Appalachian Studies Commons^™

John C. C. Mayo Research Collection, Carolyn Hay Traum

Morehead State University Manuscripts Collections

MS081-2022

"Cry Aloud And Spare Not": William G. Brownlow, The "Fighting Parson" And His Cantankerous Spirit, Melanie Storie

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Best known as the “Fighting Parson,” William G. Brownlow earned his sobriquet during his years as an early 19^th century, circuit-riding Methodist preacher in the southern Appalachians. E. Merton Coulter, renowned historian and Brownlow biographer, explained the “frontier man of God was a hard rider, a hard preacher, and a hard liver.” Thus, Brownlow learned very quickly how antagonizing his rivals served as a powerful tool in the contest of soul-winning on the frontier. This practice of verbally attacking his enemies was also used during his long public career in both journalism and politics. Consequently, for Brownlow, religion and …

Morehead State College Negatives, 1948-1959, Art Stewart

Morehead State University Manuscripts Collections

No abstract provided.

“Infantry Would Not Do:” Appalachia, The Environment, And The Evolution Of Mountain Warfare During The American Civil War, Lucas Michael Wilder

Theses and Dissertations

Union General Ambrose E. Burnside launched his invasion of East Tennessee in the summer of 1863. The corps he used consisted of half-infantry and half-mounted units to utilize their speed to overcome mountain obstacles. The successful campaign and the capture of the agriculturally rich region of East Tennessee and its vital East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad deprived the Confederacy of resources, ultimately contributing to Confederate defeat. The American Civil War saw commanders plunge into the mountains of Appalachia and encounter a terrain and a people with which many were unacquainted. This dissertation argues that their tactics and strategies for dealing …

Jesse Stuart Manuscript Collection, Jesse Hilton Stuart

Morehead State University Manuscripts Collections

MS077-1991

Coal, Land, And Ideology: Inventions Of Appalachia In The Mind Of The American Ruling Class, Zachary Harris

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Appalachia, itself a difficult to resolutely define region, has undergone the economic forces of colonialism and industrializing capitalism which allow for an excellent case study to apply Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. No American region’s national conception is likely to have been as varied and often misrepresented as that of Appalachia. From the Revolutionary American State’s invention of early white settlers as the virtuous yeoman of the Republic to the modern perception of Appalachia as backwards, conservative, and drug-addled, shifting national economic conditions resulted in a constant invention of Appalachia in congruence. Whenever the people residing in Appalachia, whether Black, …

"The Bottom Would Drop Out Of Everything": A Brief History Of The Battle For Blair Mountain, Brandon Neely

Student Publications

In the summer of 1921, thousands of Appalachian miners took up arms and marched in southwest West Virginia. Fighting back against attacks on miners' unions like the United Mine Workers of America, the conflict quickly turned violent. The Battle for Blair Mountain, as it came to be known, was one of the largest labor strikes in American history and impacted the history of the Coal Wars and the United States for decades to come. This analysis uses interviews with people who experienced the battle as well as the speeches of labor leaders Samuel Gompers and John Lewis to discuss the …

Progress In The Bluegrass: An Analysis Of Grassroots Organizing In Kentucky Post 1970, Brooklyn Lile

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

While historians and other scholars have explored grassroots organizing in Kentucky, most historiography on this topic is limited to the 1930s through 1970s and focused on coal, labor, and the Civil Rights Movement. This paper fills a gap within the historiography by extending the discussion of grassroots organizing in Kentucky past the 1970s. Through the examination of organizational documents, membership newsletters, and oral histories, this paper explores the transformation of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC) from 1981 to 2020. KFTC began as a small Eastern Kentucky organization focused predominantly on fair taxing practices in coal companies. Through efforts to diversify …

"Not Just Whites In Appalachia": The Black Appalachian Commission, Regional Black Power Politics, And The War On Poverty, 1965-1975, Jillean Mccommons

Theses and Dissertations--History

During the Black Power era of the late 1960s and 1970s, Black activists in Appalachia used the opening of the War on Poverty to wage a regional war against institutional and environmental racism. Through the Black Appalachian Commission, a grassroots organization created in 1969, Black activists worked to expose racism in local and federal policy as the root cause of poverty for Black Appalachians, who they argued were the poorest in the region. Their outward self-definition as Black and Appalachian was a political strategy to garner power over resources earmarked for Appalachians. The term “Black Appalachian'' was more than a …

Photographic Slides Of Appalachia, Appalachian Museum. Berea College.

