This article appeared in the Volume 5, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2025 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. Michael Aday, Librarian-Archivist at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Collections Preservation Center, recently published Letters from the Smokies, a carefully culled selection of 19 documents from the Collection Preservation Center’s extensive holdings. Written with Denise Aday, the 160-page book was published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association. The book recently received a Project Excellence Award from the East Tennessee Historical Society. Aday selected documents in the hope that “these letters and their stories will give readers a deeper appreciation of the Smokies.” There’s…
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Celebrating the Legacy of Art and Craft Collecting & Patronage at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts:An Emerging Curator’s Integrative Approach to Researching, Curating, and Exhibiting Craft Collections Compiled by Artist-Collectors
This article appeared in the Volume 5, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2024 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. By Megan Adams, 2023-2024 Kenneth R. Trapp Craft Assistant/Curatorial Fellow, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts For those who may not be familiar with Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Arrowmont is an arts and crafts school in Gatlinburg, TN. The campus is situated on a 13-acre wooded hillside in downtown Gatlinburg at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Arrowmont has a rich history that pre-dates the incorporation of the town of Gatlinburg. Before Arrowmont became the craft school it is…
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The George Masa Photograph Database
This article appeared in the Volume 5, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2024 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. George Masa’s photographic eye captured some of the earliest images of the Smoky Mountains, and his photos played a significant role in the creation of what became the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Masa immigrated from Japan sometime in the early 20th century, made his way to Asheville around 1915, and by the 1920s he had started a photography studio was taking photographs and hiking in the mountains, befriending Horace Kephart and becoming an active member of the Carolina Mountain Club. Scholarly interest in…
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What’s new in Appalachian Special Collections?
This article appeared in the Volume 5, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2024 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. New collections in regional repositories: Appalachian State University University of North Carolina Asheville Western Regional Archives, Asheville Appalachian State University The Mary Emma Harris and Black Mountain College Project, Inc. Oral History Collection: This collection contains the administrative and general documents of Black Mountain College Project, Inc., faculty and student files, and files and materials of oral history interviews conducted by Mary Emma Harris from 1974 to 2016. The administrative files of BMC Project cover the corporation’s organization and history, meeting minutes, annual…
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Floyd, Virginia’s Cultural Arts Museum Opens the Digital Door
This article appeared in the Volume 5, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2024 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. By Kathleen Ingoldsby Old Church Gallery, Ltd., a cultural arts museum organized in 1978, and its Floyd Story Center oral history program, dating to 1998, is rooted in community and creative arts traditions. Between the two disciplines, our non-profit has amassed a permanent collection of about 500 cultural objects and 100 oral history interviews. With the help of Radford University Sociology students, we organized, formatted, and renamed digital files until reaching a uniform model, one that works for our small, all-volunteer, non-profit organization. Our…
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“You Have to Pick Your Place:” An Interview with Gene Hyde
This article appeared in the Volume 5, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2024 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. By Trevor McKenzie Gene Hyde is an Appalachian archivist, writer, poet, and advocate for the importance of collecting and preserving materials that document people and places in our mountain region. He began his regional studies career with an MA in Appalachian Studies from Appalachian State University and dove into archives with an MS in Information Science from University of Tennessee. Hyde has been an integral part of building regional special collections at Lyon College (Ozarks Collection), Radford University, and at University of North Carolina…
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Editor’s Column
This article appeared in the Volume 5, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2024 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. By Gene Hyde Welcome to Volume 5 of the Appalachian Curator! Thanks to all of you who read and contribute to this lil’ newsletter about Appalachian archives and special collections. This issue features three articles about collections in Eastern Tennessee. Our featured collection article is from Molly Copeland and Carolyn Runyun of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, who discuss their use of High-Impact Practices to work with students and enhance content from the Emma Bell Miles papers at UTC. Moving a bit north…
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Leveraging High-Impact Practices to Create and Enhance Access to the Appalachia of Emma Bell Miles
This article appeared in the Volume 5, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2024 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. By Molly Copeland and Carolyn Runyon Introduction Archivists in the Special Collections unit of the Library at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) document the history of the university, Chattanooga, and the Tennessee Valley, including source materials and analyses that examine the cultural heritage of Southern Appalachia as seen through the lens of Emma Bell Miles. Miles was an artist, writer, and naturalist whose fiction, poems, and paintings reflect deep knowledge and appreciation for the distinct culture and ecology of Southern Appalachia. As…
