Digital Commons Network^™

Bluegrass: A Voicing, Cade Botts

Masters Theses

In 2010, Fred Bartenstein’s detailed the voice stackings found in bluegrass in his article “Bluegrass Voicings.” [1]This paper will go beyond this discussion of the arrangement of voices to an examination of the harmonic voicing styles found in bluegrass music. Stamps-Braxter’s 1937 arrangement of “Farther Along”[2] and transcriptions of recordings by bluegrass legends Bill Monroe, Stanley Brothers, Reno & Smiley, the Osborne Brothers, Dolly Parton, and the Grascals will be used as a case study to look at multiple chord voicings. Based on the analyses of these transcriptions, a list of “voice leading conventions” for bluegrass compositions will …

Anthropology In A Rural Archive: A Study That Moves Along And Against The Archival Grain, Julian W. Mcdaniel

Masters Theses

Anthropologists have long engaged with archival materials in order to provide historically accurate information that might assist in the production of ethnographic projects. Archives are unique institutions where historical data can be found that contributes valuable information about particular groups of people; however, archives themselves are again and again being controlled by a higher power, particularly that of the State, and this act of ownership contributes to acts of omission that misconstrue historical narratives as well as descriptions of the people and places depicted within an archive. In this project, I engage with an archive located in a rural town …

Embedded Are The Embers Of Echoes, Sarah Jane Cribbs

Masters Theses

What is a haunted house? What makes it haunted? What makes it a house?

I grew up in northern Appalachia. I sat in the back seat of my father’s car for trips from the Eastern foothills to the Western foothills of Pennsylvania mountains to visit my grandmother.

When my perception of the world grew larger as I did too, I began to hide my Appalachian identity. This ended as I began my practice, beginning with a realtime performance on artificial intelligence and queerness. Art practice opened up the possibility of critical play, a method of criticism that focuses on a …

“And They Wrote It All Down As The Progress Of Man”: Relationships Between Environment, Extractive Industries, And Appalachian Agency, Emma V. Kelly

Masters Theses

The landscape of Central Appalachia has shaped and been shaped by its residents for thousands of years. The advent of industrialized extractive industries greatly shifted the nature and the extent of these processes, with capitalistic domination being asserted over the environment. While this shift towards industrialization was a widespread phenomenon, it undertook a unique trajectory within Appalachia, a region which occupies a distinct position within the national perspective. Although geographically established by the Appalachian Regional Commission, Appalachia is more than a politically defined set of counties: It is an incredibly diverse sociocultural region that exists on varying planes of marginalization …

Validation Of The College Planning Behaviors Scale, Katherine Danielle Cook

Masters Theses

College preparation is an important topic in the educational attainment for high school students. Much of the research on college planning focuses on the importance and timing of preparing for postsecondary education; however, little research exists that has determined which steps students actually take while preparing for college. The current study utilizes the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent et al., 1994) framework to create a validated measure to assess choice behavior. In this study, college planning behaviors (CPB), which are the concrete behaviors an individual engages in to prepare for college, were considered as choice actions within the SCCT …

Associations Between Child Feeding Practices And Child Dietary Intake Among Families In Low-Income, Rural Communities In Appalachian East Tennessee, Mikaela Mciver

Masters Theses

Objective: Low-income children and children living in rural areas in the United States have low adherence to federal dietary guidelines and have a higher risk of obesity than their higher income, non-rural counterparts. This study aimed to examine associations between child feeding practices (caregiver modeling, caregiver dietary intake, and home food availability) with child dietary intakes of fruit consumption, vegetable consumption, and high-sugar/high-fat snack food consumption (e.g. candy, doughnuts, cookies, and ice cream) among families with young children in low-income, rural areas in Appalachian East Tennessee.Design: Using cross-sectional data, descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analyses were run using SPSS …

Validating A Measure Of Postsecondary Supports, Sean M. Murphy

Masters Theses

We investigated environmental supports, an under-studied aspect of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown & Hackett, 1994), with rural Appalachian youth, an under-studied population. We developed a 25-item instrument to measure the construct of Postsecondary Supports (PSS): proximal influences that bolster the pursuit of postsecondary education. The new measure of PSS showed strong internal consistency and construct validity. Moreover, PSS was positively correlated with College-Going Self Efficacy (CGSE) and College Outcome Expectations (COE), explaining more unique variance than a measure of perceived educational barriers.

