Appalachian Studies Commons^™

Missed Opportunities In The Mountains: The University Of Kentucky's Action Program In Eastern Kentucky In The 1960s, Bradley L. Goan

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This dissertation explores the University of Kentucky’s efforts to develop and implement an “action program” in eastern Kentucky in the 1960s. By the late 1950s, Kentucky’s political, business, and academic leaders had identified eastern Kentucky as the state’s problem area, and they sought strategies to bring the region into the economic and cultural mainstream. This generation of post-war leaders had an uncompromising faith in the power of knowledge, technology, and planning, and University leaders saw their action program as a university-wide effort to address what most would argue was Kentucky’s ugliest problem. This study begins with an examination of the …

Eating In Opposition: Strategies Of Resistance Through Food In The Lives Of Rural Andean And Appalachian Mountain Women, Veronica A. Limeberry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines ways in which rural mountain women of Andean Peru and southern Appalachia use their lived histories and food knowledge in ways that counter Cartesian epistemologies regarding national and international food systems. Using women’s fiction and cookbooks, this thesis examines how voice and narrative reclaim women’s spaces within food landscapes. Further, this thesis examines women’s non-profits and grassroots organizations to illustrate the ways in which rural mountain women expand upon their lived histories in ways that contribute to tangible solutions to poverty and hunger in rural mountainous communities. The primary objective of this thesis is to recover rural …

Handling Authenticity: A Discourse Analysis Of Interviews With Signs-Following Preachers, Chelsie M. Dubay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The National Geographic Channel’s miniseries “Snake Salvation” resurrected a vested interest with the heavily documented practices of signs-following believers in central Appalachia. The current body of scholarship surrounding these congregations focuses mostly on oral history narratives and explanations of religious fundamentalism; a critical analysis of the discourse shared by these congregation members is noticeably absent.

This thesis explores selected interviews with George Hensley, Andrew Hamblin, Jamie Coots, and Alfred Ball through the interdisciplinary application of discourse analysis paired with social disclosure theory to unveil the underlying struggles with power and personal beliefs expressed by each pastor. The research performed throughout …

“That’S The Way I’Ve Always Learned”: The Transmission Of Traditional Music In Higher Education, Alexandra Frank

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the establishment of degree programs in traditional music in institutions of higher education. It defines traditional music and discusses the history of traditional and folk music programs at universities and conservatories in the United States, Finland, Scotland, and England. The institutionalization of American traditional music is compared to the institutionalization of jazz music in the United States. This thesis focuses on the Bluegrass, Old- Time, and Country Music Studies program at East Tennessee State University and features original ethnographic interviews with lecturers from the program. Two similar programs in Tennessee and Kentucky are also discussed. Some of …

The Commission On Religion In Appalachia And The Twentieth-Century Emphasis On Rural Identity, Joseph K. Spiker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Commission on Religion in Appalachia (CORA) was a mission organization founded in 1965 to bring economic and religious uplift to Appalachia. CORA focused on rural areas and relied on prevalent stereotypes to define the region as homogenous and backward, and its definition permeated its mission work. CORA members were influenced by 1931 and 1958 religious surveys that largely reinforced established Appalachian stereotypes of poverty and isolation.

However, Appalachia's urban areas offered a broader definition and understanding of the region. By 1900 there were examples of Jewish communities in Appalachian urban areas that persisted throughout the twentieth century. Urban areas …

Why We Stay, Brittany Nicole Mcintyre

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Why we stay is a piece of Creative Non-Fiction, is a work that is heavily focused on region. The narrative takes up the life of a female Appalachian. The challenges of being an Appalachian woman raising a family are analyzed alongside such issues as domestic violence, family dysfunction, and mental illness. Because the piece is set in both rural and urban Appalachia, the issue of family is examined in terms of generational conflict and the strong bonds of a matriarch.

Cultural Language Variations: An Examination Of Appalachian Discourse, Katherine Ward

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Examinations of discourse are essential for documenting the linguistic variations of a particular culture. In turn, linguistic variations across cultures may suggest similar variations in global discourse measures. It is imperative for clinicians to first understand the framework and cultural norms of a particular dialect or language to properly identify deficits in disordered language. By first looking closely at specific aspects of discourse such as story grammar within a normative or non-brain injured population, clinicians can improve treatment protocols for working with aphasic or brain-injured clients. With Appalachia being the heart of the “stroke belt,” research in intervention strategies for …

Inspiring Active Citizenship Through Alternative Break Trips, Anna K. Voinovich

Honors Projects

In this paper I reflect on the alternative break movement and the impact it makes on community partners. I also give an overview of the Honors Learning Community alternative break trip to serve with Appalachia Service Project during the spring of 2014 and how it meets the Bowling Green State University learning outcomes. Finally there is a trip manual that provides readers with a better idea of what goes into planning an alternative break trip.

