America Works

Jerry Bransford, a seasonal tour guide at Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park, tells folklorist Brent Bjorkman how his family’s multi-generational history with the cave led him to become a guide after retiring from a successful corporate career. Members of his family began working as cave guides in the 1830s. Like many of the early guides, they were African Americans and through their knowledge, they became local, national, and even international celebrities, despite being enslaved. He also talks about how his family’s relationship with the Cave was abruptly severed in 1941, when it became a US National Park and all African Americans workers were dismissed; and his wish to make sure today’s park visitors learned about the important contributions his family, and other African Americans cave workers, made in the exploration and development of this celebrated natural wonder.

Damon Walker, a “luthier” or string instrument maker in Durham, North Carolina, talks about his work making and fixing double or ‘upright’ basses with folklorists Katy Clune and Julia Gartell as part of their Occupational Folklife Project “Fixing, Mending, Making New: North Carolina’s Repair Professionals.” Mr. Walker – or “Dr. Bass” as he is widely known in the business – explains how his love of music and woodworking combined with years of formal apprenticeship at an atelier led him to became of the very few African American luthiers in the United States.

Marcus Wimby, Director of Haugabrooks Funeral Home in Atlanta, Georgia, talks about his work and career. For more than 90 years, Haugabrooks has been a mainstay of Atlanta’s African American community. Mr. Wimby – a relation to Ms. Geneva Haugabrooks, the dynamic woman who founded the multi-generational business in 1929 — was interviewed by documentarian Candacy Taylor for her Occupational Folklife Project “The Green Book: Documenting African American Entrepreneurs.”

This is AFC staff folklorist Nancy Groce and this America Works episode features excerpts from a longer interview with the independent professional wrestler Seymour Ray – a respected athlete who is widely known by his professional name: “Ray Idol.” He was interviewed at his home in Bristol, Tennessee, by folklorist Delainey Bowers as part of her project documenting “Independent Professional Wrestlers in Central Appalachia.”

This is AFC staff folklorist Nancy Groce and this America Works episode features excerpts from a longer interview with Dr. Susan Morelli, a neonatologist and geneticist who works in Provo, Utah. She was interviewed by folklorist Lisa Gabbert as part of a larger project on “Doctoring,” which documents the training, daily routines, work environments, personal motivations, occupational folklore and humor of contemporary American physicians.

This is AFC staff folklorist Nancy Groce and this America Works episode features excerpts from a longer interview with Mike Williams, a dirt track auto racer at the famed Ransomville Speedway in western New York. He was interviewed at his home on the Tuscarora Nation by folklorist Edward Millar from the Castellani Art Museum at Niagara University.

This is AFC staff folklorist Nancy Groce and this America Works episode features excerpts from a longer interview with Rosemarie Francis-Primo, a home healthcare aide in Brooklyn, New York. She is a proud member of Domestic Workers United, an advocacy organization that represents Caribbean, Latina, and African nannies, housekeepers, homeworkers, and caregivers in metropolitan New York.