Appalachian History

"RECENTLY I observed a peculiar behavior of a film of bichromated gelatine after it had been exposed to the action of light for a short time and then immersed into an aqueous solution of picric acid or sodium picrate and dried.

"Those parts of the gelatine film which have been exposed to light are found to be raised and if the exposure has been made under a negative the image will stand out in relief. This behavior of a gelatine film, when treated as above described, may possibly be utilized in some branch of photography.

"I will briefly describe the manner in which one of these relief images may be obtained. An ordinary dry plate composed of a good thick coating of gelatine emulsion is sensitized in a solution containing about thirty grains of potassium bichromate to a pint of water and dried in a dark place.

"After drying, the plate is exposed to light beneath a negative for two or three minutes, then removed from the printing frame, and then washed in cold water to remove all soluble chromium salts. The plate is then put in a saturated aqueous solution of picric acid. This solution should be at a temperature of about 75 F and the plate should remain in same for at least five minutes.

"On examining the plate after its removal from the solution, aside from its yellow colour, it will present the same appearance as if it had been treated with plain water, those parts of the film which have been protected from the light being higher than the other portions. On drying the condition of the film is exactly the reverse: those parts that were protected from the light are in reality depressed. This depression of the film is proportional to the strength of the light acting on said film.

A Knaffl & Brakebill 'relief image' portrait from 1920. Joseph Knaffl (1861-1938) and his brother Charles opened a photographic studio called Knaffl & Brother in Knoxville, TN in 1884.

They specialized in unusual photographs, many of which depicted historic and religious themes. Their best known photograph was the "Knaffl Madonna" (1890), which won praise at the Photographer's Association of American Art Convention in Lake Chatauqua, NY, in 1899.

James Henry Brakebill partnered briefly with photographer William J. McCoy at the turn of the 20th century in Knoxville. But by the end of that first decade he merged his business with the Knaffl brothers to form Knaffl & Brakebill.

Knaffl & Brakebill went on to receive widespread acclaim for their photographic work in the early decades of this century.

"My explanation of this phenomenon is that the picric acid forms a compound with the gelatine, which when dry is much more dense and compact than normal gelatine. That this is the correct explanation, I believe, and is borne out by the fact that if the gelatine film has been exposed beneath a positive, and afterward treated with the picric acid solution, on drying the image will be represented by a depression in the gelatine.

"The exposed portions of the film have become more or less insoluble, and the solution of picric acid is therefore unable to penetrate the film as freely as the unexposed parts and form the compound mentioned above. It appears possible to utilize a relief image of this nature for obtaining prints photo mechanically. The plate in this case should be exposed under a grained negative instead of an ordinary one, and then the image would be composed of numerous small raised dots of very hard gelatine, which should make a good printing surface retaining ink readily."


sources: "Relief Images," by Dr. Braxton D. Avis, in 'The American annual of photography, Volume 34,' 1920, edited by Percy Y. Howe, publ. by The American Annual of Photography, Inc., New York

http://dlc.lib.utk.edu/f/fa/fulltext/3122.html

But, strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes -- sometimes half-hours -- when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one. Slowly -- slowly -- for no reason that he knew of -- he was "coming alive" with the garden.
---The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) left an indelible mark on children's literature, providing a path to the secret garden in all of us that is often lost in adulthood. But her own childhood was far from idyllic. Frances' widowed mother Eliza moved with her five children from England to Knoxville, TN in 1865 where her brother had earlier moved and was struggling to keep a dry goods store going. He next moved Eliza and the children to New Market, where he had a cabin.

This was a dramatic shift for the Hodgson family. Frances had been born in Cheetham Hill, outside of Manchester. In late 1849 Manchester was a thriving textile center fueled by the success of the cotton mills. Edwin and Eliza Hodgson had a successful home furnishings business, providing customers with such products as chandeliers, ironwork, and brass door fittings.

But it all changed dramatically in 1854 when Edwin died at age 38 of a stroke. Eliza tried to keep the business going but the start of the Civil War in the United States affected cotton imports and the textile industry experienced a tremendous rate of unemployment.

And so the Hodgsons were hurled from upper middle class comfort in Manchester to hard scrabble poverty in New Market, now often going to bed hungry. And yet the move from industrial England to rural America was for young Frances a journey to the green, natural world that would become a central theme in many of her later works, including 'The Secret Garden.'

The move would also prove instrumental in Frances' development as a writer. Although she had always been obsessed with storytelling and often amused her schoolmates by acting out tales of adventure and romance, the financial strain of the emigration caused her to turn to writing as a means of supplementing the family's income.

