Eliot Wigginton

Eliot Wigginton is an American oral historian and teacher who developed the Foxfire Project. In the 1960s he began a writing project with his students at Rabun Gap Nacoochee School that collected stories from local residents in Rabun County, Georgia, in southern Appalachia. By 1967, these stories were being published as a quarterly magazine called Foxfire, which gained a national following for its chronicling of rural life in Appalachia and other local histories. The first anthology of Foxfire articles was published in 1972. Wigginton was named Georgia Teacher of the Year in 1986 and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1989.