Appalachian History

We caught up recently with Dr. Deborah Weiner, author of "Coalfield Jews: An Appalachian History." Central Appalachia's coalfields were home to thousands of Jews between the 1880s and 1950s. Dr. Weiner, research historian and family history coordinator at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, tells their story meticulously and movingly. Her book has been awarded the Southern Jewish Historical Society’s Book Prize; it was selected for the top prize from among 11 books published during 2003-06 throughout the nation.


APP HIST: The proportion of Eastern European Jews in your study area of Appalachia is dramatically high compared to, say, the German Jewish population. Baltimore wholesaler Jacob Epstein is a key linchpin in why that is. Can you discuss his role briefly?

Jacob Epstein came from Lithuania as a teenager and started out as a peddler. Before he was 20, he had earned enough to open a dry goods store in Baltimore, the Baltimore Bargain House. He decided to focus on wholesaling instead of retailing, because he saw great potential in selling to peddlers and small shopkeepers rather than selling directly to consumers.

Epstein was a commercial genius -- he advised peddlers to go out to areas that were attracting new industries, because he knew that that these areas would have a growing population and a growing need for consumer goods. So he sent many of his fellow Jewish immigrants out on the new rail lines that had just been completed into the coalfields. They began to arrive just as the first shipments of coal were going out, so they were really there at the dawn of the coal boom.

Many of the peddlers Epstein sent out decided to settle in the coalfields and open stores. They became the founding members of the Jewish communities that developed in southern West Virginia. So when people ask, how did Jewish immigrants manage to find their way into the mountains? I point to people like Jacob Epstein as my first answer. Once the "pioneer" peddlers settled down, they sent for their relatives, and Jewish communities grew from there.

APP HIST: 'Coalfield Jews' offers a very precise focus on the life and times of 3 generations of small town Jews in 11 counties in central Appalachia. You mention only in passing the existence of the region's larger Jewish communities in Charleston, Knoxville and Chattanooga, and leave the thriving Jewish community centered around Asheville out of the discussion altogether. Why did you choose the narrower emphasis?

WEINER: Appalachia is a diverse place and needs to be examined as such. Jewish life in a town like Logan, West Virginia, was not the same as Jewish life in Charleston or Asheville—both of which were (and are) quite different from each other. So you can’t really generalize about "Jews in Appalachia." Well you can, but you would probably end up over-simplifying things.

I suppose I could have compared the Jewish experience in Appalachian cities to their experience in smaller Appalachian towns, and pointed out the differences, but that would have been another sort of book entirely. I wanted to explore one particular sub-region in depth, because it enabled me to investigate a variety of issues in detail, rather than paint broad brush strokes.

I chose to focus on the southern coalfields because I find this particular part of Appalachia fascinating: the diverse mix of people that gathered in mining towns in the early 20th century, the boomtown environment, the domination of a single industry. By delving into how Jewish immigrants navigated this environment, I was able to look at a bunch of issues in depth. For example, how did Jews—who were merchants and had little to do with coal mining—interact with the coal economy? This led me to a discussion of how independent merchants competed with company stores.

I also was able to take a close look at how Jews fit into the social scene, which tended to have a rigid class structure imposed by the coal industry, combined with a multicultural atmosphere that tolerated diversity to a pretty amazing degree.

Limiting my study to the coalfields allowed me to draw connections outside the Appalachian region—to boomtowns around the world, to mining regions around the world. These kinds of places have been important to Jews in the diaspora, so the book sheds light on a particular kind of Jewish experience. At the same time, it provides a bit of an international perspective on Appalachia, even while dealing with the nitty-gritty details of life in these small towns.

That was an excellent question--it sort of gets to the heart of what I was
trying to do.

APP HIST: Thanks so much for joining us today!

Sweat flies, Russian hornets, sand hornets, and Japanese hornets are some of their common nicknames. Warm weather’s here, and that means they’re starting to come back. In both Appalachian and Ozarks folklore, news bees appear as omens to those wise enough to read them.

They have the peculiar habit of just hanging motionless in the air watching people as they do things. There are yellow news bees, which mean that good things are in the offing-- it's good luck if you can get one to perch on your finger--and black news bees, which warn of imminent death. The black news bees fly in the windows and out again, and fly straight for the nearest cemetery; they hover making a sound like a human being talking.

Those of scientific bent probably want to know that flower flies, many of which are called "hover flies," belong to the family Syrphidae in the order Diptera (true flies). The most commonly seen species of flower flies are brightly colored, bee-like flies with yellow and black markings. Although flower flies resemble bees, they can be distinguished by their wings: flower flies (like all flies) have only 2 wings. Bees have 4 wings.

The many species of hover flies in Appalachia are found in weedy habitats and gardens. Flower flies are often called "sweat bees" because of their resemblance to bees and because they often land on human skin to gather sweat. Flower flies cannot sting, but there are small black bees in the family Halictidae (also commonly called sweat bees) that will occasionally sting humans while they are gathering sweat.


sources: www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/TheBestiaryProject.htm
www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/insects/flies/syrphid/syrphid.htm#myths


news+bees hover+flies flower+flies appalachian+folklore appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

The Metropolitan Theatre in Morgantown, WV is one of that city’s best examples of Neo-classical Revival architecture. The 1,300 seat theatre opened on July 24, 1924 with "seven acts of vaudeville sent by the BF Keith Amusement Company from its New York Office." Over the years Gene Autry, Peggy Lee, Count Basie, the Andrews Sisters, Bob Hope & Bing Crosby, and Duke Ellington all graced its stage.

The theatre hosted both live acts and films. Owner George Comuntzis installed a $50,000 "Mighty Wurlitzer" organ in 1928 to provide accompaniment for that era's silent films. The Met was one of a handful of theatres around the country to show films on a pre-release basis, so that production companies could gauge response. As an "index town," Morgantown was privileged to see new movies as early as 60 days prior to national release.

The Met was the first theatre in northern WV to install Vitaphone sound systems, and one of the first theatres in the country to install air conditioning.

The theatre also sponsored games that were played on the screen for cash from the mid - 1930s to late 1940s. One such game was "Wahoo," a spin game projected on the screen in which a button would be pressed by those in the audience causing the spin; the jack pot increased by $25/week, and, when the spin stopped, the Comuntzis paid whatever percentage (l00%, 50%, 25%, 10%) showed on the screen.

"Bank Night" was another popular game; those entering the game daily signed a journal opposite a number, which was placed in a large drum. On "Bank Night" a number would be drawn for each $500 increment in the jackpot, and if the winner was in the audience, he or she received the cash immediately.

Bank Night caused quite a controversy nationwide, in fact. "According to figures released last week, gross box-office receipts for the cinema industry in 1936 were a billion dollars, $250,000,000 more than last year," reported Time magazine on Jan 11, 1937. "A contributing reason was undoubtedly 'Bank Night'—currently a weekly fiesta at 5,000 of the 15,000 active U. S. cinema theatres.

"Bank Night is a copyright scheme invented by a onetime Fox booking agent named Charles U. Yaeger, who leases it to theatres for from $5 to $50 a week depending on their size. What it amounts to is a clever evasion of state & municipal lottery laws whereby, by registering his name at a theatre, a patron becomes eligible to win a substantial prize if he is present at the theatre on 'Bank Night'— when the prize is awarded to the holder of a lucky ticket after a drawing on the theatre stage.

