Folk Landscapes

Folk culture in the United States is largely extinct today, but many folk practices still the daily behaviors of almost all Americans.  On the landscape, the most prominent evidence of our folk past are the houses and barns that were built before the age of mass-produced architecture.  Numerous folk housing subcultures once existed in various regions of the United States.  Each folk subculture applied ancient construction principles brought from Europe, Africa or the Americas to the local contexts created by access to building materials and demands of the local climate .   

The four main folk culture regions in the United States were created by the Yankees in New England, the people of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, the people of the Upland South, and the people of Lowland, Tidewater Regions and/or Deep South.  Spanish, French and German immigrant groups also left significant ethnic-oriented folk landscapes.