WEAVING Samples at Pine Mountain Settlement School I

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 32: Object Collections
Weaving

WEAVING Samples at Pine Mountain Settlement School I

TAGS: weaving; Pine Mountain Settlement School; Harlan County, KY; weaving patterns; looms; Appalachian coverlets; wool; warp; weft; Fireside Industries; Berea College, KY;

It is a pity that when we speak of art, the
thought should be of something quite remote
from the life of the people ….. The word
art ought to carry as common and universal a
meaning as the words life and love.

J.H. Dillard
In: A Book of Hand-Woven Coverlets by Eliza Calvert Hall 1912

Evelyn K. Wells wrote about the weaving program at Pine Mountain Settlement School in her extensive Report about the School, that

The ideal behind the development of this department has been to preserve all that was beautiful in the old mountain dyeing and weaving, letting only those things develop out of them that grew naturally, rather than to bring in outside ideas which did not belong to the mountains. Thus, we have used homespun wool, instead of that sent to the factory to be spun, and have avoided mercerized cotton and have religiously followed the old recipes for our dyes, never permitting the use of aniline dyes. that we are one of the few places in the mountains to appreciate to the full the artistic value of the old dyes, made of barks, roots and herbs, is evident from the fact that every weaving teacher who has come to us, has had to learn about the dying here.

Before there was any organized department, Miss Helen Wilmer Stone, housemother at Farm House for eight years, worked away at the dyeing and spinning as a sideline, losing no chance to get a recipe from a neighbor, or collect some beautiful piece of weaving, bartering old clothes for wool and the labor of preparing it, and one summer setting up a loom at Far House….

See the full Evelyn K. Wells RECORD – WELLS RECORD 13 Fireside Industries 1913-1928

GALLERY – MIsc.