Perceptions And Food Acquisition Behaviors Among Food Pantry Users In Rural Appalachia, Adeline Mae Grier-Welch

Masters Theses

Objective: To ascertain how food pantry users perceive their use of food pantries and how the food pantry fits into the broader scope of food acquisition among rural Appalachian households. Design: Using a grounded theory approach, semi-structured interviews with food pantry users were conducted in-person and over-the-phone. Verbatim interview transcripts were uploaded into NVivo 11.4 software for thematic analysis and theory formulation. Demographic data were collected via survey. Setting: Rural Appalachian food pantries. Subjects: Participants (n=20) were predominately female (80%) and Caucasian (95%) with a mean age of 48 years (+SD= 13.4) with experience using food pantries in rural Appalachia. …

Appalachia Rediscovered: Urban In The Hills, Mark Anthony Nickell

Masters Theses

By the year 2050, sea level rise will drive America’s coastal cities inland looking for new territories or cities to call home causing natural resources to become ever-more scarce. Where will we turn to build our future if our efforts to withstand the inundation of the Eastern Seaboard is not enough? I am looking at the region of Appalachia as a site for the circumstance, and looking closer at the scale of the communities that would surround the metropolitans of Appalachia.If Appalachia is to be the location of America’s next great urbanized regions, I feel it is important to celebrate …

Assessing Bee Community Characteristics And Pollination Within Group Selection Openings In Southern Appalachia, Hannah Lin Mullally

Masters Theses

Bees provide the essential ecosystem service of pollination. Bee communities are often subjected to anthropological activities and in some cases are harmed by these activities. Fortunately, silviculture is a form of anthropological disturbance that can benefit bees and subsequent pollination. While the impacts of intensive silvicultural methods, such as clearcutting, on bees has been well documented, the impacts of lower intensity methods, such as group selection, is less understood. For my first chapter, I investigated bee community characteristics across microsites (center of cut, edge of cut, and closed-canopy forest) in three forest stands subjected to cuts analogous to those associated …

A Case Study Of A Mature Appalachian Hiv Negative Homosexual Man On Hiv Positive Homosexual Men, Jacob Lee Nelson

Masters Theses

Because of the lack of study, little is known about how members of the gay community immersed in rural areas relate to one another especially relative to the AIDS Crisis and those gay men living with HIV (Eldridge, Mack, & Swank, 2008). The purpose of this study was to investigate features of attitude (fears, threats, preconceived notions, and convictions) of a mature HIV negative homosexual man from rural Appalachia on HIV positive homosexual men (Thurstone, 1928). The central research question asked was, “How do you relate to HIV positive gay men as a HIV negative gay man having been raised …

Improving Aedes Mosquito Surveillance And La Crosse Virus Screening In Eastern Tennessee, Cassandra Urquhart

Masters Theses

La Crosse virus (LACV), transmitted by infected Aedes triseriatus, Ae. albopictus, and Ae. japonicus mosquitoes is the leading cause of pediatric arboviral encephalitis. Severe cases of LAC encephalitis occur in individuals 16-years-old or younger and may cause permanent neurological damage or fatality. No vaccines exist making mosquito control and disease prevention crucial to public health. Effective screening and surveillance practices are key components to these goals. While a number of standard mosquito surveillance methods exist, continuous testing and improved understanding of vector biology to determine the best ways to implement these methods is important. Additionally, the current standard …

Impacts Of Land Use Disturbance On Fish And Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Assemblages In The Nolichucky River Watershed, Hayley Sonia Gotwald

Masters Theses

Southern Appalachian watersheds of the United States are negatively affected by pesticides and fertilizers used in row crop agriculture. The objective was to determine if the amount of row crops is connected to changes in aquatic biotic assemblages draining the Nolichucky River watershed in east Tennessee. The hypothesis was the amount of row crops will negatively correlate with indices of biotic integrity (IBI) metrics for fish and benthic macroinvertebrates indicating healthy aquatic communities.

