Embedded Files
THOMAS ALBERT ADLER
2221 Mangrove Drive
Lexington, Kentucky 40513
(859) 475-6225 (cell)
Date and Place of Birth:
March 31, 1947 — Chicago, Illinois
Family: Married to Betsy Mosby Adler / two male children: Carter M. Adler (born 1978) and Noah M. Adler (born 1982).
Universities Attended and Degrees Earned:
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 1971-1979. Ph.D. in Folklore, Oct.,1979.
State University of New York College at Oneonta/Cooperstown Graduate Programs,
Cooperstown, New York, 1969-1970. M.A. in American Folk Culture, 1971.
University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, 1966-1969. B.A. in English, 1969.
Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, 1964-1966.
Fellowships and Awards:
University of Kentucky - Summer Faculty Research Fellowships, 1981; 1982.
Indiana University - Doctoral Grant-in-Aid of Research, 1975.
Indiana University - Indiana University Fellow, 1971-1972.
Cooperstown Graduate Programs - Scrivener Foundation Fellow, 1970.
Employment and Teaching Experience:
IT Support at University of Kentucky, Dept. of Orthopaedic Surgery & Sports Medicine: 2003 to 2013.
Collections Mgr. and IT Support for Dr. Mary Lloyd Ireland's orthopaedic practice, Kentucky Sports Medicine: 1994 to 2003.
Executive Director, International Bluegrass Music Museum, Owensboro, KY: 1994 to 1996.
Computer consultant in MultiMedia and Desktop Publishing, Quantum Electronic Publishing, Lexington, KY: 1987 to 1994.
Director of Desktop Publishing Support, CBM Supported Systems, Lexington, KY: Spring 1986 to 1987.
University of Kentucky Assistant Professorship in English (Folklore, Composition): Fall, 1979 to May, 1986.
Indiana University Lecturership in Folklore: Fall, 1975.
Indiana University Associate Instructorships in Folklore; Fall, 1972 through Spring, 1976.
Indiana University Teaching Assistantships in Folklore: Spring 1973 through Fall, 1974.
Archivist — Archive of New York State Folklife, New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, New York, 1970-1971.
Special Training and Areas of Competence:
Languages: German, Modern Irish
Archives and Archiving: Establishment, Organization, Procedures.
Photography: still, video, film. Audio tape recording, editing, care, and archiving.
Computers: Professional expertise in IBM-based MultiMedia computing and Desktop Publishing; database management; word-processing;
computer graphics, Google websites, YouTube videos
Programming in BASIC, C.
Areas: Material Folk Culture; Folk Architecture; Fieldwork in Folklore; Ballads and Folksongs; Instrumental Folk Music and Bluegrass Music;
American Folklore; Urban Folklore and Anthropology; Cultural Geography; Folk Speech, Language, and Dialect; Traditional Foodways.
Areas of Academic Research Completed:
The Acquisition of a Traditional Competence: Folk-Musical and Folk-Cultural Learning Among Bluegrass Banjo Players. Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1979.
A Proposal for the Classification and Retrieval of Information from the Archive of New York State Folklife. M.A. Thesis, Cooperstown Graduate Programs, Cooperstown, New York, 1971.
Consultancy for Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement, Noblesville, Indiana, on 19th-Century Language and Dialect, 1974-1975.
Consultancy for Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement, Noblesville, Indiana, on 19th-Century Agriculture and Horticulture, 1975.
Fieldwork:
Traditional Foodways in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky, 1981 - 1988.
Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project (American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.), August-September, 1978.
South Central Georgia Folklife Project (American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.), July-October, 1977.
Northwestern Indiana Urban Folklore Project (Folklore Institute, Indiana University), June, 1976 - September, 1977.
Bluegrass Oral History Project (Independent Research), June, 1977.
Festival Work:
Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife -- 1975
Knoxville World's Fair Folklife Festival -- 1982
Kentucky Folklife Celebration -- 1982-84
Festival of Michigan Folklife presenter -- 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991
Lectures:
American Folklore Society Papers
"Occupational and Organizational Folklore in a Retail Computer Chain," Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1987.
"Women in Bluegrass Music," Baltimore, Maryland, 1986.
"Black Foodways in Central Kentucky," Cincinnati, Ohio, 1985.
"Parking-Lot Eating: The Bluegrass Music Festival Meal System," San Diego, California, 1984.
"Duelling Banjos: Overt and Covert Competition Among Bluegrass Banjoists," Nashville, Tenn., 1983.
"Funny Foods: Humor in the Foodways of Kentucky's Bluegrass Region," Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1982.
"The Uses of Humor by Bluegrass Musicians," San Antonio, Texas, 1981.
"Towards an Ecology of Folk Housing in the Eastern Blue Ridge," Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1980.
"`And Daddy Makes Pancakes On Sunday': The Male Cook in Family Tradition," Los Angeles, California, 1979.
"The Presentation of Feeling in Bluegrass Music," Salt Lake City, Utah, 1978.
