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1933
Four faculty dismissed over a loyalty pledge founded the college
Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, Frederick Georgia and Ralph Lounsbury, who were dismissed from Rollins College for refusing to sign a loyalty pledge. They could not raise funds from traditional sources. A gift of 10,000 dollars from “Mac” Forbes, a former Rollins faculty member, paid for the start.
“...to educate a student as a person and a citizen”
Historian Eva Díaz, on the college's aim
How it ran
Students farmed, built and cooked, and decided when to graduate
Students and teachers stood on the same plane. Students were required to take part in farm work, construction projects and kitchen duty. They decided when they were ready to graduate, which notoriously few ever did. There were no course requirements, official grades or accredited degrees, and graduates received handcrafted diplomas.
Firsts
A geodesic dome, a dance company and a first happening
During the 1930s and 1940s the school flourished as an incubator for artistic talent. Buckminster Fuller and students made the first large-scale geodesic dome there. Merce Cunningham formed his dance company, and John Cage staged his first musical happening. In 1954 Charles Olson founded The Black Mountain Review.
1957 to 1993
The college closed in 1957 and the museum began in a house in 1993
The school closed in 1957 due to funding issues, and Camp Rockmont for Boys now sits on the campus site. In 1993 the arts advocate Mary Holden Thompson founded the museum, first based out of her house in Black Mountain. It hired its first regular employee, Alice Sebrell, in 1999.
The collection
The collection holds a Rauschenberg, a Quiet House bench and an Albers desk
In September 2018 the museum opened at 120 College Street on Pack Square Park, in a 6,000 square foot space that doubled its footprint. Its collection includes Opal Gospel, a 1971 work by Robert Rauschenberg, two benches from the Quiet House at the Lake Eden campus and a desk designed by Josef Albers. It holds recorded interviews with 69 alumni, as of 2019.
In this plan
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the Wikipedia article Black Mountain College, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.