Appalachia On Our Mind

Author : Henry D. Shapiro
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 399 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2014-03-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781469617244

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Appalachia on Our Mind by Henry D. Shapiro Pdf

Appalachia on Our Mind is not a history of Appalachia. It is rather a history of the American idea of Appalachia. The author argues that the emergence of this idea has little to do with the realities of mountain life but was the result of a need to reconcile the "otherness" of Appalachia, as decribed by local-color writers, tourists, and home missionaries, with assumptions about the nature of America and American civilization. Between 1870 and 1900, it became clear that the existence of the "strange land and peculiar people" of the southern mountains challenged dominant notions about the basic homogeneity of the American people and the progress of the United States toward achiving a uniform national civilization. Some people attempted to explain Appalachian otherness as normal and natural -- no exception to the rule of progress. Others attempted the practical integration of Appalachia into America through philanthropic work. In the twentieth century, however, still other people began questioning their assumptions about the characteristics of American civilization itself, ultimately defining Appalachia as a region in a nation of regions and the mountaineers as a people in a nation of peoples. In his skillful examination of the "invention" of the idea of Appalachia and its impact on American thought and action during the early twentieth century, Mr. Shapiro analyzes the following: the "discovery" of Appalachia as a field for fiction by the local-color writers and as a field for benevolent work by the home missionaries of the northern Protestant churches; the emergence of the "problem" of Appalachia and attempts to solve it through explanation and social action; the articulation of a regionalist definition of Appalachia and the establishment of instituions that reinforced that definition; the impact of that regionalistic definition of Appalachia on the conduct of systematic benevolence, expecially in the context of the debate over child-labor restriction and the transformation of philanthropy into community work; and the attempt to discover the bases for an indigenous mountain culture in handicrafts, folksong, and folkdance.

Author : Cassie Chambers
Publisher : Ballantine Books
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2021-01-12
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781984818935

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Hill Women by Cassie Chambers Pdf

After rising from poverty to earn two Ivy League degrees, an Appalachian lawyer pays tribute to the strong “hill women” who raised and inspired her, and whose values have the potential to rejuvenate a struggling region. “Destined to be compared to Hillbilly Elegy and Educated.”—BookPage (starred review) “Poverty is enmeshed with pride in these stories of survival.”—Associated Press Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, Owsley County is one of the poorest counties in both Kentucky and the country. Buildings are crumbling and fields sit vacant, as tobacco farming and coal mining decline. But strong women are finding creative ways to subsist in their hollers in the hills. Cassie Chambers grew up in these hollers and, through the women who raised her, she traces her own path out of and back into the Kentucky mountains. Chambers’s Granny was a child bride who rose before dawn every morning to raise seven children. Despite her poverty, she wouldn’t hesitate to give the last bite of pie or vegetables from her garden to a struggling neighbor. Her two daughters took very different paths: strong-willed Ruth—the hardest-working tobacco farmer in the county—stayed on the family farm, while spirited Wilma—the sixth child—became the first in the family to graduate from high school, then moved an hour away for college. Married at nineteen and pregnant with Cassie a few months later, Wilma beat the odds to finish school. She raised her daughter to think she could move mountains, like the ones that kept her safe but also isolated her from the larger world. Cassie would spend much of her childhood with Granny and Ruth in the hills of Owsley County, both while Wilma was in college and after. With her “hill women” values guiding her, Cassie went on to graduate from Harvard Law. But while the Ivy League gave her knowledge and opportunities, its privileged world felt far from her reality, and she moved back home to help her fellow rural Kentucky women by providing free legal services. Appalachian women face issues that are all too common: domestic violence, the opioid crisis, a world that seems more divided by the day. But they are also community leaders, keeping their towns together in the face of a system that continually fails them. With nuance and heart, Chambers uses these women’s stories paired with her own journey to break down the myth of the hillbilly and illuminate a region whose poor communities, especially women, can lead it into the future.

