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The Secretary explained that the Smithsonian performs very actively in the area of folklife.  We are the major performing group of triumvirate which includes the National Endowment for the Arts (which provides grants and funds to many folklife activities and with this bill may be able to provide more funds), and the Library of Congress which performs the archival function to keep records, tapes and documents.

The Smithsonian provides the performing arts division which operates on the Mall and arranges tours and traveling shows all over the country.  Folk art in this activity is essentially folklife and is the study, collation, performance, recording and encouraging of folk traditions in this country.

We have now discovered that in every large community in the country there are enormously active, residual and growing activities in folklife, including people living as their predecessors did before they came here from all parts of the world.  We have a new center here studying how these people maintain their traditions and activities.  In Philadelphia there are 50 or 60 ethnic subculbures active in the city from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and our Indian cultures, preserving their folk traditions and relationship to their mother countries.  The Balch Institute of Philadelphia

Transcription Notes:
"subculbures" mispelled - should be "subcultures" - but transcribed as written.