Appalachian Studies Commons^™

From Sacred Harp To Byzantine Chant: Inculturation And Formation Of Orthodox Communion In Alaska, Ava Ortwein

Honors Theses

This thesis will explore how Eastern Orthodoxy has been embraced by some native Appalachians, which has led to a convergence of musical trends as a regional phenomenon. It argues that parts of Appalachia are embracing Orthodoxy, especially as noted through converging musical structures. Through an examination of countries which have accepted Orthodoxy, I emphasize inhabitants’ agency and free acceptance of the Eastern Church, especially through convergence of musical traditions. I also analyze lived experience in Sacred Music within this Appalachian Orthodox Context rather than formal music theory. The research incorporates a diverse range of scholars including ethnomusicologists, historians, Orthodox theologians, …

Wv Bully Pulpits, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

This presentation is grounded in Theodore Roosevelt’s notion of the “bully pulpit,” defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a “public office or position of authority that provides its occupant with the opportunity to speak out and be listened to on any issue” (in this context, “bully” is used in its 19th-century sense of “very good” or “excellent,” not in its modern sense of someone who likes to intimidate, threaten, or actually harm others).

Roosevelt used the term metaphorically, but my presentation will focus on literal pulpits, specifically those occupied by ministers whose sermons challenge the prevailing orthodoxies of a …

God Who Crafts: An Appalachian Theology Of Making And Community, Gwendolen Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Appalachia has been the subject of much speculation and often disparagement since it first became distinct as a part of the United States in approximately the 1860s, but it is more than just its reputation. This dissertation discusses the history and modern myth of Appalachia, and then it considers Appalachia on its own terms through what the people who live there have said about it and about their own lives.

This work focuses on the continued prominence of craft and its place in the spiritual lives of mountain people as it examines interviews that I conducted with mountain crafters. I …

Charity Begins At Home: A Case Study Of Rural Western Pennsylvania During The Great Depression, Jacob A. Battle, Colin J. Wood, Christian E. Mumpower

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Rural Pennsylvania is often neglected when discussing the world-shaping events of the Great Depression. This study addresses a significant gap in historical research by exploring how a small-town in Pennsylvania, New Bethlehem, survived and even thrived during the Great Depression. New Bethlehem, situated in the fertile Redbank Valley, built its settlement on local resources and rural communalism. During the Depression, the townsfolk banded together through wealthy philanthropy, backyard gardens, and homegrown charity to withstand the crippling implications of the event. By examining church records, newspaper archives, and conducting oral interviews, this article reveals the resilience and resourcefulness of rural Pennsylvanian …

Interfaith Teaching And Preaching In West Virginia, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

I propose to discuss two assignments I used in “Religion and the Sermon in Appalachia,” an Honors seminar I taught in Fall 2023. The first belongs to the “teaching” aspect of my title. In the summer of 2020, the Charleston-based Islamic Association of West Virginia published a four-part video series entitled “Understanding Christianity” on its YouTube channel. In a total running time of approximately three hours, Imam Nasir Abdussalam gives an Islamic perspective (not necessarily the Islamic perspective) on “Christian History,” “Paul & the Original Christians,” “The Early Church & Sectarianism,” and “American Culture.”

On the “preaching” side, we discussed …

“They Can’T Just Stamp Out This Faith”: Cold War Anti-Communism And International Evangelism At The Appalachian Preaching Mission, Braden Lay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Appalachian Preaching Missions (1955-1981) occurred annually in Northeast Tennessee, with their predecessor, the Bristol Preaching Mission, dating back to at least 1949. Local churches, primarily Protestant, organized and convened these annual ecumenical gatherings. Nationally known clergy and laypeople from various denominations spoke, with up to several thousand congregants attending each mission. These individuals provided sermons and speeches on spiritual, domestic, and international issues. Among the most consistently repeated sermon themes was Christianity’s spiritual conflict with atheistic communism. This work addresses the missions’ origins and how the speakers spoke on international Christian missions in decolonized or developing nations as threatened …

Aural And Oral Culture, Robert Ellison, Larry Sheret

English Faculty Research

Robert Ellison and Larry Sheret were invited to present at “Off the Grid: Folk Culture and Digital Humanities,” a conference held at the College of William & Mary on June 24, 2023. Prof. Sheret began with a discussion of the scholarly research and publication cycle; an introduction to Marshall Digital Scholar (MDS), the Marshall University’s institutional repository; and an overview of the various ways Dr. Ellison has contributed to MDS. In his part of the presentation, entitled “Orality, Aurality, and The Library of Appalachian Preaching,” Ellison mentioned his previous work in orality-literacy theory and sermon studies, followed by a …

