Founded in 1925 in the mountains of western North Carolina, the John C. Campbell folk School was the result of a collaboration between Olive Dame Campbell, Marguerite Butler, and the people of Brasstown. The Campbell Folk School has long played an active role in the continued vitality of traditional and contemporary crafts, music, dance and folklore through education, marketing, research, archiving, community service, and public programming.
The JCCFS operates a 372-acre campus that contains forty-two buildings incuding many used as classroom space, artist studios, and student housing. The Folk School offers more than 750 classes each year in traditional and contemporary arts, craft, folk music, folk dance, gardening, nature studies, literature,and folklore. Classes are offered throughout the year and levels range from beginning through advanced. In 1988, the JCCFS instituted an ongoing Folklore Program that offers continual research, documentation and presentations about the Southern Appalachian region through audio recording and still photography. Results of this work appear in forms such as compact disks, radio programs, printed publications, and public programs.
Year-round events share the Folk School’s services with the region, the local community, and with Folk School participants who come from across the United States and beyond. Such events include the Fall Festival, a weekly concert series, CD releases, radio programs, weekly contra and square dances, traveling exhibits of archival materials, permanent exhibits, and featured articles in various publications.
