Making History:
Southern Highland Craft Guild
Broom Making
Formalized in the spring of 1930, the Southern Mountain Handicraft Guild—later the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild and, later still, the
Southern Highland Craft Guild—worked on behalf of production centers and independent schools. As a cooperative marketing organization, the Guild negotiated an arrangement with the Department of Agriculture to sell regional crafts in national parks. In the 1950s it began its sponsorship of an annual craft fair that drew thousands to the region. The Guild sold work made by Western North Carolina craftsmen and those made by others in a region defined as the “Southern Highlands” by John Campbell. These included Kentucky basket maker Cordelia Ritchie whose basket was adopted as the Guild’s logo. Dozens of other regional craftspeople are represented in the permanent collection. After establishing a series of sales shops, the Guild continues today as an educational and marketing cooperative operating out the of the
Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
