Download or read book Southern West Virginia and the Struggle for Modernity written by Christopher Dorsey and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-07-29 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work addresses how southern West Virginia's complex and often chaotic history still impacts key aspects of modern-day life for Mountaineers. At its center are fundamental elements of late 19th and early 20th century Appalachian existence such as the predominance of subsistence farming, the coming of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of company towns, growing coal company influence, and the resultant expansion of political corruption. It examines how the region's Appalachian culture and identity have adapted to and been affected by these factors as well as how stereotypical perceptions held by those outside the region have created both opportunities and barriers to modernization for southern West Virginians.

Download or read book West Virginia Politics and Government written by Richard A. Brisbin and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2024-08 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining new empirical information about political behavior with a close examination of the capacity of the state’s government, this third edition of West Virginia Politics and Government offers a comprehensive and pointed study of the ability of the state’s government to respond to the needs of a largely rural and relatively low-income population.

Download or read book The Americanization of West Virginia written by John C. Hennen and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Local teachers and ministers extolling the virtues of hard work and loyalty to God and country. Veterans' groups and women's clubs promoting the military fighting radicalism, and equating business and patriotism. Industrial leaders gaining legal as well as moral influence over national domestic policy. Such scenes might seem to be lifted from a Sinclair Lewis novel or a Contract with America publicity video. But as John C. Hennen shows in this piercing analysis of early-twentieth-century American political culture, from 1916 to 1925 "Americanization" became the theme—indeed, the script—not only of West Virginia but of the entire nation. Hennen's interdisciplinary work examines a formative period in West Virginia's modern history that has been largely neglected beyond the traditional focus on the coal industry. Hennen looks at education, reform, and industrial relations in the state in the context of war mobilization, postwar instability, and national economic expansion. The First World War, he says, consolidated the dominant positions of professionals, business people, and political capitalists as arbiters of national values. These leaders emerged from the war determined to make free-market business principles synonymous with patriotic citizenship. Americanization, therefore, refers less to the assimilation of immigrants into the national mainstream than to the attempt to encode values that would guarantee a literate, loyal, and obedient producing class. To ensure that the state fulfilled its designated role as a resource zone for the perceived greater good of national strength, corporate leaders employed public relations tactics that the Wilson administration had refined to gain public support for the war. Alarmed by widespread labor activism and threatened by fears of communism, the American Constitutional Association in West Virginia, one of dozens of similar organizations nationwide, articulated principles that identified the well-being of business with the well-being of the country. With easy access to teacher training and classroom programs, antiunion forces had by 1923 rolled back the wartime gains of the United Mine Workers of America. Middle-class voluntary organizations like the American Legion and the West Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs helped implant mandated loyalty in schoolchildren. Far from being isolated during America's transformation into a world power, West Virginia was squarely in the mainstream. The state's people and natural resources were manipulated into serving crucial functions as producers and fuel for the postwar economy. Hennen's study, therefore, is a study less of the power or force of ideas than of the importance of access to the means to transmit ideas. The winner of the1995 Appalachian Studies Award is a significant contribution to regional studies as well as to our understanding of American culture during and after World War I.

Download or read book From the Front Lines of the Appalachian Addiction Crisis written by Wendy Welch and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-08-12 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories from doctors, nurses, and therapists dealing on a daily basis with the opioid crisis in Appalachia should be heartbreaking. Yet those told here also inspire with practical advice on how to assist those in addiction, from a grass-roots to a policy level. Readers looking for ways to combat the crisis will find suggestions alongside laughter, tears, and sometimes rage. Each author brings the passion of their profession and the personal losses they have experienced from addiction, and posits solutions and harm reduction with positivity, grace, and even humor. Authors representing seven states from northern, Coalfields, and southern Appalachia relate personal encounters with patients or providers who changed them forever. This is a history document, showing how we got here; an evidenced indictment of current policies failing those who need them most; an affirmation that Appalachia solves its own problems; and a collection of suggestions for best practice moving forward.

