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approval by the Regents' Executive Committee and by the Regents themselves. The minutes are edited, not a verbatim account of proceedings. For reasons unknown, there are no
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Minutes are transferred regularly from the Secretary's Office to the Archives. Minutes less than 15 years old are closed to researchers. Indexes exist for the period from
1907 to 1946 and can be useful.
Historical Note:
The Smithsonian Institution was created by authority of an Act of Congress approved August 10, 1846. The Act entrusted direction of the Smithsonian to a body called
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Attorney General; and the Postmaster General. In fact, however, the Establishment last met in 1877, and control of the Smithsonian has always been exercised by its Board of
Regents. The membership of the Regents consists of the Vice President and the Chief Justice of the United States; three members each of the Senate and House of Representatives;
two citizens of the District of Columbia; and seven citizens of the several states, no two from the same state. (Prior to 1970 the category of Citizen Regents not residents
of Washington consisted of four members). By custom the Chief Justice is Chancellor. The office was at first held by the Vice President. However, when Millard Fillmore succeeded
to the presidency on the death of Zachary Taylor in 1851, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney was chosen in his stead. The office has always been filled by the Chief Justice
since that time.
The Regents of the Smithsonian have included distinguished Americans from many walks of life. Ex officio members (Vice President) have been: Spiro T. Agnew, Chester A.
Arthur, Allen W. Barkley, John C. Breckenridge, George Bush, Schuyler Colfax, Calvin Coolidge, Charles Curtis, George M. Dallas, Charles G. Dawes, Charles W. Fairbanks, Millard
Fillmore, Gerald R. Ford, John N. Garner, Hannibal Hamlin, Thomas A. Hendricks, Garret A. Hobart, Hubert H. Humphrey, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, William R. King, Thomas
R. Marshall, Walter F. Mondale, Levi P. Morton, Richard M. Nixon, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Theodore Roosevelt, James S. Sherman, Adlai E. Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Henry A.
Wallace, William A. Wheeler, Henry Wilson.
Ex officio members (Chief Justice) have been: Roger B. Taney, Salmon P. Chase, Nathan Clifford, Morrison R. Waite, Samuel F. Miller, Melville W. Fuller, Edward D. White,
William Howard Taft, Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan F. Stone, Fred M. Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren E. Burger.
Regents on the part of the Senate have been: Clinton P. Anderson, Newton Booth, Sidney Breese, Lewis Cass, Robert Milledge Charlton, Bennet Champ Clark, Francis M. Cockrell,
Shelby Moore Cullom, Garrett Davis, Jefferson Davis, George Franklin Edmunds, George Evans, Edwin J. Garn, Walter F. George, Barry Goldwater, George Gray, Hannibal Hamlin,
Nathaniel Peter Hill, George Frisbie Hoar, Henry French Hollis, Henry M. Jackson, William Lindsay, Henry Cabot Lodge, Medill McCormick, James Murray Mason, Samuel Bell Maxey,
Robert B. Morgan, Frank E. Moss, Claiborne Pell, George Wharton Pepper, David A. Reed, Leverett Saltonstall, Hugh Scott, Alexander H. Smith, Robert A. Taft, Lyman Trumbull,
Wallace H. White, Jr., Robert Enoch Withers.
Regents on the part of the House of Representatives have included: Edward P. Boland, Frank T. Bow, William Campbell Breckenridge, Overton Brooks, Benjamin Butterworth,
Clarence Cannon, Lucius Cartrell, Hiester Clymer, William Colcock, William P. Cole, Jr., Maurice Connolly, Silvio O. Conte, Edward E. Cox, Edward H. Crump, John Dalzell, Nathaniel
Deering, Hugh A. Dinsmore, William English, John Farnsworth, Scott Ferris, Graham Fitch, James Garfield, Charles L. Gifford, T. Alan Goldsborough, Frank L. Greene, Gerry Hazleton,
Benjamin Hill, Henry Hilliard, Ebenezer Hoar, William Hough, William M. Howard, Albert Johnson, Leroy Johnson, Joseph Johnston, Michael Kirwan, James T. Lloyd, Robert Luce,
Robert McClelland, Samuel K. McConnell, Jr., George H. Mahon, George McCrary, Edward McPherson, James R. Mann, George Perkins Marsh, Norman Y. Mineta, A. J. Monteague, R.
Walton Moore, Walter H. Newton, Robert Dale Owen, James Patterson, William Phelps, Luke Poland, John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn, B. Carroll Reece, Ernest W. Roberts, Otho Robards
Singleton, Frank Thompson, Jr., John M. Vorys, Hiram Warner, Joseph Wheeler.
