University of Delaware Office of Public Relations The Messenger Vol. 5, No. 4/1996 Studying traditions is her way of life Driven by an intense fascination with humankind, Rachelle "Riki" H. Saltzman spends her days-and many nights-listening to people's stories, photographing their rituals and recording their performances. As a folklorist, Saltzman, Delaware '77, studies the traditional cultures of Americans. Meat packers. Doctors. Firemen. Musicians. Quilters. Cooks. These are all people whose stories and skills have fascinated Saltzman. Hired in February 1995 as director of the folklife program for the Iowa Arts Council, Saltzman has spent the past 16 months surveying Iowa's residents. The result of her hard work, an informative and entertaining extravaganza that highlights traditions throughout the predominantly agricultural state, appeared at the Smithsonian Institution's 1996 Festival of American Folklife. "Festivals take people's skills and knowledge and put them on a stage. They make the every day into something special," Saltzman says. The festival featured signage on and performances of everything from dance, music and girls' basketball to John Deere workers assembling a tractor. A myriad of demonstrations involved more than 100 Iowa residents, representing professions as diverse as medicine and tool and die making. Presented on the Mall in Washington, D.C., the last week in June and the first week in July, the festival also featured folklore of the South and of workers from the 150-year-old Smithsonian Institution. The Iowa extravaganza was then re-staged and expanded at the Sesquicentennial Festival of Iowa Folklife, held in late August in Des Moines. "At festivals, you showcase everyday folks so other people see that what they do is important and really valuable," says Saltzman, who majored in history at Delaware. Folklorists study the informal, taken-for-granted knowledge and skills people learn from their families, occupational and ethnic groups during the course of their everyday lives, Saltzman says. "Looking at people's traditions gives us an understanding of how we function as a society. If you look at people just in terms of statistics and big sweeping trends, then you don't hear their stories and get to understand them. In this day and age, when we don't understand each other and worry about differences, this kind of work is really critical," says Saltzman, who also holds a master's degree in history and a doctorate in anthropology and folklore from the University of Texas at Austin. Designed to encourage communication between individuals, folklife festivals steer away from huge stages or vast auditoriums. Instead, they encourage people to talk one-on-one. "We want to look at diversity, not difference," says Saltzman, who lives in Des Moines. "If we all realize that each of us has something to offer and that there is diversity in offerings, then we might not get so wound up about drawing battle lines." Responsible for determining what should be highlighted in the festival, Saltzman spent months talking to hundreds of Iowa residents. Together with Smithsonian curator Catherine Hiebert Kerst, she developed a network of more than 60 field researchers who interviewed and photographed about 600 people throughout the state. The field researchers- academics and "community scholars," people with a deep knowledge of their community-helped Saltzman and Kerst uncover a wealth of information about traditions throughout the state. "The Smithsonian said we had twice the number of field workers and twice the number of supplies of any other program it had ever presented," she says. Saltzman first identified her love of traditional culture while working on a research project for a folklore, history and media course at Delaware in which she interviewed and photographed watermen on Maryland's Eastern Shore. "That was when I really learned that history and cultural traditions are not just found in a library. They are what people are out there doing and living," she says. The extensive research done for the folklife festival also will be used to develop an Iowa Folklife Resource Guide and a Folklife-In-Education Kit. The resource guide will provide teachers, arts councils and chambers of commerce with an extensive list of Iowa museums, festivals, events and folk artists. The education kit will include lesson plans, activities and videotapes. "By bringing this information into the classroom, you really make traditional culture come alive," Saltzman says. Now, Saltzman is waiting to hear about the future of her job. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Folk Arts, her two-year position is scheduled to end next spring, but the Iowa Arts Council hopes to make the position a permanent one. -Marylee Sauder, Delaware '83