Ribbed Melon Basket circa 1881

'At Auchmithie 1881'. Girl with basket sitting on shore in front of boat
Originally uploaded by National Galleries of Scotland

The National Galleries of Scotland has made this photo of a young girl at the little fishing village of Auchmithie, Scotland available to the public with no known copyright restrictions. It is a good record of the early origin of what we think of as an Appalachian ribbed melon shaped basket . This photo documentation should be helpful to individuals creating a persona for living history reenactments.

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Basketmakers Identity Project

For many years I have been fascinated by images of historic basketmakers. I believe that the talented women and men of the past who have woven their identity into their baskets deserve to be remembered individually by name rather than remaining anonymous. Many of these photos exist without record of the maker's name but in some cases additional references to their life and work can be cross matched to return the names to the faces in these old images. Periodically I intend to to post some of these photos in the hopes that the names of the basketmakers can be identified. Each of these posts will be labeled with "Basketmakers Identity Project". I encourage readers to alert me if they have additional knowledge or if they wish to suggest corrections.