American Urban, Suburban, and Metropolitan Folklore and Folklife

Metropolitan folklore and folklife studies often focus on ethnic, religious, and occupation-centered neighborhoods and their distinctive festive events. The material culture of streets and lots has also led to documentation of folk arts, vernacular structures, and customs that have been adapted to this environment. Examples include sidewalk altars in New York City, painted screens in Baltimore, and storefront churches in Los Angeles. In addition, beginning in the late twentieth century, both urban and suburban folklife studies took on the tinge of consumer culture as tradition and mass media mixed freely in commercial centers. Furthermore, the longstanding critique of suburbia as a homogenizing force has itself become embedded in American legend and belief, but suburbs have developed their own traditions of cookouts, malls, yard art, lawn care, car culture, and other modes of “hanging out.”

Home and Vehicle in American Folklore and Folklife

This chapter unfolds the intersectionality of the domestic sphere in three parts. First, the home itself presents a multivalent space in which individual locations become realms of practice and performance for different groups, such as bathrooms used by children at slumber parties as the locus of legend ostension. Issues of personal identity and even “solo folklore” appear in spaces like treehouses and apartments, as do considerations of material cultural performance. Questions of gender and occupation appear in rooms like the “man cave” or the “home office” as well. Beyond the domestic space is the intersection of home and public spaces in practices such as holiday decoration, yard art, porch culture, and backyard cookouts. The automobile informs the final section, demonstrating the connection between domestic, familial, social, and political performance.