Foxfire 6

The Foxfire Series #6

by Eliot Wigginton (editor)

Gift note and very slight signs of age or use to book, DJ is edgeworn but all there. 1st Edition hardcover 1980

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, History, Gardening, Crafts, How To, Survival

507 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Eliot Wigginton (born Brooks Eliot Wigginton) is an American oral historian, folklorist, writer and former educator. He was most widely known for developing the Foxfire Project, a writing project that led to a magazine and the series of best-selling Foxfire books, twelve volumes in all. These were based on articles by high school students from Rabun County, Georgia. In 1986 he was named "Georgia Teacher of the Year" and in 1989 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
Wigginton was born in West Virginia on November 9, 1942. His mother, Lucy Freelove Smith Wiggington, died eleven days later of "pneunomia due to acute pulmary edema," according to her death certificate. His maternal grandmother, Margaret Pollard Smith, was an associate professor of English at Vassar College and his father was a famous landscape architect, also named Brooks Eliot Wiggington. His family called him Eliot. He earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English from Cornell University and a second Master's from Johns Hopkins University. In 1966, he began teaching English in the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, located in the Appalachian Mountains of northeastern Georgia.
Wigginton began a writing project based on his students' collecting oral histories from local residents and writing them up. They published the histories and articles in a small magazine format beginning in 1967. Topics included all manner of folklife practices and customs associated with farming and the rural life of southern Appalachia, as well as the folklore and oral history of local residents. The magazine began to reach a national audience and became quite popular.
The first anthology of collected Foxfire articles was published in book form in 1972, and achieved best-seller status. Over the years, the schools published eleven other volumes. (The project transferred to the local public school in 1977.)
In addition, special collections were published, including The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery, Foxfire: 25 Years, A Foxfire Christmas, and The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Toys and Games. Several collections of recorded music from the local area were released.

Reviews

[Cheryl]

The toys and games section was pretty interesting. They even had a 'fidget spinner' they'd carve, called a bull grinder, do nothing, or smoke grinder. A way of "passifying" oneself instead of twiddling thumbs.

[Joan Tease · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going back and revisiting the series as Autumn progresses. Was searching for info about gourd banjos. It's in this one. Had forgotten all about wooden locks. That's in here too. Forgot how fascinating..and useful these books are.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the seemingly never-ending slog of Foxfire 5, I was a little hesitant to pick up this book, but Foxfire 6 gets things back on track and redeems the series. I especially enjoyed the sections on toy-making and the American chestnut. Entertaining and informative.

[David Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foxfire 6: Shoemaking, gourd banjos, and songbows, one hundred toys and games, wooden locks, a water powered sawmill, and other affairs of just plain living (The Foxfire Series #6) by Eliot Wigginton (Editor), Foxfire Students (Anchor Press 1980) (917.58). More transcribed interviews by the students at Rabun County High School in Georgia with their rural elders (See The Foxfire Book). My rating: 7.5/10, finished 1980.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Great Series on how on people use to do thing when they were mostly self sufficient, and not store dependent different volumes cover everything from snake handling. to log cabin building to planting by the seasons, a must for DIY'ers and survivalists. Check out amazon.com for individual contents.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another in an ongoing series of great books capturing many aspects of rural Appalachian life in past generations; as well as painting a portrait of a vanishing culture, it covers concrete information on how to do lots of things both practical and fun.

[Eric Moebius · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are some awesome books. Okay, sometimes the writing isn't what I would call... entertaining, but I love to see people preserving knowledge that might be lost otherwise. For this reason, these books soar with awesomeness.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of oral histories from the Appalachian Mountains covering shoe making, games, wooden locks, and water-powered sawmills.