Anthony Harkins
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195189506
- eISBN:
- 9780199788835
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189506.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This book examines the evolution of one of the most pervasive and enduring American icons from the 18th-century to the present day. Spanning film, literature, and the entire expanse of American ...
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This book examines the evolution of one of the most pervasive and enduring American icons from the 18th-century to the present day. Spanning film, literature, and the entire expanse of American popular culture, from comics to country music to television and the Internet, the book argues that the longevity of the hillbilly stems from its ambiguity as a marker of both social derision and regional pride. Typically associated with Appalachia or the Ozarks, the “hillbilly” was viewed by mainstream Americans simultaneously as a violent degenerate who threatens the social order, and as a keeper of traditional values of family, home, and physical production. The character was therefore both a foil to an increasingly urbanizing and industrializing America and a symbol of a nostalgic past free of the problems of contemporary life. The book also argues that “hillbillies” have played a critical role in the construction of whiteness and modernity. Middle-class Americans imagined hillbillies, with their supposedly pure Anglo-Saxon or Scottish origins, as an exotic race, akin to blacks and Indians, but still native and white, as opposed to the growing influx of immigrants in the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, the image's whiteness allowed crude caricatures of Southern mountaineers to persist long after similar ethnic and racial stereotypes had become socially unacceptable.Less
This book examines the evolution of one of the most pervasive and enduring American icons from the 18th-century to the present day. Spanning film, literature, and the entire expanse of American popular culture, from comics to country music to television and the Internet, the book argues that the longevity of the hillbilly stems from its ambiguity as a marker of both social derision and regional pride. Typically associated with Appalachia or the Ozarks, the “hillbilly” was viewed by mainstream Americans simultaneously as a violent degenerate who threatens the social order, and as a keeper of traditional values of family, home, and physical production. The character was therefore both a foil to an increasingly urbanizing and industrializing America and a symbol of a nostalgic past free of the problems of contemporary life. The book also argues that “hillbillies” have played a critical role in the construction of whiteness and modernity. Middle-class Americans imagined hillbillies, with their supposedly pure Anglo-Saxon or Scottish origins, as an exotic race, akin to blacks and Indians, but still native and white, as opposed to the growing influx of immigrants in the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, the image's whiteness allowed crude caricatures of Southern mountaineers to persist long after similar ethnic and racial stereotypes had become socially unacceptable.
Samantha NeCamp
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780813178851
- eISBN:
- 9780813178868
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813178851.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
Literacy in the Mountains examines five Appalachian newspapers published between 1885 and 1920 for evidence of literacy practices in mountain communities. The newspapers illustrate that there existed ...
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Literacy in the Mountains examines five Appalachian newspapers published between 1885 and 1920 for evidence of literacy practices in mountain communities. The newspapers illustrate that there existed a vibrant community of readers and writers in an area often imagined as illiterate and textless. Documenting a variety of literacy exchanges and a passionate commitment to local education institutions, the newspapers serve as a historical archive to recover otherwise invisible practices from the turn of the century. These findings demonstrate that the “idea of Appalachia” as a poor and illiterate region at the turn of the century is inaccurate, thus belying current narratives that the region is doomed to repeat cycles of poverty that reach into the distant past. Instead, Appalachia has a rich history of literacy and civic participation on which to draw.Less
Literacy in the Mountains examines five Appalachian newspapers published between 1885 and 1920 for evidence of literacy practices in mountain communities. The newspapers illustrate that there existed a vibrant community of readers and writers in an area often imagined as illiterate and textless. Documenting a variety of literacy exchanges and a passionate commitment to local education institutions, the newspapers serve as a historical archive to recover otherwise invisible practices from the turn of the century. These findings demonstrate that the “idea of Appalachia” as a poor and illiterate region at the turn of the century is inaccurate, thus belying current narratives that the region is doomed to repeat cycles of poverty that reach into the distant past. Instead, Appalachia has a rich history of literacy and civic participation on which to draw.
Allison Dorothy Fredette
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780813179155
- eISBN:
- 9780813179162
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813179155.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
Not quite the Cotton Kingdom or the free labor North, the mid-nineteenth-century border South was a land in between. There, the clashing ideologies of this era—slavery and freedom, urban and rural, ...