The Hodgson's neighbors were Dr. John and Lydia Burnett and their son Swan, whose great-grandfather was Adam Peck, the earliest settler of what would become Jefferson City. Frances and Swan would spend much time together and would begin a relationship that would lead to marriage in 1873.

Frances Burnett's first published story, "Miss Carruthers' Engagement," appeared in a magazine called Godey's Lady's Book in 1868. Her paper and postage-stamps for the venture had to be earned by picking and selling wild grapes. She began to write five or six stories each month, for $10 apiece and supported her family by writing. As stories began to be published in Harper's, Atlantic, Scribner's Monthly, and Peterson's Ladies' Magazine, she earned enough money to move her family back to Knoxville in 1869.

After the death of her mother in 1872, the family became increasingly dependent on Frances' writing income. She accelerated her career as a popular writer. Swan, whom she married the following year, was preparing to specialize in the treatment of the eye and ear. He wished to further his specialty by studying in Europe, and Frances financed his wish, once again becoming responsible for the bulk of her family's income. After the birth of their first son Lionel on September 20, 1874 in Knoxville, they left Tennessee, never to return.

Over the course of her life, Burnett wrote more than forty books, for both adults and children. While her adult novels are considered to be quite sentimental, her children's books have withstood the fickleness of literary fashions. 'The Secret Garden,' the story of how Mary Lennox and her friends find independence as they tend their garden, has been described as one of the most satisfying children's books ever written.


Sources: http://library.cn.edu/speccoll/burnett.html
http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/secret_garden.html
http://www.tickledorange.com/FHB/Biography.html

Since my last annual report the Children’s Mission Home has moved its location; we are now located at No. 120 West Cumberland St. For seventeen long years we were located at 918 State St. in the house which is now known as the Old Mission Home. Twenty-five dollars per month I paid for many years out of the scanty income the Mission Home ever had.

In the year 1903 I took the Home and the church grounds on a lease for ten years and from then I paid only twenty dollars rent per month for the Home, and some more money on the grounds on which we had built the church. It was hard work for me to find money enough for provisions, clothes and shoes for twenßty-five to thirty-five inmates, and then to find also twenty dollars per month to pay rent.

But we did succeed in doing this for nineteen years in all without faltering and the Mission Home had no debts at no time and to nobody than to live and to do good to our neighbors. But the load we had to carry was keenly felt as the years passed on and on.

One day in February 1909 the unexpected news came to us that the owner of the house had suddenly died. This meant for us that the lease might become void and that the Old Mission Home might be sold at any time, and that we had to move. As soon as we heard the news, I said, “Praise the Lord I am now done paying rent. If this work is worth anything, it will be worth a free house.”

Friends came to sympathize, enemies to sneer. They said to me, “You’re in a bad fix now; what are you going to do?”
I told them I was going to do nothing, but to trust in the Lord, and the Lord would provide. They went away sneering. But we people of the Mission went together to the Lord in prayers, and told him to give a home to his orphan children, a home where we would have to pay rent no more.

New mission home at 120 W Cumberland Avenue.

I was well acquainted with one philanthropist of Knoxville, Mr. Rush B. Strong, who had been one of our supporters from the very beginning of this work. I knew he had a large and well built brick house in a very good location of the city, which he had designated for charitable purposes. It was just now empty. I earnestly prayed to the Lord while on the way to see Mr. Strong about that very house. As soon as I had told him what I wanted he said with the greatest friendliness, “Why sure, Mr. Lauritzen, why did you not come to ask for it long ago? As far as I am concerned you shall have the use of the house but for the repairs, free of charge.”

And now, we want you to rejoice with us, dear reader, and give praise and thanks to the Lord, who has enabled us to carry on this blessed work for twenty years of the past.

Most sincerely yours,
REV. & Mrs. J.R. Lauritzen, superintendants
20th Annual Report of the Work of the Children’s Mission Home
at Knoxville, TN


source: http://idserver.utk.edu/?id=200700000001621


orphans mission+homes Knoxville+TN appalachia +appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

University of South Carolina
Columbia, S.C.
June 29, 1889
O.P. Temple, Esq
My dear Judge
I have read with great interest every word of the Knoxville Journal, concerning John Sevier, etc. The occasion was on of deep historic interest. I hope you will send me the more permanent publication which will doubtless be issued hereafter.
Your own contribution is of special value & beauty. Allow me to suggest that you should devote some of your leisure to the composition of a History of East Tenn. No living man is perhaps so well qualified as yourself for this work. At least you might select some special topic, if no more. Ein kind regard to your family. We are well.
Yours very truly, Ed. T. Joynes

