- published: 05 May 2012
- views: 14069
- author: suttlefilm
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- Abolitionist
- Absalom, Absalom
- Adriana Trigiani
- Al Capp
- Alabama
- Alan Hovhaness
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- Balsam Mountain Inn
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- Coal mining
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Alabama
Alabama (
i/ˌæləˈbæmə/) is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th-most extensive and the 23rd-most populous of the 50 United States. Alabama ranks second in the area of its inland waterways.
From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many Southern states, suffered economic hardship, in part because of continued dependence on agriculture. Despite the growth of major industries and urban centers, white rural interests dominated the state legislature until the 1960s, while urban interests and African Americans were under-represented. Following World War II, Alabama experienced growth as the economy of the state transitioned from agriculture to diversified interests in heavy manufacturing, mineral extraction, education, and technology. In addition, the establishment or expansion of multiple military installations, primarily those of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, added to state jobs.
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Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S. state of Alabama, the cultural region of Appalachia typically refers only to the central and southern portions of the range. As of 2005, the region was home to approximately 23 million people.
Since its recognition as a distinctive region in the late 19th century, Appalachia has been a source of enduring myths and distortions regarding the isolation, temperament, and behavior of its inhabitants. Early 20th-century writers focused on sensationalistic aspects of the region's culture, such as moonshining and clan feuding, and often portrayed the region's inhabitants as uneducated and prone to impulsive acts of violence. Sociological studies in the 1960s and 1970s helped to re-examine and dispel these stereotypes, although popular media continue to perpetuate the image of Appalachia as a culturally backward region into the 21st century.
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Appalachian Plateau
The Appalachian Plateau is the western part of the Appalachian mountains, stretching from New York and Alabama. The plateau is a second level United States physiographic region.
From the east the escarpment that forms the edge of the plateau has the appearance of a mountain range. However, technically it is an eroded plain of sedimentary rock not mountains. A large portion of the plateau is a coalfield formed during the Pennsylvanian Period. The surface of the plateau slopes gently to the northwest and merges imperceptibly into the Interior Plains.
The main physiographic sections (generally ordered from the northeast to the southwest) of the plateau are named the Mohawk section, the Catskill section, the southern New York section, the Allegheny Plateau section, the Kanawha section, the Cumberland Plateau section, and the Cumberland Mountains section.
Coordinates: 40°N 78°W / 40°N 78°W / 40; -78
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Atlanta
Atlanta (
/ətˈlæntə/, stressed /ætˈlæntə/, locally /ætˈlænə/) is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia with a 2010 population of 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest in the U.S. It is a major component of a growing southeastern megalopolis known as the Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion. Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County, and a small portion of the city extends eastward into DeKalb County.
Atlanta began as a settlement located at the terminus of a railroad line, and it was incorporated in 1845. Today, the city is a major business city and the primary transportation hub of the Southeastern United States (via highway, railroad, and air), with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being the world's busiest airport since 1998. The World Cities Study Group at Loughborough University rated Atlanta as an "alpha(-) world city." With a gross domestic product of US$270 billion, Atlanta's economy ranks 15th among world cities and sixth in the nation. The city is a center for services, finance, information technology, government, and higher education. Metro Atlanta contains the country's third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies, and is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, Turner Broadcasting, The Home Depot, AT&T Mobility, UPS, and Delta Air Lines. As of 2010, Atlanta is the seventh most visited city in the United States, with over 35 million visitors per year.
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Berea College
Berea College is a liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky (south of Lexington), founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students. Berea College is distinctive among post-secondary institutions for providing low-cost education to students and for having been the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. Berea College charges no tuition; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year, full-tuition scholarship (currently worth $102,000; $25,500 per year).
Berea offers undergraduate academic programs in 28 different fields. Berea College has a full-participation work-study program where students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in over 130 departments. Berea's primary service region is Southern Appalachia, but students come from all states in the United States and more than 60 other countries. Approximately one in three students represents an ethnic minority.
Founded in 1855 by the abolitionist John Gregg Fee (1816–1901), Berea College admitted both black and white students in a fully integrated curriculum, making it the first non-segregated, coeducational college in the South and one of a handful of institutions of higher learning to admit both male and female students in the mid-19th century. The college began as a one-room schoolhouse that also served as a church on Sundays on land that was granted to Fee by Cassius Clay. Fee named the new community after the biblical Berea. Although the school's first articles of incorporation were adopted in 1859, founder John Gregg Fee and the teachers were forced out of the area by pro-slavery supporters in that same year.
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Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham ( /ˈbɜrmɪŋhæm/ BUR-ming-ham) is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area had a population of about 1,128,047 according to the 2010 Census, which is approximately one-quarter of Alabama's population.
Birmingham was founded in 1871, just after the American Civil War, through the merger of three pre-existing farm towns, notably, former Elyton. It grew from there, annexing many more of its smaller neighbors, into an industrial and railroad transportation center with a focus on mining, the iron and steel industry, and railroading. Birmingham was named for Birmingham, one of the major industrial cities of the United Kingdom. Most of the original settlers who founded Birmingham were of English ancestry. The city was planned as a place where cheap, non-unionized, and African-American labor from rural Alabama could be employed in the city's steel mills and blast furnaces, giving it a competitive advantage over industrial cities in the Midwest and Northeast.
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Cape Canaveral
Cape Canaveral, from the Spanish Cabo Cañaveral, is a headland in Brevard County, Florida, United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic coast. Known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated from it by the Banana River.
It is part of a region known as the Space Coast, and is the site of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Since many U.S. spacecraft are launched from both the station and the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, the terms "Cape Canaveral," "Canaveral", or "the Cape" have become metonyms that refer to both as the launch site of spacecraft. In homage to its spacefaring heritage, the Florida Public Service Commission allocated area code 321 to the Cape Canaveral area.
Other features of the cape include the Cape Canaveral lighthouse and Port Canaveral. The city of Cape Canaveral is a few miles south of the cape. Mosquito Lagoon, the Indian River, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore are also features of this area.
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Cincinnati
Cincinnati (pronounced /sɪnsɨˈnæti/) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Ohio, United States. Settled in 1788, the city is located north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits was 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's third-largest city. According to the 2011 Census Bureau estimate, the Cincinnati metropolitan area had a population of 2,138,038, the 27th most populous Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the United States, and the most populous in Ohio. Residents of Cincinnati are called Cincinnatians.
In the early 19th century, Cincinnati was the first American boomtown in the heart of the country to rival the larger coastal cities in size and wealth. As the first major inland city in the country, it is sometimes thought of as the first purely American city. It developed initially without as much recent European immigration or influence as took place in eastern cities. However, by the end of the 19th century, with the shift from steamboats to railroads, Cincinnati's growth had slowed considerably and the city became surpassed in population and prominence by another inland city, Chicago.
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Cleveland
Cleveland ( /ˈkliːvlənd/) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately 60 miles (97 km) west of the Pennsylvania border. It was founded in 1796 near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, and became a manufacturing center owing to its location on the lake shore, as well as being connected to numerous canals and railroad lines. Cleveland's economy has diversified sectors that include manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, and biomedical. Cleveland is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
As of the 2010 Census, the city proper had a total population of 396,815 and was the 45th largest city in the United States, and the second largest city in Ohio. It is the center of Greater Cleveland, the largest metropolitan area in Ohio. The Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor Metropolitan Statistical Area in 2011 ranked as the 28th largest in the United States with 2,068,283 people. Cleveland is part of the larger Cleveland-Akron-Elyria Combined Statistical Area, which in 2011 had a population of 2,871,084, and ranked as the country's 15th largest.
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Cleveland, Tennessee
Cleveland is a city in Bradley County, Tennessee. The population was 41,285 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Bradley County. It is the principal city of and is included in the Cleveland, Tennessee Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Chattanooga, Tennessee-Cleveland, Tennessee Combined Statistical Area.
Cleveland was established in 1837 as a county seat for Bradley County, which had been created the previous year. The town was named after Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, a commander at the Battle of Kings Mountain during the American Revolution.
In 1819, the Cherokee Agency— the official liaison between the U.S. government and the Cherokee Nation— was moved to the Hiwassee area, a few miles north of what is now Cleveland. The Indian agent at the time was Colonel Return J. Meigs. Charleston and Blythe's Ferry (about 15 miles, or 24 kilometers, west of Cleveland) would both figure prominently in the Cherokee Removal in the late 1830s.
Cleveland is located at 35°10′17″N 84°52′16″W / 35.171483°N 84.871067°W / 35.171483; -84.871067. The city is situated among a series of low hills roughly 15 miles (24 km) west of the Appalachian Mountains and 15 miles (24 km) east of the Chickamauga Lake impoundment of the Tennessee River. The Hiwassee River, which flows down out of the mountains and forms the northern boundary of Bradley County, empties into the Tennessee a few miles northwest of Cleveland.
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Dayton, Tennessee
Dayton is a city in Rhea County, Tennessee, United States. Dayton is the county seat of Rhea County. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,191. The Dayton Urban Cluster, which includes developed areas adjacent to the city and extends south to Graysville, Tennessee, had 9,050 people in 2000.
Dayton was the site of the Scopes Trial in 1925 dealing with the creation–evolution controversy.
The community was originally settled around 1820 as Smith's Crossroads. In 1877, the town was renamed Dayton. The town was incorporated in 1895. Early industry included manufacture of pig iron.
In 1925, the famous Scopes Trial was held in Dayton and, for a period of time, filled the town with hucksters of every description and journalists from around the world. The trial participants included William Jennings Bryan in the role of prosecutor and Clarence Darrow as John T. Scopes' defense counsel.
Although this trial is often represented as being pivotal in the movement to allow evolution to be taught in US schools, it actually marked the beginning of a major decline in the teaching of evolution which didn't start to recover until the early 1960s[citation needed]. Likewise, the Butler Act, which Scopes was supposed to have violated—though it was never invoked again—remained on the statute books until 1967, when it was repealed by the Tennessee Legislature.
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Dollywood
Dollywood is a theme park owned by entertainer Dolly Parton and Herschend Family Entertainment. It is located in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Dollywood has 3,000 people on its payroll, making it the largest employer in that community.
In addition to standard amusement park thrill rides, Dollywood features traditional crafts and music of the Smoky Mountains area. Dollywood also owns the adjacent Dollywood's Splash Country, and the chain of Dixie Stampede dinner theaters. The park hosts a number of concerts and musical events each year, including appearances by Parton and her family, as well as other national and local musical acts.
Dollywood hosts 2.5 million guests in a typical season, as of 2009, up from 1.3 million visitors in 1986, when the park opened on the site of Silver Dollar City theme park. As of 2010, the park was the biggest "ticketed" tourist attraction in Tennessee each year for more than a decade. Parton attributes much of the success of the park to its location close to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Since (as of 2010) 88 percent of tourists in Tennessee drive rather than fly, the economic impact of a large tourist attraction like Dollywood helps the economy in that region of the state, according to Susan Whitaker, the state tourism development commissioner. The theme park's operating season runs from early spring until around Christmas.
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Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia (i/ˈdʒɔrdʒⁱə/) is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. Named after King George II of Great Britain, Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. It declared its secession from the Union on January 21, 1861, and was one of the original seven Confederate states. It was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15, 1870. Georgia is the 24th most extensive and the 9th most populous of the 50 United States. From 2007 to 2008, 14 of Georgia's counties ranked among the nation's 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South.Atlanta is the state's capital and its most populous city.
Georgia is bordered on the south by Florida; on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina; on the west by Alabama; and on the north by Tennessee and North Carolina. The northern part of the state is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a mountain range in the Appalachian Mountains system. The central piedmont extends from the foothills to the fall line, where the rivers cascade down in elevation to the continental coastal plain of the southern part of the state. The highest point in Georgia is Brasstown Bald, 4,784 feet (1,458 m); the lowest point is the Atlantic Ocean.
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Inez, Kentucky
Inez is a city in Martin County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 466 at the 2000 census. In 2008, Inez had an estimated population of 435. It is the county seat of Martin County.
Although Inez was not incorporated as a city until 1942, the vicinity was first settled circa 1810 by James Ward and was named Arminta Ward's Bottom. In 1873, three years after Martin County was established, the county seat was moved from Warfield to Arminta Ward's Bottom. The town was then renamed Eden by J.M. Stepp who likened it to the biblical Eden. But, because there was already a post office in Kentucky with the same name, the post office was renamed Inez on June 23, 1874. Some time later, the town also changed its name to that of the post office in order to prevent confusion. It was allegedly named by Leo Frank, the postmaster of Louisa in neighboring Lawrence County, for his daughter.
Inez is located at 37°51′59″N 82°32′21″W / 37.86639°N 82.53917°W / 37.86639; -82.53917 (37.866431, -82.539058).
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Jenkins, Kentucky
Jenkins is a city in Letcher County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,203 at the 2010 census. Jenkins is also the birthplace of country music star Gary Stewart and U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers.
In autumn of 1911, the Consolidation Coal Company purchased the current location of Jenkins as part of a one hundred thousand acre tract of land in Pike, Letcher and Floyd counties from the Northern Coal and Coke Company. After the acquisition was finalized, plans were made to extend the Lexington and Eastern Railroad from Jackson to a town named McRoberts. Also, there were plans for a town named Jenkins, after George C. Jenkins, a director of the Consolidation Coal Company.
Because of the need of hundreds of homes and other structures, nine sawmills and two brickyards were erected. A steam and electric plant was established to temporarily generate power to the houses. Next, a temporary narrow gauge railroad was built over Pine Mountain from Glamorgan, Virginia in order to carry supplies to further the development of the town.
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Kentucky
Kentucky (i/kɨnˈtʌki/), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state located in the Upper South of the United States. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth (the others being Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts). Originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States.
Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, because of the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, including the world's longest cave system, Mammoth Cave National Park; the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States; and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River. It is also home to the highest per capita number of deer and turkey in the United States, the largest free-ranging elk herd east of Montana, and the nation's most productive coalfield. Kentucky is also known for horse racing, bourbon distilleries, bluegrass music, automobile manufacturing, tobacco and college basketball.
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Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Knox County. As of 2010, the city had a population of 178,874 residents, making it the state's third largest city. Knoxville is the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in 2000 had a population of 655,400. The KMSA is in turn the central component of the Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette Combined Statistical Area, which in 2000 had a population of 1,029,155.
First settled in 1786, Knoxville was the first capital of Tennessee. The city struggled with geographic isolation throughout the early 19th century, though the arrival of the railroad in 1855 led to an economic boom. During the Civil War, the city was bitterly divided over the secession issue, and was occupied alternately by both Confederate and Union armies. Following the war, Knoxville grew rapidly as a major wholesaling and manufacturing center. The city's economy stagnated after the 1920s as the manufacturing sector collapsed, the Downtown area declined, and city leaders became entrenched in highly-partisan political fights. Hosting the 1982 World's Fair helped reinvigorate the city, and revitalization initiatives by city leaders and private developers have had some success.
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Linn Cove Viaduct
Linn Cove Viaduct is a 1243-foot concrete segmental bridge which snakes around the slopes of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. It was completed in 1983 at a cost of $10 million and was the last section of the Blue Ridge Parkway to be finished. It is said to be the most complicated concrete bridge ever built [1].
The viaduct was needed because of the damage that a traditional cut-and-fill road would have caused to Grandfather Mountain. The viaduct was designed by Figg and Muller Engineers, Inc.; construction began in 1979. It is 1,243 feet long and consists of 153 segments weighing 50 tons each.[2] The bridge's segments were precast at an indoor facility at the south side of the parkway. After being transported to the bridge site, each section was lowered into place by a custom crane placed on either edge of the existing structure. The only work done at ground level was drilling for the seven footings which support the viaduct. In particular, there was no access road other than the Blue Ridge Parkway itself. The bridge has received eleven design awards.
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Maryland
Maryland (i/ˈmɛrɨlənd/) is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east. Maryland was the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution, and three nicknames for it (the Old Line State, the Free State, and the Chesapeake Bay State) are occasionally used. Maryland is the 9th smallest state by area, but the 19th most populous and the 5th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's most populated city is Baltimore. Its capital is Annapolis. It was named after Queen Henrietta Maria.
Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles (32,133.2 km2) and is comparable in overall area with the European country of Belgium (11,787 square miles (30,530 km2)). It is the 42nd largest/9th smallest state, and is closest in size to Hawaii (10,930.98 square miles (28,311.1 km2)), the next smallest state. The next largest state, Maryland's neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland (24,229.76 square miles (62,754.8 km2)).
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Mason–Dixon Line
The Mason–Dixon Line (or Mason and Dixon's Line) was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in the resolution of a border dispute between British colonies in Colonial America. It is a demarcation line among four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia (then, part of Virginia). In popular usage, especially since the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (apparently the first official use of the term "Mason's and Dixon's Line"), the Mason–Dixon Line symbolizes a cultural boundary between the Northeastern United States and the Southern United States (Dixie) and legality of slavery as a result, although the Missouri Compromise Line had a much more definitive geographic connection to slavery in the United States leading up to the Civil War.
Maryland's charter granted the land north of the entire length of the Potomac River up to the 40th parallel. A problem arose when Charles II granted a charter for Pennsylvania. The grant defined Pennsylvania's southern border as identical to Maryland's northern border, the 40th parallel. But the terms of the grant clearly indicate that Charles II and William Penn assumed the 40th parallel would intersect the Twelve-Mile Circle around New Castle, Delaware when in fact it falls north of Philadelphia, the site of which Penn had already selected for his colony's capital city. Negotiations ensued after the problem was discovered in 1681. A compromise proposed by Charles II in 1682, which might have resolved the issue, was undermined by Penn receiving the additional grant of the 'Three Lower Counties' along Delaware Bay, which later became the Delaware Colony, a satellite of Pennsylvania. These lands had been part of Maryland's original grant.