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Not quite the Cotton Kingdom or the free labor North, the mid-nineteenth-century border South was a land in between. There, the clashing ideologies of this era—slavery and freedom, urban and rural, industrial and agrarian—met, merged, and melded. As they did, they formed something new—a fluid, flexible identity that somehow grew from these tensions while rising above them. This border identity would play a critical role in these states’ experiences during the secession crisis, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Yet, this story—one of political division, internal warfare, and economic struggles—is only one part of the border South’s larger saga. Focusing on the heart of this complicated region, Marriage on the Border reveals how this border environment shaped the lives and loves of Kentuckians, West Virginians, and Appalachian Virginians. Inundated with conflicting messages about marriage, divorce, and gender, these border southerners set their own path. In an era when advice manuals urged all Americans to adopt new ideals of companionate marriage and loving mutuality, border southerners proved especially receptive to these notions. Additionally, when these marriages crumbled, border southerners found ways to divorce more easily than other southerners of this era. Marriage on the Border follows border southerners through their courtships and into their homes, through blissful marriages and turbulent divorce dramas, through secession, war, and reconstruction. Along the way, Marriage on the Border captures the turmoil and confusion of this era, not in its legislative halls or on the battlefield, but in the households of those who lived at the heart of the country.Less
Not quite the Cotton Kingdom or the free labor North, the mid-nineteenth-century border South was a land in between. There, the clashing ideologies of this era—slavery and freedom, urban and rural, industrial and agrarian—met, merged, and melded. As they did, they formed something new—a fluid, flexible identity that somehow grew from these tensions while rising above them. This border identity would play a critical role in these states’ experiences during the secession crisis, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Yet, this story—one of political division, internal warfare, and economic struggles—is only one part of the border South’s larger saga. Focusing on the heart of this complicated region, Marriage on the Border reveals how this border environment shaped the lives and loves of Kentuckians, West Virginians, and Appalachian Virginians. Inundated with conflicting messages about marriage, divorce, and gender, these border southerners set their own path. In an era when advice manuals urged all Americans to adopt new ideals of companionate marriage and loving mutuality, border southerners proved especially receptive to these notions. Additionally, when these marriages crumbled, border southerners found ways to divorce more easily than other southerners of this era. Marriage on the Border follows border southerners through their courtships and into their homes, through blissful marriages and turbulent divorce dramas, through secession, war, and reconstruction. Along the way, Marriage on the Border captures the turmoil and confusion of this era, not in its legislative halls or on the battlefield, but in the households of those who lived at the heart of the country.
Andrew R. H. Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813165998
- eISBN:
- 9780813166698
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813165998.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining, which has profound environmental and social impacts on the Appalachian Mountain region, represents an urgent ethical issue for Christians. The book proposes a ...
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Mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining, which has profound environmental and social impacts on the Appalachian Mountain region, represents an urgent ethical issue for Christians. The book proposes a Christian ethical approach to MTR that addresses the various intersecting discourses and narratives that shape an understanding of this region and this issue. It draws on the ethical thought of H. Richard Niebuhr, whose theocentric ethic integrates a relational theory of value, a view of moral agency as responsible, and a steadfast insistence on the centrality of God and God’s purposes. The proposed Niebuhrian theocentric approach examines and challenges the church’s imaginations in this regard and offers alternatives centered on the purposes of God rather than on finite human interests. In applying this approach to MTR, the author considers three specific discursive pairs in order to critique them and suggest how a theocentric imagination might modify them: power and powerlessness, insiders and outsiders, and destruction and reclamation. Finally, the author argues that this approach, informed by a practiced love of the mountains, can support a strong but nuanced prophetic critique of the most destructive aspects of this practice.Less
Mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining, which has profound environmental and social impacts on the Appalachian Mountain region, represents an urgent ethical issue for Christians. The book proposes a Christian ethical approach to MTR that addresses the various intersecting discourses and narratives that shape an understanding of this region and this issue. It draws on the ethical thought of H. Richard Niebuhr, whose theocentric ethic integrates a relational theory of value, a view of moral agency as responsible, and a steadfast insistence on the centrality of God and God’s purposes. The proposed Niebuhrian theocentric approach examines and challenges the church’s imaginations in this regard and offers alternatives centered on the purposes of God rather than on finite human interests. In applying this approach to MTR, the author considers three specific discursive pairs in order to critique them and suggest how a theocentric imagination might modify them: power and powerlessness, insiders and outsiders, and destruction and reclamation. Finally, the author argues that this approach, informed by a practiced love of the mountains, can support a strong but nuanced prophetic critique of the most destructive aspects of this practice.
Mallory McDuff
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195379570
- eISBN:
- 9780199869084
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379570.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Religious traditions are rich with stories of pilgrimage, a journey for spiritual enrichment that involves travel to a place of meaning. This chapter reveals how people of faith made a pilgrimage to ...
