The best travel finds are often the unplanned discoveries that you just stumble on. A perfect example was our discovery of the Foxfire Museum in the Appalachian foothills of northeast Georgia. On our drive back home from Asheville, we were stopping in Atlanta for a night. Shortly after entering Georgia, we saw a sign for the Foxfire Museum, which was not at all on our radar. ( Museum Website )
Not familiar with Foxfire? Many who don't have interests in education or southern history probably aren't. Foxfire was founded in 1966 at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, a private school that was also the public secondary school of Rabun County at the time. A young English teacher named Eliot Wigginton had an innovative idea to engage his students in writing. The idea was to publish a magazine consisting of interviews with their relatives and neighbors about Appalachian life and culture, specifically documenting traditions and stories that might otherwise have been lost as the world advanced into the region. The students took photos and videos during interviews and demonstrations, and then they transcribed the interviews, documenting the language of the subjects, and wrote stories. The resulting content is a mixture of how-to information, first-person narratives, oral history, and folklore. A rapidly disappearing culture was documented and preserved, older people felt heard and appreciated, and healthy young people showed their appreciation by helping out with a little labor every now and then.
A couple of hundred issues were published annually. Around 1970, an issue somehow found its way into the hands of a publisher who proposed collecting articles into a single volume. The original volume was published in 1972, and it became a bit of a surprise sensation. Eleven more volumes of collected material and other books have followed. In 1977, the project moved to the new public Rabun County High School, and it continues to operate to this day. A new class of students goes to work each year, collecting and publishing histories.
Foxfire became well known as an example of "experiential education," decades before buzzwords like "project-based learning," "product-based," "applied learning," and "inquiry-based." I worked as a teaching assistant in the Georgia Southern University School of Education while completing my Masters degree, and one of the professors introduced me to the books, and I found copies in a local used book store. The stories really resonated with me because could have been told by my ancestors. Although my ancestors were farmers and sharecroppers in south Georgia and not Appalachian, the skills and traditions were the same. When we saw the sign for the museum, we knew we had to visit.
The museum is an open air museum displaying dozens of authentic cabins, houses, and farm structures moved to one location from various locations in the area. The structures are either furnished or filled with objects and displays. There are often artisans at work demonstrating various crafts. They also sell their works and conduct regular classes. It was a wonderful way to spend half a day, and we were fortunate to have stumbled across it.
One of the most affecting sites on the tour is a wagon shed housing this wagon, donated to the museum. This wagon has a uniquely well-documented provenance. Evidence shows that it was built in 1770 and used to move settlers to the area. It was kept and maintained by the original family until the 1830s when it was requisitioned by the United States Army and used as a supply wagon on the Trail of Tears, accompanying the Cherokees on their forced march west. It made its way back to the original family who maintained it for 150 years before donating it to Foxfire.
Les Barnett and Kelly Coldren are two of the artisans who demonstrate regularly and conduct classes at Foxfire. Barnett makes banjos, guitars, and dulcimers out of found and discarded items. (Facebook page ) Coldren is a fiber artist, spinning, dying, weaving and felt-crafting.
