed but a collection inventory exists. The materials at the Galena History Museum are arranged in folders alphabetically by subject in a filing cabinet in Director Daryl Watson's office. Gilmore's project materials remain in original folders, and the slides together in numerical order; additional separate files were created for traditional practitioners Dorothy Droegmiller and Dorothy Hess because of later contact including, for Hess, the "Work at Rest" exhibit at the Wisconsin Folk Museum.
River Harvest Project Collection (CSUMC0017-CG)
Related publications:
Wisconsin Folk Museum "From Comforts to Fancy Quilts" Exhibit (2nd edition, 1991).
Wisconsin Folk Museum "Work at Rest" Exhibit (1992), a version of which is published as: Janet C. Gilmore, "Work at Rest," in Wisconsin Folklore, ed. James P. Leary (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998): 407-31.
Loretta Rhoads Brockmeier, Illinois Arts Council Ethnic and Folk Arts Programs Director from October 1988 to March 2000, transferred the majority of original materials produced during this survey to the American Folklife Center. Janet C. Gilmore retained originals of color slide out-takes. Galena History Museum received copies of the sound recordings, best color slides, and enlargements of the best color and black and white images, along with copies of the field reports, prior to the final submission of project materials to Brockmeier at the Illinois Arts Council.
Contact records custodians for access information.
American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Attn: Judith Gray
101 Independence Avenue, SE
Washington, D.C. 20540-4610
Email: folklife@loc.gov
Phone: (202) 707-5510
Fax: (202) 707-2076
Web site: http://www.loc.gov/folklife
Galena History Museum
Nancy Breed, Director
211 S. Bench St.
Galena, Illinois 61036
Email: info@galenahistorymuseum.org
Phone: (815) 777-9129
Fax: (815) 777-9131
Web site: http://www.galenahistorymuseum.org
Janet C. Gilmore, Folklorist
209 S 4th St.
Mount Horeb, Wisconsin 53572
Email: jgilmore@facstaff.wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 437-4816
Consult institutional repositories for specific information on use restrictions. The Galena History Museum requires users to fill out a standardized form stating the research purpose and other relevant information. Review of the materials held by Janet C. Gilmore for non-profit personal, educational, and research purposes may be arranged. Duplication for public presentation, publication, and production requires negotiation with Gilmore and the people documented or their representatives.
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