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Religious traditions are rich with stories of pilgrimage, a journey for spiritual enrichment that involves travel to a place of meaning. This chapter reveals how people of faith made a pilgrimage to eastern Kentucky to experience firsthand the devastating impacts of mountaintop removal on God’s land and the people of Appalachia. The journey described in this chapter involved twelve interfaith pilgrims in an encounter with mountaintop removal that included flying over the mountains, hiking on mining sites, praying with local ministers, and scattering wildflower seeds on mined earth. This chapter highlights the work of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, which helped coordinate the experience. The spiritual journey revealed lessons for other faith communities: connecting pilgrimages to sacred places, working with local organizations, creating an immersion experience, using prayer as a grounding force, hearing testimonies of faith, and reflecting on feelings and actions.Less
Religious traditions are rich with stories of pilgrimage, a journey for spiritual enrichment that involves travel to a place of meaning. This chapter reveals how people of faith made a pilgrimage to eastern Kentucky to experience firsthand the devastating impacts of mountaintop removal on God’s land and the people of Appalachia. The journey described in this chapter involved twelve interfaith pilgrims in an encounter with mountaintop removal that included flying over the mountains, hiking on mining sites, praying with local ministers, and scattering wildflower seeds on mined earth. This chapter highlights the work of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, which helped coordinate the experience. The spiritual journey revealed lessons for other faith communities: connecting pilgrimages to sacred places, working with local organizations, creating an immersion experience, using prayer as a grounding force, hearing testimonies of faith, and reflecting on feelings and actions.
Joseph D. Witt
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780813168128
- eISBN:
- 9780813168753
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813168128.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This volume examines the complex roles of religious values and perceptions of place in the efforts of twenty-first-century anti-mountaintop removal activists in Appalachia. Applying theoretical ...
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This volume examines the complex roles of religious values and perceptions of place in the efforts of twenty-first-century anti-mountaintop removal activists in Appalachia. Applying theoretical insights from religious studies, Appalachian studies, and critical regionalism, the work charts how views of Appalachian place were transformed and revised through activism and how different religious threads were involved in that process, weaving together patterns of meaning and significance to help motivate activist efforts and reshape visions of Appalachia. The specific religious threads examined include Catholic and mainline Protestant visions of eco-justice (or religiously inspired arguments in support of social and environmental justice), evangelical Christian views of Creation Care (a term encompassing multiple visions of theocentric stewardship ethics), and forms of nature-venerating spirituality (including spiritual and religious proponents of biocentric ethics and “dark green religion”). These religious perspectives encountered friction with other perspectives, structures, and practices, generating new perspectives on the issue formed from physical interactions between diverse stakeholders as well as new visions for Appalachia in a post-mountaintop removal future. The work points to ways that scholars might continue to analyze the interconnections between local religious values and perceptions of place, influencing further studies in the interdisciplinary field of religion and nature, place studies, and social movements.Less
This volume examines the complex roles of religious values and perceptions of place in the efforts of twenty-first-century anti-mountaintop removal activists in Appalachia. Applying theoretical insights from religious studies, Appalachian studies, and critical regionalism, the work charts how views of Appalachian place were transformed and revised through activism and how different religious threads were involved in that process, weaving together patterns of meaning and significance to help motivate activist efforts and reshape visions of Appalachia. The specific religious threads examined include Catholic and mainline Protestant visions of eco-justice (or religiously inspired arguments in support of social and environmental justice), evangelical Christian views of Creation Care (a term encompassing multiple visions of theocentric stewardship ethics), and forms of nature-venerating spirituality (including spiritual and religious proponents of biocentric ethics and “dark green religion”). These religious perspectives encountered friction with other perspectives, structures, and practices, generating new perspectives on the issue formed from physical interactions between diverse stakeholders as well as new visions for Appalachia in a post-mountaintop removal future. The work points to ways that scholars might continue to analyze the interconnections between local religious values and perceptions of place, influencing further studies in the interdisciplinary field of religion and nature, place studies, and social movements.
Andrew R. H. Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813165998
- eISBN:
- 9780813166698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813165998.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This introductory section describes key features of MTR and the debate surrounding it. MTR is a highly controversial form of surface mining that uses explosives to remove vast amounts of material ...
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This introductory section describes key features of MTR and the debate surrounding it. MTR is a highly controversial form of surface mining that uses explosives to remove vast amounts of material from mountaintops to access the coal seams beneath them. The author’s theocentric approach, based on the work of H. Richard Niebuhr, examines and challenges key discourses in the MTR debate, seeking imaginations that center on divine purposes rather than human ones.Less
This introductory section describes key features of MTR and the debate surrounding it. MTR is a highly controversial form of surface mining that uses explosives to remove vast amounts of material from mountaintops to access the coal seams beneath them. The author’s theocentric approach, based on the work of H. Richard Niebuhr, examines and challenges key discourses in the MTR debate, seeking imaginations that center on divine purposes rather than human ones.
