In 1988, Archie Green and his wife, Louanne, established the Archie Green Fund for Occupational Folklife Studies. The fund combines Green’s love of folklore and Carolina.
A leader in the field of folklore, Green established the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in 1976 and contributed to the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC throughout his life. His dedication and support of graduate students in the field reinforced the study of occupational folklife and has inspired numerous students.
Green’s love for Carolina began when he was an undergraduate at the University of California-Berkeley. “I came across the journal Social Forces, which was edited by Howard Odum at Carolina,” Green said. “This was in California, during the Grapes of Wrath period. I was a young New Dealer, and the journal instantly gave me an intellectual context for my political instincts. I read it and said, ‘This is good. These are good people.’”
After graduating from Berkeley in 1939, Green joined the Civilian Conservation Corps. He was a shipbuilder and carpenter before returning to school at age 42 to earn a master’s and a doctorate. He taught at universities in Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and Texas. He retired from the University of Texas faculty in 1982. Green, who received an honorary doctorate from UNC in 1991, passed away in 2009.
In the 1980s, Green helped the University acquire a major collection of early country music, which now forms the core of Carolina’s Southern Folklife Collection. He started a fund to help maintain that collection, and he donated his own collection of rare labor songbooks, union materials, interviews, recordings, albums, manuscripts and William Faulkner first editions.
When Green established the Archie Green Fund for Occupational Folklife Studies, he encouraged others to give as well. More than a hundred donors contributed to the fund, including union officials, singers, folklorists, publishers, record companies and former students.
The first $5,000 award was awarded in the 1995-96 year. Graduate students in relevant disciplines including folklore, history, English, art, anthropology and sociology are eligible. Since its creation, more than 30 graduate students have received support to fund their research as they study the history, culture and folklore of numerous disciplines.
Portions excerpted from “Archie Green and Friends Establish Folklife Fellowship” by Speed Hallman ’82, which was published in the March/April 1995 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review.