Morehead State University Manuscripts Collections

No abstract provided.

The Vanishing Frontier: Economic And Social Change In Western North Carolina, 1945-1970, Elisabeth Avery Moore

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation works to integrate the growth of regional tourism into the existing historiography of economic development in Appalachia and the postwar American South. Regional leaders introduced an economic transition throughout western North Carolina that emphasized the growth of regional tourism. By centering this study on the growth of regional tourism, this research also analyzes regional boosters’ efforts to manufacture and commodify a racialized and classed folk culture within the region for tourist consumption. In the late nineteenth century, journalists and folklorists had emphasized the deviance of mountain life and simultaneously romanticized the area as a land of rugged, white …

All Roads Lead To Darrington: Building A Bluegrass Community In Western Washington, James W. Edgar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the mid-twentieth century, a significant pattern of migration occurred between Appalachia and the Pacific Northwest, with Washington’s thriving timber industry offering compelling economic opportunities. Many workers and families from western North Carolina settled in the small mountain town of Darrington, Washington, frequently accompanied by their banjos and guitars. As a group of young bluegrass enthusiasts from Seattle established relationships with Darrington’s “Tar Heel” musicians, a collaborative music community formed, laying the foundation for the region’s contemporary bluegrass scene.

Drawn from a series of ethnographic interviews, this project illuminates the development of a bluegrass community in western Washington, while identifying …

Kemper Family Papers, Kemper Family.

Morehead State University Manuscripts Collections

No abstract provided.

On The Plains In ’65 : The 6th West Virginia Volunteer Cavalry In The West, George H. Holliday, Glenn V. Longacre

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

A new scholarly edition of an Ohio boy soldier’s revealing post-Civil War memoir.

This annotated edition of Holliday’s recollections—known primarily among historians of the American West—re-contextualizes his memoir to include his boyhood in southern Ohio and the largely untold story of the hundreds of Buckeyes who crossed the Ohio River to serve their country in Virginia (later West Virginia) regiments, ultimately traveling across Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming to safeguard mail and stage routes along the celebrated Oregon Trail during a pivotal time in American history.

Glenn Longacre’s extensive research in federal, state, and local archives, manuscript collections, and period …

“A Constant Reminder To All”: Remembering Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson In West Virginia, Steven Cody Straley

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis argues that Confederate heritage groups leading the Lost Cause Movement in West Virginia promoted Stonewall Jackson, through tactics such as ceremonies, publications, and monuments, to the point where his appeal expanded beyond that of former Confederates and their descendants. During the late 1800s, Confederate supporters in the state formed branches of Confederate heritage organizations and espoused a Lost Cause narrative with Stonewall Jackson as its figurehead. In doing so, they accomplished two things: to integrate the seemingly proUnion West Virginia into Confederate memory, and to gain acceptance of Confederates as full members of West Virginia society. Jackson’s advocates …

"Our Women Are Made Of The Right Stuff": Gender, Politics, And Conflict In Civil War West Virginia, Amanda Romain Shaver

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

“’Our Women Are Made of the Right Stuff:’ Gender, Politics, and Conflict in Civil War West Virginia” examines the lives and contributions of white West Virginia women and argues that they were not merely victims of the war, but dynamic participants whose opinions were influential and whose actions determined the ability of both the Union and Confederate armies to wage war in Appalachia. Striking a balance between the antebellum standards of “True Womanhood” and the emerging ideals of the women’s rights movement, West Virginia women became politically engaged in both the statehood movement and the Civil War. They transformed their …

Doctors, Miners, And Black Lung: A Transatlantic Comparison Of Organized Medicine's Role In The Fight For Black Lung Recognition In West Virginia And Wales, Mollie M. Cecil Md

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Black lung disease is a crippling occupational lung disease experienced by coal miners throughout the world. However, this disease was not always recognized by the medical profession and required significant efforts on the part of miners’ unions to force mainstream recognition. The historiography on the subject is limited, especially with respect to the relationship between organized medicine and organized labor. This work further explores this relationship, particularly how this relationship differed between the parties in Wales and in West Virginia. In doing so, it portrays a more detailed picture of the fight for black lung recognition as well as highlights …