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Minnesota
Minnesota (i/mɪnɨˈsoʊtə/) is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state on May 11, 1858. Known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", the state's name comes from a Dakota word for "sky-tinted water". Those waters, together with forests, parks, and wilderness areas, offer residents and tourists a variety of outdoor recreational opportunities.
Minnesota is the 12th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the U.S. states. Nearly 60% of its residents live in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area (known as the "Twin Cities"), the center of transportation, business, industry and education and home to an internationally known arts community. The remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now cleared, farmed and settled; and the less populated North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation.
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Mississippi
Mississippi (i/ˌmɪsɨˈsɪpi/) is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River"). Mississippi is the 32nd most extensive and the 31st most populous of the 50 United States. The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area, which was cleared for cotton cultivation in the 19th century. Today, its catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States. The state symbol is the magnolia grandiflora tree.
Mississippi is bordered on the north by Tennessee, on the east by Alabama, on the south by Louisiana and a narrow coast on the Gulf of Mexico and on the west, across the Mississippi River, by Louisiana and Arkansas.
In addition to its namesake, major rivers in Mississippi include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo River, the Pascagoula River, and the Tombigbee River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake and Grenada Lake. The largest lake in Mississippi is Grenada Lake.
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Morehead, Kentucky
Morehead is a city of Rowan County, Kentucky, United States located along Interstate 64 and US 60, the historic Midland Trail. The population was 6,845 at the 2010 census. The city is named for Gov. James T. Morehead. It is the county seat of Rowan County. Morehead State University is located here. It was also the focal point of the Rowan County War.
In the 1880s, Morehead became the central stage for a notorious conflict known as the Rowan County War (aka the Martin-Tolliver-Logan Feud). During a number of skirmishes for the next few years, at least 20 people were killed and possibly 100 were wounded. Beginning with an election-day barroom brawl, several gunfights took place in Morehead and the surrounding countryside. Eventually, a group led by Craig Tolliver seized political control of the town and installed allies in the county Sheriff's office and the county attorney's office as well as the office of town Marshal. Several members of the opposing faction were arrested on trumped-up charges, and some were killed with the faction in power falsely claiming they had resisted arrest. The conflict gained national attention and on two occasions the Governor sent troops to maintain order with little effect. Eventually a posse of as many as 100 individuals was organized and armed by Daniel Boone Logan with the tacit consent of Governor J. Proctor Knott and Governor-elect Simon Bolivar Buckner. In a dramatic two-hour gun battle that took place in the center of Morehead, several Tollivers, including Craig Tolliver were killed and the Tollivers' control of the county was broken. Two men were later held to trial for the murder of Craig Tolliver but were acquitted.
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Museum of Appalachia
Coordinates: 36°10′53″N 84°04′07″W / 36.18146°N 84.06867°W / 36.18146; -84.06867
The Museum of Appalachia, located in Norris, Tennessee, 20 miles (32 km) north of Knoxville, is a living history museum that interprets the pioneer and early 20th-century period of the Southern Appalachian region of the United States. Recently named an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum is a collection of more than 30 historic buildings rescued from neglect and decay and gathered onto 63 acres (250,000 m2) of picturesque pastures and fields. The museum also preserves and displays thousands of authentic relics, maintains one the nation's largest folk art collections, and hosts performances of traditional Appalachian music and annual demonstrations by hundreds of regional craftsmen.
The museum was established in the 1960s by John Rice Irwin, an East Tennessee educator and businessman, who has followed the basic philosophy of preserving not only structures and artifacts relevant to the region's history, but also preserving each item's individual history— who owned it, when and how it was created or obtained, and how it was used. These oral histories and recollections are housed, along with thousands of photographs, in the museum's archives. Starting from a single log structure, the museum has grown over four decades to include buildings such as the National Register of Historic Places-listed Arnwine Cabin, a rare Appalachian cantilever barn, and a cabin once inhabited by the parents of author Mark Twain. Relics on display include items owned by several notable or colorful Appalachian natives and thousands of tools detailing all aspects of rural life in Southern Appalachia. The museum's grounds mimic a working pioneer Appalachian farm, with gardens growing typical crops and animals such as goats, chickens, turkeys, and peacocks roaming the grounds freely.
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New Jersey
New Jersey (i/nuː ˈdʒɜrzi/) is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the U.S. state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania, and on the southwest by Delaware. New Jersey is the 4th least extensive, but the 11th most populous and the most densely populated of the 50 United States. New Jersey lies mostly within the sprawling metropolitan areas of New York City and Philadelphia. It is also the third wealthiest by 2009–2010 median household income.
The area was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements. The British later seized control of the region, naming it the Province of New Jersey. It was granted as a colony to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton. At this time, it was named after the largest of the British Channel Islands, Jersey, Carteret's birthplace. New Jersey was the site of several decisive battles during the American Revolutionary War.
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North Carolina
North Carolina (i/ˌnɔrθ kærəˈlaɪnə/) is a state in the Southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina is the 28th most extensive and the 10th most populous of the 50 United States.
North Carolina is comprised of 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte. In the past five decades, North Carolina's economy has undergone a transition from heavy reliance upon tobacco and furniture making to a more diversified economy with engineering, biotechnology, and finance sectors.
North Carolina has a wide range of elevations, from sea level on the coast to 6,684 feet (2,037 m) at Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the Eastern US. The climate of the coastal plains is strongly influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone. More than 300 miles (500 km) from the coast, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical highland climate.
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Ohio
Ohio (i/oʊˈhaɪ.oʊ/) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Ohio is the 34th most extensive, the 7th most populous, and the 10th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus.
The name "Ohio" originated from Iroquois word ohi-yo’, meaning "great river". The state, originally partitioned from the Northwest Territory, was admitted to the Union as the 17th state (and the first under the Northwest Ordinance) on March 1, 1803. Although there are conflicting narratives regarding the origin of the nickname, Ohio is historically known as the "Buckeye State" (relating to the Ohio buckeye tree) and Ohioans are also known as "Buckeyes".
The government of Ohio is composed of the executive branch, led by the Governor; the legislative branch, which comprises the Ohio General Assembly; and the judicial branch, which is led by the Supreme Court. Currently, Ohio occupies 18 seats in the United States House of Representatives. Ohio is known for its status as both a swing state and a bellwether in national elections.
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Ozarks
The Ozarks (also referred to as Ozarks Mountain Country, the Ozark Mountains, and the Ozark Plateau) are a physiographic and geologic highland region of the central United States. It covers much of the southern half of Missouri and an extensive portion of northwestern and north central Arkansas. The region also extends westward into northeastern Oklahoma and extreme southeastern Kansas. The wooded hills of southwest Illinois, though commonly called the "Illinois Ozarks," are generally not considered part of the true Ozarks.
Although referred to as the Ozark Mountains, the region is actually a high and deeply dissected plateau. Geologically, the area is a broad dome around the Saint Francois Mountains. The Ozark Highlands area, covering nearly 47,000 square miles (122,000 km2), is by far the most extensive mountainous region between the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains. Together, the Ozarks and Ouachita Mountains form an area known as the U.S. Interior Highlands, and are sometimes referred to collectively. For example, the ecoregion called Ozark Mountain Forests includes the Ouachita Mountains, although the Arkansas River valley and the Ouachitas, both south of the Boston Mountains, are not usually considered part of the Ozarks.
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Palatinate (region)
The Palatinate (German: Pfalz from Latin: Palātium, palace; Pfälzer dialect: Palz), historically also Rhenish Palatinate (German: Rheinpfalz), is a region in south-western Germany. It occupies more than a quarter of the German federal state (Bundesland) of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz).
The western and northern part of the Palatinate is densely forested and mountainous. The highest point is the Donnersberg (687 m) near Kirchheimbolanden. The Palatinate forest (Pfälzerwald), popular with hikers, covers more than a third of the region and is the largest contiguous forest in Germany.
The eastern part is lower and is a well-known wine region. The German Wine Route (Deutsche Weinstrasse) passes through the Palatinate wine region.
Most of the cities of the Palatinate (Ludwigshafen, Speyer, Landau, Frankenthal, Neustadt) lie in the Rhine Rift plain in the east of the region, near the Rhine River, which forms the eastern border of the Palatinate.
Traditionally, the Palatinate is divided into the regions of Anterior Palatinate (Vorderpfalz), West Palatinate (Westpfalz), North Palatinate (Nordpfalz), and South Palatinate (Südpfalz).
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Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (
i/ˌpɛnsɨlˈveɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a US state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, and the Great Lakes Region. The state borders Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Ontario, Canada to the northwest, New York to the north, and New Jersey to the east.
Pennsylvania is the 33rd most extensive, the 6th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's four most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Erie. The state capital is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 51 miles (82 km) of shoreline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary.
Pennsylvania is 170 miles (274 km) north to south and 283 miles (455 km) east to west. Of a total 46,055 square miles (119,282 km2), 44,817 square miles (116,075 km2) are land, 490 square miles (1,269 km2) are inland waters, and 749 square miles (1,940 km2) are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States. Pennsylvania has 51 miles (82 km) of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary.
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Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( /ˈpɪtsbərɡ/, PITS-burg) is the second largest city in the U.S. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of both Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley. Nationally, it is the 22nd largest urban area in the United States. The population of the city in 2010 was 305,704, while that of the seven-county metropolitan area stood at 2,356,285.Downtown Pittsburgh retains substantial economic influence, ranking at 25th in the nation for jobs within the urban core and 6th in job density. The characteristic shape of Pittsburgh's central business district is a triangular tract carved by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, which form the Ohio River. The city features 151 high-rise buildings, 446 bridges, two inclined railways, and a pre-revolutionary fortification. Pittsburgh is known colloquially as "the City of Bridges" and "the Steel City" for its many bridges and former steel manufacturing base.
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Quecreek Mine Rescue
The Quecreek Mine Rescue took place in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, when nine miners were trapped underground for over 78 hours, from July 24 to 28, 2002. All nine miners were rescued.
On July 24, 2002, eighteen coal miners at the Quecreek Mine in Lincoln Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, owned by Black Wolf Coal Company accidentally dug into the abandoned, poorly documented Saxman Coal / Harrison #2 Mine Saxman mine, flooding the room and pillar mine with an estimated 50 million gallons of water. Both the Saxman Mine and Quecreek Mine are in the Upper Kittanning coal seam. The Upper Kittanning seam locally ranges in thickness from 38 to 62 inches (970–1,600 mm) and dips 1.7 to 2.3 degrees (3 to 4 percent) to the northwest.
The structural geology of the area caused the flooded mine void of the shallower Saxman Mine to be at a higher elevation than the active Quecreek Mine. The Saxman mine was located along the axis of the anticlinal Boswell Dome and the Quecreek Mine on the western flank of the anticline. The mine was opened by Quemahoning Creek Coal Company in 1913 as Quecreek No. 2 mine. Saxman Coal and Coke Company purchased the mine in 1925 and operated it until 1963 with an idle period from 1934 through 1941. The mine had also been named Saxman, Harrison, and most recently, Harrison No. 2. The miners were working on July 24, 2002 in the 1-Left panel. The 1-Left panel was driven up dip from the Mains for approximately 3,100 feet (940 m). The flooded abandoned mine was located immediately up dip of the Quecreek #1 mine permit boundary in the Upper Kittanning coal seam.
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Scopes Trial
Coordinates: 35°29′41.74″N 85°00′45.63″W / 35.4949278°N 85.012675°W / 35.4949278; -85.012675
The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach evolution in any state-funded school.
Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality and he went free. The trial drew intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, to cover the big-name lawyers representing each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate for the Democrats, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, spoke for Scopes. The trial set modernists, who said religion was consistent with evolution, against fundamentalists who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The trial was thus both a theological contest, and a trial on the veracity of modern science regarding the creation-evolution controversy. The teaching of evolution expanded, as fundamentalist efforts to use state laws to reverse the trend had failed in the court of public opinion.
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Scottish highlands
The Highlands (Scottish Gaelic: A' Ghàidhealtachd, "the place of the Gaels"; Scots: the Hielands) are an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. Before the 19th century the Highlands was home to a much larger population, but due to a combination of factors including the outlawing of the traditional Highland way of life following the Jacobite Rising of 1745, the infamous Highland Clearances, and mass migration to urban areas during the Industrial Revolution, the area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. The average population density in the Highlands and Islands is lower than that of Sweden, Norway, Papua New Guinea and Argentina.
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South Carolina
South Carolina (i/ˌsaʊθ kærəˈlaɪnə/) is a state in the Southeastern United States. It is bordered to the north by North Carolina; to the south and west by Georgia, located across the Savannah River; and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence from the British Crown during the American Revolution. The colony was originally named by King Charles II of England in honor of his father Charles I (Carolus being Latin for Charles). South Carolina was the 8th state to ratify the US Constitution and become a state which it did on May 23, 1788. South Carolina later became the first state to vote to secede from the Union which it did on December 20, 1860. It was readmitted to the United States on June 25, 1868.
South Carolina is the 40th most extensive and the 24th most populous of the 50 United States. South Carolina comprises 46 counties. The capital and largest city of the state is Columbia.
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Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee ( /ˌtæləˈhæsi/) is the capital of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, and is the 128th largest city in the United States. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2010, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 181,376 , and the Tallahassee metropolitan area is 367,413.
Tallahassee is one of Florida's most prominent college cities, and is home to several colleges and universities, most notably Florida State University and Florida A&M University. Other schools in Tallahassee include Tallahassee Community College and branches of Saint Leo University, Thomas University, Keiser University, Barry University, Flagler College, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Tallahassee is a regional center for trade and agriculture in the Florida Panhandle, and is served by Tallahassee Regional Airport. With one of the fastest growing manufacturing and high tech economies in Florida, its major private employers include a General Dynamics Land Systems manufacturing facility (military and combat applications), the Municipal Code Corporation, which specializes in the publication of municipal and county legal references; and a number of national law firms, lobbying organizations, trade associations and professional associations, including the Florida Bar and the Florida Chamber of Commerce. It is recognized as a regional center for scientific research, and is home to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the largest and highest-powered magnet research laboratory in the world.
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Tennessee
Tennessee (i/tɛnɨˈsiː/) (Cherokee: ᏔᎾᏏ) is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. Tennessee is the 36th most extensive and the 17th most populous of the 50 United States. Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Tennessee's capital and second largest city is Nashville, which has a population of 626,144.Memphis is the state's largest city, with a population of 670,902.
The state of Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians. What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, and the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war.
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The Greenbrier
The Greenbrier is a Forbes four-star and AAA Five Diamond Award winning luxury resort located just outside the town of White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States.
For most of its history, the hotel was owned by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and its successors, including the CSX Corporation. Before its most recent purchase and sale, the hotel was operated by CSX Hotels, Inc., a subsidiary of the CSX Corporation.
Following a year of heavy losses, CSX placed the hotel into bankruptcy in 2009. Justice Family Group, LLC, a company owned by local entrepreneur Jim Justice, subsequently bought the property and guaranteed all debts, resulting in dismissal of the bankruptcy. Justice has promised to return the hotel to its former status as a five-star resort and to introduce "tasteful" gambling for guests as a revenue enhancer. The Greenbrier Hotel Corp. today operates as a subsidiary of Justice's company.
The last U.S. President to stay at The Greenbrier during presidency was Dwight Eisenhower. A total of 26 Presidents, both former and current, have stayed at The Greenbrier.
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Tyner, Kentucky
Tyner is an unincorporated community in Jackson County, Kentucky, United States.
Coordinates: 37°20′43″N 83°54′15″W / 37.34528°N 83.90417°W / 37.34528; -83.90417
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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
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Virginia
Virginia (i/vərˈdʒɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state located in the South Atlantic region of the United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city and Fairfax County the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population is over eight million.
The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was one of the 13 Colonies in the American Revolution and joined the Confederacy in the American Civil War, during which Richmond was made the Confederate capital and Virginia's northwestern counties separated to form the state of West Virginia. Although the Commonwealth was under conservative single-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, both major national parties are competitive in modern Virginia.
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West Virginia
West Virginia (i/ˌwɛst vərˈdʒɪnjə/) is a state in the Appalachian region of the Eastern United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east. West Virginia is the 41st most extensive and the 37th most populous of the 50 United States. The capital and largest city is Charleston.
West Virginia became a state following the Wheeling Conventions and broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The new state was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key Civil War border state. West Virginia was the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state, and was one of two states formed during the American Civil War (the other one being Nevada, which separated from Utah Territory).
The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the South. The northern panhandle extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio, with the West Virginia cities of Wheeling and Weirton just across the border from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, while Bluefield is less than 70 miles (110 km) from North Carolina. Huntington in the southwest is close to the states of Ohio and Kentucky, while Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry in the Eastern Panhandle region are considered to be a part of the Washington metropolitan area, in between the states of Maryland and Virginia. The unique position of West Virginia means that it is often included in several geographical regions, including the Mid-Atlantic, the Upland South, and the Southeastern United States. Notably, it is the only state that is entirely within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission; the area is commonly defined as "Appalachia".
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Western Maryland
Western Maryland is the portion of the U.S. state of Maryland that consists of Frederick, Washington, Allegany, and Garrett counties. The region is bounded by the Mason-Dixon line to the north, Preston County, West Virginia to the west, and the Potomac River to the south. There is dispute over the eastern boundary of Western Maryland however. For most residents of the Baltimore-Washington area, everything west of Frederick city is considered Western Maryland. However, the people of the more mountainous and isolated Allegany County and Garrett County consider Sideling Hill the boundary between Western Maryland and what they refer to as "down-state." According to the Census Bureau's 2007 dataset, Western Maryland (including Washington and Frederick counties) has a population of 472,039, accounting for 8.4% of the population of Maryland. Its land area is 2,194.39 square miles (5,683.4 km2), or 22.45% percent of the state's land area. Only 21.7% of Western Maryland's residents live in the geographically isolated Allegany and Garrett counties; the other 78.3% live in suburban Frederick and Washington counties.
