Kutztown Folk Festival Blog

2009 will mark the 60th year of the Kutztown Folk Festival. It has had a long, distinguished… and sometimes not so distinguished past. Started by three professors interested in folklife, they chose the PA Dutch to focus their first experimental folklife festival on. The first festival lasted 5 days, and featured hands-on experiences to the visitors, who were able to “emerse themselves in the culture and traditions of the PA Dutch”. A visitor was able to see and talk to local craftsmen - a blacksmith, wheelwright, barn star painter, cooper, weaver, and a variety of home crafts demonstrators, including a quilting bee. You could try your hand at cutting and stacking grains, shucking and grinding corn, splitting rails, as well as other crafts that changed from day to day, depending upon who was available. There were a wide variety of old fashioned childrens activities, traditional church services, plenty of PA Dutch dialect and even more PA Dutch foods! The first funnel cake ever sold in America was at that first day of the Festival in 1950. Viola Miller offered these cakes for sale. They were a family recipe she had been giving to her family as snacks when they were working in the fields. The first Hex Signs, morphed from the traditional Barn Stars, appeared in 1951, painted and promoted by Johnny Ott, an eccentric folk artist and bartender from Lenhartsville. 
The first festival was a success; and so they tried it one more year, and the rest is now history. Through the years there have been many changes, and many, many,  notable events and experiences. In 2009 the Festival will be unique, as it is every year, and will be greatly changed from those first festivals in the early 1950’s. However, the mission and the challenges have not. A visitor can still expect to be “emersed in the PA Dutch traditions and culture”, and “be able to  experience first hand the history, traditions, and the culture… constantly changing, of the PA Dutch of Eastern Pennsylvania. We invite you to share your experiences of past festivals, and what you remember that made them special.

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This entry was posted by Blogmaster on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 9:59 pm and is filed under 60 years of the Kutztown Folk Festival!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.