"Since Bank Nights started in 1931, Inventor Yaeger's enterprise has grown from a two-room office to a Denver building and a chain of theatres. [Bank Night is] perpetually under fire from state and municipal authorities who hope to find some way in which to bring it under local lottery laws. In Topeka, Kans., the Supreme Court ruled that Bank Night as practiced by certain Fox Theatres was illegal. In Albany, N. Y., the Court of Appeals ruled Bank Nights legal."


Sources: www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757281,00.html
www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/monongalia/84003631.pdf


Morgantown+WV bank+night The+Metropolitan+Theatre appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

The city of Middlesboro, Kentucky, was established in the late 1880s by Scottish born Canadian Alexander Alan Arthur and his British backers in the American Association Ltd. They were drawn to the area by the promise of iron ore deposits in the Cumberland Mountains. Arthur purchased 80,000 acres of land and built his city in the Yellow Creek Valley of Kentucky.

The exact year in which the golf course opened is not definite, but 1889 is the earliest year that golfing has been confirmed. That makes the course the oldest continuously played course in the United States and the second oldest course in the nation. The course has had several names over the years. The original name was Kentucky Golf Club, later Middlesboro Golf Club, and the current name of the Country Club of Middlesboro.

In the early years there was no clubhouse. The 1st tee was located at what is now the corner of 25th Street and Worcester Avenue and headed west to Cirencester Avenue and then on to the remainder of the course that is still played today. In the 1920s the course moved west to accommodate the growing need for residential housing.

In 1889 30 men and women were members at the country club. Each paid the annual $2 membership fee. Of course, in the 1880s there were no golf carts. Golfers carried their own bags or used caddies. Some of the first caddies were Henry Sandifer, Ed Slusher, Mark Colgan, Paul Colgan, Arthur Rhorer, Ed Sampson, and Arden Kennedy.

By 1893 the boom in Middlesboro was over and the Baring Brothers Bank in London cancelled Arthur's funding. The course continued to be used sparingly until 1921 when Judge Joe Bosworth Jr. helped reorganize the club and started on a plan of growth. The officers of the Club in 1921 were R.E. Howe - President, F.P. Scales - Vice-President, J. M. Milles - Secretary, and E.P. Nicholson - Treasurer.

In 1921 there were 150 members, and that was also the year the original clubhouse was constructed. In 1924 Middlesboro Country Club played host to the Kentucky State Amateur Championship.

For many years Middlesboro Country Club was also the home of one of the few Par 6 holes (660 yards) in the country. Number 7 was shortened to add flood control but remains a very challenging hole that few can reach in 2.


source: www.middlesborocountryclub.net/history.htm


Middlesboro+Country+Club Middlesboro+KY Alexander+Alan+Arthur Kentucky+Golf+Club appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

When Bessie Smith sang the blues she meant it. Smith (1894-1937) was the greatest and most influential classic blues singer of the 1920s. Dubbed "The Empress of the Blues," Smith embodied the blues feeling, while her songs, drawing from her sordid lifestyle, rang true with rural and urban audiences alike.

Smith was born on April 15, 1894, in Chattanooga, TN. She spent her early years living in a one room shack in a small area of Chattanooga known as Blue Goose Hollow. These living quarters were shared by both of her parents and all of her siblings, which at the highest count could have been as many as seven.

Her father, a part time Baptist minister, died when Smith was an infant and by the time she reached the age of nine her mother Laura and at least two of her brothers had also passed away. Smith’s sister Viola moved the family into a tenement apartment in a section of Chattanooga known as Tannery Flats. She supported her sisters, brothers, and her own daughter mainly on the small wages she earned from taking in laundry, and was apparently very strict when it came to her siblings.

The family income was minimally supplemented by the odd jobs that Clarence, the eldest brother in the Smith family, took. By 1904, Clarence left town to join the Moses Stokes traveling show and his support left town with him.

Despite the abject poverty that consumed Bessie Smith's childhood, she is noted as having completed school at least to the eighth grade. During this time Bessie is also said to have started her entertainment career. Standing on the corner singing, accompanied by her younger brother Andrew on guitar; their preferred location was in front of the White Elephant Saloon at Thirteenth and Elm streets. They collected spare change that people passing by threw at them.

After hearing his sister perform at an amateur night at the Ivory Theatre, Clarence arranged an audition for Smith with the Moses Stokes Company, and she was hired as a dancer in 1912. She became friends with an older Moses Stokes veteran, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, who was called the Mother of the Blues and likely exercised some influence over the young singer.

Rainey is largely credited with moving the blues away from its traditionally male, country sounds to the more classical, city and women's style that is associated with the Harlem Renaissance, today. Smith had her own voice, however, and owed her success to no one. If anything, Ma Rainey taught her stage presence.

Bessie Smith’s heavy, throaty vocals were balanced by a delightful sense of timing. Her live shows were a blend of comedy and drama in song. She played on the road for eleven years before recording her first song in 1923. That record sold 780,000 copies, but only made her $125.

During her heyday, she sold hundreds of thousands of records and earned upwards of $2000 per week, which was a queenly sum in the 1920s. She routinely played to packed houses in the South as well as the North and Midwest. Alberta Hunter, a contemporary blues singer of Bessie Smith's, said of Smith, "I don't think anybody in the world will ever be able to get as much hurt into one song." There are some artists who don't have to do anything other than walk out on stage to create electricity in the air, and Bessie Smith was one of them.

sources: www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=albertson.html
www.southernmusic.net/bessiesmith.htm
www.nps.gov/history/delta/blues/people/bessie_smith.htm
xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/blues/bsa.html


Alberta Hunter, appalachia, appalachian history, mountains Bessie Smith, blues, Chattanooga TN, Ma Rainey

My mother was a great sassafras drinker. And every spring we had to have sassafras along with our poke salad (that was a wild green). The mountain people particularly gathered a lot of wild greens to supplement their diet, because most people back in those days lived mostly on cornbread and peas. My mother used to enjoy going into the mountains and picking the wild greens. They have a thing called (and I like it today—they cultivate it, by the way, in Tennessee and Virginia) highland creeces. Oldtimers called them creecy-greens.

Eula McGill
born Resaca, GA 1911
February 3, 1976 interview
Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Interview G-0040-1.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/G-0040-1/G-0040-1.html

To some Appalachian farmers, it was simply an aggressive weed tree cluttering old fields. Others believed its wood could prevent chicken lice, and so used it to build chicken houses and chicken roosts. But sassafras’ most famous attribute has always been the healing properties of the springtime tea –a spring tonic- made from its roots.

The Cherokee people utilized sassafras tea to purify blood and for a variety of ailments, including skin diseases, rheumatism, and ague (the tree is sometimes called an ‘Ague Tree’). "The country people of Carolina crop these vines (Bigonia Crucigera) to pieces," said William Bartram in Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians food traditions, "together with china brier and sassafras roots, and boil them in their beer in the spring, for diet drink, in order to attenuate and purify the blood and juices." The Cherokee would also make a poultice to cleanse wounds and sores, while they’d steep the root bark to treatment diarrhea or for 'over-fatness.'