Andrew R. H. Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813165998
- eISBN:
- 9780813166698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813165998.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The idea of Appalachia as a discrete region with its own peculiar ecology, people, and customs is the result of a long series of interrelated discourses. This chapter examines three pairs of ...
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The idea of Appalachia as a discrete region with its own peculiar ecology, people, and customs is the result of a long series of interrelated discourses. This chapter examines three pairs of concepts—power and powerlessness, insiders and outsiders, and destruction and reclamation—that are relevant for MTR and provide particularly rich territory for an analysis from a theocentric perspective. These ideas have played a role in descriptions of the region and debates about MTR, making their analysis important to ethical thought. After discussing the choice of these particular pairs and the method of analysis, the author turns to the concepts themselves.Less
The idea of Appalachia as a discrete region with its own peculiar ecology, people, and customs is the result of a long series of interrelated discourses. This chapter examines three pairs of concepts—power and powerlessness, insiders and outsiders, and destruction and reclamation—that are relevant for MTR and provide particularly rich territory for an analysis from a theocentric perspective. These ideas have played a role in descriptions of the region and debates about MTR, making their analysis important to ethical thought. After discussing the choice of these particular pairs and the method of analysis, the author turns to the concepts themselves.
Andrew R. H. Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813165998
- eISBN:
- 9780813166698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813165998.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The goal of this book’s theocentric approach is not only to relativize human interpretations and imaginations but also to articulate more God-centered ones based on God’s values and purposes. This ...
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The goal of this book’s theocentric approach is not only to relativize human interpretations and imaginations but also to articulate more God-centered ones based on God’s values and purposes. This chapter describes theocentric perspectives that reshape imaginations of power and powerlessness, insiders and outsiders, and destruction and reclamation. For each set of ideas, the author summarizes a theocentric view of the issue and defends the applicability of the theocentric view to MTR and Appalachia by indicating how this perspective resonates with a variety of other perspectives on Appalachia. Finally, he suggests some practical implications for Christian responses to MTR and offers specific examples from the region.Less
The goal of this book’s theocentric approach is not only to relativize human interpretations and imaginations but also to articulate more God-centered ones based on God’s values and purposes. This chapter describes theocentric perspectives that reshape imaginations of power and powerlessness, insiders and outsiders, and destruction and reclamation. For each set of ideas, the author summarizes a theocentric view of the issue and defends the applicability of the theocentric view to MTR and Appalachia by indicating how this perspective resonates with a variety of other perspectives on Appalachia. Finally, he suggests some practical implications for Christian responses to MTR and offers specific examples from the region.
Robert Tracy McKenzie
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195182941
- eISBN:
- 9780199788897
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182941.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This introductory chapter establishes the relative inattention of historians to Confederate Appalachia and East Tennessee in particular. It explains the attractiveness of Knoxville, Tennessee, as a ...
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This introductory chapter establishes the relative inattention of historians to Confederate Appalachia and East Tennessee in particular. It explains the attractiveness of Knoxville, Tennessee, as a case study of divided loyalties under military occupation. Most notably, the town split almost literally evenly on the question of secession, was continuously occupied throughout the entire Civil War, became famous among Northerners as a bastion of Unionism within the Confederacy, and left an unusual wealth of evidence that allows the book to pinpoint the sympathies and behavior of more than half the civilian population.Less
This introductory chapter establishes the relative inattention of historians to Confederate Appalachia and East Tennessee in particular. It explains the attractiveness of Knoxville, Tennessee, as a case study of divided loyalties under military occupation. Most notably, the town split almost literally evenly on the question of secession, was continuously occupied throughout the entire Civil War, became famous among Northerners as a bastion of Unionism within the Confederacy, and left an unusual wealth of evidence that allows the book to pinpoint the sympathies and behavior of more than half the civilian population.
Robert Tracy McKenzie
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195182941
- eISBN:
- 9780199788897
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182941.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter focuses on the “liberation” of Knoxville by a Union army under General Ambrose Burnside in September 1863, and the subsequent efforts by Confederate General James Longstreet to reclaim ...
