When Bob Dylan showed up to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival with an electric guitar and a full backing band, many fans decried he had turned his back on folk music. It turns out this debate over what exactly is “folk” has been happening for a long time.We speak to a UW-Madison student who was recently awarded a fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution to zero in on how people in 20th century America defined “folk?”
Office of Strategic Communication