They emphasized that the tea should never be taken for more than a week at a time. They didn’t know about safrole, though they knew its long term effects. The bark of sassafras roots contains volatile oils, 80% of which is safrole. Commercially produced sassafras was pulled from the American market in the early 1960s after experiments showed that safrole caused liver cancer in rats and mice.

Early white mountain settlers, perhaps influenced by the vine/brier/sassafras concoction described above, made a beer by boiling young sassafras shoots in water, adding molasses and allowing the mash to ferment.

The varied leaf shapes are the Mitten Tree’s trademark—in fact, its Latin name was once Sassafras Varifolium. Today Sassafras Albidum ranges widely over the eastern United States (only two other species of sassafras exist elsewhere in the world: one in central mainland China, one in Taiwan).

‘White sassafras' grows along roadways in thick clusters, usually from three to six feet tall. It has roughly the same characteristics as ‘red sassafras,’ however the bark does not turn pink to red when the root is damaged.

The red variety is the species that is most prized. Generally found on hills and ridges, it sometimes grows in mountainous areas to a height of thirty or more feet. The American Forestry Association's National Register of Big Trees lists a 77-foot champion in Owensboro, KY.

According to H.L. Mencken's The American Language (1936), the word sassafras traces back to 1577 and is of Spanish origin, probably deriving from the Spanish term for saxifrage.

Native Americans in Virginia pointed out 'wynauk' to British settlers, and in 1603, a company was formed in Bristol, England to send two vessels to the New World, principally with the intention of bringing back cargoes of sassafras bark. Thus, sassafras was one of the first, if not the first, forest products to be exported from what is now the mid-Atlantic states.


sources: Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians food traditions, by William Bartram, 1789, From "Transaction of the American Ethnological Society," Vol. 3 Pt. 1. Extracts
everettarea.org/tales/v01/v01c30.htm
foodreference.com/html/artsassafras.html
inpaws.org/Marion%20Jackson%20Trees/Sassafras_albidum.pdf
The singular sassafras, by Henry Clepper, from "American Forests," American Forestry Assn 1989
http://ohiodnr.gov/Portals/18/publications/pdf/wild%20edible%20plants.pdf


sassafras spring+tonics Cherokee+herbs safrole mitten+tree wynauk appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

In the decade after the Civil War the new Air Line Railroad connecting Charlotte and Atlanta was laid through upcountry South Carolina. Two Confederate veterans saw an opportunity to create a new town at the junction of the older Blue Ridge Railroad and the new line, a town which because of this location would serve as an ideal marketing and shipping point for cotton grown in the low country.

And so Col. Joseph Norton and Col. Robert Thompson founded Seneca, SC (named for a nearby Cherokee village) on August 14, 1873, and Governor Wade Hampton signed the charter for the town on March 14, 1874.

During the cotton harvest, wagons bringing cotton would line up for blocks from the railroad station. A passenger terminal, several hotels, and a park were built near the railroad tracks.

If you walk down West South 1st St from the Seneca Presbyterian Church to Poplar St (now called Bruce Hill Blvd) you’ll be smack in the middle of “Silk-Stocking Hill.” Six of its houses were built by the Gignilliat family.

George Warren Gignilliat (1853-1926) and his brothers were among the pioneer merchants who came to Seneca and made large contributions to the development of the town. He’s one of the owners of the Seneca Oil Mill & Fertilizer Co. He also started Charles N. Gignilliat & Sons, Cotton Merchants, based in Seneca and Spartanburg.

The Gignilliat family (an ancient Swiss family of wealth with roots dating back to the 1400s) had already been in the state for close to 200 years. It is one of the notable group of Huguenot families, the founders of which, said Dr JGB Bulloch of Washington DC, "either as gentlemen, planters, soldiers, lawyers, statesmen, &c., have added luster to the Commonwealth of South Carolina."

Jean Francois Gignilliat came to America in late December of 1688 before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, where he received from the Lord Proprietors of the Carolinas a grant of 3,000 acres as the ‘first of the Swiss nation to settle in Carolina.’ He & his wife purchased an additional 4,500 acres.

Today, the Gignilliat Park Middle/High Academy and the Gignilliat Community Center stand today as reminders of this powerful family’s continuing impact on Seneca.

sources: www.clemson.edu/caah/cedp/senecatour1.pdf
www.seneca.sc.us
www.sciway.net/city/history/seneca-sc-history.html
The Beville Family of Virginia, Georgia, and Florida, and Several Allied… by Agnes Beville VaughanTedcastle, 1917 private printing (manu. Owned by the University of Wisconsin – Madison)


GW+Gignilliat Silk-Stocking+Hill Seneca+SC cotton+merchants appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

I was beginning to get a bit worried about Good 'Lige, since I hadn't seen him for some three weeks. It was with a feeling of relief when I knocked at his door last Sunday to hear his cheery voice call to me to enter.

He was sitting before the fire, reading his copy of the weekly newspaper, and he had a pot of ginger stew simmering in the coals on the hearth where a couple of hickory logs were blazing.

"Sit and help yourself," he urged hospitably, nodding toward some cups and saucers on a nearby table.

While we were talking, I glanced about the room at the magazine cover-pages with which he had papered the walls. Over the fireplace, resting on a pair of deer's antlers, lay a gun that caught and held my attention. It appeared to be a muzzle-loading, double-barreled weapon, with one barrel directly over the other. I arose and took the gun down to examine it more closely.

"That’s old Hide-an'-Taller," explained Good 'Lige, "the best gun ever seen in the Apern country. I got her thut'y-forty years ago from one of the Eversoles when he was scoutin' in that French-Eversole war they had down in Kaintucky."

"Hide-and-Tallow?" I queried bewilderedly.

"Yeah, we used to have shootin' matches for beeves," said Good 'Lige, lighting the cigar I gave him. "Beeves wa'nt worth much then, an' the first choice was allus the hide and taller, because they was worth the most. I allers won with that rifle-gun there.

"She’s a double-barr'l," he continued, taking the gun and caressing it. "Ye see the top barr'l is for a single ball an' the bottom barr'l is for shot. She shore has been a meat-gun. If it wa'nt so muddy out thar' I'd show ye how she shoots. I reckon she’s got the longest range ever seen—around her anyhow."

From Tales of the Tall Timbers, a weekly column in The Dickensonian [Clintwood, VA] written by Herbert M. Sutherland, the paper's owner/editor.

As editor of Dickenson County's local county weekly, Herbert M. Sutherland was looked on by the mountaineers as almost one of their own. He was the boy they had seen around town in his teens; the boy who had fought in France in 1918 and come home honorably discharged. After being hospitalized at Walter Reed Hospital for a period of time in Washington, DC, he enrolled in the School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York, where he received a B.A. in Literature in 1921. He worked for the New York Globe, and after it ceased publication he worked for the New York Times.

In 1924 his health failed and he returned to Dickenson County to recuperate. There he spent his time hunting, fishing and writing. During the 1930's, Sutherland became interested in local politics, and was elected four times to the Virginia Assembly.

