Appalachian Studies Commons^™

A Damn Short Prayer, Beth Jane Toren

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This poster presents a transcript poem created with murder tales in oral history recordings. Leveraging the creative arts of storytelling, transcript poetry and visual orality, the poster brings light and music to Appalachian storyteller voices in tales of shady murders.

The handout presents the poem with visual orality methods juxtaposed beside Standard English orthographic transcription, enabling a visual comparison, a link a video with graphic text and the original voice recordings, and brief readings about concepts and methods.

Building Eden, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Ralph Deigh is the most famous vernacular American architect you've never heard of. After a military career spanning two wars and struggles with homelessness and PTSD, he is invited to design an entirely new rural community for the 21st century. Twin disasters (fire and flood) in Dare County, West Virginia, set up the circumstances for him to join with Rosemary Mueller and the wealthy Ohio-based Mueller Foundation and a mysterious group of local Dare County residents led by Adam Sennett, County Clerk of Dare County. Together, they design and build the new town of Eden, West Virginia.

The whole story …

Lyda Judson Hanifan, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Lyda J. Hanifan was one of the original staff members of the West Virginia Department of Education, and internationally celebrated as the first author to formulate the concept of social capital.

Why Didn't The Dogs Bark?, Roger A. Lohmann, Shirley Stewart Burns

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This study examines patterns of news coverage of five West Virginia mining disasters in local, regional and national news media. It grew out of an effort to follow up an earlier study of relief efforts at the Monongah mine disaster of 1907. One of the principal findings is that local newspapers consistently provided limited coverage of mining disasters and almost no coverage of relief efforts carried on in the wake of disasters. National coverage, by the New York Times and regional coverage by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reveals a number of persistent themes and some important differences.

The Monongah Mines Disaster Relief Committee, Roger A. Lohmann, Craig Johnson

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Allen Eaton And The Department Of Art And Social Work: Social Work In The Appalachian Arts And Crafts Movement1, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper explores a singular chapter in Social Work, Appalachia and

American culture. Like many other aspects of Appalachian culture and politics, it is

primarily a tale of extended effort for what proved to be a lost cause. Like many

other chapters in the history of the social work profession, it is a tale of a bright

beginning and insufficient follow-through. It is an optimistic narrative of expected

and unanticipated consequences that have proven to be beneficial for the culture

and economy of the region. It is also a deeply political narrative, if only because it is

dramatically at variance …

Four Perspectives On Appalachian Culture And Poverty, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Poverty is as closely associated with the Appalachian region as coal mining and the hammer dulcimer. Appalachian poverty has seldom been portrayed simply as poverty, but as the expression and symbol of something larger. Images of poverty - poorly dressed, sooty, emaciated, barefooted, mostly white, rural children and adults beside cabin porches - are as closely associated with Appalachia as cowboy hats with the West or moss-covered trees and white-columned mansions with the Old South.