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Bio: Mellanee Goodman

Amy Meissner

Mellanee Goodman loves glimpsing mountaintops from every window in her North Carolina home. Her love for nature and “uphill and downhill” terrain brought her closer to place-based research studying the history of Black craftswomen in the upper South, including Southern Appalachia, from 1850­–1910. This investigation reveals craft of the everyday and domestic that is often overlooked or erased due to the violent mobilization of Black bodies as methods of production. Mellanee’s interest lies in the craft work of Black women in particular––mattresses, brooms, spun thread, woven cloth, and knitted and sewn garments––objects made for the master’s plantation homes, but also for families in enslaved quarters. While most of these items no longer exist nor retain attribution to the original maker, her study of ex-slave narratives, newspaper clippings, and the education of the formerly enslaved after emancipation pieces together a more complete picture of craft- and place-based identities of Black craftswomen, some of whom lived in the same mountains Mellanee currently calls home.