In 1939 he acquired the Dickenson County Weekly and named it The Dickensonian. His weekly column "Tales of the Tall Timbers" was read and enjoyed all over the country, and by servicemen all over the world during the 1940's and 1950's. This column included stories, using fictitious names, told to him by area friends and associates, whom he fondly referred to as 'The Liars Club.' His tall tales were published after his death in 1967 in a volume called "Tales from the Devil's Apron."

Sources: American Folk Tales and Songs by Richard Chase, Joshua Tolford, Courier Dover Publications 1971
HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA PUBLICATION 13-1979, 'Mountain Scribes' by Bonnie S. Ball
www.jsfbooks.com/bookdetails.asp?ProductID=720


appalachia appalachian+authors appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history Dickenson+County++VA Herbert+M.+Sutherland Tales+of+the+Tall+Timbers The+Dickensonian

Mount Vernon Signal [Rockcastle County KY]
April 09, 1909

S. B. Ramsey is building a new room to his butcher shop near the railroad crossing.

The Mt Vernon baseball boys have their new outfits which are first class and up to date and Wednesday fully expect the boys to make a good showing this year.

BIRTH: Born to the wife of William Moore, of Maretburg, a fine baby boy on the 6th.

View near Mt. Vernon, Rockcastle County

Mr. and Mrs. Marion Hamlin have moved to near Lafollette, Tenn. They sold their farm here.

J. G. Anderson and family, of Livingston, have moved into to the R. K. Powell property on Newcomb Avenue.

J. M. Craig was here Tuesday and told us he had bought over 200 good hogs in the last few days at 4 1/2 to 5 cents a pound.

DEATH: Mrs. Rebecca Mink, of the Skeggs Creek section died Wednesday after an illness of several days. We were unable to learn the cause of her illness.

The Mt Vernon baseball team has a challenge from Green Nebraska Indians. It is likely that they will arrange a game with the Indians here sometime this season. Of course the Indians know our boys can play ball or they wouldn’t to be caught here.

On March the 27th, the Christian Sunday School had an attendance of 143 and collected $2.51 regular collection. One year ago last Sunday this same school had an attendance of 37 and collected $.51 regular collection. This is the largest Sunday school in Eastern Kentucky on the L & N R. R. according to reports sent out every week from the S. S. headquarters in Louisville. There are very few boys and girls in Mt Vernon that are not attending one of our three Sunday schools.


source: http://ftp.rootsweb.ancestry.com/pub/usgenweb/ky/rockcastle/newspapers/09apr1909.txt


Rockcastle+County+KY Mt+Vernon+KY Mount+Vernon+Signal appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

Some know the song as "Nancy Brown," others as "The West Virginia Hills," but according to The Frank Gullo Music Sheet (sic) Collection at Millersville University, "She Came Rollin' down the Mountain" was written by Arthur Lippmann, Manning Sherwin, and Harry Richman and published by Crawford Music Corporation in 1932.

The ditty tells the tale of Nancy Brown, who throws over one suitor after another until she finds the man she's been waiting for: "A city slicker with hundred dollar bills." They live happily ever after, until…

In the hills of West Virginia
There's a gal named Nancy Brown
She was the fairest maiden
in city or in town
Now Nancy and the Deacon
climbed the mountainside one noon
they climbed up to the summit
but very very soon
She came rollin' down the Mountain,
rollin' down the mountain
Rollin' down the mountain mighty wide
No, she didn't give the Deacon
not a thing that he was seekin'
She remained just as pure
as the West Virginia sky.

Then there came that ol' cowboy
came a cowboy with his song
took Nancy up the mountain
but she still knew right from wrong
She came rollin' down the Mountain
rollin' down the mountain
Rollin' down the mountain by the Dam
and despite that cowboys urgin'
she remained the village virgin
she remained just as pure
as the West Virginia sand

Then there came that Old trapper
with his words so soft and kind
took Nancy up the mountain
but when she read his mind
She came rollin' down the Mountain
rollin' down the mountain
Rollin' down the mountain by the shack
She remained as I have stated
not the least contaminated
she remained just as pure
as Satin's apple jack

Then there came a city slicker
with a hundred dollar bill
took Nancy and his Packard
way up on the hill
Oh, she stayed up on that mountain
stayed up on that mountain
she stayed up on that mountain all that night
She came down next morning early
more a woman than a girly
and her pappy kicked that hussy out of sight

And now she's livin' in the city,
she's living in the city
livin' in the city mighty swell
Now her life's all beer and skiddles
and she lives on fancy viddles
and those West Virginia hills can go to hell.

Well there came a big depression,
and the slicker lost his pants;
First he lost his Cadillac,
and then he lost his Nance.
And she came back to the mountain,
She came back to the mountain,
She came back to the mountain mighty sore,
And the cowboy and the deacon
Got that thing that they were seekin'
And she's known as West Virginia's biggest...used car dealer.

A six-stanza parody of "She Came Rollin' down the Mountain"was published in 1952 by textile tycoon Elliot Springs, to advertise his Spring Maid bedsheets. Here's an illustration from that campaign.


Recorded versions:
Blue Ridge Mountain Girls, "She Came Rollin' Down the Mountain" (Champion 16743, 1934)
The Sons of the Pioneers' "Songs of the Prairie" (Bear Family 5-CD box set #15710, 1998)
The Callahan Brothes: 'The Callahan Brothers' Old Homestead (OHCD-4013, 1936)
The Aaron Sisters: Various Artists 'Flowers in the Wildwood: Women in Early Country Music 1923-1939' (Trikont US-1310)
Tex Morton's "Regal Zonophone Collection V.2" (EMI CD 8142052, 1997)


sources: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=308390
www.csufresno.edu/folklore/drinkingsongs/mp3s/field-work/other-collections/ed-cray-collection/american/westvirg150.txt
www.library.millersville.edu/sc/manuscripts/manus/scoreS.htm
www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-song-lyrics/Nancy_Brown.htm


She+came+rollin'+down+the+mountain Nancy+Brown The+West+Virginia+Hills Appalachian+ballads appalachia appalachian+humor appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

FDR's government established several agencies to give relief to unemployed artists during the Depression. The Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture (later known as The Section of Fine Arts) was established in October of 1934 to provide decoration for New Deal structures, most commonly post offices and courthouses. Art created by "The Section" is often mistaken for WPA art, since the WPA funded the construction of post office buildings.

The artists who produced murals in Alabama received the award based on work submitted for other sites, or for work done previously in Treasury programs. Twenty-four works were created in Alabama, twenty-three in post offices and one in a courthouse. The standard New Deal post office carried a decorative allotment of $650-$750, covering a space about twelve by five feet above the postmaster’s door. Courthouses could pay a commission of $3,000 and covered more extensive surfaces.

From the allotted funds the artist was required to purchase all the necessary supplies and pay the costs of installation and photographs. Payment to the artist came in three installments: when the initial sketch was approved, when a scale drawing was approved, and when the final panel was verified as in-place by the local postmaster.

