John C. Campbell Folk School Historic District | |
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Location | Off U.S. Route 64, Brasstown, North Carolina |
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Coordinates | 35°02′14″N83°57′52″W / 35.0372°N 83.9645°W |
Area | 300 acres (120 ha) |
Built | 1925 |
Architect | Multiple |
NRHP reference No. | 83001839 [1] |
Added to NRHP | August 22, 1983 |
The John C. Campbell Folk School, also referred to as "The Folk School", is located in Brasstown, North Carolina. It is the oldest and largest folk school in the United States. [2] [3] It is a non-profit adult educational organization based on non-competitive learning. The Folk School offers classes year-round in over fifty subject areas including art, craft, music, dance, and nature studies. Established in 1925, the Folk School's motto is "I sing behind the plow". [4]
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a national historic district in 1983. [1] The district encompasses 19 contributing buildings. Notable buildings include the Farm House (pre-1925), Keith House (1926–1928), Log House Museum (19th century, 1926), Mill House (1928), (Former) Milking Barn (now Clay Spencer Blacksmith Shop, c. 1930), Hay Barn (1931), Tower House (1933), Rock House (c. 1932), and Hill House (c. 1932). [5]
The Folk School has more than 800 week-long and weekend classes year-round in traditional and contemporary arts, including blacksmithing, music, dance, cooking, gardening, nature studies, photography, storytelling, and writing. [6] The 300-acre campus includes a history museum, craft shop, nature trails, lodging, campground, and cafeteria. [7] The school also holds a regular concert series and community dances. The Folk School engages the community through a variety of dance teams including: Rapper Magic Sword, StiX in the Mud Border Morris, Dame's Rocket Northwest Clog, Rural Felicity Garland, and the JCCFS Cloggers.
The Folk School hosts more than 6,000 adult students and 100,000 visitors per year. [8]
The Fall Festival is the Folk School's largest annual event, attracting thousands of people to the campus for crafts, food, and folk demonstrations. The festival has been held every year since 1974, except for 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. [9]
Since at least 1954, the Folk School has also hosted an annual summer arts program for children called Little Middle. The Folk School launched its annual Friends & Family Day in 2022 for the community to tour studios and see demonstrations. [10]
After spending eighteen months traveling between Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, visiting local schools along the way, Olive Dame Campbell and her colleague Marguerite Butler, began forming the John C. Campbell Folk School in 1925 in Brasstown, North Carolina, along the Cherokee County and Clay line. [11] This folk high school, or folkehøjskole, was dedicated to her late husband John C. Campbell, and was based on the Danish Folk School style of non competitive education, where no grades were given. Instead, students and teachers formed a community that worked together to help each other advance in various crafts such as blacksmithing. It was originally founded with an emphasis on agriculture and "the doing of life's work."
John C. Campbell, (1867–1919) was an American educator and reformer noted for his survey of social conditions in the southern Appalachia. He was born in Indiana and raised in Wisconsin; he studied education and theology in New England.
At the turn of the century, the Southern Appalachian region of the United States was viewed as being in need of educational and social missions. Recently married to Olive Dame of Massachusetts, John undertook a fact-finding survey of social conditions in the mountains in 1908–1909. The Campbells outfitted a wagon as a traveling home and studied mountain life from Georgia to West Virginia.
While John interviewed farmers about their agricultural practices, Olive collected Appalachian ballads and studied the handicrafts of the mountain people. Both were hopeful that the quality of life could be improved by education, and in turn, wanted to preserve and share with the rest of the world the crafts, techniques and tools that the people of the area used in everyday life.
The Folkehøjskole had long been a force in the rural life of Denmark. These schools for life helped transform the Danish countryside into a vibrant, creative force. The Campbells talked of establishing such a school in the rural southern United States as an alternative to the higher-education facilities that drew young people away from the family farm.
Several locations were under consideration for the experimental school. On an exploratory trip, Miss Butler discussed the idea with Fred O. Scroggs, Brasstown's local storekeeper, saying that she would be back in a few weeks to determine if area residents had any interest in the idea. When she returned, it was to a meeting of over 200 people at the local church. The people of far west North Carolina enthusiastically pledged labor, building materials and other support. [12]
The Brasstown Carvers started meeting at the Folk School in 1929. [13] A wood-carved mule from the Folk School stood on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Oval Office desk in the 1930s. [14] [15] The Folk School also operated a creamery in the 1930s. It was equipped to churn 6,000 pounds of butter a week, one-third of which was sold to businesses in Atlanta. [14] The creamery produced ice cream and whole milk as well. [16]
As late as 1934 the Folk School and Brasstown operated in its own time zone. At that time Cherokee County operated on Central time and Clay County ran on Eastern time. Due to frequent gatherings at the Folk School, Brasstown clocks were set half-way in-between to avoid confusion. When it was 1 p.m. in Murphy and 2 p.m. in Hayesville, it was 1:30 p.m. in Brasstown. [14]
Craft classes include: Basketry; Carpentry; Glass beadmaking; Blacksmithing; Bookbinding; Broom Making; Dollmaking; Dyeing; Felt Making; Furniture Making; Lace; Leather; Metalwork; Needlework; Quilting; Rugs; Sewing; Soap Making; Spinning; Weaving; Woodturning; and Woodworking [ citation needed ]
Art classes include: Calligraphy; Clay; Drawing; Enameling; Glass; Jewelry; Kaleidoscopes; Knitting; Marbling; Mosaics; Painting; Paper Arts; Photography; Printmaking; Sculpture; and Woodcarving.[ citation needed ]
Other types of classes include: Baking; Cooking; Dance; Folklore; Gardening; Music; Nature Studies; Storytelling; and Writing. [17]
The Folk School was named one of “100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life” by National Geographic magazine in 2007 and named “Best of the Road” by Rand McNally Atlas in 2005. [8]
Note: Dates of construction given when known
Clay County is a county located in the far western part of U.S. state North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 11,089. The county seat is Hayesville.
