The Humble, Homely
Basket
from Baskets and Basket Makers in
Southern Appalachia by John Rice Irwin, founder of
the Museum of Appalachia
If the modern household was suddenly
deprived of the use of paper sacks, metal pails,
cardboard boxes, shopping bags, plastic buckets,
tubs, and other modern containers, one would have
some idea of what our ancestors' predicament would
have been without the common basket. And
when one considers that the need for containers in
a farm setting was many times greater than that of
most modern homes, he may appreciate the
importance of the basket in the lives of our
ancestors.
There is likely no way to
statistically document the extent to which the
basket was used by our Appalachian forebears. But I recall working with his
parents, grandparents, and neighbors in the 1930's
in rural Appalachia, and my observations indicate
that its use was widespread, continuous, and
almost indispensable to the performance of daily
chores.
I remember that every
morning and every evening, my brother
David and I would get our large baskets and go from
stable to stable feeding the horses and mules the
long ears of corn through the log cracks--six ears
to the mule Kate, eight ears to the Spike the
horse, and so on. We also used baskets to
carry corn to the old sows and for the many
fattening hogs.
Women in earlier times used baskets
in connect with spinning and weaving, for such
purposes as picking cotton, storing wool,
feathers, etc. There were lunch baskets,
picnic baskets, sewing baskets of various types,
and dainty little baskets used for trinkets.
Many country stores accepted baskets
in exchange for items purchased. Mildred
Youngblood remembers that practically everything
her mother ever got from the local store she did
so in exchange for her baskets. In 1980, I found a small rural store near
Mildred's home in Cannon County, Tennessee, which
still carried on this practice. They had on
hand a hundred or more recently made baskets
hanging in back of the store building.
The baskets in the Museum of
Appalachia's collection tells stories like these
about their owners. We've posted photographs
of a few of them here, but only a trip out here to
see us will let you see the diversity of function
and fabrication represented in our collection.
