The widespread poverty that the Great Depression brought to Appalachia led to the founding of one of the area’s most valuable treasures: the Penland School of Crafts. Nestled deep in the hills of western North Carolina’s Mitchell County is the small community of Penland. . .
In a time of turbulent change in Appalachia, John C. Campbell helped define America’s understanding of this great mountain region. Campbell was born in Indiana in 1867 and studied theology at Union Theological Seminary.
The Mountain Heritage Center was created by Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, in 1975. Combining a museum with a research center, it preserves the history and culture of western North Carolina in a time of rapid change.
One voice seized me more than the rest. Over a simply picked banjo, the voice sang mournfully about a mole in the ground. Elsewhere, the same voice preached, over that same simple banjo, about dry bones. Like so many folk tunes, these told strange, elliptical stories, dense with images, exploding with emotion.
For over forty years Allen Eaton was an important figure in the arts and crafts movement in Appalachia. In 1919 the Oregon native met Olive Campbell who was beginning her work as founder of the John C. Campbell Folk School.
Tonya Carroll (B.A., 2007 M.A., 2009) with Bruce Frazier (Carol Grotnes Belk Endowed Professor in Commercial & Electronic Music) in the recording studio.