Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland

Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland PDF Author: Michael Birdwell
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 9780813123097
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 696

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Book Description
Seventeen original essays by prominent scholars uncover fascinating stories and personalities from the Upper Cumberland region of Kentucky and Tennessee, often regarded as isolated and out of pace with the rest of the country, but seen here as having a far richer history and culture than previously thought.

Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland

Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland PDF Author: Michael Birdwell
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 9780813123097
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 696

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Book Description
Seventeen original essays by prominent scholars uncover fascinating stories and personalities from the Upper Cumberland region of Kentucky and Tennessee, often regarded as isolated and out of pace with the rest of the country, but seen here as having a far richer history and culture than previously thought.

Handbook to Life in America

Handbook to Life in America PDF Author: Rodney P. Carlisle
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438119011
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Examines the history, events and people of the early twentieth-century in America.

A Chance to Harmonize

A Chance to Harmonize PDF Author: Sheryl Kaskowitz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1639365729
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
The remarkable story of a hidden New Deal program that tried to change America and end the Great Depression using folk music, laying the groundwork for the folk revival and having a lasting impact on American culture. In 1934, the Great Depression had destroyed the US economy, leaving residents poverty-stricken. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt urged President Roosevelt to take radical action to help those hit hardest—Appalachian miners and mill workers stranded after factories closed, city dwellers with no hope of getting work, farmers whose land had failed. They set up government homesteads in rural areas across the country, an experiment in cooperative living where people could start over. To boost morale and encourage the homesteaders to find community in their own traditions, the administration brought in artists to lead group activities—including folk music. As part of a music unit led by Charles Seeger (father of Pete), staffer Sidney Robertson traveled the country to record hundreds of folk songs. Music leaders, most notably Margaret Valiant, were sent to homesteads to use the collected songs to foster community and cooperation. Working almost entirely (and purposely) under the radar, the music unit would collect more than 800 songs and operate for nearly two years, until they were shut down under fire from a conservative coalition in Congress that deemed the entire homestead enterprise dangerously “socialistic." Despite its early demise, the music unit proved that music can provide hope and a sense of belonging even in the darkest times. It also laid the groundwork for the folk revival that followed, seeing the rise of artists like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Odetta, and Bob Dylan. Award-winning author and Harvard-trained American music scholar Sheryl Kaskowitz has had the unique opportunity to listen to the music unit’s entire collection of recordings and examine a trove of archival materials, some of which have never been made available to the public. A Chance To Harmonize reveals this untold story and will delight readers with the revelation of a new and previously undiscovered chapter in American cultural history.

Decoration Day in the Mountains

Decoration Day in the Mountains PDF Author: Alan Jabbour
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807895695
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Decoration Day is a late spring or summer tradition that involves cleaning a community cemetery, decorating it with flowers, holding a religious service in the cemetery, and having dinner on the ground. These commemorations seem to predate the post-Civil War celebrations that ultimately gave us our national Memorial Day. Little has been written about this tradition, but it is still observed widely throughout the Upland South, from North Carolina to the Ozarks. Written by internationally recognized folklorist Alan Jabbour and illustrated with more than a hundred photographs taken by Karen Singer Jabbour, Decoration Day in the Mountains is an in-depth exploration of this little-known cultural tradition. The Jabbours illuminate the meanings behind the rituals and reveal how the tradition fostered a grassroots movement to hold the federal government to its promises about cemeteries left behind when families were removed to make way for Fontana Dam and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Richly illustrated and vividly written, Decoration Day in the Mountains presents a compelling account of a widespread and long-standing Southern cultural practice.

After Vicksburg

After Vicksburg PDF Author: Myron J. Smith, Jr.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476672202
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This is the first published comprehensive survey of naval action on the Mississippi River and its tributaries for the years 1863-1865. Following introductory reviews of the rivers and of the U.S. Navy's Mississippi Squadron, chronological Federal naval participation in various raids and larger campaigns is highlighted, as well as counterinsurgency, economical support and control, and logistical protection. The book includes details on units, locations and activities that have been previously underreported or ignored. Examples include the birth and function of the Mississippi Squadron's 11th District, the role of U.S. Army gunboats, and the war on the Upper Cumberland and Upper Tennessee Rivers. The last chapter details the coming of the peace in 1865 and the decommissioning of the U.S. river navy and the sale of its gunboats.

