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Biltmore estate industries

"To serve unnoticed and to work unseen." - Eleanor Vance
Title Biltmore Estate Industries
Creator Biltmore Estate Industries
Subject Keyword :  Biltmore Village, NC ; Asheville, NC ;  Biltmore Forest ; travel and tourism ; education  ; Appalachia ; Industrial Education Association for Southern Mountaineers
Subject LCSH : Biltmore Industries -- Asheville (N.C.)
Asheville (N.C.) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
Architecture -- North Carolina -- Asheville
Historic buildings -- North Carolina -- Asheville
Description This collection contains promotional materials from the Biltmore Estate Industries.
Publisher D.H. Ramsey Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville 28804
Contributor n/a
Date 2003-10-09
Type Collection ; Text ; photographs
Format 1 small manuscript box  
Identifier http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/blake/blake.htm
Source M2003.11.01
Language en=English
Relation E.M. Ball Photographic Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville 28804 ;
Coverage spatial  
Coverage temporal  
Rights Any display, publication, or public use must credit the D.H. Ramsey Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Copyright retained by the creators of certain items in the collection, or their descendents, as stipulated by United States copyright law.  Some materials in collections are electronic rights only. Please ask for assistance from Special Collections staff.
Donor Donor number 191 ; 192
Acquisition  2003-09-15 ; 2003-09-23 ; 2003-11-13
Citation Biltmore Industries, Asheville, NC , D.H. Ramsey Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville 28804
Processed by Special Collections staff,  2003
Last update 2000-10-17
   
 
HISTORY
 
The history of "Biltmore Estate Industries" is a subsection of the history of Biltmore Industries; specifically, it refers to the time between the founding of the Biltmore Estate Industries in 1901 and the purchase of the Industries by Fred L. Seely in 1917.

Biltmore Estate Industries was founded by Charlotte Yale and Eleanor Vance. They strongly believed in social reform and believed that by providing the local population with a trade, they could improve the lives of talented local men and women . To this end, they sought to develop a craft education program in what is today known as Biltmore Village, the small community that grew out of the Vanderbilt Estate construction and labor community. At first,  two women encouraged the development of homespun and wool creations in their Biltmore work-rooms, inspired by a trip to Scotland a few years previous. They returned from that trip with the first model of the loom that was eventually mass-produced for the Biltmore Estate Industries and later for the Biltmore Industries, under the direction of Fred L. Seely.

Much of the work of Vance and Yale was subsidized by the Vanderbilt family, specifically George W. Vanderbilt and Edith Vanderbilt, who were strong supporters of mountain art and craft. The original Biltmore Industries shop, located in what is today Biltmore Village, no longer exists.

In 1917 Fred L. Seely purchased the flourishing craft industries from Edith Vanderbilt (George had died in 1914) and built a new facility for the industries next to the Grove Park Inn on Sunset Mountain in north Asheville. The Grove Park Inn is a well-known hotel in north Asheville, originally developed by E.W. Grove, and constructed by his son-in-law, Fred L. Seely. For a discussion of Fred L. Seely's purchase of the Biltmore Estate Industries, see "Why I Purchased the Biltmore Estate Industries," by Fred L. Seely.  

 
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