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This chapter focuses on the “liberation” of Knoxville by a Union army under General Ambrose Burnside in September 1863, and the subsequent efforts by Confederate General James Longstreet to reclaim the town two months later. It begins with a survey of perceptions of Appalachia recorded by Northern soldiers as they entered East Tennessee. It then turns to a detailed narrative of the siege of Knoxville, during which time nearly 40,000 soldiers (Union and Confederate) were camped in and around this town of 4,000. The three-week-long siege culminated in the Battle of Fort Sanders on November 29, 1863. In pitting generals Burnside and Longstreet against one another, the battle was in many respects a recreation of the famous Battle of Fredericksburg with the roles reversed, with Longstreet forced to assault a strongly positioned defensive force commanded by Burnside.Less
This chapter focuses on the “liberation” of Knoxville by a Union army under General Ambrose Burnside in September 1863, and the subsequent efforts by Confederate General James Longstreet to reclaim the town two months later. It begins with a survey of perceptions of Appalachia recorded by Northern soldiers as they entered East Tennessee. It then turns to a detailed narrative of the siege of Knoxville, during which time nearly 40,000 soldiers (Union and Confederate) were camped in and around this town of 4,000. The three-week-long siege culminated in the Battle of Fort Sanders on November 29, 1863. In pitting generals Burnside and Longstreet against one another, the battle was in many respects a recreation of the famous Battle of Fredericksburg with the roles reversed, with Longstreet forced to assault a strongly positioned defensive force commanded by Burnside.
Roger Glenn Robins
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195165913
- eISBN:
- 9780199835454
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195165918.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
Between 1895 and 1898, financial tribulation and spiritual discontent motivated Tomlinson to break away from the Society of Friends and embark on a lifetime of radical holiness ministry. Tomlinson ...
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Between 1895 and 1898, financial tribulation and spiritual discontent motivated Tomlinson to break away from the Society of Friends and embark on a lifetime of radical holiness ministry. Tomlinson decided to set out for Appalachia, which he had visited in the past with mentor J.B. Mitchell. This decision was attributed to his inclination to avoid the crowd, at a time when foreign missions dominated headlines while home missions were relegated to the background.Less
Between 1895 and 1898, financial tribulation and spiritual discontent motivated Tomlinson to break away from the Society of Friends and embark on a lifetime of radical holiness ministry. Tomlinson decided to set out for Appalachia, which he had visited in the past with mentor J.B. Mitchell. This decision was attributed to his inclination to avoid the crowd, at a time when foreign missions dominated headlines while home missions were relegated to the background.
Roger Glenn Robins
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195165913
- eISBN:
- 9780199835454
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195165918.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
A.J. Tomlinson and his fellow “bible missionaries” relocated to Culberson, North Carolina, a small town less accessible to the outside world and more accessible to the poor mountain whites they ...
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A.J. Tomlinson and his fellow “bible missionaries” relocated to Culberson, North Carolina, a small town less accessible to the outside world and more accessible to the poor mountain whites they wanted to reach. The mission was a modest affair involving the distribution of religious literature, home visitation, and local revivals. Tomlinson sought to create an Eden in Appalachia, where mortals could unmake the fall and refashion the garden as it had been before shame entered.Less
A.J. Tomlinson and his fellow “bible missionaries” relocated to Culberson, North Carolina, a small town less accessible to the outside world and more accessible to the poor mountain whites they wanted to reach. The mission was a modest affair involving the distribution of religious literature, home visitation, and local revivals. Tomlinson sought to create an Eden in Appalachia, where mortals could unmake the fall and refashion the garden as it had been before shame entered.
Dwight B. Billings and Ann E. Kingsolver (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813175324
- eISBN:
- 9780813175676
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813175324.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
In an increasingly globalized world, place matters more than ever. That is certainly the case in Appalachian studies—a field that brings scholars, activists, artists, and citizens together around a ...
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In an increasingly globalized world, place matters more than ever. That is certainly the case in Appalachian studies—a field that brings scholars, activists, artists, and citizens together around a region to contest misappropriations of resources and power and combat stereotypes of isolation and intolerance. In Appalachia in Regional Context: Place Matters, the diverse ways in which place is invoked, the person who invokes it, and the reasons behind that invocation all matter greatly. In this collection, scholars and artists are assembled from a variety of disciplines to broaden the conversation. The book begins with chapters challenging conventional representations of Appalachia by exploring theoretically the relationships among regionalism, globalism, activism, and everyday experience. Other chapters examine, for example, foodways, depictions of Appalachian gendered and racialized identity in popular culture, the experiences of rural LGBTQ youth, and the pitfalls and promises of teaching regional studies. Poems by the renowned social critic bell hooks interleave the chapters and add context to reflections on the region. Drawing on cultural anthropology, sociology, geography, media studies, political science, gender and women’s studies, ethnography, social theory, art, music, and literature, this volume furthers the exploration of new perspectives on one of America’s most compelling and misunderstood regions.Less
In an increasingly globalized world, place matters more than ever. That is certainly the case in Appalachian studies—a field that brings scholars, activists, artists, and citizens together around a region to contest misappropriations of resources and power and combat stereotypes of isolation and intolerance. In Appalachia in Regional Context: Place Matters, the diverse ways in which place is invoked, the person who invokes it, and the reasons behind that invocation all matter greatly. In this collection, scholars and artists are assembled from a variety of disciplines to broaden the conversation. The book begins with chapters challenging conventional representations of Appalachia by exploring theoretically the relationships among regionalism, globalism, activism, and everyday experience. Other chapters examine, for example, foodways, depictions of Appalachian gendered and racialized identity in popular culture, the experiences of rural LGBTQ youth, and the pitfalls and promises of teaching regional studies. Poems by the renowned social critic bell hooks interleave the chapters and add context to reflections on the region. Drawing on cultural anthropology, sociology, geography, media studies, political science, gender and women’s studies, ethnography, social theory, art, music, and literature, this volume furthers the exploration of new perspectives on one of America’s most compelling and misunderstood regions.
