Kutztown Folk Festival: America’s Oldest Folklife Celebration

Posted by on Mar 13, 2020 in | Comments Off on Kutztown Folk Festival: America’s Oldest Folklife Celebration The Kutztown Folk Festival, originally called the Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Festival, is a milestone among American community celebrations. Observing 70 years in 2019, it is the first and longest-running folklife festival in the history of the United States. Although many other popular celebrations preceded the Kutztown festival, it has had a national impact as the first festival founded and...
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Meet Don Yoder: Dean of Folklife Scholars

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Meet Don Yoder: Dean of Folklife Scholars In 1710, Hans Joder, originally from Canton Bern in Switzerland, arrived in Pennsylvania and made a home in the fertile Oley Valley of southeastern Pennsylvania. Twenty-eight years later, Johannes Cronister of Franconia in northern Bavaria, whose grandfather had been a Protestant fugitive from Lower Austria, came to the province and settled in the region that would later become Adams County....
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