Highlights from Appalachian Alabama:

Fort Payne: "Harvest at Fort Payne," Harwood Steiger, 1938.
Steiger, of New York, admitted he had never been as far south as Fort Payne when he received the invitation to produce a mural there. Steiger did make a trip to Fort Payne within a month and found the postmaster most helpful as he prepared his sketches. The postmaster, in fact, told Steiger that he was pleased to be getting a mural although he had never heard of one before, and he drove Steiger out into the country to see waterfalls. Steiger proposed two different sketches for the mural: one showing the cotton industry in town and the other a landscape. He and the Section both chose the "pretty landscape" as more pleasing.

Huntsville: "Tennessee Valley Authority," Xavier Gonzalez, 1937.
The Huntsville mural was the largest and most expensive panel commissioned in Alabama and the only one placed in a federal courthouse rather than a post office. Gonzales received the invitation for the panel based on designs he had submitted for a competition in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1936. He originally proposed a rather odd allegorical panel that the Washington office criticized for both its style and its lack of meaning for the people in Huntsville. Instead of making allegorical allusions it was suggested that Gonzalez place emphasis on the realities of life. Using a realistic style and basing his new theme on the work then being done by TVA in northern Alabama, he redesigned the panel several times, finishing it in October of 1937.

Scottsboro: "Alabama Agriculture," Constance Ortmayer, 1940.
Ortmayer was teaching at Rollins College in Florida when she received the invitation to do a panel in Scottsboro. She chose a theme based on Alabama agriculture, especially cotton and corn. She described the final images: "Three phases of cotton growing form the theme of the central panel. On the right the cultivation of the crop is symbolized by the young man working with a hoe among the new plants. Opposite a young woman is depicted picking ripened bolls, and for the background, the processing and shipping of cotton is represented by the bales and the strong figure of a second young worker standing between them. Both of the flanking panels interpret the growing of corn. The young man and woman shown on the right are examining the fruit on the ripened stalks and the couple on the left are represented as workers who have harvested the new crop."


sources: www.arts.state.al.us/downloads/Al_Arts_Mag_PublicArt.pdf
www.alabamamoments.alabama.gov/sec49det.html
www.wpamurals.com/alabama.htm


The+Section+of+Fine+Arts Alabama+murals Section+of+Painting+and+Sculpture appalachian+fine+arts appalachian+history +appalachia appalachian+mountains+history

On April 2, 1931 Horace Kephart was killed in an automobile accident near Ela, NC along with fellow author Fiswoode Tarelton. Kephart (1862-1931) was a travel writer and librarian who published hundreds of articles during his lifetime, but became especially renowned for his classic works 'Our Southern Highlanders' and 'Camping and Woodcraft.'

In one of Poe's minor tales, written in 1845, there is a vague allusion to wild mountains in western Virginia "tenanted by fierce and uncouth races of men." This, so far as I know, was the first reference in literature to our Southern mountaineers, and it stood as their only characterization until Miss Murfree ("Charles Egbert Craddock") began her stories of the Cumberland hills.

Opening of 'Our Southern Highlanders,' by Horace Kephart

In 'Our Southern Highlanders,' published in 1913 and expanded in 1922, Kephart argued that the rest of America knew almost nothing of a people set apart "from all other folks by dialect, by customs, by character, by self-conscious isolation," who because of the terrain of the land still lived in the eighteenth century. His book strove to change that. Kephart saw firsthand the impact of modernized communication and transportation on Appalachia during his lifetime, and by book’s end predicted that the region was on the verge of an economic revolution which would change everything.

Trained as a librarian, Kephart achieved national recognition during his years as director of the Mercantile Library in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1890 to 1903. While living in what was already one of the largest cities in the nation, Kephart began indulging in outdoor life through camping and hunting trips. As his passion for the outdoors increased, Kephart began to write articles about the subject topics. Kephart developed 10 years of experience writing about these excursions centered on Arkansas and Missouri.

These works are similar in substance and tone to those he would later publish about western North Carolina’s mountains and people. Eventually he succumbed to what he later called 'nervous exhaustion' and concluded that urban life was a major contributor to his problems. He left his career as a librarian in St. Louis and, after a brief respite and period of personal reflection at the home of his father in Ohio, soon decided to move to western North Carolina.

In 1904, at the age of 42, Kephart arrived in western North Carolina to begin his life anew. He chose a simple lifestyle and nature-as-healer approach. At the same time, he immersed himself in his new natural environment and took an immediate interest in the history and culture of the people.

Kephart, who was personally modest and rarely sought the limelight, nevertheless used his abilities and reputation on behalf of the movement to create a Great Smoky Mountains National Park. As a unique and recognized personification concerning the cultural and natural studies on the Great Smokies region, he was influential in convincing individuals on both the local and national levels of the need for such a park.

Kephart's arguments on behalf of a park were thoughtful and pragmatic as well as appealing to the love and appreciation of nature. Acknowledging that the Great Smoky Mountains contributed to his mental and physical recovery after 1904 and describing the economic potential of a national park, he campaigned vigorously to preserve the last major stands of forests in the East.

It had become apparent in his lifetime that a national park would be a reality. In February 1931 the U.S. Geological Board recognized Kephart's contribution by naming a peak within the park Mount Kephart, an honor previously only bestowed posthumously. Shortly before his death, Kephart had represented Swain County in Washington, D.C., when state park officials from North Carolina and Tennessee transferred the titles of the lands purchased by them to be used for the park over to the United States government.

Kephart's major works have remained in print and articles appear on a routine basis about his contributions to camping, regional history, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Sources: http://library.wcu.edu/digitalcoll/kephart/horacekephart/biography.htm
smokymountainnews.com/issues/06_04/06_30_04/mtn_voices.html


Horace+Kephart Our+Southern+Highlanders Great+Smoky+Mountains+National+Park appalachian+authors appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

On April 2, 1931, world famous New York Yankees sluggers Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were struck out by a 17 year old female pitcher named Virnett 'Jackie' Mitchell in Chattanooga, TN.

"I don't know what's going to happen if they begin to let women in baseball," grumbled Ruth off-field. "Of course, they will never make good. Why? Because they are too delicate. It would kill them to play ball every day."

Joe Engel, owner of the Southern Association's AA Chattanooga Lookouts, had recently signed Mitchell after spotting her in a baseball camp in Georgia. Engel, a former big league player who scouted for the Washington Senators after his playing days, was known for his innovative, entertaining, and often zany promotional stunts.

The local papers were full of stories about the first woman to ever play in the minor leagues, though Jackie Mitchell was actually the second woman to sign a minor-league contract. In 1898, Lizzie Arlington played one game, pitching for Reading (PA) against Allentown.

The Yankees had stopped in Chattanooga for an exhibition game that day, on their way home from spring training down south. Major league teams often traveled the country playing against members of their minor league's farm system. This gave the locals an opportunity to see big league players in towns that did not boast big league franchises. It also kept the players in off-season shape - both in body and mind. Billed as a huge event due to the appearance of "Murderers Row" ---Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Tony Lazzeri--- the game brought out a crowd of 4,000, including scores of reporters, wire services, and even a newsreel camera.

Manager Bert Niehoff started the game with Clyde Barfoot, but after Barfoot gave up a double and a single, the manager signaled for Jackie Mitchell. The rookie southpaw took the mound wearing a baggy white uniform that had been custom-made by the Spalding Company. The first batter she faced was Ruth.