Cherokee County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It borders Tennessee to its west and Georgia to its south. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,774. The county seat is Murphy.
Andrews is a town in Cherokee County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,667 at the 2020 census.
Murphy is a town in and the county seat of Cherokee County, North Carolina, United States. It is situated at the confluence of the Hiwassee and Valley rivers. It is the westernmost county seat in the state of North Carolina, approximately 360 miles (580 km) from the state capital in Raleigh. The population of Murphy was 1,608 at the 2020 census.
Hayesville is a town in Clay County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 311 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Clay County.
Doris Ulmann was an American photographer, best known for her portraits of the people of Appalachia, particularly craftsmen and musicians, made between 1928 and 1934.
Francis Whitaker was a blacksmith in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, where he established The Forge in the Forest. He had The Mountain Forge, in Aspen, Colorado, which he later relocated when he was named an artist-in-residence at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale, Colorado.
Songcatcher is a 2000 drama film directed by Maggie Greenwald. It is about a musicologist researching and collecting Appalachian folk music in the mountains of western North Carolina. Although Songcatcher is a fictional film, it is loosely based on the work of Olive Dame Campbell, founder of the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, and that of the English folk song collector Cecil Sharp, portrayed at the end of the film as professor Cyrus Whittle. The film grossed $3 million in limited theatrical release in the United States, which was generally considered as a respectable result for an arthouse film release in 2001.
John Charles Campbell was an American educator and reformer noted for his survey of social conditions in the southern Appalachian region of the United States during the early 1900s. He served a term as president of Piedmont College from 1904 to 1907.
Olive Dame Campbell (1882–1954) was an American folklorist.
Western North Carolina is the region of North Carolina which includes the Appalachian Mountains; it is often known geographically as the state's Mountain Region. It contains the highest mountains in the Eastern United States, with 125 peaks rising to over 5,000 feet in elevation. Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet, is the highest peak of the Appalachian Mountains and mainland eastern North America. The population of the 23 most commonly associated counties for the region, as measured by the 2020 U.S. Census, is 1,149,405. The region accounts for approximately 11% of North Carolina's total population.
Southern Highland Craft Guild is a guild craft organization that has partnered with the National Park Service for over seventy years. The Guild represents over 800 craftspeople in 293 counties of 9 southeastern states. It operates four retail craft shops and two annual craft expositions which represent the Guild members' work. These expositions occur in July and October and have taken place in the Appalachian mountain region since 1948.
Warne ( "worn") is an unincorporated community in Brasstown Township, Clay County, North Carolina, United States. In 2010, Clay County was the fourth least populated county in North Carolina, inhabited by approximately 10,587 people. The region has added considerably to its population, a 20.6% increase since 2000. Warne is closer to the capitals of five other states than to Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina.
The Cherokee Scout is a weekly newspaper in Murphy, North Carolina, and Cherokee County. It is one of the largest newspapers in far-west North Carolina.
Settlement schools are social reform institutions established in rural Appalachia in the early 20th century with the purpose of educating mountain children and improving their isolated rural communities.
Marble is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Cherokee County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 321.
Amanda Crowe was an Eastern Band Cherokee woodcarver and educator from Cherokee, North Carolina in the United States. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, her work has been widely exhibited and is held by a number of museums. Crowe dedicated much of her career to teaching and training the next generation of Eastern Cherokee artists.
Brasstown is an unincorporated community located mostly within Clay County, North Carolina, United States, though roughly one third of Brasstown is within the adjacent Cherokee County. Brasstown Creek travels through the community and separates the two counties.
Bellview is an unincorporated community in Cherokee County, in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is part of Notla Township, and is located immediately north of the Georgia border, about 10 miles south of Murphy, NC. Its average elevation is 1800 feet above sea level. U.S. Route 19 is the main highway through Bellview.
Peachtree is a community located in Cherokee County, North Carolina. It is named after the numerous peach trees found in the area. The local schools are Peachtree Elementary School, Murphy and Andrews Middle School, and Murphy and Andrews High School.
The John C. Campbell Folk School founded in 1925 in Brasstown, North Carolina is the largest folk school in the U.S. today.
Nation's oldest folk school founded in 1925.
The more than 860 weekend and weeklong class offerings cover 48 subject areas.
The school's 300-acre campus straddles Cherokee County and Clay County and includes a history center that includes visual art, fine and folk craft, music, historic film footage and photographs.
Media related to John C. Campbell Folk School at Wikimedia Commons