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Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland ( /ˌærən ˈkoʊplənd/; November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers". He is best known to the public for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately more accessible style than his earlier pieces, including the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, Rodeo and his Fanfare for the Common Man. The open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are archetypical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. However, he wrote music in different styles at different periods of his life: his early works incorporated jazz or avant-garde elements whereas his later music incorporated serial techniques. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores.
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Adriana Trigiani
Adriana Trigiani is an American novelist, television writer, producer and film director.
Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, Virginia and attended Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. She was a writer for The Cosby Show and its spin-off series A Different World before beginning on novels. In 1996, she won the "Most Popular Documentary" award at the Hamptons International Film Festival for directing the Queens of the Big Time. The following year, she served as co-producer on the documentary film Green Chimneys.
In 2001, Trigiani wrote a novel about the town titled Big Stone Gap, based on a screenplay by the same name she authored. It was followed by three sequels, Big Cherry Holler,Milk Glass Moon, and Home to Big Stone Gap. Aside from that series, she has written Rococo,Queen of the Big Time, and Lucia, Lucia, which became a best-seller in Britain.Very Valentine, was published in February 2009, and followed by Brava Valentine Valentine in 2010.
She also co-authored a cookbook with her sisters titled Cooking With My Sisters: One Hundred Years of Family Recipes, from Bari to Big Stone Gap.
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Al Capp
Alfred Gerald Caplin (September 28, 1909 – November 5, 1979), better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip Li'l Abner. He also wrote the comic strips Abbie an' Slats and Long Sam. He won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award in 1947 for Cartoonist of the Year, and their 1979 Elzie Segar Award (posthumously) for his "unique and outstanding contribution to the profession of cartooning."
Born in New Haven, Connecticut of Russian Jewish heritage, Capp was the eldest child of Otto Philip and Matilda (Davidson) Caplin. Capp's parents were both natives of Latvia whose families had migrated to New Haven in the 1880s. "My mother and father had been brought to this country from Russia when they were infants," wrote Capp in 1978. "Their fathers had found that the great promise of America was true—it was no crime to be a Jew." The Caplins were dirt poor, and Capp later recalled stories of his mother going out in the night to sift through ash barrels for reusable bits of coal.
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Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness (Armenian: Ալան Յովհաննէս) (March 8, 1911 – June 21, 2000) was an Armenian-American composer.
His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation. The Boston Globe music critic Richard Buell wrote: "Although he has been stereotyped as a self-consciously Armenian composer (rather as Ernest Bloch is seen as a Jewish composer), his output assimilates the music of many cultures. What may be most American about all of it is the way it turns its materials into a kind of exoticism. The atmosphere is hushed, reverential, mystical, nostalgic."
He was among the most prolific of 20th century composers, his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies (surviving manuscripts indicate over 70) and 434 opus numbers. However, the true tally is well over 500 surviving works since many opus numbers comprise two or more distinct works.
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Algonquian peoples
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples. This grouping consists of peoples that speak Algonquian languages.
Before Europeans came into contact, most Algonquian settlements lived by hunting and fishing, although quite a few supplemented their diet by cultivating corn, beans, squash, and (particularly among the Ojibwe) wild rice.
The Algonquians of New England (who spoke Eastern Algonquian) practiced a seasonal economy. The basic social unit was the village of a few hundred people related by a kinship structure. Villages were temporary and mobile. The people moved to locations of greatest natural food supply, often breaking into smaller units or recombining as the circumstances required. This custom resulted in a certain degree of cross-tribal mobility, especially in troubled times.
In warm weather, they constructed light wigwams for portability. In the winter, they erected the more substantial long houses, in which more than one clan could reside. They cached food supplies in more permanent, semi-subterranean structures.
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Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th President of the United States (1865–1869). As Vice President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American Civil War. Johnson's reconstruction policies failed to promote the rights of the Freedmen, and he came under vigorous political attack from Republicans, ending in his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives; he was acquitted by the U.S. Senate.
Johnson, born in poverty and of Scots-Irish descent, became a master tailor and was self-educated, married and had five children. He served as an alderman and as Mayor of Greeneville, Tennessee and then sat in both houses of the Tennessee legislature. He went on to spend five consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and two terms as Governor of Tennessee, all as a Democrat. His signature legislative endeavor in the state and federal arenas was passage of the Homestead Act.
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Anne W. Armstrong
Anne Wetzell Armstrong (September 20, 1872 – March 17, 1958) was an American novelist and businesswoman, active primarily in the first half of the 20th century. She is best known for her novel, This Day and Time, an account of life in a rural Appalachian community. She was also a pioneering woman in business management, and was the first woman to lecture before the Harvard School of Business and Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business in the early 1920s.
Armstrong was born Anne Audubon Wetzell in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1872. In the 1880s, her family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, where her father operated a lumber company. She attended Mount Holyoke College, where she wrote for the school's newspaper, and later attended the University of Chicago. She had returned to Knoxville by 1892, when she married Leonard T. Waldron. They had one son before divorcing in 1894. In 1905, she married Robert F. Armstrong.
Armstrong published her first novel, The Seas of God, in 1915. In 1918, she was hired as a personnel director for the National City Company of New York. She later gave an account of her early days with this company in her article, "A Woman in Wall Street by One," which was published in Atlantic Monthly in 1925. In 1919, Armstrong was hired as the Assistant Manager for Industrial Relations for Eastman Kodak, and continued in this position until 1923. During the latter half of the decade, she published several articles in Harper's Monthly and Atlantic Monthly that focused on the emerging role of women in business.
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Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver (born April 8, 1955) is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the former Republic of Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a non-fiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally.
Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments. Each of her books published since 1993 has been on the New York Times Best Seller list. Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award 2011, UK's Orange Prize for Fiction 2010, for The Lacuna and the National Humanities Medal. She has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
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Ben Shahn
Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content.
Shahn was born in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, then occupied by the Russian Empire, to Joshua Hessel and Gittel (Lieberman) Shahn. His father was exiled to Siberia for possible revolutionary activities in 1902, at which point Shahn, his mother, and two younger siblings moved to Vilkomir (Ukmergė). In 1906, the family immigrated to the United States where they rejoined Hessel, who had fled Siberia. They settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York where two more siblings were born. His younger brother drowned at age 17. Shahn began his path to becoming an artist in New York, where he was first trained as a lithographer. Shahn's early experiences with lithography and graphic design is apparent in his later prints and paintings which often include the combination of text and image. Shahn's primary medium was egg tempera, popular among social realists.
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Benton MacKaye
Benton MacKaye ( /mæˈkaɪ/ mak-KYE; March 6, 1879 – Dec. 11, 1975) was an American forester, planner and conservationist. He was born in Stamford, Connecticut; his father was actor and dramatist Steele MacKaye. After studying forestry at Harvard University (B.A., 1900; M.A. School of Forestry, 1905), Benton later taught there for several years. He joined a number of Federal bureaus and agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the U.S. Department of Labor; he was also was a member of the Technical Alliance where he participated in the Energy Survey of North America.
MacKaye helped pioneer the idea of land preservation for recreation and conservation purposes, and was a strong advocate of balancing human needs and those of nature; he coined the term "Geotechnics" to describe this philosophy. In addition to writing the first argument against urban sprawl, MacKaye also authored two books, The New Exploration: A Philosophy of Regional Planning and Expedition Nine: A Return to a Region. Thirteen of his essays were published in the collection From Geography to Geotechnics. A co-founder of The Wilderness Society, he is best known as the originator of the Appalachian Trail (AT), an idea he presented in his 1921 article titled An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning. The Benton MacKaye Trail, some portions of which coincide with the Appalachian Trail, is named after him.
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Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat. Many of his policies have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance.
Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton became both a student leader and a skilled musician. He is an alumnus of Georgetown University where he was Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has served as the United States Secretary of State since 2009 and was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons received law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.
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Billy de Beck
Billy DeBeck (born William Morgan DeBeck, April 15, 1890 – November 11, 1942) was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of the comic strip Barney Google (later retitled Barney Google and Snuffy Smith). The strip, which was especially popular in the 1920s and 1930s, featured a number of well-known characters, including the title character, Bunky, Snuffy Smith and Spark Plug the race horse. Spark Plug in particular was a merchandising phenomenon that has been called the Snoopy of the 1920s.
DeBeck drew with a scratchy line, and his characters had giant feet and bulbous noses—what is traditionaly called a "big-foot" style. His strips often reflected his love of sports. The first awards of the National Cartoonists Society, beginning in 1946, were the Billy DeBeck Memorial Awards (or the Barney Awards).
DeBeck was born and grew up on the south side of Chicago, where his father, Louis DeBeck, was a former newspaperman employed by the Swift Company. His father was French, and the name DeBeck evolved from DeBecque. His Irish-Welsh mother, Jessie Lee Morgan, had lived on a farm and was a former schoolteacher.
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Breece D'J Pancake
Breece D'J Pancake (b. Breece Dexter Pancake, June 29, 1952 – April 8, 1979) was an American author of short fiction. Pancake was a native of West Virginia. Several of his short stories were published in The Atlantic Monthly and other periodicals during his lifetime. He died in 1979 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Breece Dexter Pancake was born in South Charleston, West Virginia, the youngest child of Clarence "Wicker" Pancake and Helen Frazier Pancake. He was raised in Milton, West Virginia. Pancake briefly attended West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon before transferring to Marshall University in Huntington, where he completed a bachelor's degree in English education in 1974. After graduating from Marshall he spent time in the western United States, visiting his sister in Santa Fe. As a graduate student he studied at the University of Virginia's creative writing program under John Casey and James Alan McPherson. Pancake also worked as an English teacher at two Virginia military academies, Fork Union and Staunton.
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Catherine Marshall
Catherine Sarah Wood Marshall LeSourd (27 September 1914 — 18 March 1983) was an American author of nonfiction, inspirational, and fiction works. She was the wife of well-known minister Peter Marshall.
Marshall was born in Johnson City, Tennessee. She was the daughter of the Reverend John Ambrose Wood and Leonora Whitaker Wood. From the age of nine until her graduation from high school, Marshall was raised in Keyser, West Virginia, where her father served as pastor of a local Presbyterian Church from 1924 to 1942.
In 1936 she graduated from Agnes Scott College and married Peter Marshall. The couple moved to Washington, DC, where her husband served as pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church and Chaplain of the United States Senate.
In March 1943, Catherine Marshall contracted tuberculosis, for which at that time there was no antibiotic treatment. She spent two years recovering from the illness. Her husband died in 1949 of a heart attack, leaving her to care for their 9-year-old son, Peter John Marshall, who would later also become a minister and author.
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Cecil Sharp
Cecil James Sharp (22 November 1859 – 23 June 1924) was the founding father of the folklore revival in England in the early 20th century, and many of England's traditional dances and music owe their continuing existence to his work in recording and publishing them.
Sharp was born in Camberwell, London, the eldest son of James Sharp (a slate merchant who was interested in archaeology, architecture, old furniture and music) and his wife, Jane née Bloyd, was also a music lover. Sharp was educated at Uppingham, but left at 15 and was privately coached for the University of Cambridge, where he rowed in the Clare College boat and graduated B.A. in 1882.
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Charles Frazier
Charles Frazier (born November 4, 1950) is an American historical novelist. He won the 1997 National Book Award for Fiction for Cold Mountain.
Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1973. He earned an M.A. from Appalachian State University in the mid-1970s, and received his Ph.D. in English from the University of South Carolina in 1986. He currently raises horses on a farm near Raleigh, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife, Catherine, who teaches accounting, and their daughter Annie.
Cold Mountain was his first novel, published in 1997 by Atlantic Monthly Press. It traces the journey of Inman, a wounded deserter from the Confederate army near the end of the American Civil War. The work is rich in the culture and sensibilities of the North Carolina mountains and is based on local history and stories handed down by Frazier's father about Frazier's great-great-uncle William Pinkney Inman. Inman, who was from the area around Cold Mountain in western North Carolina, served in the Confederate Army from which he deserted after being wounded twice and is reputedly buried in a local cemetery. The real Inman served as a private in Company F of the 25th North Carolina Infantry, and his regiment did participate in the fighting in the Siege of Petersburg, including the Battle of the Crater.
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Cherokee
The Cherokee (/ˈtʃɛrəkiː/; Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩ Tsalagi) are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States (principally Georgia, the Carolinas and East Tennessee). Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family. In the 19th century, historians and ethnographers recorded their oral tradition that told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian-speaking peoples were located. They began to have contact with European traders in the 18th century.
In the 19th century, white settlers in the United States called the Cherokee one of the "Five Civilized Tribes", because they had assimilated numerous cultural and technological practices of European American settlers. The Cherokee were one of the first, if not the first, major non-European ethnic group to become U.S. citizens. Article 8 in the 1817 treaty with the Cherokee stated Cherokees may wish to become citizen of the United States. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the Cherokee Nation has more than 300,000 members, the largest of the 565 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States.
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Chris Offutt
Christopher John "Chris" Offutt (born August 24, 1958, Lexington, Kentucky) is an American writer.
The son of author Andrew J. Offutt, Chris Offutt grew up in a small former mining community in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky. He quit high school to join the army, but failed the physical.[citation needed] He subsequently attended Morehead State University and graduated with a degree in theater and a minor in English. He then hitchhiked around the country, holding more than 50 jobs, all part-time.[citation needed]
He later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 1992, he published a short story collection, Kentucky Straight. His second book was the 1993 memoir The Same River Twice, and in 1997 he published his first novel, The Good Brother. In 1999, he published his second book of stories, Out of the Woods, followed in 2002 by No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home, about a six-month return home to Rowan County.[citation needed]
His work has received awards from the Lannan Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Whiting Foundation. Offutt was also named one of the twenty best young American fiction writers by Granta. His non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Men's Journal, Oxford American, and on National Public Radio.[citation needed] His work is widely translated, and taught in high schools and colleges. His stories are included in many anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, four appearances in New Stories of the South, and twice on Selected Shorts on NPR in New York City. He has also presented more than 100 public readings of his work in the USA and abroad. In 2005, Offutt made his comic book debut when he wrote "Another Man's Escape" for Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist. A second comic is included in the anthology "Noir," from Dark Horse Comics.[citation needed]
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Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy (born Charles McCarthy; July 20, 1933) is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and Post-apocalyptic genres. He won the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road (2006). His 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. For All the Pretty Horses (1992) he won both the U.S. National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. All the Pretty Horses and The Road were also adapted as motion pictures.
Blood Meridian (1985) was among Time magazine's list of 100 best English-language books published between 1923 and 2005 and placed joint runner-up in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. Literary critic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, alongside Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Philip Roth, and called Blood Meridian "the greatest single book since Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying". In 2010 The Times ranked The Road first on its list of the 100 best fiction and non-fiction books of the past 10 years. McCarthy has been increasingly mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (November 2, 1734 [O.S. October 22] – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the Kentucky, which was then part of Virginia but on the other side of the mountains from the settled areas. Despite some resistance from American Indian tribes such as the Shawnee, in 1775 Boone blazed his Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains from North Carolina and Tennessee into Kentucky. There he founded the village of Boonesborough, Kentucky, one of the first American settlements west of the Appalachians. Before the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 European people migrated to Kentucky/Virginia by following the route marked by Boone.
Boone was a militia officer during the Revolutionary War (1775–83), which in Kentucky was fought primarily between the American settlers and the British-aided Native Americans. Boone was captured by Shawnee warriors in 1778, who after a while adopted him into their tribe. Later, he left the Indians and returned to Boonesborough to help defend the European settlements in Kentucky/Virginia.
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Davy Crockett
David "Davy" Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives, served in the Texas Revolution, and died at the Battle of the Alamo.
Crockett grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling. After being elected to the rank of colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee, he was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821. In 1826, Crockett was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman Crockett vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, most notably the Indian Removal Act. Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies led to his defeat in the 1834 elections, prompting his angry departure to Texas shortly thereafter. In early 1836, Crockett took part in the Texas Revolution and was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in March.
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Denise Giardina
Denise Giardina is a novelist. Her book Storming Heaven was a Discovery Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and received the 1987 W. D. Weatherford Award for the best published work about the Appalachian South. The Unquiet Earth received an American Book Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award for fiction. Her 1998 novel Saints and Villains was awarded the Boston Book Review fiction prize and was semifinalist for the International Dublin Literary Award.
Denise Giardina was born October 25, 1951 in Bluefield, West Virginia, and grew up in the small coal mining camp of Black Wolf, located in rural McDowell County, West Virginia. Like the rest of the community, her family's survival was dependent upon the prosperity of the mine. Giardina's grandfather and uncles worked underground and her father kept the books for Page Coal and Coke. Her family lived in Black Wolf until she was thirteen, when the mine closed. In order to find work, her family moved to the state capital of Charleston.
Giardina received a Bachelors degree from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1973. She pursued graduate work at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, later receiving a Masters in Divinity from the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia in 1979. In 1980 she decided against ordination in favor of pursuing a career in writing. In order to fund this career choice, Denise Giardina did secretarial work during the day so she could write in the evenings. Giardina currently lives near Charleston and teaches at West Virginia State University. In 2007 she was reinstated as an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church.
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Dorothy Allison
Dorothy Allison (born April 11, 1949) is an American writer, speaker, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Dorothy E. Allison was born on April 11, 1949 in Greenville, South Carolina to Ruth Gibson Allison, who was fifteen at the time. Ruth was a poor and unmarried mother who worked as a waitress and cook. When Allison was five, her step dad began to sexually abuse her. It lasted for seven years (until age 11) and then she was able to tell a relative, who told Ruth, and it stopped. The family still remained together. The physical abuse resumed and lasted for another five years, and she contracted gonorrhea from her stepfather. This went undiagnosed until Allison was in her 20's, making her unable to have children.
The family moved to central Florida to escape debt. Allison had witnessed her family members die because of the extreme poverty. Allison soon became the first person in her family to graduate from high school. At age 18, she got out of the house and went on to attend college.