Author : Ronald D. Eller
Publisher : Univ. of Tennessee Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 1982
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0870493418

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Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers by Ronald D. Eller Pdf

"As a benchmark book should, this one will stimulate the imagination and industry of future researchers as well as wrapping up the results of the last two decades of research... Eller's greatest achievement results from his successful fusion of scholarly virtues with literary ones. The book is comprehensive, but not overlong. It is readable but not superficial. The reader who reads only one book in a lifetime on Appalachia cannot do better than to choose this one... No one will be able to ignore it except those who refuse to confront the uncomfortable truths about American society and culture that Appalachia's history conveys." -- John A. Williams, Appalachian Journal.

Author : David E. Whisnant
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 1995-08-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0807841439

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All That Is Native and Fine by David E. Whisnant Pdf

In the American imagination, the word Appalachia designates more than a geographical region. It evokes fiddle tunes, patchwork quilts, split-rail fences, and all the other artifacts that decorate a cherished romantic region of the American mind. Da

Author : Mary Beth Pudup,Dwight B. Billings,Altina L. Waller
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2000-11-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9780807888964

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Appalachia in the Making by Mary Beth Pudup,Dwight B. Billings,Altina L. Waller Pdf

Appalachia first entered the American consciousness as a distinct region in the decades following the Civil War. The place and its people have long been seen as backwards and 'other' because of their perceived geographical, social, and economic isolation. These essays, by fourteen eminent historians and social scientists, illuminate important dimensions of early social life in diverse sections of the Appalachian mountains. The contributors seek to place the study of Appalachia within the context of comparative regional studies of the United States, maintaining that processes and patterns thought to make the region exceptional were not necessarily unique to the mountain South. The contributors are Mary K. Anglin, Alan Banks, Dwight B. Billings, Kathleen M. Blee, Wilma A. Dunaway, John R. Finger, John C. Inscoe, Ronald L. Lewis, Ralph Mann, Gordon B. McKinney, Mary Beth Pudup, Paul Salstrom, Altina L. Waller, and John Alexander Williams

Author : Dwight B. Billings,Gurney Norman,Katherine Ledford
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2013-07-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9780813143347

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Back Talk from Appalachia by Dwight B. Billings,Gurney Norman,Katherine Ledford Pdf

Appalachia has long been stereotyped as a region of feuds, moonshine stills, mine wars, environmental destruction, joblessness, and hopelessness. Robert Schenkkan's 1992 Pulitzer-Prize winning play The Kentucky Cycle once again adopted these stereotypes, recasting the American myth as a story of repeated failure and poverty--the failure of the American spirit and the poverty of the American soul. Dismayed by national critics' lack of attention to the negative depictions of mountain people in the play, a group of Appalachian scholars rallied against the stereotypical representations of the region's people. In Back Talk from Appalachia, these writers talk back to the American mainstream, confronting head-on those who view their home region one-dimensionally. The essays, written by historians, literary scholars, sociologists, creative writers, and activists, provide a variety of responses. Some examine the sources of Appalachian mythology in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature. Others reveal personal experiences and examples of grassroots activism that confound and contradict accepted images of ""hillbillies."" The volume ends with a series of critiques aimed directly at The Kentucky Cycle and similar contemporary works that highlight the sociological, political, and cultural assumptions about Appalachia fueling today's false stereotypes.

Author : Richard B. Drake
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2003-09-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780813137933

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A History of Appalachia by Richard B. Drake Pdf

Richard Drake has skillfully woven together the various strands of the Appalachian experience into a sweeping whole. Touching upon folk traditions, health care, the environment, higher education, the role of blacks and women, and much more, Drake offers a compelling social history of a unique American region. The Appalachian region, extending from Alabama in the South up to the Allegheny highlands of Pennsylvania, has historically been characterized by its largely rural populations, rich natural resources that have fueled industry in other parts of the country, and the strong and wild, undeveloped land. The rugged geography of the region allowed Native American societies, especially the Cherokee, to flourish. Early white settlers tended to favor a self-sufficient approach to farming, contrary to the land grabbing and plantation building going on elsewhere in the South. The growth of a market economy and competition from other agricultural areas of the country sparked an economic decline of the region's rural population at least as early as 1830. The Civil War and the sometimes hostile legislation of Reconstruction made life even more difficult for rural Appalachians. Recent history of the region is marked by the corporate exploitation of resources. Regional oil, gas, and coal had attracted some industry even before the Civil War, but the postwar years saw an immense expansion of American industry, nearly all of which relied heavily on Appalachian fossil fuels, particularly coal. What was initially a boon to the region eventually brought financial disaster to many mountain people as unsafe working conditions and strip mining ravaged the land and its inhabitants. A History of Appalachia also examines pockets of urbanization in Appalachia. Chemical, textile, and other industries have encouraged the development of urban areas. At the same time, radio, television, and the internet provide residents direct links to cultures from all over the world. The author looks at the process of urbanization as it belies commonly held notions about the region's rural character.

