human and spiritual relations in those surroundings. Indeed, folk objects and actions are especially striking evidence of people's hidden experiences, values, and mores. significance humans attach to their objects can be traced to the artifact's ability to be touched and seen, and its three-dimensional, alterable quality. When people manipulate forms they create expressions. When students of material culture study the varied expressions generated by informal learning, they reveal folk knowledge, a telling and influential segment of our cultural communication and conduct. This essay organizes material culture studies in American folkloristics by spotlighting core concerns of various researchers.4 This scheme should not 4For other schemes of organization, see Simon J. Bronner, Concepts in the Study of Material Aspects of American Folk Culture, Folklore Forum, 12 (1979), 133-72; Michael Owen Jones, The Study of Folk Art Study: Reflections on Images, Folklore Today, ed. Linda Degh, Henry Glassie, and Felix J. Oinas (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1976), 291-304. Some of the more extensive bibliographic surveys of the range of material folk culture studies are: Simon J. Bronner, Bibliography of American Folk and Vernacular Art (Bloomington, Indiana: Folklore Publications Group, 1980); Howard Wight Marshall, American Folk Architecture: A Selected Bibliography (Washington, D.C.: American Folklife Center, 1981); Ormond Loomis, Sources on This content downloaded from 157.55.39.144 on Mon, 25 Jul 2016 05:35:38 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Visible Proofs 319 suggest schools of theory, since analysts often employ various approaches depending on the questions asked and type of visible proofs desired. Yet an agenda arranged according to researchers' prevalent concerns gives some structure to the span of folkloristic research. Generally moving from older, conventional standpoints to newer perspectives in the discipline, the list includes Object and Text, Setting and Region, Group and Network, Individual and Personality, Event and Action, and Idea and Thought. headings provide signposts to the assumptions and concepts used by folklorists. They suggest directions folklorists take and some of the views they hold.