The Penland School of Crafts in Penland, NC celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2004. Established in the 1920s by Miss Lucy Morgan, the school was originally created as a weaving program in order to provide much needed income to the poor, rural Appalachian mountain community. By the end of the decade the school had expanded, offering such programs as clay, woodworking, and metals and it began to attract students of craft from all parts of the country. Today, the school’s curriculum has expanded and includes drawing, photography, glass, paper, printmaking, among other arts and crafts classes.
The Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection has several books devoted to the subject of the Penland School of Crafts. One book entitled, Vegetable Dyeing, written by Mrs. Emma Conley in 1954 and revised by Mrs. Meta Lewis in 1961, instructs the reader on the fine art of wool dyeing using such plants as tobacco, apple bark, pecan bark, along with many other herbs and flowers. This is an excellent and important primer on the almost lost art of fabric dyeing.
Another early publication entitled, “The Story of the Penland Weavers” by Bonnie Willis Ford (1941), tells of the Penland School’s beginnings and its founders Lucy Morgan and the Rev. Rufus Morgan, Lucy Morgan’s brother. Included in the book’s dedication is the author’s mother whom Ford fondly noted was one the school’s first weavers. This small narrative tells in wonderful descriptive detail the story of the people involved with the inception of the school, including Mr. Edward F. Worst, the noted expert hand weaver who gave Miss Morgan the benefit of his expertise and knowledge on the subject of weaving at no charge to the school, and Professor Frederick H. Koch and his theatrical students of the Carolina Playmakers from Chapel Hill, who staged a benefit performance of “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” in Penland in order to raise much needed money for the school. The school’s rise from a “fireside industry” to the newly named “The Penland Weavers and Potters”—who take their work all the way the 1932 Chicago World’s Fair—makes for inspirational reading.
The Penland School’s later works are illustrated in “The Penland School of Crafts and Pottery” edited by John Coyne (1975) and “The Penland Book of Ceramics” edited by Deborah Morgenthal and Suzanne J. E. Tourtillott (2003). These books highlight the artistic efforts of the students and demonstrate their techniques in glasswork, sculpture, and ceramics.
LeGette Bythe’s book, Gift from the Hills, is a biographical story of the life of Miss Lucy Morgan and contains a some fine black and white photographs of the school’s early weavers along with some the later students of metalworking, photography, and lapidary arts.
Area residents, as well as members of the ECU community, are welcome to use the North Carolina Collection, located on the third floor of Joyner Library. For more information, call 252-328-6601 or visit our Web site at www.lib.edu.edu.NCCollPCC/ncchome.htm <http://www.lib.edu.edu.NCCollPCC/ncchome.htm>.
Susan Butler is a staff member with the Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection.
