Department of Anthropology, Iowa State University

Rachelle H. Saltzman, Ph.D. has been the Folklife Coordinator for the Iowa Arts Council/Department of Cultural Affairs since 1995. She works with a variety of communities and individuals to provide assistance with multicultural and diversity issues, project development, event planning and implementation, presentation of traditional arts and artists, grant writing, and curriculum content. Saltzman’s most recent work is Iowa Folklife 2, a multicultural folklife curriculum and a companion to Iowa Folklife: Our People, Communities, and Traditions. In collaboration with Iowa Public Radio, she produces Iowa Roots, a radio series that explore cultures and traditions. With funding from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, Saltzman researched and developed Iowa Place-Based Foods. She is the author of numerous public folklore publications as well as peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of American Folklore, Anthropological Quarterly, Journal of Folklore Research, New York Folklore, Southern Folklore, Southern Exposure, and edited collections.

Research Interests
Iowa: refugee groups/ethnic folklore, identity, foodways, folk & traditional arts (folk music & song, material culture, verbal art, rituals, folk drama); UK: ballads & folk song, 19-20th century upper-class folklore, occupational folklore, ritual & revolution, folk drama

Iowa Folklife Web Sites
Iowa Roots
Iowa Folklife 2 (online curriculum)
Iowa Place-Based Foods

Representative Publications
2004. Rites of Intensification: Eating and Ethnicity in the Catskills. in Culinary Tourism. Lucy Long, editor, pp. 226-244. Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press (reprinted from 1998).

1995. Public Displays, Play, and Power: The 1926 General Strike.  Southern Folklore: Façade Performances (Special Issue)52(2):161-186.

1995. ‘This Buzz Is For You’: Popular Responses to the Ted Bundy Execution. Journal of Folklore Research: “Arbiters ofTaste: Censuring/Censoring Discourse” (Special Issue)32(2):101-120.

1994. Calico Indians and Pistol Pills: Historical Symbols and Political Action, New York Folklore xx (3-4):1-18.

1994. Folklore as Politics in Great Britain: Working-Class Critiques of Upper-Class Strike Breakers in the 1926 GeneralStrike. Anthropological Quarterly: Symbols of Contention, Part II (Special Issue) 67(3):105-121.

1993    A Feminist Folklorist Encounters the Folk: Can Praxis Make Perfect? in Feminist Theory and the Study of Folklore, Susan Hollis, Linda Pershing, M. Jane Young, editors. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Forthcoming Book
A Lark for the Sake of Their Country (Manchester University Press), which examines the role of upper and middle class strike breakers in defining Englishness during the 1926 General Strike