Jackie, a left-hander, only had one pitch, a wicked, dropping curve ball. Ruth took ball one, and then swung at -- and missed -- the next two pitches. Jackie's fourth pitch caught the corner of the plate, the umpire called it a strike, and Babe Ruth "kicked the dirt, called the umpire a few dirty names, gave his bat a wild heave, and stomped out to the Yank's dugout."

The next batter was Lou Gehrig. He stepped up to the plate and swung at the first sinker -- strike one! He swung twice more, hitting nothing but air. Jackie Mitchell had fanned the "Sultan of Swat" AND the "Iron Horse," back-to-back.

After a standing ovation that lasted several minutes, Jackie pitched to Tony Lazzeri, who drew a walk. At that point, Niehoff pulled her and put Barfoot back in. The Yankees won the game 14-4.

The 17-year old had squared off against three future Hall of Famers, striking out two of them. The next day, one newspaper would speculate that "maybe her curves were too much for them."

But a few days after the exhibition game, Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided Jackie Mitchell's contract, claiming that baseball was "too strenuous" for a woman.

Crushed and disappointed, Jackie began barnstorming, traveling across the country pitching in exhibition games. In 1933, when she was 19, she signed on with the House of David, a men's team famous for their very long hair and long beards. She traveled with them until 1937, but eventually got tired of the sideshow aspects of barnstorming -- like playing an inning while riding a donkey.

At the age of 23, she retired and went to work in her father's optometry office, although she continued to play with local teams from time to time. Forty-five years later, in 1982, the 68-year-old Jackie threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Chattanooga Lookouts on opening day.

sources: www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/aubrecht8.shtml
http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070215&content_id=280&vkey=hof_news
www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/mitchell.html


Chattanooga+Lookouts appalachian+sports Jackie+Mitchell New+York+Yankees Babe+Ruth Lou+Gehrig appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

John Holt (1870-1918), a coal miner in Murray City, OH, kept a journal of his daily life.

John Holt and the coal miners he worked with outside of the mine in Murray City.

April 1907- "The miners here geting 57 cts per ton for screened coal and two dollars and fifty six cents per day for day work inside of mine 236 for outside work 8 hours to be one days work. I went to work day work in mine no 2 but onely work a short time when I got contract of picking up coal at mines no 1, 2, and 3 had to furnish my own horse bought one from the coal company Paid $60 dollars for him and he was well worth it as he is a vary good horse but old.

“Also bought a cow a young one first calf for $30 dollars. She is vary good. Later in September I think, I bought a two seated surray for one horse or I paid $50 dollars for it later I bought a one horse wagon and buggy or runabout of John ???? for $25 dollars 2 get 90 cts per ton that being Pick price for picking up coal and cleaning tracks. I made $70 dollars the last half of July.

“That being my first start and the month of August we made $203 dollar s with my son Clifford working with me till school started in September. Then he went to school. There is 8 months school. Since then I have not made less than 120 dollars per month till month of March we had hardly any work and of course that throwed me out too. I onely Made about $45 for the whole month and I don' t think I will get vary mutch this month either as work is poor we all have had fair health the past year. "

The Flood

April 14, 1907- "the flood commenced about 7 o'clock on the 13th of March and thundered and lightnening'd like summer time and the rain fell fast until the streams and rivers were running wild. Several houses and part of the trestle washed away at the mine. Some mines were filled up with water and towns along the Hocking River were flooded bad. Buildings washed away and people drowned.

Athens, OH home destroyed by flood.

"Towns that suffered the most were Nelsonville, Athens and Logan. It took peoples furniture and caused lots of suffering and would have been worse except for the warm weather. The railroad was damaged something like $100,000 dollars. Mail was unable to be delivered for a week."

source: www.ohgen.net/ohathens/johnholtjournal.htm [diary & Holt photo]


Murray+City+OH coal+mining Ohio+River appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

The convenient and pithy term for the mountain people of Kentucky, "our contemporary ancestors," does not indicate the origin of the customs, beliefs, and peculiarities which persist among them. For they too had ancestors. These were, for the most part, British, and of the soil. Just as today many a mountaineer has never been ten miles from his birthplace, so also his forebears remained at home.

They were sturdy men and women, steeped in traditional ways, independent and as little humble as possible. The mountaineer is that way too. He cares neither for ease nor for soft living. He is hospitable. "Welcome, stranger, light and hitch," is the salutation, and the stranger is bidden to take "damn near all" of whatever the table offers.

A hunter by race, he is first of all a poacher, in arms against such as would deny him the right to take game where he may find it, a trait dating back to the time of Robin Hood in England. His speech is reminiscent of this older land and people. Labeled as "a survival," the mountaineer in reality is on the defensive, protecting himself against later comers and strange ideas. "I wouldn’t choose to crave this newfangled teachin’ and preachin’," he says. "All I ask is to be let alone. I was doin’ middlin’ well. The hull kit and bilin’ can go to the devil."

Mountain dialect reflects the Anglo-Saxon origin of the mountain people; obsolete forms found in Shakespeare and the King James version of the Bible are in common use. "Clumb," "writ," and "et" for climbed, wrote and ate are common enough if you go back a few centuries. "Buss" for kiss, "pack" for carry, and "poke" for pocketbag and the like are pure Elizabethan.

Shakespeare said "a-feared," as does the mountaineer today, and "beholden" is common to both. "His schoolin’ holp him mighty," says the proud mountain father; King Richard of England said, "Let him thank me that holp send him thither." "Hit’s right pied," shouts the mountain boy when the snake he has stoned puffs up and mottles. But he probably never read of "meadows trim with daisies pied," or heard of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. When he sings, the mountaineer "rolls a song," and his expression, "he looks like the hind wheels of bad luck," is so expressive that only the carping student would seek to trace its heritage.

Folklore is found not only among the mountaineers but in every county in the State, in town and in city. In the mountains, however, because of close-knit family and community ties, it is part of everyday life. Songs and sayings are more than quaint and queer; they have living reality.


The WPA Guide to Kentucky, Compiled by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Kentucky, F. Kevin Simon, Editor,Univ. of KY 1939, publ. Harcourt Brace & Co.


kentucky+history WPA mountain+dialect appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

Not far from the towns of Boone, Blowing Rock, and Asheville, deep inside Humpback Mountain below the Blue Ridge Escarpment, lie Linville Caverns, North Carolina’s only publicly accessible caverns. For 30 million years, as the nearby Catawba River ate away at the valley between the Humpback and Linville mountains, the water-filled caverns have slowly drained from the top.

Linville Caverns were discovered by Henry E. Colton and his local guide, Dave Franklin, in 1822. Mystified by what appeared to be fish swimming out of the mountain, they followed their pine-knot torches into the opening. "Having procured a guide, a little after 9 o'clock we entered the cave, and after proceeding about a quarter of a mile, came to water," said Colton of the experience in Mountain Scenery, published in 1859.

"Previous to this, nothing of a very remarkable nature had met with, but now began the wondrous splendors of that hidden world. Stooping through a low passage, in which the coldest of water ran rippling and singing a merry song, which echoed back a thousand times from the dark dismal arched roof of the unmeasured space which stretched itself before, behind, and above us, we emerged into an immense passage, whose roof was far beyond the reach of the glare of our torches, except where the fantastic festoons of stalactites hang down within our touch.

