Southern Highland Craft Guild

Southern Highland Craft Guild is a guild craft organization that has partnered with the National Park Service for over fifty years. The Guild represents over 1000 craftspeople in 293 counties of 9 southeastern states. It operates six retail craft shops and two annual craft expositions which represents the Guild members' work. These expositions occur in July and October and has been an event in the Appalachian mountain region since 1948.

The headquarters for the Southern Highland Craft Guild is at the Folk Art Center at milepost 382 of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville, North Carolina. There is an extensive Arts and Crafts research public library available for anyone to use. The Folk Art Center also houses the Guild’s century-old Allanstand Craft Shop, three galleries of exhibitions, and a large auditorium.

The Folk Art Center admission is free. It is open daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day; January - March 9am-5pm; April - December 9am- 6pm. It houses the Eastern National Bookstore and Information Center. Visitors can often observe craftspeople at work in craft demonstrations as well as a series of educational events held year-round. The Guild crafts are seen by about a quarter of a million visitors each year.

The Guild was actually the brain-child of Olive Dame Campbell, founder of the John C. Campbell Folk School. She and other founding members met through the Southern Mountain Workers Conference which was held in Knoxville beginning in 1900. At the Southern Mountain Workers Conference of 1926 Olive Campbell suggested forming an actual official crafts organization. This was followed by planning meetings in 1928 and 1929 at which founding members decided the goals and by-laws of the Guild at the Spinning Wheel in Asheville, North Carolina.

They then came up with the name of Southern Mountain Handicraft Guild. The organization was chartered in 1930 as the Southern Mountain Handicraft Guild and in 1933 changed its name to the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild. The name changed again in the 1990s where the word "Handicraft" was changed to just "Craft".

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