Citizen Regents have been: David C. Acheson, Louis Agassiz, James B. Angell, Anne L. Armstrong, William Backhouse Astor, J. Paul Austin, Alexander Dallas Bache, George
Edmund Badger, George Bancroft, Alexander Graham Bell, James Gabriel Berrett, John McPherson Berrien, Robert W. Bingham, Sayles Jenks Bowen, William G. Bowen, Robert S. Brookings,
John Nicholas Brown, William A. M. Burden, Vannevar Bush, Charles F. Choate, Jr., Rufus Choate, Arthur H. Compton, Henry David Cooke, Henry Coppee, Samuel Sullivan Cox, Edward
H. Crump, James Dwight Dana, Harvey N. Davis, William Lewis Dayton, Everette Lee Degolyer, Richard Delafield, Frederic A. Delano, Charles Devens, Matthew Gault Emery, Cornelius
Conway Felton, Robert V. Fleming, Murray Gell-Mann, Robert F. Goheen, Asa Gray, George Gray, Crawford Hallock Greenwalt, Nancy Hanks, Caryl Parker Haskins, Gideon Hawley,
John B. Henderson, John B. Henderson, Jr., A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Gardner Greene Hubbard, Charles Evans Hughes, Carlisle H. Humelsine, Jerome C. Hunsaker, William Preston
Johnston, Irwin B. Laughlin, Walter Lenox, Augustus P. Loring, John Maclean, William Beans Magruder, John Walker Maury, Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, John C. Merriam, R. Walton
Moore, Roland S. Morris, Dwight W. Morrow, Richard Olney, Peter Parker, Noah Porter, William Campbell Preston, Owen Josephus Roberts, Richard Rush, William Winston Seaton,
Alexander Roby Shepherd, William Tecumseh Sherman, Otho Robards Singleton, Joseph Gilbert Totten, John Thomas Towers, Frederic C. Walcott, Richard Wallach, Thomas J. Watson,
Jr., James E. Webb, James Clarke Welling, Andrew Dickson White, Henry White, Theodore Dwight Woolsey.
Haiti: Freedom and Creativity from the Mountains to the Sea
Collection Creator:
Smithsonian Institution. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Introduction:
Haiti has long been beset with grave problems - and a few years after the 2004 Festival it would suffer the devastating earthquake of 2010. But Haitians' love of freedom nevertheless inspires them and nurtures their imaginations. Despite and often because of the challenges they have continued to face, Haitians create powerful artistic expressions in music, painting, crafts, sculpture, and architecture; in religion; and in language. The encounter ofTaino and African cultures, along with that of European colonizers, gave birth to the dynamic Creole culture that defines Haiti today. As a result, Haiti is one of the richest nations in terms of its culture and its people. Through the voices and creations of her people, that indefatigable and ever-resourceful spirit of creativity and resilience was celebrated at the Festival during Haiti's bicentennial year of 2004.
The creativity at the root of Haiti's heritage has been and continues to be expressed in many ways. In the visual and plastic arts, creativity may actually arise as the result of the distressed circumstances in which many people live. Thus, very often Haitian artists and craftspeople transform and restore life to things others throw away, like old carburetors, bent cooking utensils, or empty plastic juice bottles. It is that quest for new materials and forms that liberates their creativity, and, in turn, it is that creativity that validates their freedom.
Craftsmanship was one of the few dynamic sectors of Haiti's economy at the time of the Festival. In the city of Jacmel, for example, an especially vibrant and viable activity is the craft of papier-mache. Originally used to create elaborate and breathtaking masks for the traditional Carnival, papier-mache has become a veritable industry with artisans making mirrors, place mats, bowls, furniture, and other utilitarian as well as decorative products. Basketry and other straw work are also important commercial activities. Influenced by indigenous, African, and European traditions, products vary around the country, depending on the types of fiber that are available and the needs of consumers. Like weaving, woodcarving is an ancient art form drawing on Native, African, and European traditions. With certain species of trees such as cedar and mahogany disappearing, the supply of raw materials has dramatically decreased, but craftspeople continue to work. Carved stone frames, candlesticks, bowls, and trays are sold in craft shops. Areas that are rich in clay produce pottery. Such crafts were demonstrated at the Festival by skilled craftspeople, and the Festival Marketplace highlighted a number of local development projects in the craft sector.
