There were a number of things which pushed folk into the mainstream for awhile...the anti-war/hippie movement, a few 'special' people getting together and making some music in a few clubs...Jack Paar putting Burl Ives on TV....someone deciding to start "Sing Out" magazine... Moses Asch and a few others actually treating the music as if it were important...Entire books have been written on it.

Why did it fade away again? Because, as Bruce said, fashions change and once it became popular, there were too many getting into it for the money who simply changed things wholesale to put 'their' stamp on it--with little regard for accuracy or tradition. And after awhile, the innovators found that they were just in competition with themselves, and the 'folkies' were mostly back in living rooms, shaking their heads and singing. ...Of course, it never totally died, and in certain areas, one could always go hear some music by some pretty traditional musicians. At the same time, rock & roll was telling kids that there was a new tradition of forming bands and making some music...and there were those who moved back & forth between pop/rock & pop/folk and kept some elements of both 'on the charts'. But since there was no agreement about what a 'folk musician' ought to do, it was really difficult to sustain a national (much less world-wide) 'style' which could easily be promoted. Most of the effort went into Country, Bluegrass, Irish, etc...which are much narrower in focus and easier to promote in clubs, records, concerts...etc...There were just enough John Prines, John Hartfords, Kate Wolfs, etc. who 'had the muse' and really wanted to do something 'acoustic' to keep a semblance of the movement going.

And, of course, there will always be more temporary fads as new generations look at what was and try to adapt it to what is. Gee, I hope Max archives all this, so they can read all our musings and rantings and have as much fun as we did sorting it out!!!