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Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH (29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934) was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce. He was sent to Florida in the United States in 1884 to manage an orange plantation, where he neglected his managerial duties; influenced by African-American music, he began composing. After a brief period of formal musical study in Germany beginning in 1886, he embarked on a full-time career as a composer in Paris and then in nearby Grez-sur-Loing, where he and his wife Jelka lived (except during the First World War) for the rest of their lives.
Delius's first successes came in Germany, where Hans Haym and other conductors promoted his music from the late 1890s. In Delius's native Britain, it was 1907 before his music made regular appearances in concert programmes, after Thomas Beecham took it up. Beecham conducted the full premiere of A Mass of Life in London in 1909 (he had premiered Part II in Germany in 1908); he staged the opera A Village Romeo and Juliet at Covent Garden in 1910; and he mounted a six-day Delius festival in London in 1929, as well as making gramophone recordings of many of Delius's works. After 1918 Delius began to suffer the effects of syphilis, contracted during his earlier years in Paris. He became paralysed and blind, but completed some late compositions between 1928 and 1932 with the aid of an amanuensis, Eric Fenby.
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Gaston Caperton
William Gaston Caperton III (born February 21, 1940) was the 31st Governor of the U.S. state of West Virginia from 1989 until 1997. He is currently the president of the College Board, which administers the nationally recognized SAT and AP tests. Caperton announced his intention to step down as president of the College Board effective June 30, 2012. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Caperton was born in Charleston, Kanawha County, West Virginia. According to his personal testimony on growing up in Charleston, he often felt extremely lenient academic expectations and subsequently realized the necessity of strengthening the competitiveness of American high school students.
He attended Dexter School (Brookline, Massachusetts), Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon.
After graduation he returned to Charleston to manage a family-owned insurance firm. He soon became its principal owner and, under his watch, it became the tenth largest privately owned insurance brokerage firm in the nation. Caperton also owned a bank and mortgage banking firm. Caperton was elected governor in his first attempt to seek public office in 1988.
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George Ella Lyon
George Ella Lyon (born April 25, 1949) is a Kentucky author who has published in many genres, including picture books, poetry, juvenile novels, and articles.
George Ella Lyon was born in Harlan, a small coal mining town in eastern Kentucky. Her books frequently take place in Appalachia. She married Stephen Lyon, a musician, in 1972, and had two children with him. She earned a B.A. at Centre College in Kentucky in 1971, her M.A. at the University of Arkansas in 1972, and her Ph.D. at Indiana University--Bloomington in 1978.
She first published in 1983, a poetry collection called Mountain. Aside from publishing, she also taught writing at a number of colleges, including the University of Kentucky, Centre College, Transylvania University, and Radford University. She has also acted as an executive committee member for the Women Writers Conference. She currently teaches writing through workshops, conferences, and author visits.
In an article in The Reading Teacher, Sylvia Pantaleo notes that Lyon's A Day at Damp Camp bears characteristics of Dresang's Radical Change theory by having a nonlinear story, which artist Peter Catalanotto loops back to the beginning through the illustrations and images, and text within boxes that resembles "hypertext Web links".
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George R. Stewart
George Rippey Stewart (May 31, 1895 – August 22, 1980) was an American toponymist, a novelist, and a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. His 1959 book Pickett's Charge, a detailed history of the final attack at Gettysburg, was called "essential for an understanding of the Battle of Gettysburg".
Born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, Stewart was the son of a railway engineer. He earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1917, an MA from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in English literature from Columbia University in 1922. He accepted a position in the English department at Berkeley in 1923.
Stewart was a founding member of the American Name Society in 1956-57, and he once served as an expert witness in a murder trial as a specialist in family names. His best-known academic work is Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (1945; reprinted, New York Review Books, 2008). He wrote three other books on names: A Concise Dictionary of American Place-Names (1970), Names on the Globe (1975), and American Given Names (1979). His scholarly works on the poetic meter of ballads (published under the name George R. Stewart, Jr.), beginning with his 1922 Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia, remain important in their field.
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George Rogers Clark
George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was a soldier from Virginia and the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Kentucky (then part of Virginia) militia throughout much of the war. Clark is best known for his celebrated captures of Kaskaskia (1778) and Vincennes (1779), which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory. Because the British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Clark has often been hailed as the "Conqueror of the Old Northwest."
Clark's military achievements all came before his 30th birthday. Afterwards he led militia in the opening engagements of the Northwest Indian War, but was accused of being drunk on duty. Despite his demand for a formal investigation into the accusations, he was disgraced and forced to resign. He left Kentucky to live on the Indiana frontier. Never fully reimbursed by Virginia for his wartime expenditures, Clark spent the final decades of his life evading creditors, and living in increasing poverty and obscurity. He was involved in two failed conspiracies to open the Spanish-controlled Mississippi River to American traffic. After suffering a stroke and losing his leg, Clark was aided in his final years by family members, including his younger brother William, one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Clark died of a stroke on February 13, 1818.
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German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 50 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group.California, Texas and Pennsylvania have the largest numbers of German origin, although upper Midwestern states, including Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, have the highest proportion of German Americans at over one-third.
None of the historical German states had overseas colonies, so not until the 1680s did the first significant groups of German immigrants arrive in the British colonies, settling primarily in New York and Pennsylvania. Immigration continued in very large numbers during the 19th century, with some eight million arrivals from Germany. They were pulled by the attractions of land and religious freedom, and pushed out of Europe by shortages of land and religious or political oppression. Many arrived seeking religious or political freedom, others for economic opportunities greater than those in Europe, and others simply for the chance to start fresh in the New World. The arrivals before 1850 were mostly farmers who sought out the most productive land, where their intensive farming techniques would pay off. After 1840, many came to cities, where "Germania"—German-speaking districts—soon emerged.
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German people
The Germans (Deutsche) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages. Legally, Germans are citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, about 66–75 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry mainly in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, France, Russia, Chile, Poland, Australia and Romania who most likely are not native speakers of German. Thus, the total number of Germans worldwide lies between 66 and 160 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.).
Today, peoples from countries with a German-speaking majority or significant German-speaking population groups other than Germany, such as Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg, have developed their own national identity and usually do not refer to themselves as "Germans" in a modern context.
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Greenbrier Ghost
The Greenbrier Ghost is the name popularly given to the alleged ghost of a young woman in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States, who was murdered in 1897. The events surrounding the haunting have led to it becoming a very late instance in American legal history in which the so-called "testimony of a ghost" was accepted at a murder trial.
Elva Zona Heaster, the murder victim, was born in Greenbrier County sometime around 1873. Almost nothing is known of her early life, other than that she was brought up near Richlands and that she gave birth to a child out of wedlock in 1895. In October 1896, Zona met a drifter named Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue, also known as Edward; he had moved to Greenbrier County in search of a new life, and to work as a blacksmith. Shue found work in the shop of one James Crookshanks; Zona met him not long after his arrival in town. The two fell in love and soon married, despite objection to the match by Zona's mother, Mary Jane Heaster, who had taken an instant dislike to Shue.
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Gurney Norman
Gurney Norman (born July 22, 1937) is an American novelist, documentarian, and professor.
Gurney Norman was born in Grundy, Virginia in 1937. He grew up in the southern Appalachian Mountains and was raised alternately by his maternal grandparents in Southwest Virginia and his paternal grandparents in East Kentucky in several towns, but primarily in the small community of Allais, near Hazard, in Perry County. He attended Stuart Robinson School in Letcher County, Kentucky, from 1946-1955. Norman attended the University of Kentucky from 1955-1959 graduating with a degree in journalism and English. In 1960, he received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University where he studied with literary critic Malcolm Cowley and the Irish short story writer Frank O'Connor
After Stanford, Norman spent two years in the U.S. Army. He returned to eastern Kentucky in 1963 to work as a reporter for his hometown newspaper, The Hazard Herald. Leaving newspaper work to concentrate on his fiction writing, Norman took a job with the U.S. Forest Service as a fire lookout in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon in the summers of 1966 and '67. In 1971, his novel Divine Right's Trip was published in The Last Whole Earth Catalog and subsequently by the Dial Press and Bantam Books. Norman was one of the founders of the Briarpatch Network in 1974, with Richard Raymond and Michael Phillips. In 1977, his book of short stories Kinfolks, which received Berea College's Weatherford Award, was published by Gnomon Press.
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Harry Caudill
Harry M. Caudill (May 3, 1922 - November 29, 1990) was an American author, historian, lawyer, legislator, and environmentalist from Letcher County, in the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky.
Caudill served in World War II as a private in the U.S. Army and was elected three times as to the Kentucky State House of Representatives. He taught in the History Department at the University of Kentucky from 1976 to 1984.
A common theme explored in many of Caudill's writings is the historic underdevelopment of the Appalachian region (particularly his own home area of southeastern Kentucky). In several of his books (most prominently Night Comes to the Cumberlands, 1962) and many of his published articles, he probes the historical poverty of the region, which he attributes in large part to the rapacious policies of the coal mining industries active in the region, as well as their backers: bankers of the northeastern United States. He notes that such interests most often had their headquarters not in Appalachia but in the Northeast or Midwest, and thus failed to properly reinvest their sizable profits in the Appalachian region. Following publication of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, President John F. Kennedy appointed a commission to investigate conditions in the region and subsequently more than $15 billion in aid was invested in the region over twenty-five years.
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Harry M. Caudill
Harry M. Caudill (May 3, 1922 - November 29, 1990) was an American author, historian, lawyer, legislator, and environmentalist from Letcher County, in the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky.
Caudill served in World War II as a private in the U.S. Army and was elected three times as to the Kentucky State House of Representatives. He taught in the History Department at the University of Kentucky from 1976 to 1984.
A common theme explored in many of Caudill's writings is the historic underdevelopment of the Appalachian region (particularly his own home area of southeastern Kentucky). In several of his books (most prominently Night Comes to the Cumberlands, 1962) and many of his published articles, he probes the historical poverty of the region, which he attributes in large part to the rapacious policies of the coal mining industries active in the region, as well as their backers: bankers of the northeastern United States. He notes that such interests most often had their headquarters not in Appalachia but in the Northeast or Midwest, and thus failed to properly reinvest their sizable profits in the Appalachian region. Following publication of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, President John F. Kennedy appointed a commission to investigate conditions in the region and subsequently more than $15 billion in aid was invested in the region over twenty-five years.
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Henry Timberlake
Henry Timberlake (1730 – September 30, 1765) was a colonial Anglo-American officer, journalist, and cartographer. He was born in Virginia in 1730 and died in England. He is best known for his work as an emissary to the Overhill Cherokee during the 1760s.
Timberlake's account of his journeys to the Cherokee, published as his memoirs in 1765, became a primary source for later studies of their eighteenth-century culture. His detailed descriptions of Cherokee villages, townhouses, weapons, and tools have helped historians and anthropologists identify Cherokee structures and cultural objects uncovered at modern archaeological excavation sites throughout the southern Appalachian region. During the Tellico Archaeological Project, which included a series of salvage excavations conducted in the Little Tennessee River basin in the 1970s, archaeologists used Timberlake's "Draught of the Cherokee Country" to help locate major Overhill village sites.
Henry Timberlake was probably born in Hanover County, Virginia in 1730. Although he inherited a small fortune when his father died, Timberlake still had to support himself, and sought a military career. In 1756, at the outset of the French and Indian War, he joined a Virginia militia company known as the "Patriot Blues." It had embarked on a campaign to expel French and Native American raiders in the western part of the colony. Shortly thereafter, he applied for a commission in the Virginia regiment—then commanded by George Washington—but was denied due to a lack of vacancies.
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Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (c.1496/1497–1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who, while leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States, was the first European documented to have crossed the Mississippi River.
A vast undertaking, de Soto's North American expedition ranged throughout the southeastern United States searching for gold and a passage to China. De Soto died in 1542 on the banks of the Mississippi River in Arkansas or Louisiana.
Hernando de Soto was born to parents who were hidalgos of modest means in Extremadura, a region of poverty and hardship from which many young people looked for ways to seek their fortune elsewhere. Two towns—Badajoz and Barcarrota—claim to be his birthplace. He spent time as a child at each place, and he stipulated in his will that his body be interred at Jerez de los Caballeros, where other members of his family were interred. The age of the Conquerors came on the heels of the Spanish reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from Islamic forces. Spain and Portugal were filled with young men seeking a chance for military fame after the Moors were defeated. With discovery of new lands to the west (which they thought at the time to be East Asia), the poor young men were attracted to whispers of glory and wealth.
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Hillbilly
Hillbilly is a term referring to certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory, and so is usually offensive to those Americans of Appalachian heritage.
Origins of the term "hillbilly" are obscure. According to Anthony Harkins in Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, the term first appeared in print in a 1900 New York Journal article, with the definition: "a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him."
The Appalachian region was largely settled in the 18th century by the Scotch-Irish, the majority of whom originated in the lowlands of Scotland. Harkins believes the most credible theory of the term's origin is that it derives from the linkage of two older Scottish expressions, "hill-folk" and "billie" which was a synonym for "fellow", similar to "guy" or "bloke".
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Horace Kephart
Horace Kephart (1862–1931) was an American travel writer and librarian, best known as the author of Our Southern Highlanders, about his life in the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina.
Kephart was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Iowa. He was the director of the St. Louis Mercantile Library in St. Louis, Missouri from 1890 to 1903. In these years Kephart also wrote about camping and hunting trips. Earlier, Kephart had also worked as a librarian at Yale University and spent significant time in Italy as an employee of a wealthy American book collector.
In 1904, Kephart's family (wife Laura and their six children) moved to Ithaca, New York, but Laura and Horace never divorced or legally separated. Horace Kephart found his way to western North Carolina, where he lived in the Hazel Creek section of what would later become the Great Smoky Mountains National Park:
Later in life Kephart campaigned for the establishment of a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains with photographer and friend George Masa, and lived long enough to know that the park would be created. He was later named one of the fathers of the national park. He also helped plot the route of the Appalachian Trail through the Smokies. Kephart died in a car accident in 1931, and was buried near Bryson City, North Carolina, a small town near the area he wrote about in Our Southern Highlanders. Two months before his death, Mount Kephart was named in his honor.
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Italian American
An Italian American (Italian: Italoamericano singular, Italian: Italoamericani plural), is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship. Italian Americans are the fourth largest European ethnic group in the United States (not including American ethnicity, an ethnonym used by many in the United States; overall, Italian Americans rank seventh, behind German, Irish, African American, English, American and Mexican).
About 5.5 million Italians immigrated to the U.S. from 1820 to 2004. The greatest surge of immigration, which occurred in the period between 1880 and 1920, alone brought more than 4 million Italians to America. About 80% of the Italian immigrants came from Southern Italy, especially from Sicily, Campania, Abruzzo and Calabria. This was a largely agricultural and overpopulated region, where much of the populace had been impoverished by centuries of foreign misrule, and the economic measures imposed on the South after Italian unification in 1861 . After unification the Italian government initially encouraged emigration of landless peasants to relieve economic pressures in the South. In the U.S., most Italians began their new lives as unskilled, manual workers in Eastern cities, mining camps and in agriculture. Italian Americans gradually moved from the lower rungs of the economic scale in 1890-1910 to a level comparable to the national average by 1970. By 1990, more than 65% of Italian Americans were managerial, professional, or white-collar workers. The Italian-American communities have often been characterized by strong ties with family, the Catholic Church, fraternal organizations and political parties. Today, over 17.8 million Americans claim Italian ancestry.
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James Agee
James Rufus Agee ( /ˈeɪdʒiː/ AY-jee; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous 1958 Pulitzer Prize.
James Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, at Highland Avenue and 15th Street (renamed James Agee Street in 1999) in what is now the Fort Sanders neighborhood to Hugh James Agee and Laura Whitman Tyler. When Agee was six, his father was killed in an automobile accident. From the age of seven, Agee and his younger sister, Emma, were educated in boarding schools. The most influential of these was located near his mother's summer cottage two miles from Sewanee, Tennessee. Saint Andrews School for Mountain Boys was run by Episcopal monks affiliated with the Order of the Holy Cross. It was there that Agee's lifelong friendship with Episcopal priest Father James Harold Flye and his wife began in 1919. As Agee's close friend and spiritual confidant, Flye received many of Agee's most revealing letters.
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James Still
James Still (July 16, 1906 – April 28, 2001) was an American poet, novelist and folklorist. He lived most of his life in a log house along the Dead Mare Branch of Little Carr Creek, Knott County, Kentucky. He was best known for the novel River of Earth, which depicted the struggles of coal mining in eastern Kentucky.
Lonie, Still’s mother was sixteen when she moved to Alabama due to a tornado destroying the family home. His father, J. Alex Still, was a horse doctor with no formal training. James Still was born July 16, 1906 near Lafayette, Alabama. Still was considered a quiet child but a hard worker. He along with his nine siblings worked the family farm. They farmed cotton, sugar cane, soybeans and corn. At the age of seven, Still began grade school. He found greater interest not in the school text books but at home where there was an edition of the Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge. He became enriched with philosophy, physics and the great British poets – Shakespeare and Keats.
After graduating from high school, Still attended Lincoln Memorial University of Harrogate, Tennessee. He worked at the rock quarry in the afternoons and as a library janitor in the evenings. He would often sleep at the library after spending the night reading countless literature. Upon graduation in 1929, he began graduate work at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. While at Vanderbilt, he became involved in a controversial miner strike in Wilder, Tennessee. The miners were starving due to holding the picket line; Still delivered a truckload of food and clothing for the miners. Still graduated with an MA in English in 1930. He later completed additional graduate work at the University of Illinois.
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Jeannette Walls
Jeannette Walls is an American writer and journalist widely known as former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com — and author of The Glass Castle, a memoir of the nomadic family life of her childhood, which stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 100 weeks.