For 18 sample sites in 2014 and 2015, IBI metrics were calculated. Water quality and elevation measurements were made before conducting IBIs. To assess changes in and …

Drinking And Remaking Place: A Study Of The Impact Of Commercial Moonshine In East Tennessee, Helen Rosko

Masters Theses

Moonshine has undergone resurgence in recent years with the passage of the 2009 liquor laws in Tennessee, allowing for 41 counties to open and operate commercial moonshine distilleries. The rise of legalized moonshine is connected to broader economic changes and has already had a significant impact on the cultural landscape and the selling and remaking of place, in both East Tennessee and Appalachia, two historically underserved regions of the United States. Specifically this thesis research asks: How is place being sold, represented, and re-made through the proliferation of moonshine in East Tennessee? I address this question through an analysis of …

Legacy And Dwelling: The Role Of Manufactured Housing In Central Appalachia, Steven Mark Whitmore Ii

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the power of architecture to raise the standards of dwelling in a region where housing conditions, economic stability, and environmental consciousness is considerably lower than the rest of the United States. Historically, many towns and cities in Central Appalachia were developed by coal companies as ‘coal towns’. Considering the diversity of workers in these communities, the coal industry is largely the platform for the cultural identity of Central Appalachia. As a result of coal depletion in the US, and increased regulations of pollution by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), coal companies across the region are closing mining …

Those Who Choose To Stay: Narrating The Rural Appalachian Queer Experience, Amy Michelle Jordan

Masters Theses

“Those who choose to stay” is a qualitative exploratory study compromised of four LGBT youth from rural towns in East Tennessee. These young adults were recruited through LGBT listservs, pride festivals, and word of mouth. Each young adult was interviewed over the course of one to three hours. The interviews were then transcribed and coded using Atlas.ti software, allowing codes to surface from the text. Four main themes were discovered: religious atmosphere, family, coming out, and peer networks.

Religious atmosphere was generally found to be a destructive part of these youths’ environments, making them fear for their safety and worry …

Emergent Opportunities: Urban Design In Small Town Appalachia, Phillip Geiman

Masters Theses

This thesis looks at urban design within small town Appalachia and its role in low density and low resource communities.

Small towns are facing a critical juncture in this point in their history. As most areas transition from a heavy depend acne on industrial based economy to an uncertain post-industrial, they face challenges unique to rural areas. Specifically, this thesis looks at “urban design” in distinctly non-urban areas and seeks to answer the question of what is the function and what is the role of design at such a large (urban) scale.

The idea is that what distinguishes small towns …

Cobb Creek Church: Changing Perspectives In A Serpent-Handling Congregation In East Tennessee, Michael Noel Reid

Masters Theses

In the last year, the traditional practice of handling venomous snakes in Pentecostal church services has returned to the forefront of popular media attention. With the death of renowned handler Randy “Mack” Wolford in West Virginia in May, the news has been rife with stories of the century-old tradition. New, younger groups of handlers have also been instrumental in raising attention to the practice. One congregation in particular has been a key focus for media outlets around the nation. The Cobb Creek Church of God has been featured in The Tennessean, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, …

The Accidental College Student, Phyliss Dubinsky Shey

Masters Theses

This narrative study began as a retrospective of an in-depth interview study with a young woman who navigated the move from a large, suburban school system in the mid-Atlantic region before the fifth grade to a small, isolated rural school in Southern Appalachia in the 1990s. She graduated from the only high school serving the county in which she lived. Over the course of two formal interviews, hundreds of informal conversations for more than ten years, and particularly through writing this analysis (Goodall, 2000), I realized that even though there were vast differences between our ages, cultural backgrounds, and current …

Frontier Access To East Tennessee: A Ceramic Analysis Of Ramsey House (40kn120), Bell Site (40kn202), And Exchange Place (40sl22), Abby Jane Naunheimer

Masters Theses

East Tennessee, falling within the Appalachian sub-culture, was romanticized by 19th-century writers as an unchanging, rural society. The stigma of a non-consumer, frontier culture persisted, questioning the ability of East Tennessee residents to access consumer goods during the frontier period. By using multiple lines of evidence, historical archaeology is well-positioned to study unknown settlers living within a misunderstood region.

Three frontier-era East Tennessee homesteads were chosen to conduct ceramic analyses as a beginning point of understanding consumer access. Ramsey House, Bell Site, and Exchange Place were each occupied beginning in the late 18th century and continued into the first quarter …

"This Murder Done": Misogyny, Femicide, And Modernity In 19th-Century Appalachian Murder Ballads, Christina Ruth Hastie

Masters Theses

This thesis contextualizes Appalachian murder ballads of the 19^th- and early 20^th-centuries through a close reading of the lyric texts. Using a research frame that draws from the musicological and feminist concepts of Diana Russell, Susan McClary, Norm Cohen, and Christopher Small, I reveal 19^th-century Appalachia as a patriarchal, modern, and highly codified society despite its popularized image as a culturally isolated and “backward” place. I use the ballads to demonstrate how music serves the greater cultural purpose of preserving and perpetuating social ideologies. Specifically, the murder ballads reveal layers of meaning regarding hegemonic …