Download or read book Boone Before Boone written by Tom Whyte and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-10-28 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Native Americans have occupied the mountains of northwestern North Carolina for around 14,000 years. This book tells the story of their lives, adaptations, responses to climate change, and ultimately, the devastation brought on by encounters with Europeans. After a brief introduction to archaeology, the book covers each time period, chapter by chapter, beginning with the Paleoindian period in the Ice Age and ending with the arrival of Daniel Boone in 1769, with descriptions and interpretations of archaeological evidence for each time period. Each chapter begins with a fictional vignette to kindle the reader's imaginings of ancient human life in the mountains, and includes descriptions and numerous images of sites and artifacts discovered in Boone, North Carolina, and the surrounding region.

Download or read book Wayne Howard written by Lewis M. Stern and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-05-20 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From his birth in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1947, to his 2020 album featuring the music of Lee Hammons, Wayne Howard has lived an exceptionally creative life. He seemed to be eternally present at fiddle festivals, involved in the creative forces working to preserve Southern Mountain music. In 1969, he relocated to West Virginia and was introduced to the Hammons family by Dwight Diller. Howard then recorded Lee, Sherman, Burl, and Maggie Hammons playing music and telling stories. Howard then became a professional computer programmer, a vintage book collector, and a woodworker, before turning to writing about the Hammons family, and producing CDs of their stories and music. This biography follows the threads of music and folklore through Howard's life, celebrating his profound knowledge that does much to sustain the interest of those who seek out Appalachian tunes, songs, and stories.

Download or read book Writers by the River written by Donia S. Eley and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-05-05 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Highland Summer Writing Conference (HSC), held each summer along the banks of the ancient New River at Radford University's Selu Conservancy, brings together and inspires writers as they participate in the communal art of creating and sharing. Over the years, many prestigious Appalachian authors have taught workshops to like-minded students, many of whom became published authors in their own right. This book, a celebration of the HSC, is a collection of reflective essays, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction contributed by 41 authors and student-authors who have taken part in the conference over a span of 43 years.

Download or read book Tommy Thompson written by Lewis M. Stern and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-03-27 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tommy Thompson arrived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1963, smitten by folk and traditional Appalachian music. In 1972, he teamed with Bill Hicks and Jim Watson to form the nontraditional string band the Red Clay Ramblers. Mike Craver joined in 1973, and Jack Herrick in 1976. Over time, musicians including Clay Buckner, Bland Simpson and Chris Frank joined Tommy, who played with the band until 1994. Drawing on interviews and correspondence, and the personal papers of Thompson, the author depicts a life that revolved around music and creativity. Appendices cover Thompson's banjos, his discography and notes on his collaborative lyric writing.

Download or read book The Pond Mountain Chronicle written by Leland R. Cooper and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-07-21 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Located in the area where North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee meet, Pond Mountain rises to over 4,000 feet. In its valley it holds the Pond Mountain community, a small area in Ashe County, North Carolina. Most of the families that live in the valley have been there for generations, farming the land. Here 31 Pond Mountain residents reflect on their childhoods, families, neighbors, customs and traditions, and the changes that have come to their mountain communities. What emerges is a unique look at a way of life that is rapidly being lost to history.

Download or read book Richard L Davis and the Color Line in Ohio Coal written by Frans H. Doppen and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-10-13 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in Roanoke County, Virginia, on the eve of the Emancipation Proclamation, Richard L. Davis was an early mine labor organizer in Rendville, Ohio. One year after the 1884 Great Hocking Valley Coal Strike, which lasted nine months, Davis wrote the first of many letters to the National Labor Tribune and the United Mine Workers Journal. One of two African Americans at the founding convention of United Mine Workers of America in 1890, he served as a member of the National Executive Board in 1886-97. Davis called upon white and black miners to unite against wage slavery. This biography provides a detailed portrait of one of America's more influential labor organizers.

