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Marjorie Hunt The Stone Carvers: Master Craftsmen of Washington National Cathedral (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999), xi+188pp., $27.95 (cloth).
Smithsonian Institution folklorist Marjorie Hunt's research with the stone carvers at the Washington National Cathedral began in the late 1970s in preparation for the 1978 Festival of American Folklife, and led to her co-production of an Academy Award-winning documentary on master carvers Roger Morigi and Vincent Palumbo (The Stone Carvers, 1984). Now her long-awaited book provides another wonderful resource on this craft, one that should be of interest not just to folklorists, but also to teachers and researchers interested in topics ranging from Italian-American history to occupational communities to ecclesiastical architecture.
Hunt tells the stone carvers' story in four thematic sections. Her first chapter, "Tradition," uses the personal narratives of Morigi and Palumbo, both born into stone-working communities in Italy, to explain the personal and communal meanings of the trade. In the second section, "Learning," Hunt...