At Left: wide view of left side of loom. At Right: detail view of the right rocker. The rockers are kept in place on the base of the loom by a peg on the underside of each rocker and a corresponding hole in the loom base. The Foxfire Museum & Heritage Center is an outgrowth of the highly successful Foxfire publications project, which had its roots in a 1966 high school English class, with students interviewing their elders and publishing The Foxfire Magazine. The focus was on mountain culture and life in early Southern Appalachia, and the students collected many irreplaceable stories and artifacts.  The whole community got involved, and the public demand for back copies of the magazine led to the 1972 publication of the first Foxfire Book, which ended up on the New York Times best seller list. By 1974 so many artifacts had been donated to the project, that a place was needed to preserve and share them. The students took part of the money from the book royalties, which had begun pouring in, and purchased the 150-acre tract of land on Black Rock Mountain that is now home to the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center. Among the explosion of incoming artifacts were numerous log cabins, which were then reassembled and used to store the collections. Today most of the cabins have been cleared, and are now part of the museum’s self-guided tour, with the artifacts inside arranged in retrospective tableaus. R-B Loom #64 was recently discovered in the loft of one of the remaining storage cabins. Undoubtedly, the loom owner was interviewed at the time of donation but the record cannot be located, so the details are unknown. However, a documentary film was made of the loom’s restoration, and can be seen online at  Foxfire Films Present: The Rocker Beater Loom.

Link to: Foxfire Museum & Heritage Center Return to Loom Photograph Index