About this episode

The episode discusses the significance of Black Mountain College as an experimental education community during the Great Depression.

One of the nation’s most significant experiments in education and community took shape right outside of Asheville, North Carolina, and it started during the Great Depression. When a small group of students and teachers renounced their old university to begin building an educational community in Black Mountain, NC, they couldn’t have realized that it would attract and produce some of the world's best minds in avant-garde visual art, poetry, architecture, and music (including people like Buckminster Fuller, Charles Olson, William and Elaine de Kooning, Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Jacob Lawrence and Gwendelyn Knight Larence, Arthur Miller, Josef and Anni Albers). What they did know is that the traditional American education system was failing, and that they could counter the nation’s problems with a new type of learning. Today, podcast intern Amelia Gantt explains to host John Horan, Correspondence Assistant Annabeth Poe, and Microfilm and Imaging Specialist Erin Templeton that this experiment developed from the Great Depression to post-war anti-communism. Listen along to understand why many, including Eleanor Roosevelt, suggested ‘progressive education’ as the only path towards a…

People in this episode

Hosts: John Horan, Annabeth Poe, Erin Templeton

Guest: Amelia Gantt

Topics covered

• experimental education
• Black Mountain College
• Great Depression
• progressive education
• community building
• avant-garde art

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: North Carolina Museum of Art, Black Mountain College

Places: Asheville, North Carolina

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