Walls was born on April 21, 1960 in Phoenix, Arizona to Rex Walls (deceased 1994), an electrician, and Rose Mary Walls, an artist. As detailed in The Glass Castle, Walls' family life was rootless, with the family shuttling from Phoenix, Arizona, California (including a brief stay in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco), Battle Mountain, Nevada, and Welch, West Virginia, with periods of homelessness. Walls moved to New York at age 17 and graduated in 1984 with honors from Barnard College. Walls is one of four children; she has two sisters and one brother.
Walls married Eric Goldberg in 1988 (divorced, 1996) and now lives outside Culpeper, Virginia, with her second husband, journalist John J. Taylor, a former writer for Esquire and the author of The Count and the Confession: A True Murder Mystery, Falling: The Story of One Marriage, and Circus of Ambition: The Culture of Wealth and Power in the Eighties.
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Jesse Stuart
Jesse Hilton Stuart (August 8, 1907 – February 17, 1984) was an American writer who is known for writing short stories, poetry, and novels about Southern Appalachia. Born and raised in Greenup County, Kentucky, Stuart relied heavily on the rural locale of Northeastern Kentucky for his writings. Stuart was named the Poet Laureate of Kentucky in 1954. He died at Jo-Lin nursing home in Ironton, Ohio, which is near his boyhood home.
Stuart was born near Riverton, Kentucky in Greenup County to Mitchell and Martha (Hilton) Stuart on August 8, 1907. In 1939, Stuart married Naomi Deane Norris, a school teacher, and they settled in W Hollow.
One day while he was plowing in the field, he stopped and wrote the first line of a sonnet: "I am a farmer singing at the plow." the first line of the seven hundred and three sonnets that he would collect in Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow (1934). The book was described by the Irish poet George William Russell (who wrote poetry under the name of AE) as the greatest work of poetry to come out of America since Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass. Stuart was made poet laureate of the state of Kentucky in 1954, and in 1961 he received the award from American Academy of Poets. So when Jesse lived in Greenup, KY he traveled a lot to his neighboring city Grayson, KY and meeting people everywhere and he came one of the best writers in the Eastern part of the u.s. or the best in Kentucky
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John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy
pronunciation (help·info) (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.
After military service as commander of the Motor Torpedo Boats PT-109 and PT-59 during World War II in the South Pacific, Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat. Thereafter, he served in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated then Vice President and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. He was the youngest elected to the office, at the age of 43, the second-youngest President (after Theodore Roosevelt), and the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president. Kennedy is the only Catholic president, and is the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Events during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the African American Civil Rights Movement, and early stages of the Vietnam War.
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John Fox, Jr.
John Fox, Jr. (December 16, 1862 - July 8, 1919) was an American journalist, novelist, and short story writer.
Born in Stony Point, Bourbon County, Kentucky, to John William Fox, Sr., and Minerva Worth Carr, Fox studied English at Harvard University. He graduated in 1883 before becoming a reporter in New York City. After working for both New York Times and the New York Sun, he published a successful serialization of his first novel, A Mountain Europa, in Century magazine in 1892. Two moderately successful short story collections followed, as well as his first conventional novel, The Kentuckians in 1898. Fox gained a following as a war correspondent, working for Harper's Weekly in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898, where he served with the "Rough Riders." Six years later he traveled to Asia to report on the Russo-Japanese War for Scribner's magazine.
Though he occasionally wrote for periodicals, after 1904, Fox dedicated much of his attention to fiction. The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (published in 1903) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (published in 1908) are arguably his most well known and successful works, entering the New York Times top ten list of bestselling novels for 1903, 1904, 1908, and 1909 respectively. Fox visited Letcher County, Kentucky in 1898 and was the inspired setting of these two works. In The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, the character Devil Judd Tolliver, was based on the real life of "Devil John" Wesley Wright, the sheriff of Wise County, Virginia. [ Many of his works reflected the naturalist style, his childhood in Kentucky's Bluegrass region, and his life among the coal miners of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Many of his novels were historical romances or period dramas set in that region.
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Lee Smith (author)
Lee Smith (born on November 1, 1944) is an American fiction author who typically incorporates much of her home roots in the Southeastern United States in her works of literature. She has received many writing awards, such as the O. Henry Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. Her novel The Last Girls was listed on the New York Times bestseller's list and won the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. Mrs Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger, a collection of new and selected stories was published in 2010.
Lee Smith was born in 1944 in Grundy, Virginia, a small coal-mining town in the Appalachian Mountains, less than 10 miles from the Kentucky border. The Smith home sat on Main Street, and the Levisa Fork River ran just behind it. Her mother, Gig, was a college graduate who had come to Grundy to teach school. Her father, Ernest, was the long time owner/operator of a Ben Franklin store in Grundy.
Growing up in the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia, nine-year-old Lee Smith was already writing—and selling, for a nickel apiece—stories about her neighbors in the coal boomtown of Grundy and the nearby isolated "hollers." After spending her last two years of high school at St. Catherine's School in Richmond, Virginia, Smith enrolled at Hollins College in Roanoke. She and fellow student Annie Dillard (the well-known essayist and novelist) became go-go dancers for an all-girl rock band, the Virginia Woolfs. In 1966, her senior year at Hollins, Smith submitted an early draft of a coming-of-age novel to a Book-of-the-Month Club contest and was awarded one of twelve fellowships. Two years later, that novel, The Last Day the Dog Bushes Bloomed (Harper & Row, 1968), became Smith's first published work of fiction.
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Lisa Alther
Lisa Alther (born July 23, 1944 in Kingsport, Tennessee) is an American author and novelist. Her first name is pronounced as if it were spelled Liza.
She graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in English literature in 1966. After a brief time in the publishing industry, she moved to Hinesburg, Vermont to raise her daughter. According to Ms. Alther, she wrote two novels, a host of short stories, and received "hundreds of rejection slips" between age 16 and 30, before Kinflicks was accepted for publication.
Alther is the author of five novels, Kinflicks, Original Sins, Other Women, Bedrock, Five Minutes In Heaven, and Washed in the Blood, as well as a small number of published short stories and many magazine articles.
Alther's most recent book, published in spring 2007, is a nonfiction work titled Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree--the Search for My Melungeon Ancestors (ISBN 1-55970-832-8).
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Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States (1963–1969), a position he assumed after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States (1961–1963). He is one of only four people who served in all four elected federal offices of the United States: Representative, Senator, Vice President, and President. Johnson, a Texas Democrat, served as a United States Representative from 1937–1949 and as a Senator from 1949–1961, including six years as United States Senate Majority Leader, two as Senate Minority Leader and two as Senate Majority Whip. After campaigning unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1960, Johnson was asked by John F. Kennedy to be his running mate for the 1960 presidential election.
Johnson succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, completed the rest of Kennedy's term and was elected President in his own right, winning by a large margin in the 1964 election. Johnson was greatly supported by the Democratic Party and as President, he was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and his "War on Poverty." He was renowned for his domineering personality and the "Johnson treatment," his coercion of powerful politicians in order to advance legislation.
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Marion Post Wolcott
Marion Post (later Marion Post Wolcott) (June 7, 1910 - November 24, 1990) was a noted photographer who worked for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression documenting poverty and deprivation. She was born in New Jersey. Her parents split up and she was sent to boarding school, spending time at home with her mother in Greenwich Village when not at school. Here she met many artists and musicians and became interested in dance. She studied at The New School.
She trained as a teacher, and went to work in a small town in Massachusetts. Here she saw the reality of the Depression and the problems of the poor. When the school closed she went to Europe to study with her sister Helen. Helen was studying with Trude Fleischmann, a Viennese photographer. Marion showed Fleischmann some of her photographs and was told to stick to photography.
While in Vienna she saw some of the Nazi attacks on the Jewish population and was horrified. Soon she and her sister had to return to America for safety. She went back to teaching but also continued her photography and became involved in the anti-fascist movement. At the New York Photo League she met Ralph Steiner and Paul Strand who encouraged her. When she found that the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin kept sending her to do "ladies' stories," Ralph Steiner took her portfolio to show Roy Stryker, head of the Farm Security Administration, and Paul Strand wrote a letter of recommendation. Stryker was impressed by her work and hired her immediately.
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Martha Graham
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts,Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.
She danced and choreographed for over seventy years. Graham was the first dancer ever to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the USA: the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the Key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable."[citation needed]
Graham was born in Allegheny City, which today is part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1894. Her father George Graham was what in the Victorian era was known as an "alienist", a practitioner of an early form of psychiatry. The Grahams were strict Presbyterians. Dr. Graham was a third generation American of Irish descent and her mother Jane Beers was a tenth generation descendant of Puritan Miles Standish.
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Mennonite
The Mennonites are a Protestant group based around the church communities of the Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons (1496–1561), who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders. The teachings of the Mennonites were founded on their belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ, which they held to with great conviction despite persecution by the various Roman Catholic and Protestant states. Rather than fight, the majority survived by fleeing to neighboring states where ruling families were tolerant of their radical belief in adult baptism. Over the years, Mennonites have become known as one of the historic peace churches because of their commitment to nonviolence.
There are about 1.5 million Mennonites worldwide as of 2006. Mennonite congregations worldwide embody the full scope of Mennonite practice from "plain people" to those who are indistinguishable in dress and appearance from the general population. The largest populations of Mennonites are in Ethiopia,Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United States, but Mennonites can also be found in tight-knit communities in at least 51 countries on six continents or scattered amongst the populace of those countries. There are also significant numbers of Mennonites scattered throughout China. There are German Mennonite colonies in Argentina, Belize, Bolivia,Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, and Paraguay, who are to a large extent descendants of Mennonites living in eastern Europe, and there remains a small congregation in the Netherlands where Simons was born.
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Michael Harrington
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Michael Harrington was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 24, 1928, to an Irish-American family. He attended St. Roch Catholic School and Saint Louis University High School, where he was a classmate (class of 1944) of Thomas Anthony Dooley III. He later attended the College of the Holy Cross, the University of Chicago (MA in English Literature), and Yale Law School. As a young man, he was interested in both left-wing politics and Catholicism. Fittingly, he joined Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker Movement, a pacifist group that advocated a radical interpretation of the Gospel. Above all else, Harrington was an intellectual. He loved arguing about culture and politics, preferably over beer; and his Jesuit education had made him a fine debater and rhetorician.
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Olive Tilford Dargan
Olive Tilford Dargan (1869–1968) was born on a farm in Kentucky. She was educated at the University of Nashville and Radcliffe College. She taught in Arkansas, Missouri, Texas and Canada before moving to the southern United States for health reasons. In 1898 she married Pegram Dargan of South Carolina. Tilford published a number of novels, dramas, and books of poetry. In 1916 she received the Southern Society of New York prize for the best book by a Southern writer, and in 1925 she was awarded the Belmont-Ward Fugitive Prize. Two novels published under the pseudonym Fielding Burke describe labor conditions in North Carolina mill towns. Dargan received an honorary degree in Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1925.
Finding Aid for the Olive Tilford Dargan Manuscript, 1958 The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
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Omie Wise
Omie Wise or Naomi Wise (1789–1808) was an American murder victim, who is remembered by a popular murder ballad about her death.
Omie Wise's death became the subject of a traditional American ballad. One version opens:
In accordance with the broadside ballad tradition, lyrics to the original version of the song were written shortly after the murder itself; a 19th century version of the ballad text has recently been discovered. The first recorded version of the song was performed by G. B. Grayson, who recorded the song in 1927 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The song is thematically related to other American murder ballads such as "Banks of the Ohio" and "The Knoxville Girl". Each of these songs relates the tale of a woman murdered by her lover, who then disposed of her body in a river.
The song has been performed by Doc Watson, who learned the song from his mother. Watson relates that "Naomi Wise, a little orphan girl, was being brought up by Squire Adams, a gent who had a pretty good name in the community as a morally decent human being. Omie, however, was seeing a ne'er-do-well named John Lewis, who never meant anything about anything serious, except some of his meanness. John Lewis courted the girl, seemingly until she became pregnant, and he decided that he'd get rid of her in some secret sort of way. He persuaded her to skip off with him and get married, then pushed her into the water and drowned her. Everyone knew that he had been mean to Omie, and when the body was taken out of the water, there was evidence that she had been beaten quite a lot."
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Pamela Duncan
Pamela Y. Duncan (born September 24, 1961) is an American novelist. Her novels include Moon Women (2001), Plant Life (2003) and The Big Beautiful (2007). Her awards include the Sir Walter Raleigh Prize, and in 2000 she was chosen as one of the Ten Best Emerging Writers in the South. She won an American Library Association award in 2007. Her work often focuses on the lives of working class Southerners.
She was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and raised in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and Shelby, North Carolina. She has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of North Carolina. Duncan currently teaches creative writing at Western Carolina University.
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Pánfilo de Narváez
Pánfilo de Narváez (1478–1528) was a Spanish conqueror and soldier in the Americas. He is most remembered as the leader of two expeditions, one to Mexico in 1520 to oppose Hernán Cortés, and the disastrous Narváez expedition to Florida in 1527.
Pánfilo de Narváez was born in Castile (in either Cuéllar or Valladolid) in 1478. He was a relative of Diego Velazquez de Cuellar, the first Spanish governor of Cuba. His nephew was Antonio Velazquez de Narváez.
Narváez took part in the Spanish conquest of Jamaica in 1509. In 1511 he went to Cuba to participate in the conquest of that island under the command of Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar. He led expeditions to the eastern end of the island in the company of Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan de Grijalva. As reported by de las Casas, who was an eyewitness, Narváez presided over the infamous massacre of Caonao, where Spanish troopers put to the sword a village full of Indians who had come to meet them with offerings of food. Following the massacre, Narváez asked de las Casas, "What do you think about what our Spaniards have done?" to which de las Casas replied, "I send both you and them to the Devil!"
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Rachel Carson
Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.
Carson began her career as a biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. National Book Award, recognition as a gifted writer, and financial security. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea, and the reissued version of her first book, Under the Sea Wind, were also bestsellers. That so-called sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life from the shores to the surface to the depths.
Late in the 1950s Carson turned her attention to conservation, especially environmental problems she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result was Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented share of the American people. Although Silent Spring met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy, which led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides, and it inspired a grassroots environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.
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Ralph Rinzler
Ralph Rinzler (July 20, 1934 - July 15, 1994) was the co-founder of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall every summer in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a curator for American art, music, and folk culture at the Smithsonian. This festival was from the beginning and continues to be a major event for musicians, artistans, and craftsman from a broad variety of American culture, including African American, Native American, Appalachian, Southern, Western and other groups in the United States.
Ralph Rinzler grew up in Passaic, New Jersey, and went to Swarthmore College where he began performing as a mandolin player in various folk music groups in the mid to late 1950s. After graduation he went to New York City where he eventually became one of the famous Greenbriar Boys, a popular folk group that was the main event at Greenwich Village's Gerde's Folk City, with Bob Dylan as his warm-up opening act. Rinzler and the Greenbriar Boys recorded several successful records and played many concerts and clubs up and down the East Coast. He also played on a lot of other people's albums, including Joan Baez, Clarence Ashley, and won a Grammy for his work as a producer.
wn.com/Ralph_Rinzler -
Ron Rash
Ron Rash (born 1953), an American poet, short story writer and novelist, is the Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University. Rash was born in Fort Scallawaggerston, in 1953, grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, and is a graduate of Gardner-Webb University and Clemson University. In 1994 he published his first book, a collection of short stories titled The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth. Since then, Rash has published three collections of poetry, three short story collections, and four novels, all to wide critical acclaim and several awards and honors. Rash's poems and stories have appeared in more than 100 magazines and journals over the years. With each new book, Rash has confirmed his position as a central and significant Appalachian writer alongside well-established names like Fred Chappell, Lee Smith, and Robert Morgan.Serena, Rash's latest novel, has received favorable reviews nationwide and was a 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist.
wn.com/Ron_Rash -
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th President of the United States (1877–1881). As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction and the United States' entry into the Second Industrial Revolution. Hayes was a reformer who began the efforts that led to civil service reform and attempted, unsuccessfully, to reconcile the divisions that had led to the American Civil War fifteen years earlier.
Born in Delaware, Ohio, Hayes practiced law in Lower Sandusky (now Fremont) and was city solicitor of Cincinnati from 1858 to 1861. When the Civil War began, Hayes left a successful political career to join the Union Army. Wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain, he earned a reputation for bravery in combat and was promoted to the rank of major general. After the war, he served in the U.S. Congress from 1865 to 1867 as a Republican. Hayes left Congress to run for Governor of Ohio and was elected to two consecutive terms, serving from 1867 to 1871. After his second term had ended, he resumed the practice of law for a time, but returned to politics in 1875 to serve a third term as governor.
wn.com/Rutherford_B._Hayes -
Sharyn McCrumb
Sharyn McCrumb (born February 26, 1948) is an American writer whose books celebrate the history and folklore of Appalachia. McCrumb is the winner of numerous literary awards, and the author of the Elizabeth McPherson series, the Ballad series, and the St. Dale series.
Sharyn McCrumb was born Sharyn Elaine Arwood on February 26, 1948, in Wilmington, North Carolina.
McCrumb is an award-winning Southern writer, best known for her Appalachian “Ballad” novels, including the New York Times best sellers The Ballad of Frankie Silver and She Walks These Hills, and for St. Dale, winner of a Library of Virginia Award and featured at the National Festival of the Book. The Devil Amongst the Lawyers (Thomas Dunne, 2010), deals with the regional stereotyping of rural areas by national journalists. The Ballad of Tom Dooley,(Thomas Dunne, 2011), tells the true story behind the celebrated folk song. In 2008 McCrumb was named a Virginia Woman of History for Achievement in Literature. Educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Masters Degree in English from Virginia Tech, McCrumb was the first writer-in-residence at King College in Tennessee. In 2005 she honored as the Writer of the Year at Emory & Henry College.
wn.com/Sharyn_McCrumb -
Shelby Lee Adams
Shelby Lee Adams (born 1950) is an American environmental portrait photographer and artist best known for his images of Appalachian family life.