"Musical Instruments, Tools, and the Experience of Control," Detroit, Michigan, 1977.
"The Bluegrass Festival: Focus of Tradition," Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1976.
"Folk Architectural Teratology: Problems in the Study of An Indiana Farm," (with Elizabeth Mosby Adler), New Orleans, Louisiana, 1975.
"Towards An Understanding of the Tendency for Intricate Ornamentation of Five-String Banjos," Portland, Oregon, 1974.
"Manual Formulaic Composition: Innovation in Bluegrass Banjo Styles," Nashville, Tennessee, 1973.
Other Lectures and Presentations:
"Mac & Bob: The Influential Country Music of Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner, 1922–1950," presented at American Printing House, Louisville, KY, 2017.
"Bluegrass Music and the Evolution of the Rural Country Music Park," PowerPoint presentation at Western Kentucky University's
Bluegrass Music Symposium, 2005. Redone as YouTube video in 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpG2KqLaK10&t=1s
"Prescription and Description in Foodways Research," presented to the Society for a North American Cultural Survey, Lexington, Kentucky, 1983.
"Traditional Foodways in Bluegrass Kentucky," presented to the Third Annual Conference of Newspaper Food Editors, Lexington, Kentucky, 1983.
"Southern Fried: Foodways Research in American Culture," public lecture at the Folklife Festival, 1982 Knoxville World's Fair.
"`I Couldn't Eat Them, It's Just the Idea': Lamb Fries and Mountain Oysters," Appalachian Studies Conference, Black Mountain, North Carolina, 1981.
"Folklore Defined," University of Kentucky College of Library Science, 1981.
"Picking Your Topic: The Banjo in America," Lecture/Performance to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1980.
"The Structure of Bluegrass Banjo Music," Lecture/Demonstration for Prof. Jeff Titon, Indiana University, 1977.
"The Development of Bluegrass," for Prof. Michael E. Bell's course "Folklore and the Bicentennial," Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1976.
Nineteenth-Century Agriculture on the Indiana Frontier," Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement Winter Seminar Series, Noblesville, Indiana, 1976.
Publications:
Books:
Bean Blossom: The Brown County Jamboree and Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Festivals (University of Illinois Press, 2011).
Articles:
"Music in American Life: The Johnson Mountain Boys," Bluegrass Unlimited (October 2023), pp. 14-16.
"J.D. Crowe: Musician, Bandleader, Legend," Bluegrass Unlimited (March 2022), pp. 14-18.
"Rural Country Music Parks: An Exploratory Essay in Honor of Neil V. Rosenberg," in Bean Blossom to Bannerman, Odyssey of a Folklorist : a Festschrift for
Neil V. Rosenberg (St. John's, Nfld :Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005).
"Funny Foods: Humor in the Foodways of Kentucky's Bluegrass Region," The Digest: A Newsletter for the Interdisciplinary Study of Food 5:2 (Spring, 1983), 1-12.
"The Uses of Humor By Bluegrass Musicians," Mid-America Folklore 10: 2-3 (Fall-Winter, 1982), 17-26.
"Making Pancakes on Sunday: The Male Cook in Family Tradition," in Foodways and Eating Habits: Directions for Research, edited by Michael 0. Jones,
Bruce Giuliano, and Roberta Krell (Los Angeles: California Folklore Society, 1983); and Western Folklore 40:1 (Jan., 1981), 45-54.
"Dad Does It Better," Center for Southern Folklore Magazine, Fall, 1980 issue,`Say It with Food,' p. 8.
"Folk Architectural Teratology: Problems in the Study of an Indiana Farm, Folklore Forum 12:2-3 (1979), 198-221 (with Elizabeth Mosby Adler).
"Musical Instruments, Tools, and the Experience of Control," in Simon J. Bronner, ed., American Material Culture and Folklife: A Prologue and Dialogue,
(Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985, pp. 103-113. Cited in Thomas J. Schlereth, Material Culture Studies in America (New York: American Association
for State and Local History, 1982), 61-63.
`Sunday Breakfast Was Always Special with Us': A Report On Foodways in South Central Georgia. Monograph issued as
Folklore Publications Group Preprint 7:1 (1979), 1-72.
"When Field Work Becomes Field Shock," Folklore Forum 11:3 (1978), 234-244.
"Hardware and Software in the Urban Field," Indiana Folklore 10:2 (1977), 113-126.
"Manual Formulaic Composition: Innovation in Bluegrass Banjo Styles," Journal of Country Music 5:2 (1974), 55-64. Reprinted in Banjo Newsletter 2:12 (1975), 4-8.
"The Ballad in Bluegrass Music," Folklore Forum 7:1 (1974), 3-47.
"The Concept of Nidality and Its Potential Application to Folklore, Folklore Forum Bibliographic and Special Series No. 12, 1974,
Conceptual Problems in Contemporary Folklore Study, 1-5.
"Material Folk Art," (with William Aspinall), in Robert J. Adams, ed., Introduction to Folklore (Columbus, Ohio: Collegiate Publishing, Inc., 1973), 106-115.