The Relationship Between Intercultural Communication Experience And College Persistence Among First Generation Appalachian Students, Meredith A. Garrison

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This study seeks to explore the relationship between intercultural communication experiences and college persistence in first-generation college students from the Central Appalachian region. Because Appalachia has a rich and unique culture, which is often misunderstood, the literature review seeks to establish a basis for studying this relationship as a way to understand the multi-dimensional nature of low-educational attainment in the Appalachian region, particularly Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Using a survey-based quantitative method this study examines Appalachian first generation students attending college as an intercultural communication process through the frame of acculturation theory. Specifically, the study seeks information …

Hillbillies, Rednecks, Crackers And White Trash, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mountains Of Injustice : Social And Environmental Justice In Appalachia, Michele Morrone, Geoffrey L. Buckley

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Research in environmental justice reveals that low-income and minority neighborhoods in our nation’s cities are often the preferred sites for landfills, power plants, and polluting factories. Those who live in these sacrifice zones are forced to shoulder the burden of harmful environmental effects so that others can prosper. Mountains of Injustice broadens the discussion from the city to the country by focusing on the legacy of disproportionate environmental health impacts on communities in the Appalachian region, where the costs of cheap energy and cheap goods are actually quite high.

Through compelling stories and interviews with people who are fighting for …

Early Black Migration And The Post-Emancipation Black Community In Cabell County, West Virginia, 1865-1871, Cicero Fain

History Faculty Research

West Virginia’s formation divided many groups within the new state. Grievances born of secession inflamed questions of taxation, political representation, and constitutional change, and greatly complicated black aspirations during the state’s formative years. Moreover, long-standing attitudes on race and slavery held great sway throughout Appalachia. Thus, the quest by the state’s black residents to achieve the full measure of freedom in the immediate post-Civil War years faced formidable challenges. To meet the mandates for statehood recognition established by President Lincoln, the state’s legislators were forced to rectify a particularly troublesome conundrum: how to grant citizenship to the state’s black residents …

Dual Consciousness: Identity Construction Among Appalachian Professional Women In Southern Ohio, Rebecca Nicole Roades

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study examined identity construction among a purposeful sample of professional women of Appalachian origin with particular regard to the blending of their cultural heritage in a society in which they are often marginalized. The questions guiding the research were grounded in a conceptual framework encompassing elements of culture, gender, leadership, and identity theories specifically using internal colonization, social cognitive, and social identity theories. They included the following: How do these women identify with their Appalachian heritage? How has their Appalachian heritage influenced real or perceived feelings of marginalization and how has that shaped their identity? Do they perceive themselves …

Heavier Than It Looks And Other Stories, Matthew Tobias Ray

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Heavier Than It Looks and Other Stories is a collection of fiction containing one novella-length story, in six parts, centering on the life of a young man coming to terms with a close friend’s suicide. The remaining stories depict different characters amidst situations unique to each character’s stage in life: childhood in 1930s Appalachia in "The Other Kid In a Candy Store," mourning and violent crime in "Picking A Lock," transcendence in "Pathétique," mid-life changes in "Lester’s Last Melancholy," managing addiction in "Staying Clean," youthful folly in "Just For Fun," and storytelling in "The Taste of a Story." Works that …

Management Of Grassy Balds Communities In The Roan Highlands, James T. Donaldson, Nora Schubert, L. C. Huff

ETSU Faculty Works

The Highlands of Roan Mountain best exemplify that which is rare and unique within high elevation communities of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The Roan Highlands are protected through a landscape-level conservation initiative originally established by the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy (SAHC) and the U. S. Forest Service (USFS) in 1974. The Roan massif rises more than 6,000 feet above mean sea level and straddles the border of North Carolina and Tennessee in the Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests, respectively. Among its unique aspects, the Roan supports at least 800 known plant species, 27 rare plant communities, and 33 federally or …

The Significance Of ‘Hillbilly’ In Early Country Music, 1924-1945, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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.

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.

