A cooperative agreement between the University of North Carolina and the Black Mountain College + Arts Center was completed in August of 2009. This collaboration will allow controlled (physical and digital) access to the photographic materials, documents, correspondence, and publications of Black Mountain College and to newly created materials about the experimental college that existed in Black Mountain, NC between 1933 and 1957. As they are inventoried, materials will be brought to the University of NC Asheville for the use of the Museum, the University and the public. 

The scale of the collection is not yet determined, and will be dependent on the final inventory and the incremental process of moving collections to UNCA.  It is planned that the transition of materials to UNCA will occur by late 2009 or early 2010.  The scope of the collection includes the core years of 1933-1957, but will extend to the present day as new programs, exhibits, and publications are completed by the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center.

Few art objects or original works of art are planned to accompany the archival material at UNCA and any inquiries regarding holdings of that nature must be addressed to the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center.

Black Mountain College Collections 1933 - 1954 in the NC State Archives. North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. Division of Archives and History. Raleigh, North Carolina. 

• The Black Mountain College Papers.  When the college closed, Charles Olson first put the college papers in storage with the Library of Congress. To accommodate students who needed transcripts, Olson transferred and deposited the papers with the State Archive in 1963 on the condition that the State archive service transcripts. The papers include faculty and Board of Fellows meeting minutes; general files (correspondence, course lists and descriptions, summer session files, college publications, publicity files, etc.); faculty files; financial files; student files; student course cards; and hundreds of photographs.
   
• The Black Mountain College Research Project Papers.  A collection of documents collected by the Black Mountain College Research Project (1970-72), sponsored by the North Carolina Museum of Art, supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Mary Emma Harris, Research Director. The papers include hundreds of photographs and slides; files on objects created at the college; taped interviews and transcripts; and general files.
   
• Private Collections of scholars and of former faculty and students.  The collection includes Martin Duberman's Black Mountain Papers.

Black Mountain College Project.  Led by scholar and independent researcher, Mary Emma Harris, the Project is comprised of the research and materials assembled by Mary Emma Harris and include extensive (200 +) taped and videotaped interviews with Black Mountain College community members. It aims to

• "ensure that the history and influence of Black Mountain College are preserved and documented for future generations. The Project was formed with the conviction that the story of this unique educational experiment is of lasting interest and that the memories of those who taught and studied at Black Mountain College are critical to an understanding of the dynamics and accomplishments of that community." 
• disseminate information about Black Mountain College through a  website.

•  specific goals of the project include:

  • The preservation of primary documents such as photographs, student notes, correspondence and journals.

  • The transcription and releasing of interviews.

  • The preparation of faculty and student biographies.

  • The creation of a catalogue of objects and works created at the college.

  • The dissemination of information about Black Mountain College through publication and other means.

North Carolina Wesleyan College. Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Elizabeth Braswell Pearsall Library. Black Mountain Collection. North Carolina Wesleyn College holds papers of the College as they were the recipient of many of the books and papers of the College when it closed

University of Connecticut at Storrs. Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University Libraries. American and English Literature Collection. Papers of Charles Olson, Fielding Dawson, Edward Dorn, Joel Oppenheimer, Michael Rumaker, Oyez Press and Beat Poets

The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.  A not-for-profit organization with a mission to  further “the revelation and evocation of vision through art”  and to " preserving and promoting the enduring achievements of both Josef and Anni Albers, and the aesthetic and philosophical principles by which they lived."

John Andrew Rice Papers at Appalachian State University, Carol G. Belk Library

Fully Awake: Black Mountain College . A documentary film created by filmmakers Cathryn Davis [Zommer] and Neely House that explores' "education in a democracy," and highlights the College's belief that the creative arts and practical responsibilities are equally important to intellectual development."'

The Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, Inc. records, 1938-2003. "exists to support, sustain, and further the wide ranging creative activities of Merce Cunningham (choreographer, teacher, and artist) and of the Merce Cunningham Studio."

Jargon Society Collection. SUNY at Buffalo.  "... Features an extensive collection of materials relating to the long and influential life of the press, including numerous manuscripts and correspondence from such American and English poets as Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Irving Layton, Kenneth Patchen, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, Lorine Niedecker, Louis Zukofsky, and many others; production materials, financial records, and posters for Jargon Society books; the manuscripts and personal papers of Jonathan Williams; and a large number of photographs of Williams and other poets dating back to the 1940s and including scenes from Black Mountain College."

SMITHSONIAN ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART - Black Mountain College records Author: Black Mountain College (Black Mountain, N.C.) Accession Number: 86118424 Selected records of the Black Mountain College which pertain to the visual arts program, including minutes and attendant papers; general files; faculty files; and treasurer's files (record groups I, II, III, and VI). Photographs from the general files were microfilmed separately on roll 204.

Max Dehn Papers - University of Texas Austin, The Center for American History. " The Max Dehn Papers document the career of Max Dehn (1878-1952) and relate chiefly to his research in geometry, topology, group theory, and the history of mathematics. Most of the papers are from Dehn's years at Frankfurt University and, after his immigration in 1940 to the United States, Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Included are correspondence, notebooks, manuscripts of publications, reprints, lecture and course notes by Dehn, remembrances written by his daughter, colleagues and students, and lecture notes by Ernst Hellinger."

R. Buckminster Fuller Papers.  College of Architecture departmental records,  Emery A. Gunnin Architecture Library, Series 96, Special Collections, Clemson University Libraries, Clemson, SC.  Accession Number: 68046105.  Largely ephemeral material and  memoranda from the Fuller Research Foundation,

A. Lawrence Kocher Papers, Colonial Williamsburg Research Library,  Accession Number: 25060025. "The collection consists of correspondence, articles, lecture notes, monographs, news clippings, reviews, project and subject files, research notes, drawings, and photographic prints and negatives. Includes project files on Colonial Williamsburg, Charles City County Courthouse, Rex Stout house, Black Mountain College, and the New York World's Fair, 1964."

Mary Caroline Richards papers, 1928-1994. Getty Research Institute. Accession Number: 77798395. "The papers emphasize the period, the 1940s and 1950s, during which Richards served on the faculty of Black Mountain College. Here she formed friendships with many artists, including the musicians John Cage, David Tudor, Lou Harrison, the so-called Black Mountain poets, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Robert Duncan, and in dance, Merce Cunningham and Remy Charlip. Visual artists with whom she was associated include Lyle Bongé, and Joe Fiore, as well as the many students she taught. Richards extensive correspondence (12 linear ft.) documents her warm friendships with these artists, her students, and with many others." 

Black Mountain College publications,  Black Mountain College (Black Mountain, N.C.) University of North Carolina Greensboro. Accession Number: 37039311. "One archival folder: bulletins, announcements, course descriptions, published articles, and programs. Includes 10 issues of the Black Mountain College  bulletin (1939-1953), programs from 1949 and 1951, course descriptions from 1949, 1951, 1953, and 1954, and a 3 p. mimeographed letter "To all those who care for and what it has stood for, and now more than ever stands for, in American education," dated Dec. 15, 1954, by Charles Olson and Norbert Wiener with a 1 p. mimeographed attachment by Albert Einstein."

Letters, 1940-1947, to Lewis Mumford. Black Mountain College Source: Lewis Mumford Papers, ca. 1905-1987 Accession Number: 155878916  Correspondence to Lewis Mumford from Josef Albers, Chairman of the Board of Fellows, Albert William Levi, Rector, and A. Lawrence Kocher, Black Mountain College.