Adams has photographed Appalachian families since the mid-1970s. He had first encountered the poor families of the Appalachian mountains as a child, travelling around the area with his uncle, who was a doctor. His work has been published in three monographs: Appalachian Portraits (1993), Appalachian Legacy (1998), and Appalachian Lives (2003).
Adams was the subject of a documentary film by Jennifer Baichwal in 2002 - The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams's Appalachia. This was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, and at the Sundance Festival in 2003. The film critiques and defends Adams' method in photographing holler dwellers for his previously published books.
wn.com/Shelby_Lee_Adams -
Silas House
Silas Dwane House (born 1971) is an American writer best known for his novels. He is also a music journalist, environmental activist and columnist. House's fiction is known for its attention to the natural world, working class characters, and the plight of the rural place and rural people.
House was born and grew up in rural Lily, Laurel County, Kentucky, but he also spent much of his childhood in nearby Leslie County, Kentucky, which he has cited as the basis for the fictional Crow County, which serves as the setting for his first three novels. He has degrees from Sue Bennett College (Associate's), Eastern Kentucky University (BA in English with emphasis on American literature), and from Spalding University (Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing). In 2000, House was chosen, along with since-published authors Pamela Duncan, Jeanne Braselton and Jack Riggs, as one of the ten emerging talents in the south by the Millennial Gathering of Writers at Vanderbilt University.
House's first novel, Clay's Quilt, was published in 2001. It appeared briefly on the New York Times Best Seller list and became a word-of-mouth success throughout the Southern United States. It was a finalist for both the Southeast Booksellers' Association fiction award and the Appalachian Writers' Association Book of the Year Award. He followed with A Parchment of Leaves (2003), which became a national bestseller and was nominated for several major awards. The book was a finalist for the Southern Book Critics' Circle Prize and won the Award for Special Achievement from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the Chaffin Award for Literature, the Kentucky Novel of the Year Award and many others.
wn.com/Silas_House -
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743 O.S.) – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809). At the beginning of the American Revolution, Jefferson served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia. He then served as a wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781). Just after the war ended, from mid-1784 Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed in Paris, initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties. In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France. He was the first United States Secretary of State (1790–1793) during the administration of President George Washington. Upon resigning his office, with his close friend James Madison he organized the Democratic-Republican Party. Elected Vice-President in 1796, under his opponent John Adams, Jefferson with Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.
wn.com/Thomas_Jefferson -
Ulster Scots people
The Ulster Scots (Ulster-Scots: tha Ulstèr-Scotch [fowk]) are an ethnic group that has lived on the island of Ireland since the 17th Century, and are predominantly citizens of the United Kingdom. Their ancestors were Scots from the Scottish Lowlands and English people from counties close to Scotland, many being from the "Border Reivers" culture. These people migrated to the island of Ireland in large numbers with the Plantation of Ulster, a planned process of colonisation which took place under the auspices of James VI of Scotland and I of England on land often confiscated from the Irish nobility, most extensively in the Province of Ulster. The term "Ulster-Scots" refers to both these colonists of the 17th century and, less commonly, to the Gallowglass who began to arrive from what is now northwest Scotland centuries earlier.
Ulster-Scots were largely descended from colonists from Galloway, Ayrshire, and the Scottish Borders Country, although some descend from people further north in the Scottish Lowlands and the Highlands. Ulster-Scots emigrated in significant numbers to the United States and all corners of the then-worldwide British Empire — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa — and to a lesser extent to Argentina and Chile. Scotch-Irish is a traditional term for Ulster Scots who later emigrated to what is now the United States; "Scots-Irish" is a more recent form of the American term, and is not to be confused with Irish-Scots, i.e., recent Irish immigrants to Scotland.
wn.com/Ulster_Scots_people -
Washington Irving
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving also served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846.
He made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. After moving to England for the family business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in 1819. He continued to publish regularly—and almost always successfully—throughout his life, and completed a five-volume biography of George Washington just eight months before his death, at age 76, in Tarrytown, New York.
wn.com/Washington_Irving -
Welsh American
Welsh Americans are citizens of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Wales. In the 2008 U.S. Census community survey, an estimated 1.98 million Americans had Welsh ancestry, 0.6% of the total U.S. population. This compares with a population of 3 million in Wales. However, 3.8% of Americans bear a Welsh surname. Moreover, a particularly large proportion of the African American population have Welsh names. History shows that there is little evidence that the Welsh were among the slave-owning classes at this time, as most immigrants were poor.
There have been at least eight U.S. Presidents with Welsh ancestry including Thomas Jefferson,Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, James Garfield, Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon and Barack Obama. Confederate President Jefferson Davis and U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey were also of Welsh heritage.
The proportion of the population with a name of Welsh origin ranges from 9.5% in South Carolina to 1.1% in North Dakota. Typically names of Welsh origin are concentrated in the mid Atlantic states, the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama and in Appalachia, West Virginia and Tennessee. By contrast there are relatively fewer Welsh names in New England, the northern mid West, and the South West.
wn.com/Welsh_American -
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934 Henry County, Kentucky) is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays. He is also an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of The National Humanities Medal, and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012.
Berry is the first of four children born to John Marshall Berry, a lawyer and tobacco farmer in Henry County, and Virginia Erdman Berry. The families of both of his parents have farmed in Henry County for at least five generations. Berry attended secondary school at Millersburg Military Institute, then earned a B.A. and M.A. in English at the University of Kentucky, where in 1956 he met another Kentucky writer-to-be, Gurney Norman. In 1957, he completed his M.A. and married Tanya Amyx. In 1958, he attended Stanford University's creative writing program as a Wallace Stegner Fellow, studying under Stegner in a seminar that included Edward Abbey, Larry McMurtry, Robert Stone, Ernest Gaines, Tillie Olsen, and Ken Kesey. Berry's first novel, Nathan Coulter, was published in April 1960. A Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship took Berry and his family to Italy and France in 1961, where he came to know Wallace Fowlie, critic and translator of French literature. From 1962 to 1964, he taught English at New York University's University College in the Bronx. In 1964, he began teaching creative writing at the University of Kentucky, from which he resigned in 1977. During this time in Lexington, he came to know author Guy Davenport, as well as author Thomas Merton and photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard.
wn.com/Wendell_Berry -
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (born Falkner, September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career. He is primarily known and acclaimed for his novels and short stories, many of which are set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, a setting Faulkner created based on Lafayette County, where he spent most of his childhood, and Holly Springs/Marshall County.
Faulkner is one of the most important writers of the Southern literature of the United States, along with Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote, Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, Harper Lee and Tennessee Williams. Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and his last novel The Reivers (1962) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
wn.com/William_Faulkner -
Wilma Dykeman
Wilma Dykeman Stokely (May 20, 1920 – December 22, 2006) was an American writer of fiction and nonfiction whose works chronicled the people and land of Appalachia.
Dykeman grew up in the Beaverdam community of Buncombe County, North Carolina, now part of Asheville. She was the only child of Bonnie Cole Dykeman and Willard Dykeman. Her father had relocated to the Asheville area from New York as a widower with two grown children, and had met and married her mother in Asheville. He was 60 years old when Wilma was born and died when Wilma was 14 years old. In later life, she credited both of her parents for giving her a love of reading and her father for giving her a love of nature and a curiosity about the world around her.
She attended Biltmore Junior College (now the University of North Carolina at Asheville), graduating in 1938, and Northwestern University, where she was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1940 with a major in speech.
In August 1940, shortly after her graduation from Northwestern, she was introduced to her future husband, James R. Stokely, Jr., by Mabel Wolfe, the sister of Asheville writer Thomas Wolfe. Stokely, of Newport, Tennessee, was a son of the president of Stokely Brothers Canning Company (which in 1933 bought Van Camp to become Stokely-Van Camp Inc. The Stokely brand of canned food is now a brand of Seneca Foods and Van Camps a brand of Conagra Inc.) The couple married just two months after they met. They had two sons, Dykeman Stokely and James R. "Rory" Stokely III. The couple maintained homes in Asheville and Newport, and Dykeman continued to divide her time in both homes after Stokely died in 1977. Dykeman and Stokely wrote several books together.
wn.com/Wilma_Dykeman
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Women of These Hills - 3 Cultures of Appalachia - 2000
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 42:16
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Three Appalachian women in their 80's share their stories of growing up in the rural regions of the Appalachian mountains. Take a glimpse into their lives as they share their memories of growing up not only as mountain women, but also as Cherokee, Scots-Irish and African-American women. Produced in 2000 Producer, DP and Editor: James Suttles Director: Tammy Hopkins
http://wn.com/Women_of_These_Hills_3_Cultures_of_Appalachia_2000
Appalachian English
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:12
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Excerpt on Appalachian English from the documentary film Mountain Talk. www.talkingnc.com
http://wn.com/Appalachian_English
a simple life in the appalachian mountains - all chapters
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 35:49
- Updated: 26 Nov 2012
YouTube just recently granted me the privilege of uploading longer videos, thus I was able to string together all three chapters of previously released chapters of 'a simple life in the appalachian mountains' plus new footage at the front and back ends that was not included in the earlier released videos. This video represents our July 1st 2001 visit with Gene & Hansel at their homestead in eastern TN and in the lovely appalachian mountains complete from start to finish. I hope that you enjoy this experience as much as we did. Thank you for watching.
http://wn.com/a_simple_life_in_the_appalachian_mountains_all_chapters
Mission Appalachia - The Story of Red Bird, Chapter 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 18:07
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Produced by Todd Scoggins. Music by Troye Kinnett. Narrated by David Powell. Filmed on location in the Red Bird Valley, southeastern Kentucky, Cumberland region of the Appalachian Mountains. Be a friend of this movie on Facebook: www.facebook.com For more information, or to order a DVD of this movie, contact: www.rbmission.org Synopsis- Deep within the forests of Appalachia is a storied community of refuge and hope. The mountain people refer to it simply, and affectionately, as Red Bird. This mission has been in operation for nearly one-hundred years. The scattered populations and cultural uniqueness make it difficult for many service organizations to operate in this rugged, unforgiving land. But Red Bird has worked exclusively in this area since the 1920's. The Red Bird Mission has been described as the most comprehensive mission site in the world. Nearly 3000 people journey annually from across the United States to bring support to fellow Americans in this breathtaking landscape. These volunteers are frequently humbled and inspired by the richness of Appalachian culture. This documentary follows very personal stories of hope. The filmmaker was granted unprecedented access into the private, symbiotic relationship between Red Bird and the mountain people it serves. Highly protective of this relationship for decades, mission leaders grew to trust the filmmaker before allowing this project to proceed. Using discrete audio equipment out of respect, the filmmaker captured ...
http://wn.com/Mission_Appalachia_The_Story_of_Red_Bird,_Chapter_1
Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People - Time & Terrain
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 56:49
- Updated: 17 Aug 2012
The series begins with Earth's oldest mountains — the Appalachians. We see how continents over millions and millions of years collide in a slow dance which ultimately results in the formation of the mountains we now know as the Appalachians. We trace the evolution of the Great Forest which blankets the region in green, forming a home for a unique mosaic of plant and animal species We watch as the first humans who arrived as early as 12000 BC develop a complex and sophisticated relationship with the natural world. In Appalachia, we soon discover, geology is destiny. We see portraits of Appalachia's Principal People at the time of European contact: the Cherokee, Shawnee, and Iroquois — vibrant, adaptive cultures with finely tuned relationships to their environment, a complex ecological community with amazing biological diversity. The arrival of the Europeans signals vast cultural and biological upheavals
http://wn.com/Appalachia_A_History_of_Mountains_and_People_Time_Terrain
Appalachia; A History of Planned Poverty
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:37
- Updated: 26 Nov 2012
"Tell It to the Banjo" is a backwoods bluegrass banjo hymn composed by Angel Jose Ruiz Perez, which provides the soundscape for this video about rural poverty in Appalachia. The chronic poverty of Appalachia is the outcome of economic domination and racism. In the 1930s, southern politicians prevented farm workers and domestic servants from qualifying for Social Security because they knew that the small Social Security check would support families and would change the labor market in the South. In the early days of coal mining, coal operators prevented workers from unionizing and demanding fair wages. In the face of bitter competition among the coal companies, operators controlled everything about workers' lives to keep their labor costs down. By preventing education and community participation the operators forced workers into submission. President Lyndon B. Johnsons War on Poverty instituted national legislation, but the dynamics of exploitation in Appalachia prevented distribution of its opportunities and benefits. To this day, impoverishment in Appalachia persists.
http://wn.com/Appalachia;_A_History_of_Planned_Poverty
Appalachian Mountain Talk
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:12
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Excerpt from the documentary Mountain Talk. www.talkingnc.com Narrator Gary Carden. www.tannerywhistle.net
http://wn.com/Appalachian_Mountain_Talk
Images of Appalachia
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- Duration: 3:06
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Faces and places of Appalachia, accompanied by soothing mountain bluegrass music.
http://wn.com/Images_of_Appalachia
Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People - Mountain Revolution
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 56:49
- Updated: 17 Aug 2012
A rich agrarian society is torn asunder by the cataclysm of the Civil War. "The race for the prize is on," wrote Harper's Magazine in 1872 as railroads pushed ever further into the mountains. Speculators spread through every timber rich and mineral infused hollow, making deals. The third hour of the series will tell the story of the region as it confronts this strange new industrial age. The story begins in the Great Forest, where virgin timber still abounded as late as 1880. Coal camps replace villages; mountain farms are abandoned; missionary schools spring up; the land, the people, the wildlife and the culture are endangered. Foresters, botanists, geologists, novelists, and historians all recount the changes in the land and its people as the coal is dug and the ancient trees are felled to fuel the nation's booming new industrial economy.
http://wn.com/Appalachia_A_History_of_Mountains_and_People_Mountain_Revolution
The Appalachians Part 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:31
- Updated: 28 Nov 2012
http://wn.com/The_Appalachians_Part_1
Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People - Power & Place
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 56:49
- Updated: 17 Aug 2012
The story of twentieth century Appalachia is the story of a rich but deeply troubled region forging its own distinct identity. From the union battles of the 1920s to the celebration of its rich cultural heritage in music, art and literature, to the enduring environmental and cultural dilemmas of our own time, Part IV will explore the heartbreak and hope of modern Appalachia. Sociologists and ecologists point to Appalachia's own inner eye, the ways in which trouble and pain, discovery and self-discovery fortify the region's soul and backbone. We see new attitudes and new environmental challenges, old people coming back, new mountain lovers moving in — symbolized by an old tree with a new genetic make-up — the American Chestnut.
http://wn.com/Appalachia_A_History_of_Mountains_and_People_Power_Place
"Appalachia Waltz" - AUDIO Mark O'Connor/Yo-Yo Ma/Edgar Meyer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:48
- Updated: 26 Nov 2012
Appalachia Waltz, composed by Mark O'Connor, gained fame as the title track from the album featuring O'Connor, YoYo-Ma, and Edgar Meyer. The Sony Classical Release remained for many months in the top ten of Billboard Magazine's Classical music chart. O'Connor originally composed the piece as a solo for unaccompanied violin in 1993 before he brought it to the trio when compiling material for their album. With musical influences coming from Scandinavian and Appalachian Folk fiddling, O'Connor creates two independent lines while playing double-stops surprising the listener who is hearing just one violin. It is one of O'Connor's most beautiful pieces. On O'Connor's 'Appalachia Waltz' "What Bach did was, he took all these dances from all the known world around him and put them in suite form. Old dances, new dances, courtly dances, peasant dances. And what Mark did was, he took this piece that is somewhat based on the Norwegian fiddling style, with the drone and that, wrote it in Santa Fe, and called it `Appalachia Waltz.' It's just so moving. It's traditional. It is new. It comes from many different places, but it's authentic. So after a long Bach evening, rather than play more Bach, this is the perfect thing." -Yo-Yo Ma For more information on Mark O'Connor, String Camps, The O'Connor Method, ensembles, repertoire, sheet music and more, please visit www.markoconnor.com For More YouTubes of Mark O'Connor's music www.youtube.com twitter.com www.facebook.com
http://wn.com/Appalachia_Waltz_AUDIO_Mark_O'Connor_Yo-Yo_Ma_Edgar_Meyer
Gilligans Appalachia
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 28:32
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Giligans Appalachia is a 1/2 hour documentary produced in 1995 by WV PBS. Watch this comedy and you might just learn something.
http://wn.com/Gilligans_Appalachia
Yo-Yo Ma - Appalachian Waltz
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:01
- Updated: 15 Nov 2012
Yo-Yo plays Mark O'Connor's Appalachian Waltz for solo cello Come see more at www.cellogeek.com
http://wn.com/Yo-Yo_Ma_Appalachian_Waltz
Delius Appalachia Part 1 of 4
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:02
- Updated: 26 Oct 2012
http://wn.com/Delius_Appalachia_Part_1_of_4
Scott Miller - Appalachian Refugee
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:49
- Updated: 19 Nov 2012
Scott Miller performs "Appalachian Refugee" at WNRN in Charlottesville, Virginia on January 15, 2010 before his show at Mockingbird Roots Music Hall. Song appears on his album "For Crying Out Loud". Please subscribe to our videos!
http://wn.com/Scott_Miller_Appalachian_Refugee
The Scots-Irish of Appalachia
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:48
- Updated: 24 Nov 2012
Many of the poor Scots-Irish immigrants to the US in the middle of the 19th century found work building the railroads and mining coal. The Scots-Irish continue to make up a significant portion of the labor force and gene pool in Appalachia to this day.