Susannah And Cold Mountain: Examining The Portrayal Of Appalachian Culture In Opera, Savannah Bennett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies qualitative literary analysis and ethnographic methods to examine the portrayal of Appalachia in the operas Susannah and Cold Mountain. The operas were premiered almost 60 years apart, yet they share many themes that epitomize roles, patterns, and stereotypes within the Appalachian region. One theme observed is the role and expectations of Appalachian women and how they have developed over time, as the plots are placed roughly a century apart. The depictions of Appalachian religious traditions and representations of violence are also explored as these themes play a considerable role in Susannah and Cold Mountain. By analyzing …

The Library Of Appalachian Preaching At Marshall University, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

This note discusses the Library of Appalachian Preaching, an online project that provides access to sermons and other addresses delivered in Appalachia, or elsewhere by preachers with some kind of connection to the region. It describes the scope of the project, provides an overview of the Library’s website, and suggests several research topics and areas of inquiry that might emerge from the materials included in the project.

Matthew Brown Fellowship Brochure, Matthew Brown

Brown, Matthew, 1776-1853

In the early 2000s, the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, Pennsylvania established the Matthew Brown Fellowship. In the words of this informational brochure, the Fellowship is a "college-aged ministry program" that seeks to "increase this church's involvement with its oldest friend, the College, and to extend its ministry...to meet the growing needs throughout the greater Washington Community."

01. Finding Aid To The Physical Collection, Robert H. Ellison, Elizabeth James

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This document follows the same format as Marshall's other Guides to Manuscript Collections. It includes a biographical note, the "scope and content" of the archive, and other information, along with a complete listing of the contents of each of the 31 boxes on the shelves.

07. Songs, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes his work as a song writer and publisher: 75 stand-alone songs, approximately 40 booklets of his songs, and 18 books he published with his own songs and those of other artists. There are also approximately 420 song books (336 unique titles) from other publishers, 23 of which contain at least one of Cummings' songs. Information about each of these songs--295 in all--is provided in the User Guide.

All of these songs, along with the relevant front- and backmatter in the books, are posted here as a single PDF. It is nearly 140 MB; to make …

08. Correspondence, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 39 complete or partial letters to or from Cummings; many of his drafts are typed on the back of his sermon manuscripts. All of the letters are posted here as a single PDF; information about each one is provided in the User Guide.

13. Poems Not By Cummings, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 26 poems that were among the donated materials but turned out to be definitely or probably not by Cummings. They are posted here as a single PDF; information about each poem, including authorship when available, is provided in the User Guide.

06. Poems, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes approximately 45 stand-alone poems, 9 booklets of poems, and An Earth Wayfarer, a 111-page spiral-bound book. Everything is posted here as a single PDF; information about individual poems, including each selection in the booklets and Earth Wayfarer, is provided in the User Guide.

09. Literary And Bible Training School, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes items pertaining to his time at the Literary and Bible Training School (now Trevecca Nazarene University) in Nashville, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1909. There are examination papers he wrote on homiletics and theology, along with the catalog for the 1909-10 academic year. All items are posted here as a single PDF; additional information is provided in the User Guide.

04. Radio Addresses, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 35 addresses delivered over the radio. Most aired on station WMON in Montgomery, West Virginia; a few were broadcast over WLW in Cincinnati. They are posted here as a single PDF, and combined with the sermons in a single tab in the User Guide.

12. Newspaper Articles By And About Cummings And His Family, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes some 120 newspaper clippings by and about Cummings and his family; many of Cummings' pieces are short poems published as Corner Couplets or maxims from "Josh Hayseed." All of the clippings are posted here as a single PDF; additional information is provided in the User Guide.

10. Mccrum Slavonic Training School, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 2 publications by the McCrum Slavonic Training School in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. They date to 1912, the year Mary Kacmar graduated from the school, and 1918, the year she and Cummings married. They are posted here as a single PDF; additional information is provided in the User Guide.

05. Newspaper Columns, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 66 columns written for various newspapers. They were published under 4 headlines: "Clergyman Chatter," "Our Weekly Message," "Our Weekly Visit," and "The Parson Writes." In some of the clippings, only the words "Our Weekly" are visible, so we cannot be sure which category they belong to.