University of South Carolina
Columbia, S.C.
July 11, 1889
Dear Friend –
Your most interesting letter recd. Let me hope you may yet carry our your plans, if only on the narrower lines such as you suggest. It is a deficit in our southern people that they will not write their own history nor even prepare materials for the future historian. Hence our noblest deeds and characters are forgotten, or misrepresented. How different in New England. Regard G Flemming If I can run off for a week, I shall come to Knoxville this summer if only for a planning visit with him and a talk with you
very truly Ed. S Joynes


Oliver Perry Temple (1820-1907) did indeed carry out the plans referred to in the second letter. He took the idea Joynes proposed about writing histories of East Tennessee and went on to author ‘The Covenanter, the Cavalier, and the Puritan (1897)’; ‘East Tennessee and the Civil War (1899)’; and ‘Notable Men of Tennessee,’ which was published posthumously in 1912.

Joynes was well qualified to spot writing ability in his friend. By the time he wrote the above letters, he’d already published “Introductory French Lessons,” “The Education of Teachers in the South,” and “A German grammar for schools and colleges.” He went on to publish 10 more books, mostly in the same ilk.

In the preface of his first book, Temple introduces himself as ‘OLIVER PERRY TEMPLE, For twelve years one of the Equity Judges of Tennessee,’ and dedicates the book ‘To the Scotch-Irish Society of America, which is doing so much to rescue from oblivion the history of the Covenanter People.”

The Covenanters were Scotsmen who in 1638 signed the National Covenant, a covenant confirming their opposition to the interference by the Stuart kings in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Temple named his estate ‘Melrose’ after the ruined abbey in Scotland near which his wife had been born. All his maternal ancestors were from Scotland. Scotch-Irish issues were personal.

“The publication of this little book in its present form is due to an accidental circumstance,” he continues. “The matter it contains was prepared as a part of a larger and perhaps more important historical work, on which I am now engaged, and which I hope will soon be in print. Happening to show some of the chapters to a friend, in whose judgment I had great confidence, he said to me : Why not publish these chapters as a separate book?

"The matter they contain is only remotely related to that of the main book, and the two should not appear together. It happened that my own mind was running in the same direction, and had nearly arrived at the same conclusion. The publication of this book, in its present form, is, therefore, mainly due to that interview. It is, as it were, a leaf torn from another book.

"The chief reason for writing so fully, or at all, about the Covenanters is given in the opening sentences of Chapter IV of this book. The error and injustice there referred to are remarkable, indeed amazing; but it is not too late to correct them by letting in the light of history. A brief comparison of the record of the Covenanters with that of the Cavaliers and the Puritans shows in how remarkable a manner the former people have been neglected and ignored in the history and the public thought of the country. If I shall be able to quicken the interest in this great race, already existing, awakened by the noble efforts of The Scotch-Irish Society of America, I shall feel that I have, indeed, done a good work."


Sources: The O.P. Temple Papers/University of Tennessee Special Collections Library
http://www.archive.org/details/covenantercavali00temprich



Oliver+Perry+Temple Knoxville+TN Covenanters Scots-Irish appalachia appalachian+history

Community Christmas tree, Knoxville, TN. On Market Street between Union Avenue and Clinch Avenue. Night view. Ordered by Knoxville Community Service Council. December 21, 1921.

















"Two unidentified women (initials M.H.P. and A.H.) in 1908 sent this Christmas greeting to Kentuckian Mary McDowell, "The manner of our growing old is the measure of our life."








Covered bridge, 32’ long, near Dunkinsville, OH.












In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Portland cutter was the most popular type of sleigh used in the United States.

Peter Kimball and his sons–notably Charles Porter Kimball of Portland, Maine, developed the design. Fancy cutters, trimmed with silk and silver cost about one hundred and fifty dollars. By 1910 plain cutters were available in the twenty dollar range.



Santa Claus is surrounded by children in front of O. J. Morrison's Store in Grafton, WV, circa 1920.










appalachia Christmas+in+Appalachia Knoxville+TN OJ+Morrisons Grafton+WV Portland+cutter covered+bridges appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

From the divorce case between Walter E. McDaniels and Anna C. McDaniels, Knox County [TN] Fourth Circuit Court, filed July 1926


HIM: “Plaintiff met defendant in Philadelphia while stationed there and defendant became seemingly, and very sincerely in love or infatuated with plaintiff. Shortly after meeting defendant at Philadelphia, he was transferred to Norfolk, VA, his home station, and defendant, without the knowledge of plaintiff, followed him to Norfolk.