http://wn.com/The_Scots-Irish_of_Appalachia
Rising Appalachia - SUNU
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:08
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
www.youtube.com/chadhessphoto www.chadhess.com www.youtube.com risingappalachia.com Rising Appalachia SUNU The Sails Of Self Directed, Filmed & Edited by Chad Hess
http://wn.com/Rising_Appalachia_SUNU
Eleventyseven - Appalachian Wine + LYRICS
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:45
- Updated: 26 Nov 2012
Track 5 from Eleventyseven's NEW EP "Attack of the Mountain Medley"! Save a unicorn today and buy it now! :D itunes.apple.com LYRICS: (Please if you find any errors, help me correct them! I'll give you credit in the description! :) ) They both met in the midnight sky, Got lost in each other's eyes, Then threw away the map and lost the key, God sent them the first two kids, One named Fire, the other one Wind, With a note that floated down for them to read. It said 'You asked what it was like up here for Me.' Mother Earth and Father Time, Fell in love over Appalachian wine, Hit a rough spell and almost lost their minds, Raised a little hell before they fell in line. Fire came out with a restless soul, That only got worse as he got older, 'Til finally he got too hot to tame. Time said 'Son I know it's hard but, You're breaking your Momma's heart.' And Fire looked up through tears that made the rain, He said 'Why is it everything I love I set aflame?' Mother Earth and Father Time, Fell in love over Appalachian wine, Hit a rough spell and almost lost their minds, Raised a little hell before they fell in line. Wind was born to the open sky with a, Bad temper and a wandering eye, That kept him on the run for most his days. Earth said 'Listen, hear my child, see, I used to run that wild, 'Cause it's hard to put a finger on the pain, But son you can't outrun a thing like shame.' Then Time and Earth got on their knees, And prayed 'Dear God, oh can't You see? The Fire's too hot, The ...
http://wn.com/Eleventyseven_Appalachian_Wine_+_LYRICS
Songs of Appalachia: Ballad songstress
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:51
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Donna Ray Norton, 26, is from Madison County, NC, a region known for its rich tradition of unaccompanied ballad singing.
http://wn.com/Songs_of_Appalachia_Ballad_songstress
Appalachian Music Part A
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:39
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Appalachian mountain music
http://wn.com/Appalachian_Music_Part_A
Appalachian Bluegrass Mountain Dulcimer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:23
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
To get this entire 1 hour video, go to www.createspace.com This scene present the Winters, a husband and wife team singing Blackjack Davey. Way back in 1964, New York filmmaker, David Hoffman was headed down with his new 16mm hand help camera (weight 49 lbs!) to spend three weeks driving the backcountry around Madison County, North Carolina, in the center of Appalachia, with the 82 year old founder of the pioneer Asheville Mountain Music and Dance Festival, Bascom Lamar Lunsford. The resulting film, "Bluegrass Roots" lets you hear and experience the hard scrabbling, dirt road real people sounds that dominated the back country of the southern mountains 40 years ago. It presents a string of the most extraordinary singers, players and dancers the BlueGrass Mountains had to offer. Many later became famous. Some were never heard from again. Most of the songs are classics, including Lunsford's own tune, "Mountain Dew." When this film aired on Public Television in 1965, TV Guide gave it a full-page positive review, because Americans had never seen a documentary on the roots of Bluegrass and Country music. Today, the dirt roads and the moonshine counties are largely modernized, and Bluegrass Roots, stands as a record of a uniquely talented group of people at a time just before the coming of television, changed them. www.createspace.com/204609
http://wn.com/Appalachian_Bluegrass_Mountain_Dulcimer
Appalachian Rose Bluegrass Original Kappa Danielson
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:38
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
An original Bluegrass number.....had a lot of fun with this one......you can probably tell....;)) Well my momma said to watch his type He's awfully fond a drinkin' But the only thing I saw was his blue eyes So I packed up all I had and left those mountains with my memories And followed him to where the sun does shine Oh A Coal Miner's Daughter Went With the Devil Down to Georgia But I've Seen the Light, he'll never Walk the Line Lord, and I don't really care who made those Honky Tonk Angels Country Roads Take Me Home....don't let that Moon in Kentucky Shine on an Appalachian Rose Well he cheated all he meeted and he lied to his last dime (how's that for good english?) Any fool can tell you where his boots have been Well I'm done and he can't tempt me I know all his sorry lies I'll hit the road....yeah I'm travelin' home again Well a Coal Miner's Daughter Went with the Devil Down to Georgia But I've Seen the Light he'll never Walk the Line Lord ,and I don't really care who made those Honky Tonk Angels Country Roads Take Me Home don't let that Moon in Kentucky Shine on An Appalachian Rose Well I'm almost there and I can see those mountains in the distance I'm coming back to be with all my kin And I'll never leave my home to chase some sweet talkin' sailor Man it's good to be back home again. Well a Coal Miner's Daughter Went with The Devil Down to Georgia But I've Seen the Light he'll never Walk the Line Lord, and I don't really care who made those Honky Tonk Angels Country ...
http://wn.com/Appalachian_Rose_Bluegrass_Original_Kappa_Danielson
photo: AP / Jerome Delay
27 Nov 2012
M23 rebels controlling the eastern city of Goma in the DR Congo have said they are not about to withdraw as demanded by regional leaders. The rebels said on Tuesday there were still in charge of Goma, just hours after General Aronda Nyakairima, the head of the Ugandan military, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying that their leader, Sultani Makenga, had told him he would pull out of Goma and Sake. ... Al Jazeera And Agencies. ... ....(size: 17.7Kb)
photo: UN / Jan Golinski
27 Nov 2012
Doha conference is warned that climate models do not yet take account of methane in thawing permafrost. Frozen ground in Siberia. Permafrost covers nearly a quarter of the northern hemisphere. Photograph: Francis Latreille/Corbis. The United Nations sounded a stark warning on the threat to the climate from methane in the thawing permafrost as governments met for the second day of climate change negotiations in Doha, Qatar. ... ....(size: 5.3Kb)
photo: AP / George Osodi
25 Nov 2012
Twin suicide car bombs exploded Sunday at a church inside one of Nigeria's top military bases, killing at least 11 people and wounding another 30 in an embarrassing attack showing the continued insecurity that haunts Africa's most populous nation. ... This attack in Jaji on Sunday, however, happened inside a barracks home to the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, one of the country's most important military colleges. ... Gen. ... ___. ... ....(size: 4.1Kb)
photo: AP / Henry Griffin
26 Nov 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. "In our opinion and from our experience," declared John Kerry in 1971, "there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom..is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy...". ... The U.S....(size: 6.4Kb)
photo: AP / Sepahnews
27 Nov 2012
WASHINGTON -- The drone wars are here. While President Obama ponders new legal and moral guidelines to govern America's growing use of armed robot aircraft, the world outside the White House is engaged in a revolutionary frenzy of building, arming and flying killer drones. ... More than 50 countries operate surveillance drones and, increasingly, are fitting them with weapons. The U.S. ... spy drone was shot down last December. ... On Oct. ... On Nov. ... Like....(size: 8.4Kb)
StreetInsider
28 Nov 2012
While not generally considered to be natural gas weighted, given its strong position in the Permian, PTEN would stand to benefit from a pickup in gas directed activity through its legacy position both in drilling and pumping in Appalachia....(size: 1.9Kb)
The Columbus Dispatch
28 Nov 2012
Atha officials did not
return phone calls.Frost’s lease allows the company to drill for oil and gas, store natural-gas
underground and inject wastes, said her attorney, Michael Hollingsworth.Those provisions are common
in most mineral-rights leases landowners sign, some decades old.Cantino said her group as well as
another, called Appalachia Resist, will march to the open house and hold a rally....(size: 9.5Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
28 Nov 2012
The Keeper of the Mountains Foundation continues on following the loss of founder Larry Gibson. ... Carol was closer to Larry than all of us put together, and is in a unique position to help us carry forward Larry's vision for Appalachia and KOTM. ... We thank Danny for his long hours and hard work as KOTM's first staff person, and wish him well in his continuing service to the environmental community in Appalachia. ... 1. ... 2. ... 3. ... 4. ... 5. ... 6. ... 7. ... 8. ... ....(size: 4.8Kb)
Business Insider
28 Nov 2012
James Hamilton. URL. ... Most economists attribute this to technological progress. ... Figure 1. ... Updates Figure 2 in James D. ... This was achieved by a migration of the industry to new producing areas such as Illinois and Indiana (which would not peak until 1940), Kansas-Nebraska (peaked in 1957) and the four-corner states of the American Southwest (peaked in 1960), all of which proved to be far better places for obtaining oil than Appalachia. ... ....(size: 8.3Kb)
Lexington Herald-Leader
27 Nov 2012
PIKEVILLE, Ky. ... Daniels said the closure is the result of "the profound economic effect on the Appalachia region because of the declining coal prices." ... ....(size: 0.9Kb)
Seeking Alpha
27 Nov 2012
Do you like to follow smart money buying and selling trends? We ran a screen with this idea in mind. ... For an interactive version of this chart, click on the image below. ... 1. Atlas Energy, L.P (ATLS): Engages in the gathering and processing of natural gas in the Mid-Continent and Appalachia regions. ... 2. NRG Energy, Inc. ... ....(size: 1.7Kb)
Stockhouse
27 Nov 2012
Stone Energy is an independent oil and natural gas company headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana, and is engaged in the acquisition, exploration, exploitation, development and operation of oil and gas properties located primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. Stone is also active in the Appalachia region. For additional information, contact Kenneth H....(size: 1.6Kb)
PR Newswire
27 Nov 2012
My news for Investors. ... Google. , Nov. ... Stone Energy is an independent oil and natural gas company headquartered in , and is engaged in the acquisition, exploration, exploitation, development and operation of oil and gas properties located primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. Stone is also active in the Appalachia region. For additional information, contact Kenneth H. ... ....(size: 3.8Kb)
PR Newswire
27 Nov 2012
Google. , Nov. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Gastar Exploration Ltd. ... J. Russell Porter, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, will make a presentation at 4:30 p.m. ... About Gastar. ... Gastar is currently pursuing the development of liquids-rich natural gas in the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachia area of and, to a lesser extent, central and southwestern . ... Contacts:. ... J. ... ....(size: 4.4Kb)
Stockhouse
27 Nov 2012
http://at.marketwire.com/accesstracking/AccessTrackingLogServlet?PrId=958585&ProfileId=051205&sourceType=1. JAKARTA, INDONESIA -- (Marketwire) -- -- Moments ago, Investors-Alliance.com introduced new coverage of Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE: COG) and Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE: WMB). ... The Company's primary areas of operation include Appalachia, east and south Texas, and Oklahoma. ... The Williams Companies, Inc. ... ....(size: 2.7Kb)
The Roanoke Times
27 Nov 2012
You already know there are many political differences between Virginia and California. Allow me to highlight just one. In Virginia, the House of Delegates this year refused to confirm an impeccably credentialed lawyer as a lower court judge - because he's gay. They had a big and ugly fight about it. ... Her name is Toni Atkins. ... So at 10 a.m. ... Nevertheless, he added, "she's kept not only her Appalachia roots, but her social justice roots.". ... ....(size: 5.0Kb)
Lehigh Valley
27 Nov 2012
Image Courtesy of Candlewick. Children’s books often contain great wisdom about life -- how to navigate through good times and bad and how to keep your compass pointing in the right direction. ... Such is the case with the books reviewed below. ... Books to borrow. ... “When I Was Young in the Mountains” is a warm and loving story based on the true experiences of author Cynthia Rylant growing up in Appalachia. ... Church St., Bethlehem....(size: 4.7Kb)
Detroit news
27 Nov 2012
By pshermeyer comments. pshermeyer Tweet Email Share. AAA. ... This is clearly a Green movement driven by religion, not science. ... Appalachia has some of the world’s richest deposits of high-grade coal used to make steel – and with China’s unslakable thirst for steel in recent years, American coal companies were able to counter the domestic decline in coal plant demand with an increase in so-called metallurgical coal. ... ....(size: 5.6Kb)
This article is about the region in the United States. For other uses, see Appalachia (disambiguation).
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.[1] While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S. state of Alabama, the cultural region of Appalachia typically refers only to the central and southern portions of the range. As of 2005, the region was home to approximately 23 million people.[2]
Since its recognition as a distinctive region in the late 19th century, Appalachia has been a source of enduring myths and distortions regarding the isolation, temperament, and behavior of its inhabitants. Early 20th-century writers focused on sensationalistic aspects of the region's culture, such as moonshining and clan feuding, and often portrayed the region's inhabitants as uneducated and prone to impulsive acts of violence. Sociological studies in the 1960s and 1970s helped to re-examine and dispel these stereotypes, although popular media continue to perpetuate the image of Appalachia as a culturally backward region into the 21st century.[2]
While endowed with abundant natural resources, Appalachia has long been associated with and struggled with poverty. In the early 20th century, large-scale logging and coal mining firms brought wage-paying jobs and modern amenities to Appalachia, but by the 1960s the region had failed to capitalize on any long-term benefits from these two industries. Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government sought to alleviate poverty in the Appalachian region with a series of New Deal initiatives, such as the construction of dams to provide cheap electricity and the implementation of better farming practices. In 1965, the Appalachian Regional Commission was created to further alleviate poverty in the region, mainly by diversifying the region's economy and helping to provide better health care and educational opportunities to the region's inhabitants. By 1990, Appalachia had largely joined the economic mainstream, but still lagged behind the rest of the nation in most economic indicators.[2]
Contents |
Defining the Appalachian region[link]
See also: Social and economic stratification in Appalachia and List of Appalachian Regional Commission counties
Since Appalachia lacks definite physiographical or topographical boundaries, there has been some disagreement over what exactly the region encompasses. The most commonly used modern definition of Appalachia is the one initially defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1965 and expanded over subsequent decades.[2] The region defined by the Commission currently includes 420 counties and eight independent cities in 13 states, including all of West Virginia, 14 counties in New York, 52 in Pennsylvania, 32 in Ohio, 3 in Maryland, 54 in Kentucky, 25 counties and 8 cities in Virginia,[3] 29 in North Carolina, 52 in Tennessee, 6 in South Carolina, 37 in Georgia, 37 in Alabama, and 24 in Mississippi.[1] When the Commission was established, counties were added based on economic need, however, rather than any cultural parameters.[2]
The first major attempt to map Appalachia as a distinctive cultural region came in the 1890s with the efforts of Berea College president William Goodell Frost, whose "Appalachian America" included 194 counties in eight states.[4] In 1921, John C. Campbell published The Southern Highlander and His Homeland in which he modified Frost's map to include 254 counties in 9 states. A landmark survey of the region in the following decade by the United States Department of Agriculture defined the region as consisting of 206 counties in 6 states. In 1984, Karl Raitz and Richard Ulack expanded the ARC's definition to include 445 counties in 13 states, although they removed all counties in Mississippi and added two in New Jersey. Historian John Alexander Williams, in his 2002 book Appalachia: A History, distinguished between a "core" Appalachian region consisting of 164 counties in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, and a greater region defined by the ARC.[2]
Etymology and pronunciation[link]
While exploring inland along the northern coast of Florida in 1528, the members of the Narváez expedition, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, found a Native American village near present-day Tallahassee, Florida, whose name they transcribed as Apalchen or Apalachen (IPA: [apaˈlatʃen]). The name was soon altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north. Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15, 1528 and applied the name. Now spelled "Appalachian", it is the fourth oldest surviving European place-name in the U.S.[5] After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutiérrez' map of 1562; the first use for the mountain range is the map of Jacques le Moyne de Morgues in 1565.[6]
The name was not commonly used for the whole mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the "Allegheny Mountains", "Alleghenies", and even "Alleghania." In the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania.[7]
In northern U.S. dialects, the mountains are pronounced /æpəˈleɪtʃənz/ or /æpəˈleɪʃənz/. The cultural region of Appalachia is pronounced /æpəˈleɪʃ(i)ə/, also /æpəˈleɪtʃ(i)ə/, all with a third syllable like "lay". In southern U.S. dialects, the mountains are called the /æpəˈlætʃənz/, and the cultural region of Appalachia is pronounced /ˈæpəˈlætʃ(i)ə/, both with a third syllable like the "la" in "latch".[8][9] This pronunciation is favored in the "core" region in central and southern parts of the Appalachian range. The occasional use of the "sh" sound for the "ch" in the last syllable in northern dialects was popularized by Appalachian Trail organizations in New England in the early 20th century.[4]
History[link]
Early history[link]
Native American hunter-gatherers first arrived in what is now Appalachia over 12,000 years ago. Several Archaic period (8000–1000 BC) archaeological sites have been identified in the region, such as the St. Albans site in West Virginia and the Icehouse Bottom site in Tennessee. In the 16th century, the de Soto and Juan Pardo expeditions explored the mountains of South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia, and encountered complex agrarian societies populated by Muskogean-speaking inhabitants. De Soto indicated that much of the region west of the mountains was part of the domain of Coosa, a paramount chiefdom centered around a village complex in northern Georgia.[10] By the time English explorers arrived in Appalachia in the late 17th century, the central part of the region was controlled by Algonquian tribes (namely the Shawnee) and the southern part of the region was controlled by the Cherokee.
European migration into Appalachia began in the 18th century. As lands in eastern Pennsylvania and the tidewater areas of Virginia and the Carolinas filled up, immigrants began pushing further and further westward into the Appalachian Mountains. A relatively large proportion of the early backcountry immigrants were Ulster Scots— later known as "Scotch-Irish"— who were seeking cheaper land and freedom from Quaker leaders, many of whom considered the Scotch-Irish "savages." Others included Germans from the Palatinate region and English settlers from the Anglo-Scottish border country. Between 1730 and 1763, immigrants trickled into western Pennsylvania, northwestern Virginia, and western Maryland. Thomas Walker's discovery of Cumberland Gap in 1750 and the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 lured settlers deeper into the mountains, namely to upper east Tennessee, northwestern North Carolina, upstate South Carolina, and central Kentucky. Between 1790 and 1840, a series of treaties with the Cherokee and other Native American tribes opened up lands in north Georgia, northeast Alabama, the Tennessee Valley, the Cumberland Plateau regions, and the highlands along what is now the Tennessee-North Carolina border.[11] The last of these treaties culminated in the removal of the bulk of the Cherokee population from the region via the Trail of Tears in 1838.
