By the mid-1700s, the settlement of western Virginia was at full speed. The English and their African American slaves built large farms in the Virginia Piedmont. Germans settled much of the Shenandoah Valley, and the Scots-Irish carved out smaller farmsteads in the hollows of the Blue Ridge Mountains. People, commerce, and information flowed through western Virginia along the Great Wagon Road, the Carolina Road, and the Wilderness Road. By 1860, the railroad was crisscrossing Virginia. By 1900, the coal, timber, and farm products of western Virginia were sold throughout the eastern United States. Still, many Virginians held fast to their old cultural identities and to the music, speech, foodways, crafts, and social customs that reflected their identities.

In the early 1970s, Ferrum College created the Blue Ridge Institute & Museum to document and showcase the folklife of the Blue Ridge. The Institute's work is part of a regional collecting tradition that stretches back over a century.