Editing Folklore (section)

=== Material culture ===
[[File:Horse and Sulky weathervane - SAAM - DSC00796.JPG|thumb|Horse and [[sulky]] weathervane, Smithsonian American Art Museum]]

The genre of [[material culture]] includes all artifacts that can be touched, held, lived in, or eaten. They are tangible objects with a physical or mental presence, either intended for permanent use or to be used at the next meal. Most of these folklore artifacts are single objects that have been created by hand for a specific purpose; however, folk artifacts can also be mass-produced, such as [[dreidel]]s or Christmas decorations. These items continue to be considered folklore because of their long (pre-industrial) history and their customary use. All of these material objects "existed prior to and continue alongside mechanized industry. … [They are] transmitted across the generations and subject to the same forces of conservative tradition and individual variation"{{sfn|Dorson|1972|page=2}} that are found in all folk artifacts. Folklorists are interested in the physical form, the method of manufacture or construction, the pattern of use, as well as the procurement of the raw materials.{{sfn|Vlach|1997}} The meaning to those who both make and use these objects is important. Of primary significance in these studies is the complex balance of continuity over change in both their design and their decoration.

[[File:At a goldsmith's workshop Podhale region.webm|thumb|Traditional highlanders' pins hand-made by a goldsmith in [[Podhale]], Poland]]
In Europe, prior to the [[Industrial Revolution]], everything was made by hand. While some folklorists of the 19th century wanted to secure the oral traditions of the rural folk before the populace became literate, other folklorists sought to identify hand-crafted objects before their production processes were lost to industrial manufacturing. Just as verbal lore continues to be actively created and transmitted in today's culture, so these [[handicrafts]] can still be found all around us, with possibly a shift in purpose and meaning. There are many reasons for continuing to handmake objects for use, for example these skills may be needed to repair manufactured items, or a unique design might be required which is not (or cannot be) found in the stores. Many crafts are considered as simple home maintenance, such as cooking, sewing and carpentry. For many people, handicrafts have also become an enjoyable and satisfying hobby. Handmade objects are often regarded as prestigious, where extra time and thought is spent in their creation and their uniqueness is valued.{{sfn|Roberts|1972|pages=236 ff}} For the folklorist, these hand-crafted objects embody multifaceted relationships in the lives of the craftspeople and the users, a concept that has been lost with mass-produced items that have no connection to an individual craftsperson.{{sfn|Schiffer|2000}}

Many traditional crafts, such as ironworking and glass-making, have been elevated to the [[fine art|fine]] or [[applied arts]] and taught in art schools;{{sfn|Roberts|1972|pages=236 ff, 250}} or they have been repurposed as [[folk art]], characterized as objects whose decorative form supersedes their utilitarian needs. Folk art is found in hex signs on Pennsylvania Dutch barns, tin man sculptures made by metalworkers, front yard Christmas displays, decorated school lockers, carved gun stocks, and tattoos. "Words such as naive, self-taught, and individualistic are used to describe these objects, and the exceptional rather than the representative creation is featured."<ref>{{cite web |publisher=[[Library of Congress]] |work=American Folklife Center |title=Material Culture |date=29 October 2010 |url=https://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/materialculture.html |access-date=8 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170820221339/https://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/materialculture.html |archive-date=20 August 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> This is in contrast to the understanding of folklore artifacts that are nurtured and passed along within a community.{{efn|[[Henry Glassie]], a distinguished folklorist studying technology in cultural context, notes that in Turkish one word, sanat, refers to all objects, not distinguishing between art and craft. The latter distinction, Glassie emphasizes, is not based on medium but on social class. This raises the question as to the difference between arts and crafts; is the difference found merely in the labeling?}}

Many objects of material folklore are challenging to classify, difficult to archive, and unwieldy to store. The assigned task of museums is to preserve and make use of these bulky artifacts of material culture. To this end, the concept of the [[living museum]] has developed, beginning in Scandinavia at the end of the 19th century. These open-air museums not only display the artifacts, but also teach visitors how the items were used, with actors reenacting the everyday lives of people from all segments of society, relying heavily on the material artifacts of a pre-industrial society. Many locations even duplicate the processing of the objects, thus creating new objects of an earlier historic time period. Living museums are now found throughout the world as part of a thriving [[heritage industry]].

This list represents just a small sampling of objects and skills that are included in studies of material culture.

{{div col|colwidth=14em}}
* [[Autograph book]]s
* [[Bunad]]
* [[Embroidery]]
* [[Folk art]]
* [[Folk costume]]
* [[History of herbalism|Folk medicines]]
* [[Challah|Food recipes and presentation]]
* [[Foodways]]
* [[Handicraft#List of common handicrafts|Common handicrafts]]
* [[List of wooden toys|Handmade toys]]
* [[Hay#Stacking|Haystacks]]
* [[Hex signs]]
* [[Ironwork|Decorative ironworks]]
* [[Pottery]]
* [[Quilting]]
* [[Stone carving|Stone sculpting]]
* [[Tipis]]
* [[Wattle (construction)|Traditional fences]]
* [[Vernacular architecture]]
* [[Weather vane]]s
* [[Woodworking]]

{{div col end}}