The Blue Sky Boys

The Blue Sky Boys PDF Author: Dick Spottswood
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496816420
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
During the 1940s, country music was rapidly evolving from traditional songs and string band styles to honky-tonk, western swing, and bluegrass, via radio, records, and film. The Blue Sky Boys, brothers Bill (1917-2008) and Earl (1919-1998) Bolick, resisted the trend, preferring to perform folk and parlor songs, southern hymns, and new compositions that enhanced their trademark intimacy and warmth. They were still in their teens when they became professional musicians to avoid laboring in Depression-era North Carolina cotton mills. Their instantly recognizable style was fully formed by 1936, when even their first records captured soulful harmonies accented with spare guitar and mandolin accompaniments. They inspired imitators, but none could duplicate the Blue Sky Boys' emotional appeal or their distinctive Catawba County accents. Even their last records in the 1970s retained their unique magical sound decades after other country brother duets had come and gone. In this absorbing account, Dick Spottswood combines excerpts from Bill Bolick's numerous spoken interviews and written accounts of his music, life, and career into a single narrative that presents much of the story in Bill's own voice. Spottswood reveals fascinating nuggets about broadcasting, recording, and surviving in the 1930s world of country music. He describes how the growing industry both aided and thwarted the Bolick brothers' career, and how World War II nearly finished it. The book features a complete, extensively annotated list of Blue Sky Boys songs, an updated discography that includes surviving unpublished records, and dozens of vintage photos and sheet music covers.

Beyond the Mountains

Beyond the Mountains PDF Author: Drew A. Swanson
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820353973
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Beyond the Mountains explores the ways in which Appalachia often served as a laboratory for the exploration and practice of American conceptions of nature. The region operated alternately as frontier, wilderness, rural hinterland, region of subsistence agriculture, bastion of yeoman farmers, and place to experiment with modernization. In these various takes on the southern mountains, scattered across time and space, both mountain residents and outsiders consistently believed that the region’s environment made Appalachia distinctive, for better or worse. With chapters dedicated to microhistories focused on particular commodities, Drew A. Swanson builds upon recent Appalachian studies scholarship, emphasizing the diversity of a region so long considered a homogenous backwater. While Appalachia has a recognizable and real coherence rooted in folkways, agriculture, and politics (among other things), it is also a region of varied environments, people, and histories. These discrete stories are, however, linked through the power of conceptualizing nature and work together to reveal the ways in which ideas and uses of nature often created a sense of identity in Appalachia. Delving into the environmental history of the region reveals that Appalachian environments, rather than separating the mountains from the broader world, often served to connect the region to outside places.

The Supernatural and the Circuit Riders

The Supernatural and the Circuit Riders PDF Author: Rimi Xhemajli
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 172526921X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
In The Supernatural and the Circuit Riders, Rimi Xhemajli shows how a small but passionate movement grew and shook the religious world through astonishing signs and wonders. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, early American Methodist preachers, known as circuit riders, were appointed to evangelize the American frontier by presenting an experiential gospel: one that featured extraordinary phenomena that originated from God’s Spirit. In employing this evangelistic strategy of the gospel message fueled by supernatural displays, Methodism rapidly expanded. Despite beginning with only ten official circuit riders in the early 1770s, by the early 1830s, circuit riders had multiplied and caused Methodism to become the largest American denomination of its day. In investigating the significance of the supernatural in the circuit rider ministry, Xhemajli provides a new historical perspective through his eye-opening demonstration of the correlation between the supernatural and the explosive membership growth of early American Methodism, which fueled the Second Great Awakening. In doing so, he also prompts the consideration of the relevance and reproduction of such acts in the American church today.

Tennessee's Experience during the First World War

Tennessee's Experience during the First World War PDF Author: Michael E. Birdwell
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1621905322
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
“On the day that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, was assassinated, Tennesseans worried about the weather,” Carole Bucy writes. Indeed, the war that began in Europe in 1914 was unimaginably remote from Tennessee—until it wasn’t. Drawing on a depth of research into a wide array of topics, this vanguard collection of essays aims to conceptualize World War I through the lens of Tennessee. The book begins by situating life in Tennessee within the greater context of the war in Europe, recounting America’s growing involvement in the Great War. As the volume unfolds, editor Michael E. Birdwell and the contributors weave together soldier narratives, politics and agribusiness, African American history, and present-day recollections to paint a picture of Tennessee’s Great War experience that is both informative and gripping. An essential addition to the broader historiography of the American experience during World War I, this collection of essays presents Tennessee stories that are close to home in more than just geography and lineage. By relating international conflict through the eyes of Tennessee’s own, editor Michael E. Birdwell and the contributing authors provide new opportunities for academics and general readers alike to engage with the Great War from a unique and—until now—untold perspective.

The Journal of Southern History

The Journal of Southern History PDF Author: Wendell Holmes Stephenson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic journals
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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Book Description
Includes section "Book reviews."