The music of Haiti is a creolized music - like so much else in Haiti it is a synthesis of Taino, African, and European music created out of often violent encounters. The guido, a grated gourd scraped to create sound, the conch shell, and the rattle, still used in Haitian ritual music, are reminders of the music of Haiti's original Taino settlers. Their music, infused throughout the Caribbean, found willing company in the drumming vocabularies imported from West and Central Africa and perpetuated in the mountain enclaves where liberated Taino and African descendants (maroons) shared a mutual aversion to slavery and communicated ideas about the composition of the world beyond what was visible to the eye. Specific African sources of Haitian music and dance are most recognizable in the sacred music traditions of Vodou. Several drums, rhythms, and forms of ritual dance are named after their presumed origins on the African continent - rite Congo, rite Ibo, rite Rada (Yoruba or Fon), rite Senegal. Festival visitors had the opportunity to encounter these diverse traditions first-hand in an ounfò or ritual temple.
In addition to their long-term engagement with conserving Haiti's built heritage, Haitian architects and preservationists have begun to document people's ingenious applications of vernacular architecture's principles in urban areas to cope with overpopulation, pollution, and other difficult social and economic conditions. The recycling of materials such as old tires and plastic cups for use as flowerpots, and the vitality and spontaneity of the urban version of the lakou (yard) seen in Haitian slums, are convincing examples that vernacular architecture will continue to influence the future built environment in Haiti. Photographs and models allowed Festival visitors to understand these ongoing processes, as did custom-built structures on the Festival site.
In Haiti, Geri Benoit was Commissioner General and Patrick Delatour and Patrick Vilaire were Curators. At the Smithsonian, Diana Baird N'Diaye was Curator, with Olsen Jean Julien as Program Coordinator and Robert Maguire as Curator of Ayiti Cheri (for the Haitian diaspora).
The program was produced in partnership with the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad and the Institut Femmes Entrepreneurs (IFE), in collaboration with the National Organization for the Advancement of Haitians, and enjoyed the broad-based support of Haitians and friends of Haiti around the world. Major contributors included the Haitian Government and Public Administration, USAID (Aid to Artisans), Rhum Barbancourt, Government of Taiwan, Government of Gabon, Federation of Native Coffee Producers and Development Alternatives Inc. (Haitian Blue), HaiTel, UNESCO, Comcel, DairnlerChrysler, Inter-American Development Bank, Merrill Lynch, SOFIHDES, Unibank, U.S. Embassy in Haiti, Jean Marie Vorbe, Youri Mevs, Clement Beyda, and Harriet Michel. Major in-kind support came from Seaboard Marine and American Airlines with additional assistance from Valerio Canez, Sun Auto, S.A., and Drexco.
Researchers:
Abnor Adély, Michaelle Craan, Raoul Denis, Alex Duquella, Louis Antoine Elysée, Gisele Fleurant, Jean Claude Garoute, Henry Robert Jolibois, Eddy Lubin, Nicole Lumarque, Robert Maguire, Jean Claude Martineau, Frantz Pierre, Jacqueline Pompilus, Pascal Théodore
Presenters:
Mireille Bernardin, Barbara Christophe, Michaelle Craan, Gertie David, Patrick Delatour, Lionel Desmarrates, Alex Duquella, Gerdes Fleurant, Gisele Fleurant, Henry Frank, John Franklin, Jean Claude Martineau, Elizabeth McAlister, Lois Wilcken
Participants:
Agricultural Traditions
Joseph Séraphin Emile, banana farming and craft, Cazal, Haiti
Marie Manolette Honoré, banana farming and craft, Cazal, Haiti
André Telfis, coffee farming, Haiti
Marcel Fortuné, coffee farming, Haiti
Joseph Lovinsky, sugar cane and rum-making, Haiti
Building Arts
Frédéric Théodule, 1955-, Citadel restoration, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Louiness Edmond, 1971-, carpentry, Haiti
Jean Robert Fanfan, 1960-, carpentry, Haiti
Savener Sévère, 1966-, carpentry, Haiti
Craft Traditions
Mamoune Clerossaint, basketry, Cote de Fer, Haiti
Dieu Puissant Lamothe, basketry, La Vallée, Haiti
Pierre Roland Samedi, basketry, Jacmel, Haiti
Anivin Valbrun, 1954-, basketry, Bombardopolis Corbeilles, Haiti
Jean Pierre Richard Desrosiers, 1973-, cut-metal work, Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti
Lubernier Joseph, 1977-, cut-metal work, Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti
Joel Louishomme, Artibonite, musical instrument making, Haiti
Pierre Fougère Chérismé, 1974-, needlework, Fond-des-Nègres, Haiti
