Historians will eventually look in wonder, I think, at the far reaching effects of the 1976 Festival of American Folklife. In a way, it did what all festivals do—interrupting the passing of ordinary time, providing landmarks for later recollection and brief respites from the day-to-day during which energies and ideas for the future can be sorted out. But this Festival was so big, and it involved so many people, that its sheer size affected in major ways the steady progression of work that had already been going on for decades in support of the arts and culture of all the world's people.