The Upper Midwest loves its folk schools. Some estimates suggest the region—especially Minnesota and Wisconsin—have the highest concentration in the country.
That might not be a coincidence.
Mari Sanborn, communications coordinator with the Folk School Alliance, says it may boil down to a few reasons. Folk schools originated in Denmark, and many Danish and Scandinavian folks settled in the Midwest. But it’s more than that, too.
“I think that you can find the need or an attraction for a folk school as a space for education in rural places where there is that much higher percentage of people that are feeling isolated and disconnected from others, from the community,” Sanborn says.
And much of the Midwest is rural: In South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, more than a third of its population lives in rural areas.
“How are those people getting together? How are those people learning if there’s no actual art school, if there’s no craft education spaces?” she adds.
That’s the whole point of folk schools—for people to learn traditional craft and other creative skills, together. They were founded on the idea of lifelong, intergenerational, holistic learning.
“The folk school tradition itself is unplugged, hands-on, slowed down, and it’s about exchange of knowledge versus a dissemination of knowledge from an expert down. It’s really a give and take,” says Julie McGarvie, executive director at Marine Mills Folk School in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota.
She says that ties well with Minnesota—and Midwest—culture. The region is rich with wildlife, lakes, flora, and fauna. Minnesota is especially supportive of arts and culture, education, and wellbeing.
“I believe Minnesota and the Midwest are already slightly unplugged,” McGarvie says. “Midwest folks already have that attachment to the land with farming and agriculture, and a rural sensibility versus the East and West Coast, for example. That listening to the land, living with the land, living off the land is also there.”
JULIE McGARVIE, MARINE MILLS FOLK SCHOOL“I think of it as by and for the people to help us become resilient and self-sufficient and sustaining as individuals, families, communities, and to live as good stewards for the land and the planet.”
But even beyond the Midwest, folk school numbers are growing. People see a need, they get a few community members together, and they fill that need. The times demand it, McGarvie says, no matter where you live.
“I do think now we live in a highly anxious world, when we look at climate change and we look at all the stuff going on in the government,” McGarvie says. “The sense of chaos, the sense of trauma. I think turning towards nature, towards each other and connection, towards creativity and the arts are healing.”
Since Sanborn joined the Folk School Alliance in 2023, she knows at least 10 folk schools that have opened. It speaks to people’s need to work tangibly, create beauty, and accept imperfection.
“Folk education has this really enlivened feeling that you’re leaving the classroom with,” Sanborn says. “That’s why people are like, ‘I feel great’ and ‘I feel restored and rejuvenated’ and I want everybody that I love to feel that.”
She encourages people looking to add folk education to their region to utilize the alliance’s resources and connect with local makers. From there, it just takes one or two people, an idea, and a small way to make human creativity happen.
It’s in all of us, she says—we just have to help one another find it.