All 66 columns are posted here as s single PDF. There are also supplemental files for "Clergyman Chatter," "Our Weekly Message/Visit," and "The Parson Writes."

The columns do not have individual titles, but they often have section headings; for ease of navigation, the first heading in each column is included …

11. Miscellaneous Items, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 34 miscellaneous items, ranging from his drivers licenses to a document entitled "End Alien Control of the United States." All items are posted here as a single PDF; additional information is provided in the User Guide.

03. Sermons, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes approximately 100 typed and handwritten sermons, sermons printed or summarized in the newspaper, and some "sermons in rhyme." The sermons and radio addresses have been combined in a single tab in the User Guide.

The master PDF of the sermons is nearly 150MB in size; to make things somewhat more manageable, the contents of each folder in the physical collection have been upload as supplemental files.

Almost Heaven: Religious Arguments In Appalachian Extractive Fiction, Darby Lane Campbell

Theses and Dissertations--English

Appalachia is a national sacrifice zone that hosts extractive industries directly responsible for many social problems in the region, however, many attribute these issues to the moral failings of Appalachians themselves. Activism in the area is heavily focused on opposing both extraction and the negative perceptions which contribute to its domination. One way this activism is conducted is through extractive fiction—novels which expose the destruction caused by extractive industries. Appalachian extractive fiction utilizes religion and spirituality to argue against extraction. This research examines how fiction can be an effective mode of activism and how the use of Christian arguments in …

The Autobiography Of Daniel Parker, Frontier Universalist, Daniel Parker, David Torbett

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

A vastly informative and rare early-American pioneer autobiography rescued from obscurity.

In this remarkable memoir, Daniel Parker (1781–1861) recorded both the details of everyday life and the extraordinary historical events he witnessed west of the Appalachian Mountains between 1790 and 1840. Once a humble traveling salesman for a line of newly invented clothes washing machines, he became an outspoken advocate for abolition and education. With his wife and son, he founded Clermont Academy, a racially integrated, coeducational secondary school—the first of its kind in Ohio.

However, Parker’s real vocation was as a self-ordained, itinerant preacher of his own brand of …

Episcopal Sermons In The Library Of Appalachian Preaching, Robert Ellison, Larry Sheret

English Faculty Research

The Library of Appalachian Preaching provides online access to sermons preached in Appalachia, or elsewhere by preachers with ties to the Appalachian region. This article, in a newsletter published by the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church, discusses Episcopal sermons that are currently in the Library, and some that will be added in the very near future. 

Appalachian Sermons In Marshall's Special Collections: Holdings And Research Possibilities, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

This presentation focuses on a collection of Appalachian sermons housed in the Special Collections Department at Marshall University. As the subtitle suggests, it has two main parts. The “Holdings” section provides a brief survey of these materials (the ministers represented in the collection, their denominations, when they served and where, and so on) and shows the work that has been done thus far to place the copyright-free materials online.

The “Research Possibilities” section gives an overview of the theories, topics, and approaches used in the field of sermon studies. I argue--as my colleagues and I have done in other projects--that …

Ecojustice, Religious Folklife And A Sound Ecology, Jeff Todd Titon

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Folk, traditional, and indigenous ecological knowledges have a significant role to play in ecojustice. A case study in the traditional ecological knowledge among one of the religious communities with whom I have spent several decades illustrates how they embody the main principle and three fields of an ecological rationality: the community of inter-related beings; the ways the beings participate in that community or place; and the relations of nature and the nonhuman world to humans and human nature. Ecological rationality stands in contrast to economic rationality, a branch of instrumental reason exemplified by what economists call rational choice theory. An …

1951 Journal Of The Kentucky Conference The Proceedings Of The Thirteenth Session, The Methodist Church

Journal of the Kentucky Conference

No abstract provided.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Kelli Johnson

Publications

In June 1905, on the fourth Sunday of that month, a petition signed by forty-one members of First Baptist Church was read. The petition asked for letters of dismissal from the Church in order to organize and start and new church. Those forty-one people wanted to create a new church that better met the needs of the community. After a vote, with only one dissent, the news was delivered to the Church clerk on a Thursday in July. This new church would become the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

1955 Journal Of The Kentucky Conference: The Proceedings Of The One Hundred And Thirty-Fifth Session (Seventeenth Session Of The United Church), The Methodist Church

Journal of the Kentucky Conference

No abstract provided.