Crafting Appalachia: Examining Berea College’s History and Traditions

by Matthew E. Monk

This summer, I had the privilege of immersing myself in the rich cultural history of Berea College in central Kentucky, where I worked alongside staff and students and explored material and archival collections. My research, centered on the evolution of craft education at Berea, offered a fascinating window into the ways the institution has both shaped and been shaped by broader societal currents, particularly those affecting the Appalachian region.

In 1855, Cassius Clay, enslaver turned abolitionist, bought land in the foothills of the Kentucky mountains and donated it to Rev. John G. Fee, an abolitionist minister sponsored by the American Missionary Association. Fee and fellow abolitionists then established the racially integrated community of Berea, KY. In 1859, Fee and his supporters were driven from the state only to return in 1866 when the educational work of Berea College began. Berea College is the oldest integrated and coeducational institution of higher learning in the South.

William Goodell Frost arrived in 1890 as Berea’s third president. Frost was a Classics professor and Congregationalist minister from Wisconsin educated at Oberlin College and Andover Theological Seminary. He was also a Progressive Era educational reformer with big ideas about the possibilities of Berea College as a laboratory for improving the lives of people in their own communities to avoid what today we refer to as brain-drain. Soon after his arrival, Frost focused his attention on what he called Appalachian Americans. Using cultural evidence, like linguistics, music, and craft, Frost argued that mountain whites were both a forgotten and untapped American resource.

Frost introduced industrial arts departments, the first of which was the printing house used to produce fundraising pamphlets and early mail-order catalogs for Berea products. This effort was soon followed by carpentry classes for boys and domestic science and nursing courses for girls. Those programs evolved into the woodworking, handweaving, and broom-making departments. Collectively, these separate departments marketed their wares as Fireside Industries and Wood Craft until 1936, when they were unified under the title Berea Student Craft Industries (figure 1). Berea College won three bronze medals at three World’s Fairs between 1893 and 1907, beginning with the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The earliest Berea furniture, called Ancient Oak, was in the Arts and Crafts style. Starting in the 1920s, however, Connecticut-based photographer and antiquarian Wallace Nutting began sending samples for student workers to use as models, shifting the production to the Colonial Revival style. Certain aspects of this early period at Berea were integrated, and I am working to clarify that facet of the college’s history. Photographs depict students of different races working together (figure 2), making the same kinds of furniture and learning the principles of carpentry early in the history of the woodshop.

Berea College and its Black alumni raised funds from Black communities and wealthy industrialists across the country to build and endow the Lincoln Institute, which operated from 1912–66 as a segregated complement to Berea College and was modeled after the Tuskegee Institute. Berea remained segregated until 1950, but all of the Berea Student Craft Industries departments have been fully integrated and coeducational ever since (figure 3).

At the heart of my work was the task of uncovering documentary and material evidence related to Berea College’s earliest craft education endeavors. This research was pivotal for understanding how Berea transitioned from a racially integrated and coeducational institution in the 19th century to a college that, by the 20th century, increasingly focused on the education and uplift of white Appalachian Americans. This shift in focus is vividly reflected in the types of crafts that Berea students produced over the years, particularly in the Swedish-style weaving¹ taught on Ernberg looms (figure 4) and the Wallace Nutting-inspired Colonial Revival furniture designs (figure 5). These crafts are more than just objects. They are embodiments of the college’s evolving mission and the complex relationships between race, class, and the creation of an American identity during that era.

The current directors of Berea Student Craft provided access to a treasure trove of historic collections, including original plans and objects that illuminated the craftsmanship and educational and marketing strategies employed at Berea. These interactions not only deepened my understanding of the craft traditions but also inspired me to propose a plan for creating new craft objects that would both honor and critique the college’s history. This proposed project seeks to bridge the past and present, encouraging today’s students to engage with Berea’s craft heritage in a way that is both informed and innovative.

My research also extended beyond Berea to include archival and artifact exploration in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and the Shenandoah Valley. From the 1880s through the 1940s, Central Appalachia was a hotbed for craft revival and preservation. While there were some pockets of preindustrial subsistence lifestyles in Appalachia that did include handicraft traditions, by the 1890s, these were already rare. In the 1920s, Appalachia was experiencing the first waves of industrial booms from coal, lumber, and tourism, and craft revival organizations repositioned themselves from sustaining ways of life to commercial retail. Regrettably, these same efforts supported and reinforced stereotypes of Appalachia as culturally frozen, geographically isolated, vernacular, and poor.

Over the summer, I visited local archives, historical societies, and sites associated with lesser-known but critically important craft revival entrepreneurs and philanthropists. This portion of my trip was equally enlightening, as it allowed me to place Berea’s craft influences within a broader regional context. I was able to meet with local collectors and descendants of craft workers, which enriched my understanding of how these communities contributed to the broader movement.

This experience was transformative for my dissertation through a deepened awareness of the early history of the Appalachian Craft Revival. I also gained a nuanced perspective on the Progressive Era version of nativism and white supremacy that masked social engineering as philanthropy and promoted a curated version of the Appalachian region in the early 20th century. These insights are crucial, not only for my academic work but also for anyone interested in the intricate interplay between craft, culture, and identity in American history.

I owe a profound debt of gratitude to the Decorative Arts Trust for making this research trip possible. This support not only enriched my dissertation but also opened new avenues for exploring the intersection of craft and cultural identity in Appalachia. This experience was a cornerstone in my academic journey, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the understanding of this vital aspect of American history.

1. Modern Swedish weaving treadling and tie-ups use a streamlined, often direct tie-up system that allows weavers to achieve complex and balanced patterns more efficiently, unlike 18th- and 19th-century American handweaving on large frame looms, which required labor-intensive adjustments and less efficient tie-up methods for pattern variation. Looms at Berea were patterned to create historically-inspired American textiles but were set up in a modern Swedish method, which created a kind of hybrid approach that had a tremendous influence on the handweaving revival in the region and nationally. What is happening is less of a revival and more of an adaptation. The same can be said for Berea’s Woodcraft program which made Colonial Revival furniture with machine tools.

Matthew E. Monk is a PhD candidate in the History of American Civilization at the University of Delaware.

A print version of this article was published in The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust, one of our most popular member benefits. Join today!