Joseph Graessle Moore Papers

The Joseph Graessle Moore Papers consist of approximately 5 linear feet. Much of the material was collected in 1950-1951 as field research for Moore's doctorate. The collection is divided into four series: Notebooks, Written Works, Collected Works, and Audiovisual Materials.

Notebooks series contains introductory information and transcripts of interviews on the subjects of Kumminah (Kumina), revival, and life stories from Jamaica.

Written Works series includes manuscripts and published articles by Moore on subjects of African religion, acculturation, folklore, and language in Jamaica.

Collected Works series features articles, offprints, and drafts written by others. Topics include African folklore, Cuban Santería, and cultural and linguistic studies of Jamaica. These were published contemporary to Moore's work.

Audiovisual Materials series makes up the bulk of the collection. There are three subseries, beginning with Cassette Tape Recordings, which contains recordings of African language, Cumina songs, and Bilah songs. Reel-to-Reel Tape Recordings includes recordings on African language, Bilah and country songs, and Puerto Rican music on Saint Croix. The third subseries, Film, contains 19,131 feet of silent b/w video housed on 22 reels. The films are listed sequentially and are contained within Boxes 5 and 6. The footage is from a later visit to Jamaica by Moore in 1957-1958. These films were sent to Library of Congress and then to the Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA), part of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History for preservation work in the 1980s. They have since been returned to the Benson and access copies are available to be shared with researchers digitally.