"The American Folklife Center: A Personal Examination and Appraisal of the Idea," Folklore Forum 6:4 (1973), 242-245.
"The Unplotted Narratives of Tom T. Hall," Journal of Country Music 4:2 (1973), 52-69.
"The Physical Development of the Banjo," New York Folklore Quarterly 28:3 (1972), 187-208.
"How to Make an Appalachian Dulcimer," Autoharp No. 30 (1967), 8-10. Reprinted in Folknik 4:5 (1968), 5-6.
Record Reviews & Essays
Liner notes to LP "Kenny Baker Country," County Records, County 736, 1976.
"Bluegrass Music," Journal of American Folklore (in press).
Western Folklore 38 (1979), 136-143; 278-284.
Western Folklore 39 (1980), 148-153; 344-350.
Western Folklore 40 (1981), 197-205.
Western Folklore 41 (1982), 77-84; 245-250.
Western Folklore 42 (1983), 235-40.
Western Folklore 45 (1986), 216-222.
Reviews of Books and Recordings, and Miscellaneous Publications
Hearth and Home: Preserving a People's Culture, by George W. McDaniel, in Callaloo 6:1 (February, 1983), 172-174.
Madison County Historical Society Craft Series Slide/Tape Programs [Wooden Scoop Shovel Making; Pump Log Boring; Sausage Stuffing with a Cow Horn;
Wooden Shoe Making; Ice Cutting], in Journal of American Folklore 94:373 (1981), 412-414.
Photographs and Traditional Farm Layout Surveys in Blue Ridge Harvest: A Region's Folklife in Photographs (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1981).
The New Beehive Songster, Vols. I and II: Early Recordings of Pioneer Folk Music and New Recordings of Utah Music, in
Western Humanities Review 34:4 (1980), 383-385.
Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America, by Robert C. Toll, in Southern Folklore Quarterly.
Liner Notes to Kenny Baker, Kenny Baker Country (County Records, County 736), reissued in 1976.
Old As the Hills: The Story of Bluegrass Music, by Steven B. Price, in Folklore Forum 9:2 (1476), 83-84.
Bluegrass Banjo, by Peter Wernick; and Bluegrass Fiddle, by Gene Lowinger, in Southern Folklore Quarterly 39:3 (1975), 299-302.
Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys: An Illustrated Discography, by Neil V. Rosenberg, in Journal of Country Music 5:3 (1974), 123-124.
"Bluegrass: Pickin' Is Easier Now, (record review article) in The Milwaukee Journal, Dec. 9, 1973, Part 5, Page 6, cols. 4-8.
June Apple: Old-Time Fiddling and Clawhammer Banjo (Mountain Records), in Folklore Forum 6:3 (1973), 188-189.
Echoes of the Ozarks, Vol.1 (Country Records, County 518), in Folklore Forum 6:1 (1973), 64-65.
Folklore on the American Land, by Duncan Emrich, in Folklore Forum 6:1 (1973), 54-55 (with Elizabeth Mosby Adler).
Heaven on Horseback: Revivalist Songs and Verse in the Cowboy Idiom, by Austin and Alta Fife, in Folklore Forum 4:6 (1971), 153.
Academic/Professional Service:
Bill Monroe Bluegrass Music Hall Of Fame Committee Member, 2024-2025.
Provided archival images for PBS video "Big Family: The Story of Bluegrass Music," 2018.
Provided archival images for film "Revival: The Sam Bush Story," 2015.
University of Kentucky Appalachian Studies Faculty Member, Summer 1981 to May 1986.
Co-Chair of Program Committee for American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, Cincinnati, 1985.
Member, Selection Panel for American Folk Music and Folklore Recordings 1985: A Selected List, and American Folk Music and
Folklore Recordings 1984: A Selected List, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
University of Kentucky - Entwistle Writing Competition Committee, 1980, 1981; Chairman of Entwistle Committee, 1981.
University of Kentucky - English Department Undergraduate Committee, 1980-86.
Record Reviewer, Western Folklore, Fall 1978 to present.
Reviews Editor, Journal of Country Music, Country Music Foundation, Nashville, Tennessee, 1974 - 1977.
President, Folklore Students' Association, Folklore Institute, Indiana University, 1975 - 1977.
Abstractor, Abstracts of Folklore Studies, 1974 - 1975.
Founding Member, Folklife Museum Committee, Folklore Students' Association,Indiana University, 1972-1975.
Professional Positions Other Than Teaching:
Consultant - Eastern Illinois University School of Fine Arts 1978 Folklife Project, May, 1978.
Indiana Arts Commission Folk Arts Advisory Panel, March 1978 to August 1979.
Indiana Folk Committee, Indiana Fine Arts Museum, Indianapolis,Indiana, March 1977 to August 1979.
Advisor to Indiana Arts Commission for selection of State Folklorist, Summer 1980.
Other Work:
Design, Editing, Layout work on: Harold Cottrell, Meetings with Remarkable Men—Again! (Amazon, 2024)
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