Rebecca Ashe to Clementine Douglas, 1937

Rebecca Ashe to Clementine Douglas, 1937

Arts and crafts movement

Handicraft

Weaving -- Appalachian Region, Southern

Rebecca Gibbs Ashe (Mrs. Napoleon Bonaparte Ashe) was a self taught weaver living near Sylva, North Carolina. She made her first loom from wood donated by a neighbor on which she began weaving rugs. She did her own dyeing and created unique homespun which was popular with visitors, including Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. By 1937 she had met Clementine Douglas and Allen Eaton who placed orders for fabric. In this letter dated September 9, 1937, Ashe begins by assuring Douglas that she knows the Southern Highlanders is a reputable organization. She writes about the talents in her family and her brother's problems making a living with craft work and competition with manufactured goods. She describes her own frustration dealing with consignment and the business side of craft work. [Page 7 is missing.] She concludes by mentioning her visit to Asheville and going to the Spinning Wheel and Allanstand shops.

Ashe, Rebecca Gibbs

Photographic Media

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

1937-09-09

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

jpg;

letters (correspondence)

eng

Text

15512

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/15512

2008-12-1

All rights reserved. For permissions and use, contact Southern Highland Craft Guild Archives, Asheville, NC 28815;

Jackson County (N.C.)

Appalachian Region, Southern

11" x 8.5"(dimension)

Craft Revival