Museum shares stories from Black Mountain College

A myth that has long persisted in the lore of Black Mountain College, an experimental school located in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, is that the school was isolated and had little to no interaction with the surrounding communities of Asheville, Swannanoa, and Black Mountain, North Carolina.

In fact, students and faculty did interact with locals both on and off campus throughout the college’s tenure. A new exhibition opening on Saturday, April 14, at the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center in Black Mountain seeks to tell the story of what happened when “town” met “gown.”

Founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, a scholar who left Rollins College in Florida amid a storm of controversy, Black Mountain College was experimental by nature and committed to the arts and an interdisciplinary approach to learning. 

The college was owned and operated by the faculty, and all members of the college community participated in its operation - including farm work, construction, and kitchen duty. From 1933 to 1941, Black Mountain College was located on the property where the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly now exists. Its Lake Eden campus, used by the college from 1941 to 1957, is now Camp Rockmont for Boys. 

The college is most often remembered for attracting many of America’s leading visual artists, composers, poets, and designers like Buckminster Fuller, Josef and Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, Merce Cunningham, and John Cage. But the artists the college nurtured are only part of the story. 

The Swannanoa Valley Museum’s exhibition is centered around a large geodesic dome like the first that was erected by architect Buckminster Fuller while on staff at Black Mountain College. The dome features triangular panels showcasing photographs, stories, and memorabilia recounting some of the lesser known history of the college – a history that reached far beyond the arts for which the college is best known.

Interviews with former students and faculty and local residents reveal that there was far more interaction between the two groups than previously thought. Students and faculty shopped in town, taught in local schools, and hiked and camped with residents, while locals attended concerts and other performances at the school, swam in the lake, and were employed by the college. 

Having an experimental school in the South sometimes helped to combat misconceptions that each group held about the other – while at other times reinforcing these same stereotypes.

One student, Ruth Lyford Sussler, wrote: “One day I walked confidently into the little town of Black Mountain, sure that I would find the library. Feeling dismayed in not readily spotting it, and inquiring of a person I met on the dusty road that was the main drag, I learned that the library was upstairs above the jail and ‘t-weren’t open ‘cept now and then.’ I couldn’t imagine any town without a library, nor could I picture a library that was not open most of the time and that was located above the jail!”

On display is the original 1944 Black Mountain Library sign, suggesting that the library did operate on a somewhat limited schedule. The hours listed are: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings from 10 a.m. until noon, Tuesday evenings from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m., and Saturday afternoons from 3 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. Interestingly, in 1961, a former Black Mountain College student, Dorothy Rugg McGraw, became the librarian after she married a local boy.

Stories like this abound. After the college’s cafeteria closed, students would steal food from the A&P grocery in Black Mountain with the help of a local check-out girl. A local man, out fishing for his dinner, ran into what he described as a “dirty old man” panning for gold in the creek. That gold-seeker turned out to be Albert Einstein, a guest lecturer at the school. One local woman who attended a performance in the college’s dining hall remarked to a student, “I don’t know what you were doing up there, but I was with you all the way.”

Put together in partnership with Appalachian State University, this exhibition will also feature elements from the university’s Black Mountain College semester as well as from Boone, North Carolina’s Turchin Center for Visual Arts.

For more information about the exhibit, visit www.swannanoavalleymuseum.org, email info@swannanoavalleymuseum.org, or call 828-669-9566.