0865: Mccomas Family Letters, 1906 – 1930s, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

The collection consists of eight folders of correspondence between various family members of the McComas family between 1906 – 1930s. The McComas family consists of Mr. and Mrs. George J. McComas, and their son, B.C. “Curtis” McComas, and daughter, Margaret McComas. The majority of the folders contain correspondence from Curtis McComas detailing his experiences in France and Germany during the First World War. Other soldiers, including Curtis and Margaret’s cousin, Henry, also sent letters to Margaret detailing their experiences or thanks for gifts provided to the war front. The rest of the collection include letters received during Margaret’s stay 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 …

John C. Campbell Folk School - Brasstown, North Carolina (Fa 1377), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Collection 1377. Research materials for a history of the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, North Carolina, compiled by Dr. James M. Gifford.

Mallie Cody Turner Collection, Mallie Cody Turner, Lawrence Carr Turner

Morehead State University Manuscripts Collections

No abstract provided.

A Forgotten Shade Of Blue: Support For The Union And The Constitutional Republic In Southeastern Kentucky During The Civil War Era., Howard Muncy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes Southeastern Kentucky’s political and military support for the Union during the Civil War era. In the decades prior to the 1860 election, Kentucky developed deep social and economic ties with all sections of the country. After the secession winter that followed Abraham Lincoln’s presidential election, the statewide population divided and pockets of significant Confederate sympathies emerged. Kentucky’s southeastern counties aligned with the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War because of a strong national identity and the absence of a large slave population. As the war unfolded, Southeastern Kentuckians played an important role in the disruption …

The Powerful Presence Of Dams In Appalachian Poetry, Zoe Hester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary Appalachian poetry offers a lens through which we can see the immense impact that the Tennessee Valley Authority has had in Appalachia. In this thesis, I explore the powerful presence of dams in Appalachian poetry by analyzing three poems. Jesse Graves’s “The Road into the Lake” centers on personal and familial loss, Jackson Wheeler’s “The TVA Built a Dam” mourns the loss of communities, and Rose McLarney’s “Imminent Domain” focuses on the ecological destruction that has occurred in Appalachia and around the globe as the result of the construction of TVA dams. Ultimately, all three poems serve as eulogies …

0778: Jim Taylor Photograph Collection, 1880s-1910s, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection consists of 51 TIFF images representing 50 photographs of early Huntington, West Virginia. Photographic subjects include the D. E. Abbot frame factory in Huntington, WV, Twelve Pole Creek in Wayne County, WV, Norfolk and Western Railway and Chesapeake and Ohio railroad tracks, trestles, and trains, Big Sandy River, Kenova Electric Power Plant, log and timber in rivers, log cabins in Huntington and Kenova, WV, Camden Interstate Railway train cars, tie hoists, Johnson’s Lane car house, as well as a railway car wreck in 1906, Cabell County Courthouse, Cabell County Jail, Huntington Hospital, 20th Street Hill, Kessler Hospital, “H. …

Rowan County Kentucky World War I Veterans, Rowan County Historical Society.

Rowan County Histories Collection

Contains biographical and military service information on veterans that served in the First World War from Rowan County, Kentucky.

World War Ii Casualties Of Rowan County And Kentucky, Rowan County Historical Society.

Rowan County Histories Collection

Contains biographical and military service information on veterans that were killed, wounded or listed missing during the Second World War from Rowan County, Kentucky.

Early African History Of Rowan County, Kentucky, Rowan County Historical Society.

Rowan County Histories Collection

A collection of census records, death certificates, school forms, and obituaries of African Americans that resided and worked in Rowan County, Kentucky from 1856 to the 1940s

History Of Cave Run Lake, Rowan County Historical Society.

Rowan County Histories Collection

A history of Kentucky's Cave Run Lake with a collection of surveys, photographs, newspaper clippings, and snippets of other publications related to the construction of the dam.

Rowan County, Kentucky Officials, 1856-Present, Rowan County Historical Society.

Rowan County Histories Collection

Consist of biographical and historical information on government officials from Rowan County, Kentucky from 1856 to 2020.

Louis Bailey Photographic Negatives, Francis Louis Bailey

Morehead State University Manuscripts Collections

No abstract provided.