Project Summary

This project documents not only the history of the craft industry in Eastern Kentucky, but, also, the more recent histories of emergent independent craft cooperatives: organizations that have come to provide alternative options to the neoliberal economic practices supported by many preexisting Kentucky craft organizations. Other topics discussed include the ways in which cooperatives and other craft organizations influence their respective communities, potential tensions between the craft and extractive industries in Eastern Kentucky, the growing consumer preferences for, and the potentially far-reaching positive impacts of, locally produced goods, the significance of heritage skills and the ways in which these skills are being passed down to younger generations of Eastern Kentuckians, and ecommerce in the craft industry.