John C. Campbell Folk School Records, 1923-1985

The John C. Campbell Folk School was founded at Brasstown, North Carolina in 1925 by Olive Dame Campbell to further the educational and social vision of her late husband, John C. Campbell. Starting with an old farmhouse and a log barn, it rapidly expanded to include a farm, dairy, forestry program, forge, and a crafts and recreation program. Based on the Danish approach of linking the culture of work with that of books, its purpose was to build and enrich rural life through adult education. John C. Campbell was born in Laporte, Indiana, in 1867.  He was raised in Wisconsin and graduated from Andover Academy in 1888, Williams College 1892, and Andover Seminary 1895.  While in Seminary he became in­terested in the southern mountains and following graduation, chose a teaching posi­tion at Cullman Academy, Joppa, Alabama.  He later taught a year at Pleasant Hill Academy (Tennessee) and then served a seven-year stint as president of Piedmont College, Demarest, Georgia.  In 1907 Mr. Campbell married Olive Dame and spent 1907-1908 in Scotland and Sicily.  During his stay in Europe he learned of the Russell Sage Foundation and after his return approached the organization with a proposal to study the function of church and privately supported schools in the mountains. Campbell spent 1908-1912 traveling extensively throughout the mountain south as an in­vestigator for the Sage Foundation, visiting schools and contacting the organiza­tions that supported them.  In 1913 the Southern Highland Division of the Russell Sage Foundation was opened in Asheville, N.C., with Mr. Campbell as Secretary. Campbell’s efforts also led to the beginning that year of the Southern Mountains Worker's Conference (later to become the Council of the Southern Mountains).  This conference brought together educational and religious workers to share concerns and develop co-operative program efforts. Campbell continued as the Conference’s executive secretary until his death in 1919. Mrs. Campbell replaced her husband and continued as executive secretary until 1928. She also completed his unfinished book on Appalachian life and published it posthumously in 1921 as The Southern High­lander and His Homeland. Olive Campbell shared her husband’s view that traditional education sent its best graduates out of the mountains and was therefore but another element of colonization.  She was also committed to the idea that “There is a native culture in the mountains that has been too much ignored.” With the assistance of Marguerite Butler, a Vassar graduate from Cincinnati who had taught at Kentucky’s Pine Mountain Settlement School, Mrs. Campbell set out in 1922 on a fifteen-month study of Denmark’s adult education programs that utilized folk schools and cooperatives. Upon their return, Miss Butler and Mrs. Campbell commenced a five-state search for a community that would accept and nurture an innovative school. A Pine Mountain colleague of Marguerite Butler’s, Ruth Metcalf, suggested North Carolina’s Cherokee County as a possible site. Miss Butler traveled to Murphy, the county, seat, and was soon visited by Fred and Luce Scroggs of Brasstown. They told Butler that they “wanted a school that would not just make teachers and preachers, but one that would help the country.” The Scroggs gave thirty acres and soon an adjoining sixty-acre farm with a house was purchased. The townspeople, all 100 of them, drew up a legal pledge and donated firewood, building stone, shrubs, trees, telephone poles, over $800 in cash, and thousands of days of free labor. Rather than giving grades and degrees, the school emphasized practical skills of home and farm management blended with reinforcing pride in local culture, especially its music and craft heritage.  The school was also active in promoting cooperative community efforts such as Mountain Valley Creamery, Craft Guild, Men and Women's clubs, and a Credit Union for farm improvement. In the 1950s and 1960s numerous new projects were undertaken, including a literacy program and the growing of experimental trellis tomatoes. More recent projects include a model campground, memorial gardens, stone houses of Danish influence, and student internship programs. Today the Folk School continues as a center for education and cultural enrichment. It is the site of weekly community dances and lectures on subjects as varied as bee keeping and alternative energy sources. Major year-round learning opportunities include intensive two-week courses in weaving, woodworking, blacksmithing, enameling, leatherworking, and pottery.  Annual events include Folk-Dance Week, Little Folk School for children, and the Fall Arts, Crafts, and Music Festival.