“Plaintiff was not in love with defendant, to the extent of considering a marriage with defendant, as defendant was of a foreign nativity to wit; an Italian, but she was so persistent in her intercessions to induce plaintiff to marry her, that plaintiff in a moment of weakness, he consummated the contract and married her, though sincerely and truthfully plaintiff was not in love with defendant, but after he had married her he determined to treat her right and perhaps would learn to love her, and brought her home to Knoxville, TN and after plaintiff brought her home to his mother’s home where he had always lived with his mother, sisters and bros.

“Soon after he brought her home, she began to exhibit that defiant spirit, as dictatorial as old man Musselino himself; she became a demon and devil incarnate, and without any just excuse or case, she made the life of not only the plaintiff, but all the family a hell on earth and kept the entire family in a constant uproar all the time, and never spoke a kind word all the time, and she became so violent, that she assaulted plaintiff every time he came into the home.

“Defendant believed in ruling by brute force, and demonstrated her belief by often assaulting plaintiff, without any just excuse or case. Plaintiff has had to leave home on various occasions in order to prevent defendant from doing him great bodily harm, threatening to kill him and has chased him on the streets when she would fly into a fit of anger, and he believes that she would have killed him if he had not gotten away from her.

“On more occasions than one, she threatened to poison him, and on one occasion she threw a knife at him, and stuck the knife in his leg. And said she intended to kill him, and said that if she did not get to poison him she would stab him through the heart, when he was asleep.

“Plaintiff knew that she meant to kill him or do him some great bodily harm, and was forced to leave home, her conduct was so cruel and inhuman toward him, that it is not safe to long cohabit with her and be under her dominion and control. Plaintiff was forced to again enlist in the US Navy to protect himself.

“She shows plainly that she is an Italian, is possessed of a wicked and malignant heart and that she is fatally bent on mischief, and is unforgiving like most of foreigners.”

HER: “It is true that she and the plaintiff were married in North Carolina in December 1924, and that they came to Knoxville to live in February 1925, at which time the defendant came to the home of the plaintiff’s parents where she lived until conditions became intolerable there.

“At the time she came to the home of her Mother-in-law she had been in Norfolk, VA and at that time the plaintiff transferred from land duty to sea duty as a sailor in the Navy and went to sea, leaving the defendant in destitute circumstances and taking the last money from here that she had, and left this defendant absolutely penniless.

“This defendant’s Mother-in-law, who is Mrs. Estella McDaniel of Knoxville, sent this defendant the sum of twenty dollars to come to her home in Knoxville and out of this sum, the defendant paid her room rent and board bill in Norfolk and came to Knoxville on the balance. It is true that the plaintiff and this defendant met in Philadelphia, the plaintiff then being a sailor in the US Navy.

“This defendant is amused at the plaintiff’s charges that he was not in love with her and that she was in love or infatuated with him and made violent love to him and inveigled or induced him in a moment of weakness to marry her. These charges are absolutely false and untrue.

“As a matter of fact, this defendant at that time was but an eighteen year old girl, and the plaintiff was a man six years older than herself and as he says in his bill, a man schooled in the ways of the world, having sailed the seven seas and well able to take care of himself, being a man of average intelligence.

“These charges in his bill are a reflection upon himself rather than upon this defendant, but the defendant deems it proper to state the facts because said charges as well as all other charges in his bill are wicked and untrue. Walter E. McDaniels took the initiative in this courtship, and was a most persistent and effective lover, and proposed marriage and urged the same for a long time before this defendant consented thereto.

“She did go to Norfolk VA after he had transferred to that point from Philadelphia, but went at his insistence and request and at his expense, he coming from Norfolk to Philadelphia to get her, and took her back to Norfolk with him.

“Plaintiff says he was never in love with this defendant; if that is true he married her under the grossest misrepresentation because she was in love with him at that time, her affections having been won by his persistent favors and attentions and promises, and the only consideration of this marriage was that of what she deemed an honorable love.”


Source: Volunteer Voices/Digital Library Center/University of Tennessee/Knox County Archives/ Knox County Fourth Circuit Court/http://idserver.utk.edu/?id=200700000001595/



divorce+cases Knoxville+TN Knox+County+Court appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

"Bullets and ballots are not companions;" said Lizzie French in a famous 1912 speech to the Tenneesee Bar Association, "but ballots in the hands of people are supposed to be a substitute for bullets in the hands of hired agents...Thanks be to God that in giving women the crown of motherhood he made her the giver not the taker of life. Woman has no greater claim to the rights of the ballot than she is a producer not a destroyer of life."