Olipsie Daniel, needlework, Terrier Rouge, Haiti
Mireille Delismé, 1965-, needlework, Léogane, Haiti
Avila Raime-Lamy, 1951-, needlework, Cité Soleil, Haiti
Johnny Emmanuel Ambroise, paper crafts, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Frantz Denejour, 1980-, papier-maché, Carnival costume making, Jacmel, Haiti
Tidier Levoyant, 1948-, papier-maché, Carnival costume making, Jacmel, Haiti
Rony Lundi, 1977-, papier-maché, Carnival costume making, Jacmel, Haiti
Milot Scutt, papier-maché, Carnival costume making, Jacmel, Haiti
Jacques Turin, 1968-, papier-maché, Carnival costume making, Jacmel, Haiti
Louisdor Jean, popular painting, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Simon Victor, popular painting, Gros Morne, Haiti
Eriste Dumersier, pottery, Aux Pins, Haiti
Jean Bertho Pierre, pottery, Aux Pins, Haiti
Jean Louis Chéry, stone sculpture, Léogane, Haiti
Yves Lore Courtois, tap-tap construction, Carrefour, Haiti
Jean Eliser Sever, tap-tap construction, Carrefour, Haiti
Joseph Saint Juste Carilien, woodworking, Léogane, Haiti
Foodways and Sacred Feasts
Carline Elisée, 1985-, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Nelie Gilus, 1962, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Marc Antoine Elisée, 1980-, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Joseph Frantz Pierre, 1953-, Carrefour, Haiti
Kids' Corner
Marie Lourdes Elgirus, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Jean Claude (Tiga) Garoute, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Maritime Arts
Pierre Louisnet Beaucé, Luly, Haiti
Sony Constant, Léogane, Haiti
Jean Gesner Elien, 1975-, Luly, Haiti
Osming Pierre, Bois Neuf, Haiti
Music
BALLADS
Boulo Valcourt, ballad singer, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Kod-o-Bann, -- konbit -- music -- Kod-o-Bann, konbit musicMarie Yolene Papouloute Eugene, 1950-, Dondon, HaitiAnani Augustin, Cap Haitïen, HaitiMercile Sainterme, Cayes, HaitiMarie Enite Joseph, Cayes, HaitiRoseline Godar Jean Giles, Petit-Goave, HaitiYanique Florestal-Louidor, 1970-, HaitiMère-de-Grace Prédestin-François, 1969-, Haiti
Réginald Polycard and Friends, old-style -- konpa -- and Haiti jazz fusion -- Réginald Polycard and Friends, old-style konpa and Haiti jazz fusionRéginald Polycard, Port-au-Prince, HaitiRichard Barbot, Port-au-Prince, HaitiJoël Widmaier, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
San Rankin, -- rara -- music -- San Rankin, rara musicMérigène Valéus, HaitiRigal Mésidor, HaitiFrantz Eustache, HaitiChantale Dorléan, HaitiDieufort Dorléan, Haiti
Azor, vodou drumming and Haitian jazz -- Azor, vodou drumming and Haitian jazzLenord Fortuné, 1965-2011, HaitiFrançois Fortuné, 1963-, HaitiLemour Fortuné, 1957-, HaitiAugustine Fortuné-Massenat, 1962-, HaitiRose-Manie Fortuné, 1968-, HaitiJérome Siméon, 1973-, HaitiElius Ozius, 1958-, HaitiLudner Toussaint, 1959-, HaitiRonine Faustin, 1968-, Haiti
Storytelling
Joseph Jean François, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Jean Claude Martineau, 1937-, Haiti
Voudou
Adely Abnor, Gressier, Haiti
Faucia Dumorney, Gressier, Haiti
Pierre Julmis, Gressier, Haiti
Collection Restrictions:
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our website for more information on scheduling a visit or making a digitization request. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 2004 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.
101 Border Stories / Arturo Carrillo Strong, Ofelia Santos López, Richard M. Bernholz.
102 Mural Art and Community / Alonso Encina Herrera, Romulo Frías.
103 Border Imagery in Arts and Crafts / Agustin Castillo, Carlos Callejo.
Local Numbers:
FP-1993-CT-0083
Publication, Distribution, Etc. (Imprint):
United States 1993
Date/Time and Place of an Event Note:
Recorded in: Washington (D.C.), United States, July 1, 1993.
General:
This audio recording has been transcribed. View transcription and play recording here. Download a PDF of the transcription here.
Restrictions:
Restrictions on access. Some duplication is allowed. Use of materials needs permission of the Smithsonian Institution.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our website to learn more about submitting a request. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections make no guarantees concerning copyright or other intellectual property restrictions. Other usage conditions may apply; please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for more information.
Managing Watersheds for Ecosystem Services in the Steepland Neotropics [Gestión de Cuencas Hidrográficas para Servicios de Ecosistemas en el Neotrópico Steepland]
