Richard March

Richard March is an American folklorist, anthropologist, author, and longtime scholar of Eastern European and immigrant culture. Raised in a politically active family, March is the son of labor organizers Herb and Jane March, whose work in Chicago’s meatpacking industry and the United Packinghouse Workers of America exposed him from an early age to the labor and civil-rights movements. As a young man, he became involved in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), anti–Vietnam War activism, civil-rights causes, and support for the United Farm Workers.

March later pursued anthropology and became particularly interested in Eastern European languages, traditions, and folk culture, drawing in part on his own Croatian family heritage and his knowledge of the Croatian language. He developed a career as an independent folklorist and became especially known for his scholarship on Wisconsin’s Polish, Czech, Croatian, and other immigrant communities and musical traditions.

In 2017, March published A Great Vision: A Militant Family’s Journey through the 20th Century with Hard Ball Press. The book traces three generations of his family—from anti-fascist resistance in Croatia to Herb and Jane March’s labor organizing in Chicago and Richard March’s own involvement in the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Combining memoir, family history, labor history, and folklore, the book examines how political commitment, cultural identity, and the pursuit of social justice were carried from one generation to the next.