"It looked like the arch of some grand old cathedral, yet it was too sublime, too perfect in all its beautiful proportions, to be anything of human, but a model which man might attempt to imitate."

Legend has it that the caverns were a popular hiding place with soldiers from both sides of the Civil War and a workshop for a resourceful old man who made and mended soldiers' shoes. Traces of campfires were found in the cavern's central chambers. Local lure tells that eventually smoke from these fires made it out of the mountainside and so betrayed the soldiers.

Thomas Edison once sent a team of explorers to the caverns hoping to find platinum — an element at the time thought vital in the production of incandescent lamps. They returned empty handed.

John Q. Gilkey bought the property in 1937, built walkways, enlarged the entrance, and opened the doors for tours on July 1, 1939 – one of the cave’s larger chambers is named after him. He only lived another year.

Linville’s formations are a rainbow of hues: iron oxide creates a pinkish orange color; black from manganese; blues from zinc and cobalt, white from calcium carbonate, green from algae and moss.

One of Linville Caverns’ most famous formations, the Wedding Scene, features a shelf-like stage with a priest wearing a long robe. A bride and groom can also be seen kneeling at the altar, all created naturally.

During the winter and early spring the eastern pipistrelle bat hibernates in the cave. The fish living in the cave are speckled, brown, and rainbow trout. None are true cave animals, but only cave visitors.

sources: Mountain Scenery. The Scenery of the Mountains of Western North Carolina
and Northwestern South Carolina, by Henry E Colton, W. L. Pomeroy, 1859
http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/colton/colton.html
www.theapp.appstate.edu/archives_98-99/98-09-29/linville.htm
www.ashevillechamber.org/
www.showcaves.com/english/usa/showcaves/Linville.html


Linville+Caverns Humpback+Mountain Henry+E.+Colton appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

On March 25, 1931, local authorities in Paint Rock, AL arrested nine black youths on a freight train after receiving word about a fight between blacks and whites on the train. They discovered two white women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, dressed in men's overalls on the same train and subsequently charged the nine young men with rape.

The doctor who examined the girls found proof that they had been having sexual intercourse but no reason to conclude that they had been roughly handled, except for a small bruise on one of them which might well have been caused by riding on gravel. This was not Victoria Price’s version of the story: "There were six to me and three to her....It took three of them to hold me," she recalled under oath. "One was holding my legs and the other had a knife to my throat while the other one ravished me."

Four of the "Scottsboro Boys," Roy and Andy Wright, Eugene Williams, and Heywood Patterson, had grown up in Chattanooga, Tennessee; the Wrights were the sons of Ada Wright, a widow and a domestic servant in Chattanooga. Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Olen Montgomery, Charlie Weems, and Willie Roberson came from different towns in Georgia and encountered the others for the first time on the train. Olen Montgomery was completely blind in one eye and could barely see out of the other; Willie Roberson suffered from untreated syphilis and could hardly walk.

Presiding judge Alfred E. Hawkins assigned all seven members of the Scottsboro bar to defend the young men, but all of them found excuses not to involve themselves except for seventy-year-old Milo C. Moody.

In Chattanooga, sixty miles away, members of the local Interdenominational Colored Ministers' Alliance raised funds to retain Stephen R. Roddy, a white lawyer from Chattanooga. "I was scared before, but it wasn't nothing to how I felt now," said defendant Norris as the trials got under way. "I knew if a white woman accused a black man of rape, he was as good as dead."

On April 9, 1931, after four separate trials conducted over a four-day period before four different all-white juries in the mountain town of Scottsboro, eight of the defendants were found guilty as charged.

Judge Hawkins promptly sentenced them to death. The case of the ninth defendant-thirteen-year-old Roy Wright-ended in a mistrial after a majority of the jury refused to accept the prosecution's recommendation that he be spared the death penalty because of his extreme youth.

"I was sitting in a chair and one of those girls was testifying," Wright was quoted as saying in a March 10, 1933 New York Times article. "One of the deputy sheriffs leaned over to me and asked if I was going to turn state's evidence, and I said no, because I didn't know anything about this case.

"Then the trial stopped awhile and the deputy sheriff beckoned to me to come out into another room-- the room back of the place where the judge was sitting-- and I went. They whipped me and it seemed like they were going to kill me. All the time they kept saying, "Now will you tell?" and finally it seemed to me like I couldn't stand it no more and I said yes."

Soon after the guilty verdicts, the NAACP and the International Labor Defense came to the defense of the "Scottsboro Boys," contending the trials were unconstitutional. Three more rounds of trials ensued. Ultimately, charges against four of the defendants were dropped, but by that time they had spent over 6 years in prison on death row without trial.

Alabama’s Governor Graves had planned to pardon all of the defendants before he left office in 1938. However, during the customary pre-pardon interview, Graves was angered by the men’s hostility towards him and refusal to admit their guilt, so he did not issue pardons.

sources: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/White/anthology/scottsboro.html
www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/106.2/ah000387.html
www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/scottsb.htm


the+Scottsboro+Boys Scottsboro+AL race+relations appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

Publishers' Weekly 145 (March 25, 1944):
"Strange Fruit banned by Boston booksellers"

Says a Cambridge adage: "Banned in Boston is the trademark of a good book." On this date in 1944 Cambridge Police Chief Timothy J. O'Leary, Boston's Police Commissioner Thomas F. Sullivan, and the Boston Bookseller's Association all joined in squashing the sale of Strange Fruit, Lillian Smith's recently published controversial novel about Southern racial problems, miscegenation and lynching. "The boldest indecent passages I have ever seen," said Sullivan. The group asked the author to delete three lines of "sexual phraseology," thereby adding the novel to the long list of Boston's hallmarked books.

Smith, for many years director of the Laurel Falls Camp for girls in Clayton, GA, achieved national fame with the publication of Strange Fruit, which tells the story of the forbidden romance between a white man, Tracy Dean, and a black woman, Nonnie Anderson.

Commissioner Sullivan insisted that he had not banned the book, in fact "had no right to do so." He had merely dropped in at Boston's oldest booksellers, the Old Corner Bookstore (whose head, Richard F. Fuller, was also President of the Boston Board of Retail Book Merchants), and drawn an interested clerk's attention to Strange Fruit's overripe passages. Soon all Boston booksellers received a notice from the Board of Retail Book Merchants asking them to withdraw the book.

Detroit was quick to follow Boston’s lead. Nor was the black community particularly won over. In 1945 Dean Gordon B. Hancock, editor of The Associated Negro Press wrote: "It is difficult to imagine a more subtle yet scathing indictment against the Negro race in general and the Negro womanhood in particular than that presented in Strange Fruit."

Smith’s publisher fanned the flames. In response to the requests of some Boston booksellers to make "minor changes," Reynal & Hitchcock issued a statement that they "have no intention whatsoever of tampering with a fine and important book in order to transform it to what official Boston might regard as acceptable. The book was published because Reynal & Hitchcock consider it an outstanding work of literature."

Within 2 weeks of the ban, Smith’s book was selling 3,000 copies a day, while a new edition of 50,000 copies was tumbling off the press.