Steven E. Nash
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626246
- eISBN:
- 9781469628080
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626246.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
Reconstruction typically brings to mind war-torn plantations and battles over the meaning of freedom after the Civil War. Slavery was such a central part of southern life—permeating every aspect of ...
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Reconstruction typically brings to mind war-torn plantations and battles over the meaning of freedom after the Civil War. Slavery was such a central part of southern life—permeating every aspect of southern society—that its demise affected every southerner across the region. Emancipation stands at the heart of post-Civil War southern history for good reason. But when historians examine western North Carolina, part of overwhelmingly white Southern Appalachia, other postwar issues demand consideration. Persistent wartime loyalties informed bitter power struggles between groups of white mountaineers determined to rule. For a brief period, an influx of federal governmental power enabled white anti-Confederates to ally with former slaves in order to lift the Republican Party to power at home and in the state as a whole. Republican success led to a violent response from a transformed class of white elites, clinging to the legitimacy of the antebellum period while pushing for greater integration into the market-oriented New South. Western North Carolina—far from “exceptional”—highlights the complex array of issues ranging from wartime loyalties, race, federal state power, and the integration of the mountain South into a national market system that made Reconstruction a pivotal moment in American history. It also reorients our view of reconstruction from the plantation districts to include the complex and diverse realities across the South that reshaped federal policy at the grassroots. Regions like western North Carolina played a critical part in that process.Less
Reconstruction typically brings to mind war-torn plantations and battles over the meaning of freedom after the Civil War. Slavery was such a central part of southern life—permeating every aspect of southern society—that its demise affected every southerner across the region. Emancipation stands at the heart of post-Civil War southern history for good reason. But when historians examine western North Carolina, part of overwhelmingly white Southern Appalachia, other postwar issues demand consideration. Persistent wartime loyalties informed bitter power struggles between groups of white mountaineers determined to rule. For a brief period, an influx of federal governmental power enabled white anti-Confederates to ally with former slaves in order to lift the Republican Party to power at home and in the state as a whole. Republican success led to a violent response from a transformed class of white elites, clinging to the legitimacy of the antebellum period while pushing for greater integration into the market-oriented New South. Western North Carolina—far from “exceptional”—highlights the complex array of issues ranging from wartime loyalties, race, federal state power, and the integration of the mountain South into a national market system that made Reconstruction a pivotal moment in American history. It also reorients our view of reconstruction from the plantation districts to include the complex and diverse realities across the South that reshaped federal policy at the grassroots. Regions like western North Carolina played a critical part in that process.
Lindsey A. Freeman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469622378
- eISBN:
- 9781469623177
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469622378.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
Tucked into the folds of Appalachia and kept off all commercial maps, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was created for the Manhattan Project by the U.S. government in the 1940s. The city has experienced the ...
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Tucked into the folds of Appalachia and kept off all commercial maps, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was created for the Manhattan Project by the U.S. government in the 1940s. The city has experienced the entire lifespan of the Atomic Age, from the fevered wartime enrichment of the uranium that fueled Little Boy, through a brief period of atomic utopianism after World War II when it began to brand itself as “The Atomic City,” to the anxieties of the Cold War, to the contradictory contemporary period of nuclear unease and atomic nostalgia. This book shows how a once-secret city is visibly caught in an uncertain present, no longer what it was historically yet still clinging to the hope of a nuclear future. It is a place where history, memory, and myth compete and conspire to tell the story of America’s atomic past and to explain the nuclear present.Less
Tucked into the folds of Appalachia and kept off all commercial maps, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was created for the Manhattan Project by the U.S. government in the 1940s. The city has experienced the entire lifespan of the Atomic Age, from the fevered wartime enrichment of the uranium that fueled Little Boy, through a brief period of atomic utopianism after World War II when it began to brand itself as “The Atomic City,” to the anxieties of the Cold War, to the contradictory contemporary period of nuclear unease and atomic nostalgia. This book shows how a once-secret city is visibly caught in an uncertain present, no longer what it was historically yet still clinging to the hope of a nuclear future. It is a place where history, memory, and myth compete and conspire to tell the story of America’s atomic past and to explain the nuclear present.