Author : Jeff Biggers
Publisher : Catapult
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2007-03-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781582439945

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The United States of Appalachia by Jeff Biggers Pdf

Few places in the United States confound and fascinate Americans like Appalachia, yet no other area has been so markedly mischaracterized by the mass media. Stereotypes of hillbillies and rednecks repeatedly appear in representations of the region, but few, if any, of its many heroes, visionaries, or innovators are ever referenced. Make no mistake, they are legion: from Anne Royall, America's first female muckraker, to Sequoyah, a Cherokee mountaineer who invented the first syllabary in modern times, and international divas Nina Simone and Bessie Smith, as well as writers Cormac McCarthy, Edward Abbey, and Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck, Appalachia has contributed mightily to American culture — and politics. Not only did eastern Tennessee boast the country's first antislavery newspaper, Appalachians also established the first District of Washington as a bold counterpoint to British rule. With humor, intelligence, and clarity, Jeff Biggers reminds us how Appalachians have defined and shaped the United States we know today.

Author : Gabe Rikard
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2013-08-29
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781476603476

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Authority and the Mountaineer in Cormac McCarthy’s Appalachia by Gabe Rikard Pdf

The author uses theories on power, resistance and discipline developed by Michel Foucault to analyze the interactions of mountaineers and the authorities who have attempted to “modernize” them. The book shows how McCarthy manipulates Appalachian images while engaging in a form of archeology of Appalachian constructs. Initially the book explores the interplay of the dominance/resistance duality. Roads provided ways into the mountains for industry and ways out for the mountaineer, cotton mill villages and regional cities served as “disciplined” destinations for Appalachian out-migrants. McCarthy’s character Lester Ballard (Child of God) represents the epitome of hillbilly delinquency. The author explains how the iconic image of the mountaineer—a notion cultivated by fiction writers, benevolent organizations, and academics—“othered” the mountain people as deviants. The book ends by considering the ways in which The Road returns to the rhetorical and geographical region of his early work, and how it fits into McCarthy’s Appalachian oeuvre.

Author : Laura Wright,Jessica Cory
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2023-05-01
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780820363929

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Appalachian Ecocriticism and the Paradox of Place by Laura Wright,Jessica Cory Pdf

Ecocriticism and Appalachian studies continue to grow and thrive in academia, as they expand on their foundational works to move in new and exciting directions. When researching these areas separately, there is a wealth of information. However, when researching Appalachian ecocriticism specifically, the lack of consolidated scholarship is apparent. With Appalachian Ecocriticism and the Paradox of Place, editors Jessica Cory and Laura Wright have created the only book-length scholarly collection of Appalachian ecocriticism. Appalachian Ecocriticism and the Paradox of Place is a collection of scholarly essays that engage environmental and ecocritical theories and Appalachian literature and film. These essays, many from well-established Appalachian studies and southern studies scholars and ecocritics, engage with a variety of ecocritical methodologies, including ecofeminism, ecospiritualism, queer ecocriticism, and materialist ecocriticism, to name a few. Adding Appalachian voices to the larger ecocritical discourse is vital not only for the sake of increased diversity but also to allow those unfamiliar with the region and its works to better understand the Appalachian region in a critical and authentic way. Including Appalachia in the larger ecocritical community allows for the study of how the region, its issues, and its texts intersect with a variety of communities, thus allowing boundless possibilities for learning and analysis.

