Campbell Folk School in 1925 in Brasstown, North Carolina. Olive Dame Campbell and Marguerite Butler established John C. The Pi Beta Phi Fraternity opened a settlement school in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in 1913, which became the present-day Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. Berea College in Kentucky established a crafts program in the 1890s that evolved into its Student Craft Industries still in operation today. This movement dates from the late 1800s through the 1930s and included many schools and colleges that used crafts to further educational, social and economic goals. Goodrich’s work was part of a larger effort called the Southern Appalachian Handicraft Revival. Such qualities as material heft, color, shape and texture would please the senses, and the maker could find satisfaction in sharing good work and bringing joy to others.įrances L. Because of the stubbornness of some individuals and the forces of relative isolation, traditional craft practice survived in Appalachia to be “discovered” by Frances Goodrich and the modern world.īeyond the functional and economic importance of crafts, Goodrich had a strong interest in the beauty of good design and sound construction. Many native people began to see in the old ways a path to independence, distinction and meaningful work. Many outsiders came to Appalachia to practice a rural lifestyle. In mainstream America, domestic weaving was the stuff of grandmother’s day, but Appalachia seemed like a pastoral society to romantic reformers who perceived a home-craft economy as a dignified alternative to modern life and homogenization. A pre-industrial lifestyle survived until the railroad reached Asheville in 1880, where Goodrich found a folk society in proximity to a cosmopolitan city. Mountain families practiced a whole range of traditional skills due to the geographic and economic isolation of the region. Crafts from the Cherokee, white and black mountaineers were made from necessity and for trade. By 1897, Goodrich had built a log cabin alongside the main road to sell crafts, which was the first Allanstand Craft Shop.Ĭertainly, traditional mountain crafts were around when Goodrich shone a new light on them in the 1890s. By 1897, she had moved to Allanstand, a community in Madison County’s Laurel Country, where she found the population more generally involved in traditional fiber arts to the extent that they even tended to wear the same hand dyed colors – people said the Laurel folk could be told “by the red.” She called her organization Allanstand Cottage Industries. Handweaving was indeed the answer, and Goodrich began to organize mountain women to produce crafts that she would market nationally and regionally. Did she hold the clue to her puzzle in her very hand?” The brown had been dyed with chestnut oak, and was as fine a color as the day it was finished…Here was a fine craft, dying out and desirable to revive. As Goodrich tells it, just as she was “pondering the resources at hand for bringing healthful excitement into the lives of her neighbor women, one of them out of pure good will and affection brought to her as a gift a coverlet, forty years old, woven in the Double Bowknot pattern, golden brown on a cream-colored background. Goodrich’s combination of social work, teaching, and family counseling was appreciated by the mountain people she served however, something was lacking that she described as “healthful excitement.” She was sure that an interest that connected mountain women to the wider world would be beneficial, and if this produced cash, so much the better. She had not planned to work in the crafts field, but rather, the idea was thrust upon her in the form of an antique bedspread. Goodrich came to the region in 1890 to do educational and organizational work as a volunteer for the Presbyterian Home Mission Board. Goodrich, a founding member of the Guild. Many pieces date from the 19th century and were collected in the Asheville area by Frances L. The Southern Highland Craft Guild Collection represents the historical crafts of southern Appalachia. CRAFT TRADITIONS THE SOUTHERN HIGHLAND CRAFT GUILD COLLECTION AN ONGOING EXHIBITION
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