Anderson Blanton
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469623979
- eISBN:
- 9781469623993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469623979.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter describes the miraculous power of the Holy Ghost and its particular mediations through the radio loudspeaker. Through this exploration of prayer translated through the radio apparatus, ...
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This chapter describes the miraculous power of the Holy Ghost and its particular mediations through the radio loudspeaker. Through this exploration of prayer translated through the radio apparatus, this chapter also introduces key performances of charismatic worship and techniques of prayer that recur throughout the book. Articulating the phenomenon of “radio tactility” as an efficacious point of contact for the communication of healing virtue, this section moves comparatively between performances of divine communication in southern Appalachia and broader Pentecostal practices of the twentieth century. While grounded in the contemporary practice of curative radio prayer among charismatic communities in southern Appalachia, this chapter also recalls formative practices of faith during the Charismatic Revival of the early 1950s, when millions of listeners tuned in to Oral Roberts’s Healing Waters radio broadcast and were instructed to put their hands on the radio during the healing prayer.Less
This chapter describes the miraculous power of the Holy Ghost and its particular mediations through the radio loudspeaker. Through this exploration of prayer translated through the radio apparatus, this chapter also introduces key performances of charismatic worship and techniques of prayer that recur throughout the book. Articulating the phenomenon of “radio tactility” as an efficacious point of contact for the communication of healing virtue, this section moves comparatively between performances of divine communication in southern Appalachia and broader Pentecostal practices of the twentieth century. While grounded in the contemporary practice of curative radio prayer among charismatic communities in southern Appalachia, this chapter also recalls formative practices of faith during the Charismatic Revival of the early 1950s, when millions of listeners tuned in to Oral Roberts’s Healing Waters radio broadcast and were instructed to put their hands on the radio during the healing prayer.
Bernard Debarbieux, Gilles Rudaz, and Martin F. Price
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226031118
- eISBN:
- 9780226031255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226031255.003.0003
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cultural and Historical Geography
This chapter focuses on the role given to mountain areas and topography in the making of territory of modern states. It especially examines the birth and spreading of the idea that mountains could ...
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This chapter focuses on the role given to mountain areas and topography in the making of territory of modern states. It especially examines the birth and spreading of the idea that mountains could serve as natural limits to political territories, from natural philosophy and political economy of the 18th century to the treaties of the 20th century in Central Europe and South America. It also recalls the role of the strategic and tactical vision of mountains in modern armies. It also give room to theoreticians, such as Ratzel and Haushofer, political regimes, such as the Nazis, and ideologists of expansionism such as the one which fueled the making of the US territory in the 19th century who criticized this policy of natural boundaries and contested the advantage of having mountains at the border of national territories. This chapter also examines the case of countries where some mountains have been thought as being a pivot of national territory and national imagination, such as in Switzerland, Korea, Slovenia.Less
This chapter focuses on the role given to mountain areas and topography in the making of territory of modern states. It especially examines the birth and spreading of the idea that mountains could serve as natural limits to political territories, from natural philosophy and political economy of the 18th century to the treaties of the 20th century in Central Europe and South America. It also recalls the role of the strategic and tactical vision of mountains in modern armies. It also give room to theoreticians, such as Ratzel and Haushofer, political regimes, such as the Nazis, and ideologists of expansionism such as the one which fueled the making of the US territory in the 19th century who criticized this policy of natural boundaries and contested the advantage of having mountains at the border of national territories. This chapter also examines the case of countries where some mountains have been thought as being a pivot of national territory and national imagination, such as in Switzerland, Korea, Slovenia.
Shannon Elizabeth Bell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262034340
- eISBN:
- 9780262333597
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034340.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
In Fighting King Coal, Shannon Elizabeth Bell examines an understudied puzzle within social movement theory: why so few of the vast number of people who suffer from industry-produced environmental ...