Thanks to the ban, the novel created a sensation in 1944, going on to become a best seller, and was dramatized by Smith and her sister, Esther, for Jose Ferrer’s Broadway production of it the next year.

"In trying to shut the Negro race away from us, we have shut ourselves away from the good, the creative, the human in life," wrote Smith about the response to her work. "The warping distorted frame we have put around every Negro child from birth is around every white child from birth also.

"Each is on a different side of the frame, but each is there. As in its twisting distorted form it shapes and cripples the life and personality of one, it is shaping and crippling the life and personality of the other. It would be difficult to decide which character is maimed the more--the white or the Negro--after living a life in the Southern framework of segregation."


sources: "Overripe?" Time magazine April 10, 1944
www.georgiawomen.org/_honorees/smithl/index.htm
Patton, Randall. "Lillian Smith and the Transformation of American Liberalism, 1945-1950." The Georgia Historical Quarterly(GHQ). Volume 76, no. 1-2, p. 373-392, 1992.
www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~unsworth/courses/entc312/s99/search.cgi?title=Strange+Fruit


Lillian+Smith appalachian+literature banned+in+Boston Clayton+GA Laurel+Falls+Camp appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

The Kingsport Times
Kingsport, TN
Sunday, March 24, 1935

"Pork Pie" is the Newest Style Note in Hats

The fabled phoenix, that marvelous bird endowed with the power to rise from its own ashes, finds a match in the pork pie hat. Some twenty years or so ago this hat was a favorite among the young ladies. For some reason this vogue passed, leaving no more trace than the lost continent Atlantis.

Found! The Pork Pie

Last summer, Americans traveling abroad noticed many of the summer dressed Englishmen wearing the bi crowned hat. They were quick to take the revived style back to America. It made its first appearance in the famous Eastern tennis matches. From there it traveled to the East-West polo matches and then on to the Eastern universities. This spring it is meeting with an enthusiastic reception from coast to coast.

But Why "Pork Pie"?

Many stories have sprung up concerning the origin of this odd name. It's really very simple. It resembles in shape the round everyday pork pies that are a daily feature in the window of every self-respecting English baker. And from this rather ordinary part of the Englishman's menu, the pork pie hat takes it name. The true pork pie hat is so made that it cannot be worn successfully except when telescoped. However, the pork pie that is the most popular in this country is the one that can be telescoped or revised as an ordinary snap brim at the wearer's option.

Rough or Smooth, It's Still Pork Pie

The dark brown, smooth finished pork pie was first on the fashion field. For this reason it is the one most seen. The dark patterned, not-too-fuzzy type of hat is gaining many adherents as is the dark green color. The lighter weight pork pie with the two ventilation punches directly above the bow will be seen during the warmer spring days.

Before leaving the pork pie, it is well to mention that many of these hats are worn with the crown punched in front. Now just a word to those who want real hat style. Although you can take apart any old felt hat and revise it into something that looks like a new style, it is never as satisfactory as the hat that is blocked to be worn in a certain manner.

With all this talk about pork pies and more pork pies, don't think that the snap brim hat is relegated to the junk heap. On the contrary, influenced in its proportions a great deal by this new style as well as by the Tyrolean chapeau, the snap brim retains its lead as THE hat.


pork+pie+hat Kingsport+TN appalachian+culture appalachia +appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

One can hardly talk about Easter traditions in Appalachia without referencing German traditions, since the region is so heavily settled by immigrants from that country. The first known reference to the Easter hare and its eggs appears to be German, in a book dating from 1572: "Do not worry if the Hare escapes you; should we miss his eggs, then we shall cook the nest." The Easter hare (or Osterhase), was once regarded by the Germans as a sacred animal.

The Easter basket tradition also has its roots in the German folklore of the Easter hare. The day before Easter some German children in Swabia make little nests of straw, moss or twigs, known as the "Hare's Garden" (Hasengärtle), so that the Easter hare will know where to leave his eggs when he makes his deliveries during the night. Residents of Odenwald put a miniature house covered with moss in the garden and children are told that the Easter hare will come & put colored eggs in it.

In German households there is spring cleaning and decorations are brought into the home, budding twigs, crocuses and daffodils - which are known as Easter bells (Osterglocken) in Germany, willow and birch, the first shoots of grasses, or wheat sprouts. Easter trees, small trees or branches, decorated with eggs, have long been a part of German Easter celebration.

German settlers brought these traditions to the United States in the 18th century, and by the 19th century the Easter hare had become the Easter bunny, delighting children with baskets of eggs, chocolates, candy, jelly beans and other gifts on Easter morning.

Eostre, or Eastre, was the Teutonic Goddess of Fertility. Her symbol is the egg, symbolizing fertility in nature and rebirth from the long winter months. Her festival was celebrated on the day of the Vernal Equinox (spring).

According to the 8th century Benedictine monk Venerable Bede, writing in Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, the name Easter is derived from the Norse Ostara, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. The German name for Easter is ‘Ostern.’ In myth Ostara is said to have amused children by turning her bird into a rabbit, the rabbit then laying colored eggs much to the delight of the children. Bede described the worship of Ostara among the Anglo-Saxons as having died out by the time he began writing.

sources: www.accuracyingenesis.com/happy.html
www.germany.info/relaunch/info/missions/consulates/sanfrancisco/Eastern.htm
www.wiccaweb.org.uk/eastre.html
An Egg at Easter: A Folklore Study By Venetia Newall, Routledge, 1971


appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history easter+traditions German+appalachian+traditions

Sara Roberta Getty (1880-1973) served as Woman’s Editor for the Cumberland [MD] Daily News from 1924 to 1942. She wrote four books of poetry, including Little songs of every day, (1924) and Maryland Melodies, (1930), the latter dedicated "to the Queen City of the Alleghenies and her warm hearted people who to me have been a never failing source of encouragement and inspiration."

Photo: from the program of the Cumberland Sesquicentennial in 1937. Sara was among the Board of Directors.

Her husband, Charles, was not overly fond of the idea that Sara worked. Despite this, she continued her career. After her husband's death in 1917, she moved to Wellersburg, PA where she again became a columnist, this time for the Somerset Daily American. Sara continued to work until she was 88 years old, regardless of the fact that she was hit by a car in 1965 and broke her hip.

During this time she raised her two surviving daughters (her twin sons both died within a year of birth) as a single, working mother. She had help from her family, which is why she returned to Pennsylvania.

To Lindbergh

To one with the vision and courage to do
Each task, and admit no defeating;
Adventurous spirit, unconquered, to you
We lift up our glasses in greeting.

Searching new goals in each unchartered place
Your hazardous questing has sent you;
Blazing new trails into infinite space
On wings that the morning has lent you.

Modest, retiring, not seeking for fame,
Yet the world in each triumph is sharing;
History's pages will carry your name,
A viking of courage and daring.

The Cumberland News, 1938


sources: www.whilbr.org/itemdetail.aspx?idEntry=2813&dtPointer=9
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~victagg/47.htm
Davis Anthology of Newspaper Verse for 1938, by Athie Sale Davis, self-published, Oklahoma City, OK


Sara+Roberta+Getty Cumberland+MD appalachian+poetry appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history