Abstract:
Mitchell Fulcher was a folk artist well known throughout Eastern North Carolina for his duck decoys. Born on the Core Sound into a small fishing community, Fulcher was employed in a wider range of cottage industries than solely decoy manufacture, including net making, hunting, trapping, and painting. His collection of tools used in net making and fishing is large; it includes many handmade gauges, wooden needles, cork floats, and terrapin gauges. As these goods were produced in industrial factories after 1910, today they are considered folk art collectibles.