Emma Taylor

Emma Taylor

Artisans

Basket makers

Basket making

Cherokee women

Handicraft

Manners and customs

This 1982 photograph shows Emma Taylor shaving down white oak splits to make weavers for a basket. Emma Squirrel Taylor (1920-2002) was a master basket weaver whose specialty was white oak baskets. She was raised in the Birdtown community on the Qualla Boundary, lands owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. She learned how to make baskets in 1927 and produced them for more than half a century. In 1952, Taylor joined Qualla Arts and Craft Mutual, a Cherokee artisan cooperative. Her work earned her recognition well beyond the Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina. An article about her appeared in the New York Times and she traveled to Japan to demonstrate Cherokee basket weaving to the World Craft Council. The name of the photographer who captured this shot is unknown.

Unknown

Photograph Collection

Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC 28723

1982

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

jpg

photographs

StillImage

10992

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/10992

2009-02-10

All rights reserved. For permissions and use, contact Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Cherokee, NC 28719;

Qualla Boundary

Appalachian Region, Southern

7" x 5"(dimension)

Cherokee Traditions