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Enrica McMillon of Elkins, a fiber artist, is pictured working a box tape loom on the cover of the new fall issue of People & Mountains, the West Virginia Humanities Council’s free digital magazine.
Inside, the fiber artist explains how frontier weavers used the small looms, what they turned out and why they mattered so much to daily life. The Council describes the box tape loom as an often overlooked tool of the trade.
McMillon’s article is part of By the People: Conversations Beyond 250, a nationwide initiative from the Federation of State Humanities Councils and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. As part of that effort, West Virginia Folklife filmed traditional musicians and artists demonstrating their work. The finished material will be deposited with the Smithsonian and featured in e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. Both West Virginia Folklife and e-WV are Council projects.
The issue also profiles Rick Atkinson, who will deliver the 2026 Betsy K. McCreight Lecture in the Humanities at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, October 15, at the Capitol Theater in Charleston. My Buckhannon reported last week on the historian’s visit.
Atkinson, a former Washington Post journalist, has won three Pulitzer Prizes. His Revolution Trilogy opened with the New York Times best-seller “The British Are Coming” and continued with “The Fate of the Day,” covering the middle years of the American Revolution. He also served as a historical advisor for Ken Burns’ PBS series “The American Revolution.” Before that came his Liberation Trilogy on the American military in Europe during World War II. Its first volume, “An Army at Dawn,” won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for history.
The Council has hosted the McCreight Lecture for more than 40 years. Questions about the lecture go to Program Officer Kyle Warmack at warmack@wvhumanities.org or 304-346-8500.
Also in the fall issue:
- A look at the hunting and writing life of Preston County’s George Bird Evans, who argued for conservation, ethics and personal restraint
- Photos from a May celebration at Council headquarters for folklorist Gerry Milnes. The Council nominated Milnes, who was named a 2026 National Heritage Fellow and this year’s only recipient of the Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellowship
People & Mountains comes out three times a year and covers the Council’s work and the humanities across the state. The fall issue, like the summer edition released in June, can be read free at wvhumanities.org.