In A Land Of Plenty: A Don West Reader, Don West, Constance Adams West

Copyright-Free Books

Rooted in a particular place, the South and especially the Appalachian hills; in a long time, with poems dating from as early as 1932 and as late as 1981; and in the wide experience of a man who has been a farmer, lineman, preacher, organizer, deck hand, professor, and journalist. Land of Plenty is about America over the last half a century. It is about miners, freedom, racism, sharecroppers, family, love, loss, the South, laughter, labor, hunger, and heroism...Constance Adams West's spare illustrations make Land of Plenty still more beautiful." -Dave Roediger, Dept. of History, Northwestern U.

West Virginia Folk Music: A Descriptive Guide To Field Recordings In The West Virginia And Regional History Collection, John A. Cuthbert

Bibliographies and Research Guides

West Virginia University's contribution to the foundation of modern folk music scholarship is widely recognized. Due to the pioneering achievements of its faculty, the University became an important center of folksong scholarship in the 1920s and 30s. John Harrington Cox's Folk-Songs of the South' served as both precedent and pattern for the myriad of subsequent publications upon which folksong study is based.Various works by Josiah Combs, who taught at the University for but a few years, and Louis Watson Chappell, who remained throughout his career, are equally notable if less obviously influential. The University's subsequent contributions to the field, however, …

0109: Ron Tickfer Bibliography, 1975, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

An Annotated Bibliography of Fiction about Southern Appalachia, prepared for the course Appalachian Culture, Anthropology 557, at Marshall University.

0110: Colleen Holliday And Cheryl Fuller Typescript, 1972, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

Home Remedies, a research paper written for a course at Marshall University, Appalachian Culture.

The Southern Appalachian Dulcimer, Stewart S. Nutter

Graduate Student Research Papers

The Appalachian Plucked Dulcimer is an instrument neglected by musicologists for several reasons: (1) its history has been clouded in time due to the lack of written information concerning it, and (2) the plucked dulcimer is often confused with that of the hammered dulcimer, one of the early ancestors of the piano. Very little information is available concerning its history, construction and playing techniques.

0064: Marshall University Oral History Collection, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

Tape recordings and transcripts of oral interviews with residents in the West Virginia-Ohio-Kentucky Tri-State region regarding such topics as farming, schools, health care, folk customs, and many others related to life in this Appalachian region.

To view materials from this collection that are digitized and available online, search the Marshall University Oral History Collection here.

Uniting Conference Addresses, David Frederick Wertz

Uniting Conference Addresses

This volume contains 8 addresses by 4 speakers: the bishop of the West Virginia Area, the dean of the Duke Divinity School, the “minister of reconciliation” for the West Virginia Area, and the superintendent of the Buckhannon District.

Trinity Church, Huntington, West Virginia: Something Of Its Story, James Rodgers Haworth

Atkinson, Robert Poland, 1927-2012

This is Chapter XVI of Haworth's history of Trinity Episcopal Church from its beginnings in 1869 through the early 1960s. The book focuses primarily on the rectors who have served the church over the years; there are also chapters with such titles as “The Building of the Church,” “The Vestrymen,” “The Women,” and “The Sunday School.”

Trinity Church, Huntington, West Virginia: Something Of Its Story, James Rodgers Haworth

Tyler, S. Roger, 1878-1963

This is Chapters XI-XIV of Haworth's history of Trinity Episcopal Church from its beginnings in 1869 through the early 1960s. The book focuses primarily on the rectors who have served the church over the years; there are also chapters with such titles as “The Building of the Church,” “The Vestrymen,” “The Women,” and “The Sunday School.”

Thoughts Ii, S. Roger Tyler

Tyler, S. Roger, 1878-1963

According to the Preface, this book was “prepared in response to a number of requests which have come from Dr. Tyler’s friends and from those who have read the first volume, which was published in 1963” (p. v). Like its predecessor, it is a collection of articles published in two newspapers: the Advertiser in Huntington, West Virginia, and the Gazette in Charleston. Those articles were shortened versions of “sermons prepared and delivered by Dr. Tyler over a period of sixty years in the ministry.”

Thoughts, S. Roger Tyler

Tyler, S. Roger, 1878-1963

According to the title page, the book is a collection of articles published in two newspapers: the Advertiser in Huntington, West Virginia, and the Gazette in Charleston. Those articles were “based on sermons prepared and delivered by Dr. Tyler over a period of sixty years in the ministry.”