Author : Susan L. Yarnell
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Agriculture
ISBN : 9781428953734

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The Southern Appalachians by Susan L. Yarnell Pdf

Author : Grace Toney Edwards,JoAnn Aust Asbury,Ricky L. Cox
Publisher : Univ. of Tennessee Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : 1572334592

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A Handbook to Appalachia by Grace Toney Edwards,JoAnn Aust Asbury,Ricky L. Cox Pdf

A Handbook to Appalachia provides a clear, concise first step toward understanding the expanding field of Appalachian studies, from the history of the area to its sometimes conflicted image, from its music and folklore to its outstanding literature. Also includes information on African Americans, Asheville, (North Carolina), ballads, baskets, bluegrass music, blues music, Cherokee Indians, Cincinnati (Ohio), Churches, Civil War, coal, cultural diversity, death, folk culture, food, Georgia, health, immigration, industry, Irish, Kentucky, Midwest, migration, Melungeons, Native Americans, North Carolina, out-migration, politics, population, poverty, Radford University, schools, Scotch-Irish, Scotland, South Carolina, storytelling, strip mining, Tennessee, Ulster Scots, Virginia, West Virginia, Women, etc.

Author : Andrew L. Slap
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 541 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2010-05-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9780813139760

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Reconstructing Appalachia by Andrew L. Slap Pdf

“Excellent, readable, and absorbing history . . . gives us a better understanding of this compelling aspect of the Civil War.” —Library Journal Families, communities, and the nation itself were irretrievably altered by the Civil War and the subsequent societal transformations of the nineteenth century. The repercussions of the war incited a broad range of unique problems in Appalachia, including political dynamics, racial prejudices, and the regional economy. This anthology of essays reveals life in Appalachia after the ravages of the Civil War, an unexplored area that has left a void in historical literature. Addressing a gap in the chronicles of our nation, this vital collection explores little-known aspects of history with a particular focus on the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction periods. Acclaimed scholars John C. Inscoe, Gordon B. McKinney, and Ken Fones-Wolf are joined by up-and-comers like Mary Ella Engel, Anne E. Marshall, and Kyle Osborn in a unique volume investigating postwar Appalachia with clarity and precision. Featuring a broad geographic focus, the compelling essays cover postwar events in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. This approach provides an intimate portrait of Appalachia as a diverse collection of communities where the values of place and family are of crucial importance. Highlighting a wide array of topics including racial reconciliation, tension between former Unionists and Confederates, the evolution of post—Civil War memory, and altered perceptions of race, gender, and economic status, Reconstructing Appalachia is a timely and essential study of a region rich in heritage and tradition. “Outstanding.” —North Carolina Historical Review

Author : W. K. McNeil
Publisher : Univ. of Tennessee Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : History
ISBN : 0870498665

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Appalachian Images in Folk and Popular Culture by W. K. McNeil Pdf

A compilation of articles and essays from the past 130 years on the character and spirit of Appalachian culture, organized according to four major periods in the awareness of Appalachian culture. Essays covering Kentucky feuds, moonshining, handcrafts, dietary habits, and religion include introductions and editorial commentary. This second edition includes an article on the cultural ramifications of "Appalachian" television programs.

Author : John C. Inscoe
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2020-11-24
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781469660158

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Movie-Made Appalachia by John C. Inscoe Pdf

While Hollywood deserves its reputation for much-maligned portrayals of southern highlanders on screen, the film industry also deserves credit for a long-standing tradition of more serious and meaningful depictions of Appalachia's people. Surveying some two dozen films and the literary and historical sources from which they were adapted, John C. Inscoe argues that in the American imagination Appalachia has long represented far more than deprived and depraved hillbillies. Rather, the films he highlights serve as effective conduits into the region's past, some grounded firmly in documented realities and life stories, others only loosely so. In either case, they deserve more credit than they have received for creating sympathetic and often complex characters who interact within families, households, and communities amidst a wide array of historical contingencies. They provide credible and informative narratives that respect the specifics of the times and places in which they are set. Having used many of these movies as teaching tools in college classrooms, Inscoe demonstrates the cumulative effect of analyzing them in terms of shared themes and topics to convey far more generous insights into Appalachia and its history than one would have expected to emerge from southern California's "dream factory."