Download or read book The Trees of Ashe County North Carolina written by Doug Munroe and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:  The mountains of Ashe County, in North Carolina’s northwest corner, support an antediluvian mixed hardwood forest, rooted in nutrient-rich soil and watered by 40 to 60 inches of annual rainfall. From the highest peaks—approaching a mile above sea level—to the lowest valleys, through which flows one of the most ancient river systems in the world, trees carpet much of the county’s 406 square miles. Species with nicknames like wahoo, goosefoot, ironwood, shadblow, bom-a-gilly and buckeye thrive. Others, dominant in the region for millennia, have all but disappeared in recent years. The author describes in detail their anatomy and ecology, and discusses maple syrup production, the local nursery business and the lore and deep value of heritage apple trees; 165 photographs are included.

Download or read book Melungeon Portraits written by Tamara L. Stachowicz and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-04-04 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when concepts of racial and ethnic identity increasingly define how we see ourselves and others, the ancestry of Melungeons--a Central Appalachian multiracial group believed to be of Native American, African and European origins--remains controversial. Who is Melungeon, how do we know and what does that mean? In a series of interviews with individuals who claim Melungeon heritage, the author finds common threads that point to shared history, appearance and values, and explores how we decide who we are and what kind of proof we need.

Download or read book The Silent Appalachian written by Vicki Sigmon Collins and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appalachian literature is filled with silent or non-discursive characters. The reasons for their wordlessness vary. Some are mute or pretend to be, some choose not to speak or are silenced by grief, trauma or fear. Others mutter monosyllables, stutter, grunt and point, speak in tongues or idiosyncratic language. They capture the reader's attention by what they don't say.

Download or read book African American and Cherokee Nurses in Appalachia written by Phoebe Ann Pollitt and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few career opportunities were available to minority women in Appalachia in the first half of the 20th century. Nursing offered them a respected, relatively well paid profession and--as few physicians or hospitals would treat people of color--their work was important in challenging health care inequities in the region. Working in both modern surgical suites and tumble-down cabins, these women created unprecedented networks of care, managed nursing schools and built professional nursing organizations while navigating discrimination in the workplace. Focusing on the careers and contributions of dozens of African American and Eastern Band Cherokee registered nurses, this first comprehensive study of minority nurses in Appalachia documents the quality of health care for minorities in the region during the Jim Crow era. Racial segregation in health care and education and state and federal policies affecting health care for Native Americans are examined in depth.

Download or read book School Segregation in Western North Carolina written by Betty Jamerson Reed and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-10-14 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although African Americans make up a small portion of the population of western North Carolina, they have contributed much to the area's physical and cultural landscape. This enlightening study surveys the region's segregated black schools from Reconstruction through integration and reveals the struggles, achievements, and ultimate victory of a unified community intent on achieving an adequate education for its children. The book documents the events that initially brought blacks into Appalachia, early efforts to educate black children, the movement to acquire and improve schools, and the long process of desegregation. Personnel issues, curriculum, extracurricular activities, sports, consolidation, and construction also receive attention. Featuring commentary from former students, teachers and parents, this work weighs the value and achievement of rural segregated black schools as well as their significance for educators today.

Download or read book Hayek A Collaborative Biography written by Robert Leeson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Funded by the tobacco and fossil fuel industries, the Mises- and Hayek-inspired ‘free’ market has adopted ‘The Slogan of Liberty’ - but should their faith-based assertions be accorded the same epistemological status as a science? If Austrian economics is a branch of divinely revealed ‘knowledge’ - as the epigone Godfather, Hans Sennholz, insists - what validity do its policy recommendations have? Should those who falsely claim to have PhDs be tax-funded as ‘Post-Doctoral Fellows’ and ‘Professors’? This volume examines the consequences of the ‘free’ market colonisation of economics – climate change, financial crises and the corruption of academic discourse

Download or read book The Brown Mountain Lights written by Wade Edward Speer and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-04-21 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mysterious nighttime lights near Brown Mountain in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest have intrigued locals and visitors for more than a century. The result of a three year investigation, this book identifies both manmade and natural light sources--including some unexpected ones--behind North Carolina's most famous ghost story. History, science and human nature are each found to play a role in the understanding and interpretation of the lights people see.