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In Fighting King Coal, Shannon Elizabeth Bell examines an understudied puzzle within social movement theory: why so few of the vast number of people who suffer from industry-produced environmental hazards and pollution rise up to participate in social movements aimed at bringing about environmental justice and industry accountability. Bell investigates the challenges of micromobilization through a case study of the coalfields of Central Appalachia, where mountaintop removal mining and coal industry-related flooding, sickness, and water contamination have led to the emergence of a grassroots environmental justice movement that is demanding protection from and accountability for the destruction and pollution in coalfield communities. The coal industry’s impact on communities has been far-reaching; however, recruiting new local residents to join the environmental justice movement has proven to be an ongoing challenge. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observation, content analysis, geospatial viewshed analysis, and an eight-month “Photovoice” project, Bell uncovers numerous factors contributing to the low numbers of local environmental justice activists, including depleted social capital, the coal-related hegemonic masculinity of the region, the coal industry’s cultural manipulation efforts, the fact that much of the mining activity is hidden, the power of local elite, and the changing face of the environmental justice movement. Through the Photovoice project, Bell reveals the importance of identities to the success or failure of local recruitment efforts in social movement struggles, ultimately arguing that if the local identities of environmental justice movements are lost, they may also lose their power.Less
In Fighting King Coal, Shannon Elizabeth Bell examines an understudied puzzle within social movement theory: why so few of the vast number of people who suffer from industry-produced environmental hazards and pollution rise up to participate in social movements aimed at bringing about environmental justice and industry accountability. Bell investigates the challenges of micromobilization through a case study of the coalfields of Central Appalachia, where mountaintop removal mining and coal industry-related flooding, sickness, and water contamination have led to the emergence of a grassroots environmental justice movement that is demanding protection from and accountability for the destruction and pollution in coalfield communities. The coal industry’s impact on communities has been far-reaching; however, recruiting new local residents to join the environmental justice movement has proven to be an ongoing challenge. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observation, content analysis, geospatial viewshed analysis, and an eight-month “Photovoice” project, Bell uncovers numerous factors contributing to the low numbers of local environmental justice activists, including depleted social capital, the coal-related hegemonic masculinity of the region, the coal industry’s cultural manipulation efforts, the fact that much of the mining activity is hidden, the power of local elite, and the changing face of the environmental justice movement. Through the Photovoice project, Bell reveals the importance of identities to the success or failure of local recruitment efforts in social movement struggles, ultimately arguing that if the local identities of environmental justice movements are lost, they may also lose their power.
Andrew McNeill Canady
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780813168159
- eISBN:
- 9780813168760
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813168159.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Willis Duke Weatherford lived from 1875 to 1970 and played a key role in many of the significant social and political issues of his day, namely, race relations, education, religion, and Appalachian ...
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Willis Duke Weatherford lived from 1875 to 1970 and played a key role in many of the significant social and political issues of his day, namely, race relations, education, religion, and Appalachian reform. Weatherford was driven to do so because of his Christian beliefs, particularly a philosophy known as personalism. Beginning in 1908, Weatherford became a pioneer in interracial work in the U.S. South, staying active in this field until the end of his life. From 1900 to 1945 Weatherford was also one of the central figures in the YMCA, a time when this institution wielded strong influence on communities and college campuses in this region and across the country. In the last twenty-five years of his life he addressed primarily Appalachian poverty and that region’s religious life. Living until 1970, Weatherford was able to see the demise of segregation. For the greater part of his life, however, he never challenged the Jim Crow structure, nor did he seriously question the capitalist economy that contributed to the poverty of African Americans and of Appalachia. In general, he steered clear of politics, concentrating his efforts on the power of education to change the perceptions of people and bring gradual social improvement. Weatherford’s reform activities were limited by his southern background, the financial constraints he faced as director of several institutions, the climate of white supremacy in the South, and his religious focus. These limitations were also shared by many other white southern progressives of his era.Less
Willis Duke Weatherford lived from 1875 to 1970 and played a key role in many of the significant social and political issues of his day, namely, race relations, education, religion, and Appalachian reform. Weatherford was driven to do so because of his Christian beliefs, particularly a philosophy known as personalism. Beginning in 1908, Weatherford became a pioneer in interracial work in the U.S. South, staying active in this field until the end of his life. From 1900 to 1945 Weatherford was also one of the central figures in the YMCA, a time when this institution wielded strong influence on communities and college campuses in this region and across the country. In the last twenty-five years of his life he addressed primarily Appalachian poverty and that region’s religious life. Living until 1970, Weatherford was able to see the demise of segregation. For the greater part of his life, however, he never challenged the Jim Crow structure, nor did he seriously question the capitalist economy that contributed to the poverty of African Americans and of Appalachia. In general, he steered clear of politics, concentrating his efforts on the power of education to change the perceptions of people and bring gradual social improvement. Weatherford’s reform activities were limited by his southern background, the financial constraints he faced as director of several institutions, the climate of white supremacy in the South, and his religious focus. These limitations were also shared by many other white southern progressives of his era.
