history – The Penland Sketchbook

Penland School of Craft was started by a remarkable woman named Lucy Morgan. One of the mothers of American craft, she is among those responsible for founding and growing the organizations that to this day foster craft artists and their work. Living during the Great Depression, Lucy Morgan believed that craft could offer self-sufficiency to Appalachian people. She also understood that the benefits of craft education extend far beyond beautiful, tangible objects to include the joy of making, community, and building a better world together.

On Lucy Morgan’s birthday, we’re celebrating what hasn’t changed at Penland in 95 years…

September 20th is Lucy Morgan’s birthday, and today we are taking a few moments to acknowledge her legacy. In 1958, reflecting upon her life, she published her memoir, Gift from the Hills. Below you will find some quotes from Lucy Morgan, taken from her book, that show that while many things have changed in 95 years since the founding our our school, much has remained constant.

Preserving and Advancing Craft

“We have sought diligently and with much zeal to revive and cherish these most-lost arts of our forebears.”

Immersive Learning

“Folk having the time of their lives making things, beautiful things that a few months before they came to Penland few would have thought they could ever make, or would ever dare attempt to make…”

Collective Energy

“Life at Penland is never humdrum, never prosaic. We live on change–on excitement, development, and growth.”

Finding our People

“Almost without exception, those interested in handicrafts are wonderful personalities.”

Community in Craft

“The joy of creative occupation; and a certain togetherness–working with one another in creating the good and the beautiful, working together in love.”

Better Together

“We have been made happy in seeing our hopes materialize as others have gained and shared our interest and have added their enthusiastic support to our efforts. We have watched dreams become realities.”

Thank you for being a part of the world that Lucy Morgan imagined. For 95 years, our community has come together to build and sustain a place that is greater than the sum of its parts. If you are able, we encourage you to make a gift today in Miss Lucy’s honor.

It’s September 20th once again, and time to celebrate the birth of Lucy Morgan!

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Lucy Calista Morgan (1889-1981)

Lucy Morgan came to Penland in 1920 to work at the Appalachian Industrial School, an Episcopal school for children. In 1923 “Miss Lucy” traveled from Penland to Berea College in Kentucky to learn to weave. She returned with three looms and the intention of helping local Penland women supplement their family incomes through the cottage industry of weaving. In 1929 Morgan founded the Penland School of Handicrafts, which became today’s Penland School of Crafts.

When Morgan first came to Penland there were very few roads and most of the traffic was on foot. In Gift From the Hills, her memoir, she describes searching out one of the remaining old-time weavers in the area, a trip she expected to be two and a half miles long:

“We walked down hill and up, and down again, over rocky, furrowed roads, through short cuts, along bypaths, around big rocks, over fallen tree trunks. After miles of walking we met a man and asked him how far it was to Aunt Susan Phillips’ house… ‘Nigh on to two miles and a half.’ [he said].

…We trudged on, relieved when we came to a downhill stretch but discouraged when we began another uphill climb. We crossed small streams, pushed brambles and vines out of our way to keep to the twisting path, and plodded across hollows. Then we met another man. We told him we were on our way to the home of Aunt Susan Phillips…

‘Right from here, best I can figure it, ‘twould be about two miles and a half.’ [he said].

…When we were certain we had walked the third two miles and a half, we came to an open place and saw in the field down below us two sunbonneted women planting corn. We called down to them: ‘Could you ladies please give us directions how to get to Aunt Susan Phillips’ house?’ One of them pointed to the other. ‘Here she is.’”

We invite you to join us in celebration of this woman of indomitable spirit, honoring her birth and her vision for a crafts school in these mountains.

—Carey Hedlund, Penland archivist

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Lucy Morgan’s Legacy Lives On