Elizabeth Crozier French, born this date in 1851, was at the time the recently elected president of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association, Inc. When the first woman in Tennessee history to address the organization took the podium, she delivered what many scholars believe today was one of her greatest messages stating her position on the state’s law forbidding women from voting. French was never one to sit still, and knew her best strategy as president of the state's suffrage organization would be to take her message straight to the Tennessee Bar Association.

As the daughter of an attorney and an out-spoken leader in the women's movement, French wasn't at all intimidated by the men seated in front of her. Her speech was put into the record of the Tennessee Bar Association as an "Address on Women’s Rights" and became a much quoted theme in the South's growing number of suffrage groups. French continued her work in Knoxville founding and serving as president of the Knoxville Equal Suffrage Society and becoming a leading member of the National Women's Party.

From this speech forward, Crozier began her all-out fight to see that the Susan B. Anthony Amendment - now more than 30 years old and regarded as a dead piece of legislation in Congress - was added to the United States Constitution.

The bill and the labors of women like Lizzie Crozier French were having some impact on women's rights in America. Some states had begun giving women greater control over their property, a few had made divorce easier for those in abusive relationships, and women were slowly gaining access to the courts in their ability to sue for damages.

Finally on August 25, 1919, Tennessee certified the ratification becoming the 36th state and making the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution the law of the land giving women the right to vote.

Lizzie C. French and the Suffragists across America cheered passage of the 19th Amendment, and French joined women across Tennessee in casting their first votes that following November. In addition, French went on to help found the Knoxville chapter of the League of Women Voters.

Lizzie C. French remained an active member of the Knoxville community and made a bid for City Council in 1923, but was defeated. Three years later the 75-year-old Lizzie C. French traveled to Washington, D.C. to help the National Women’s Party furnish a room in honor of the Tennessee suffragists and also secure introduction of a bill in Congress to benefit working women in America. On May 14, 1926, while still in Washington, D.C., the Tennessean quietly passed away.

Her body was returned to her hometown in Knoxville where she was laid to rest in the City’s Old Gray Cemetery – leaving behind a legacy that is still felt to this day.


Source: www.tennesseehistory.com/class/LizzieCroz.htm


Lizzie+French Tennessee+Equal+Suffrage+Association Knoxville+TN suffragists appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

"Some boys git it in their heads that they can make a sight of money selling liquor. The law cracks down on them almost as soon as they git a start. We see it happen every day around here. You've got to keep the law paid off a good and plenty or else the penitentiary is where they's going to land. Now if they does pay off, where is the profit left from selling? Ain't none. So there they is. I told Cap if he had it in his head to do that, he better be clearing his head of it right now.

"I don't blame him one bit for having his mind set on making a little money to have fun on. Seems like me and Calvin ain't never done a thing ever but work hard all our lives. Some folks find pleasure in going to meeting on Sunday. But it's no church I've had sight of here in Knoxville where the ones coming in and out ain't dressed up fit to kill. Some says it's all the same in the eyes of the Lord about how you dress. But I knows if He's got sense at all, He knows our clothes is too wore out for Sunday strutting. I know they's shabby in my own sight.

"Calvin and me both can read right well. In times back we use to read the Bible pretty much. But seems like you always come across something you can't make out straight. So we just stopped reading it. Looked a pure shame, as wore out as we was, to read things that upset your head.

"I guess I got on to the main of it, though. I know that Jesus Christ died to save sinners. And all that me and Calvin have to do is trust in Him. And we do. And we believe in Him. I don't see where they's any way to keep me and Calvin out of Heaven. Calvin moved away from the mountains to keep a killing from happening. That clears what's said about not killing. We ain't never stole and have always told the truth. We never brought false witness against nobody.

"They's more to it, but I counted them off one day and we is all right. Calvin and me ain't never harmed a living soul in our lives. So I ain't bothering about Hell if I never gits inside the door of a Knoxville church. When me and Calvin gits there I'd be more than glad to do what I could to help others git in.

"They's some folks, not a thousand miles away from here, that are going to need a heap of help. Ah, Lordy, yes!"

Lola Simmons
Knoxville TN 1938 or 1939

Such as Us: Southern Voices of the Thirties
by Tom E. Terrill, Jerrold Hirsch
UNC Press, 1978


Lola+Simmons Knoxville+TN Tom+E.+Terrill Jerrold+Hirsch moonshining religion+in+Appalachia appalachia appalachian+mountains+history