The Appalachian frontier[link]
Appalachian frontiersmen have long been romanticized for their ruggedness and self-sufficiency. A typical depiction of an Appalachian pioneer involves a hunter wearing a coonskin cap and buckskin clothing, and sporting a long rifle and shoulder-strapped powder horn. Perhaps no single figure symbolizes the Appalachian pioneer more than Daniel Boone (1734–1820), a long hunter and surveyor instrumental in the early settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee. Like Boone, Appalachian pioneers moved into areas largely separated from "civilization" by high mountain ridges, and had to fend for themselves against the elements. As many of these early settlers were living on Native American lands, attacks from Native American tribes were a continuous threat until the 19th century.[12]
As early as the 18th century, Appalachia (then known simply as the "backcountry") began to distinguish itself from its wealthier lowland and coastal neighbors to the east. Frontiersmen often bickered with lowland and tidewater "elites" over taxes, sometimes to the point of armed revolts such as the Regulator Movement (1767–1771) in North Carolina.[13] In 1778, at the height of the American Revolution, backwoodsmen from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and what is now Kentucky took part in George Rogers Clark's Illinois campaign. Two years later, a group of Appalachian frontiersmen known as the Overmountain Men routed British forces at the Battle of Kings Mountain after rejecting a call by the British to disarm.[14] After the war, residents throughout the Appalachian backcountry— especially the Monongahela region in western Pennsylvania and northwestern Virginia— refused to pay a tax placed on whiskey by the new American government, leading to what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion.[15]
Early 19th century[link]
In the early 19th century, the rift between the yeoman farmers of Appalachia and their wealthier lowland counterparts continued to grow, especially as the latter dominated most state legislatures. People in Appalachia began to feel slighted over what they considered unfair taxation methods and lack of state funding for improvements (especially for roads). In the northern half of the region, the lowland "elites" consisted largely of industrial and business interests, whereas in the parts of the region south of the Mason–Dixon Line, the lowland elites consisted of large-scale land-owning planters.[13] The Whig Party, formed in the 1830s, drew widespread support from disaffected Appalachians.
Tensions between the mountain counties and state governments sometimes reached the point of mountain counties threatening to break off and form separate states. In 1832, bickering between western Virginia and eastern Virginia over the state's constitution led to calls on both sides for the state's separation into two states.[16] In 1841, Tennessee state senator (and later U.S. president) Andrew Johnson introduced legislation in Tennessee's state senate calling for the creation of a separate state in East Tennessee. The proposed state would have been known as "Frankland" and would have invited like-minded mountain counties in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama to join it.[17]
The U.S. Civil War[link]
By 1860, the Whig Party had disintegrated. Sentiments in northern Appalachia had shifted to the pro-abolitionist Republican Party. In southern Appalachia, abolitionists still constituted a radical minority, although several smaller opposition parties (most of which were both pro-Union and pro-slavery) were formed to oppose the planter-dominated Southern Democrats. As states in the southern United States moved toward secession, a majority of Southern Appalachians still supported the Union.[18] In 1861, a Minnesota newspaper identified 161 counties in Southern Appalachia—which the paper called "Alleghenia"—where Union support remained strong, and which might provide crucial support for the defeat of the Confederacy.[4] However, many of these Unionists—especially in the mountain areas of North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama—were "conditional" Unionists in that they opposed secession, but also opposed violence to prevent secession, and thus when their respective state legislatures voted to secede, their support shifted to the Confederacy.[19] Kentucky sought to remain neutral at the outset of the conflict, opting not to supply troops to either side. After Virginia voted to secede, several mountain counties in northwestern Virginia rejected the ordinance and with the help of the Union army established a separate state, admitted to the Union as West Virginia in 1863. However, half the counties included in the new state, comprising two-thirds of its territory, were secessionist and pro-Confederate.[20] This caused great difficulty for the new Unionist state government in Wheeling, both during and after the war.[21] A similar effort occurred in East Tennessee, but the initiative failed after Tennessee's governor ordered the Confederate army to occupy the region, forcing East Tennessee's Unionists to flee to the north or go into hiding.[19]
Both central and southern Appalachia suffered tremendous violence and turmoil during the U.S. Civil War. While there were two major theaters of operation in the region— namely the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (and present-day West Virginia) and the Chattanooga area along the Tennessee-Georgia border— much of the violence was caused by bushwhackers and guerrilla war. Large numbers of livestock were killed (grazing was an important part of Appalachia's economy), and numerous farms were destroyed, pillaged, or neglected.[18] The actions of both Union and Confederate armies left many inhabitants in the region resentful of government authority and suspicious of outsiders for decades after the war.[22][23]
Late 19th and early 20th centuries[link]
Economic boom[link]
After the war, northern parts of Appalachia experienced an economic boom, while economies in the southern parts of the region stagnated, especially as Southern Democrats regained control of their respective state legislatures at the end of Reconstruction.[18] Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas in western Pennsylvania grew into one of the nation's major industrial centers, especially regarding iron and steel production. By 1900, the Chattanooga area and north Georgia and northern Alabama had experienced similar changes due to manufacturing booms in Atlanta and Birmingham at the edge of the Appalachian region. Railroad construction between the 1880s and early 20th century gave the greater nation access to the vast coalfields in central Appalachia, making the economy in that part of the region practically synonymous with coal mining. As the nationwide demand for timber skyrocketed, lumber firms turned to the virgin forests of southern Appalachia, using sawmill and logging railroad innovations to reach remote timber stands. The Tri-Cities area of Tennessee and Virginia and the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia became major petrochemical production centers.[24]
Stereotypes[link]
The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw the development of various regional stereotypes. Attempts by President Rutherford B. Hayes to enforce the whiskey tax in the late 1870s led to an explosion in violence between Appalachian "moonshiners" and federal "revenuers" that lasted through the Prohibition period in the 1920s.[25] The breakdown of authority and law enforcement during the Civil War may have contributed to an increase in clan feuding, which by the 1880s was reported to be a problem across most of Kentucky's Cumberland region as well as Carter County in Tennessee, Carroll County in Virginia, and Mingo and Logan counties in West Virginia.[22][25] Regional writers from this period such as Mary Noailles Murfree and Horace Kephart liked to focus on such sensational aspects of mountain culture, leading readers outside the region to believe they were more widespread than in reality. In an 1899 article in The Atlantic, Berea president William G. Frost attempted to redefine the inhabitants of Appalachia as "noble mountaineers"—relics of the nation's pioneer period whose isolation had left them unaffected by modern times.[22]
Feuds[link]
Appalachia, and especially Kentucky, became internationally known for its violent feuds, especially in the remote mountain districts. They pitted the men in extended clans against each other for decades, often using assassination and arson as weapons, along with ambushes, gunfights, and pre-arranged shootouts. The infamous Hatfield-McCoy Feud of the 19th century was the most well-known of these family feuds. Some of the feuds were continuations of violent local Civil War episodes.[26] Journalists often wrote about the violence, using stereotypes that "city folks" had developed about Appalachia; they interpreted the feuds as the natural products of profound ignorance, poverty, and isolation, and perhaps even inbreeding. In reality, the leading participants were typically well-to-do local elites with networks of clients who were fighting for local political power.[27]
Modern Appalachia[link]
Logging firms' rapid devastation of the forests of southern Appalachia sparked a movement among conservationists to preserve what remained and allow the land to "heal". In 1911, Congress passed the Weeks Act, giving the federal government authority to create national forests and control timber harvesting. Regional writers and business interests led a movement to create national parks in the eastern United States similar to Yosemite and Yellowstone in the west, culminating in the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina, Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, and the Blue Ridge Parkway (connecting the two) in the 1930s.[28] During the same period, New England forester Benton MacKaye led the movement to build the 2,175-mile (3,500 km) Appalachian Trail, stretching from Georgia to Maine.
By the 1950s, poor farming techniques and the loss of jobs to mechanization in the mining industry had left much of central and southern Appalachia poverty-stricken. The lack of jobs also led to widespread difficulties with outmigration. Beginning in the 1930s, federal agencies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority began investing in the Appalachian region.[29] Sociologists such as James Brown and Cratis Williams and authors such as Harry Caudill and Michael Harrington brought attention to the region's plight in the 1960s, prompting Congress to create the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1965. The commission's efforts helped to stem the tide of outmigration and diversify the region's economies.[28] Although there have been drastic improvements in the region's economic conditions since the commission's founding, the ARC still listed 82 counties as "distressed" in 2010, with nearly half of them (40) in Kentucky.[30]
Culture[link]
Ethnic groups[link]
An estimated 90%[31] of Appalachia's earliest European settlers originated from the Anglo-Scottish border country— namely the English counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, Durham, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, and the Lowland Scottish counties of Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire, Roxburghshire, Berwickshire, and Wigtownshire. Most of these were from families who had been resettled in the Ulster Plantation in northern Ireland in the 17th century,[32] but some came directly from the Anglo-Scottish border region.[33] In America, these people are often grouped under the single name "Scotch-Irish" or "Scots-Irish". While various 20th-century writers tried to associate Appalachia with Scottish highlanders, Highland Scots were a relatively insignificant percentage of the region's early European immigrants.[33]
Germans were a major pioneer group to migrate to Appalachia, settling mainly in the northern part of the region in western Pennsylvania, although some were part of the initial wave of migrants to the southern mountains.[11] In the 19th century, Welsh immigrants were brought into the region for their mining and metallurgical expertise, and by 1900 over 100,000 Welsh immigrants were living in western Pennsylvania alone.[34] Thousands of German-speaking Swiss migrated to Appalachia in the second half of the 19th century, and their descendants remain in places such as East Bernstadt, Kentucky, and Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee.[35] The coal mining and manufacturing boom in the late-19th and early-20th centuries brought large numbers of Italians and Eastern Europeans to Appalachia, although most of these families left the region when the Great Depression shattered the economy in the 1930s. African-Americans have been present in the region since the 18th century, and currently make up 8% of the ARC-designated region, mostly concentrated in urban areas and former mining and manufacturing towns.[36] Native Americans, the region's original inhabitants, are only a small percentage of the region's present population, their most notable concentration being the reservation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. The Melungeons, a group of mixed African, European, and Native American ancestry, are scattered across northeastern Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, and southwestern Virginia.[37]
Religion[link]
The Christian religion has long been one of the most powerful forces in Appalachia. Religion in Appalachia is characterized by a sense of independence and a distrust of religious hierarchies, both rooted in the evangelical tendencies of the region's pioneers, many of whom had been influenced by the "New Light" movement in England. Many of the religions brought from Europe underwent modifications or factioning during the Second Great Awakening (especially the holiness movement) in the early 19th century. A number of 18th and 19th-century religious traditions are still practiced in parts of Appalachia, including natural water (or "creek") baptism, rhythmically chanted preaching, congregational shouting, snake handling, and foot washing. While most church-goers in Appalachia attend fairly well organized churches affiliated with regional or national bodies, small unaffiliated congregations are not uncommon in rural mountain areas.[38][39]
Christian Protestantism is the most dominant religious force in Appalachia, although there is a significant Roman Catholic presence in the northern half of the region and in urban areas. The region's early Lowland and Ulster Scot immigrants brought Presbyterianism to Appalachia, eventually organizing into bodies such as the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.[40] English Baptists—most of whom had been influenced by the Separate Baptist and Regular Baptist movements—were also common on the Appalachian frontier, and today are represented in the region by groups such as the Free Will Baptists, the Southern Baptists, Missionary Baptists, and "old-time" groups such as the United Baptists and Primitive Baptists.[39] Circuit riders such as Francis Asbury helped spread Methodism to Appalachia in the early 19th century, and today 9.2% of the region's population is Methodist, represented by such bodies as the United Methodist Church, the Free Methodist Church, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.[41] Major Pentecostal movements within the region include the Church of God (based in Cleveland, Tennessee) and the Assemblies of God.[42] Scattered Mennonite colonies exist throughout the region.[43]
Dialect[link]
See also: Appalachian English
The Appalachian dialect is a dialect of Midland American English known as the Southern Midland dialect, and is spoken primarily in central and southern Appalachia. The Northern Midland dialect is spoken in the northern parts of the region, while Pittsburgh English (more commonly known as "Pittsburghese") is strongly influenced by Appalachian dialect.[44] The Southern Appalachian dialect is considered part of the Southern American dialect,[45][46] although the two are distinguished by the rhotic nature of the Appalachian dialect. Early 20th-century writers believed the Appalachian dialect to be a surviving relic of Old World Scottish or Elizabethan dialects. Recent research suggests, however, that while the dialect has a stronger Scottish influence than other American dialects, most of its distinguishing characteristics are American in origin.[47]
Education[link]
For much of the region's history, education in Appalachia has lagged behind the rest of the nation due in part to struggles with funding from respective state governments and an agrarian-oriented population that often failed to see a practical need for formal education. Early education in the region evolved from teaching Christian morality and learning to read the Bible into small, one-room schoolhouses that convened in months when children were not needed to help with farm work. After the Civil War, mandatory education laws and state assistance helped larger communities begin to establish graded schools and high schools. During the same period, many of the region's institutions of higher education were established or greatly expanded.[48] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, service organizations such as Pi Beta Phi and various religious organizations established settlement schools and mission schools in the region's more rural areas.[49]
In the 20th century, national trends began to have more of an effect on education in Appalachia, sometimes clashing with the region's traditional values. The Scopes Trial—the nation's most publicized debate over the teaching of the theory of evolution—took place in Dayton, Tennessee in southern Appalachia in 1925. In spite of consolidation and centralization, schools in Appalachia struggled to keep up with federal and state demands into the 21st century. Since 2001, a number of the region's public schools were threatened with loss of funding due to difficulties fulfilling the demands of No Child Left Behind.[48]
Music[link]
Main article: Appalachian music
Appalachian music is one of the most well-known manifestations of Appalachian culture. Traditional Appalachian music is derived primarily from the English and Scottish ballad tradition and Irish and Scottish fiddle music. African-American blues musicians played a significant role in developing the instrumental aspects of Appalachian music, most notably with the introduction of the banjo— one of the region's iconic symbols— in the late 18th century. In the years following World War I, British folklorist Cecil Sharp brought attention to Southern Appalachia when he noted that its inhabitants still sang hundreds of English and Scottish ballads that had been passed down to them from their ancestors. Commercial recordings of Appalachian musicians in the 1920s would have a significant impact on the development of country music, bluegrass, and old-time music. Appalachian music saw a resurgence in popularity during the American folk music revival of the 1960s, when musicologists such as Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Ralph Rinzler traveled to remote parts of the region in search of musicians unaffected by modern music. Today, dozens of annual music festivals held throughout the region preserve the Appalachian music tradition.[50]
Literature[link]
Early Appalachian literature typically centered on the observations of people from outside the region, such as Henry Timberlake's Memoirs (1765) and Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (1784), although there are notable exceptions, including Davy Crockett's A Narrative of the Life of Davy Crockett (1834). Travellers' accounts published in 19th-century magazines gave rise to Appalachian local color, which reached its height with George Washington Harris's Sut Lovingood character of the 1860s and native novelists such as Mary Noailles Murfree. Works such as Rebecca Harding Davis's Life in the Iron Mills (1861), Emma Bell Miles' The Spirit of the Mountains (1905), and Horace Kephart's Our Southern Highlanders (1913) marked a shift in the region's literature from local color to realism. The transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society and its effects on Appalachia are captured in works such as Olive Tilford Dargan's Call Home to the Heart (1932), James Still's The River of Earth (1940), Harriette Simpson Arnow's The Dollmaker (1954), and Harry Caudill's Night Comes to the Cumberlands (1962). In the 1970s and 1980s, the rise of authors like Breece D'J Pancake, Dorothy Allison, and Lisa Alther brought greater literary diversity to the region.[51]
Along with the above-mentioned, some of Appalachia's best known writers include James Agee (A Death in the Family), Anne W. Armstrong (This Day and Time), Wendell Berry (Hannah Coulter, The Unforeseen Wilderness: An Essay on Kentucky's Red River Gorge, Selected Poems of Wendell Berry), Jesse Stuart (Taps for Private Tussie, The Thread That Runs So True), Denise Giardina (The Unquiet Earth, Storming Heaven), Lee Smith (Fair and Tender Ladies, On Agate Hill), Silas House (Clay's Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves), Wilma Dykeman (The Far Family, The Tall Woman), Maurice Manning (Bucolics, A Companion for Owls), Anne Shelby (Appalachian Studies, We Keep a Store), George Ella Lyon (Borrowed Children, Don't You Remember?), Pamela Duncan (Moon Women, The Big Beautiful), Chris Offutt (No Heroes, The Good Brother), Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain, Thirteen Moons), Sharyn McCrumb (The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter), Robert Morgan (Gap Creek), Jim Wayne Miller (The Brier Poems), Gurney Norman (Divine Right's Trip, Kinfolks), Ron Rash (Serena), Elizabeth Madox Roberts ("The Great Meadow, "The Time of Man"), Thomas Wolfe (Look Homeward Angel, You Can't Go Home Again), Rachel Carson (The Sea Around Us, Silent Spring; Presidential Medal of Freedom), and Jeannette Walls (The Glass Castle).
Appalachian literature crosses with the larger genre of Southern literature. Internationally renowned writers such as William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy have made notable contributions to the American canon with tales set within Appalachia. McCarthy's Suttree (1979) is an intense vision of the squalidness and brutality of life along the Tennessee River, in the heart of Appalachia. Other McCarthy novels set in Appalachia include The Orchard Keeper (1968) and Child of God (1973). Appalachia also serves as the origin point for the kid, the protagonist of McCarthy's Western masterpiece, Blood Meridian. Faulkner's hometown of Oxford, Mississippi is on the borderlands of what is considered Appalachia, but his fictional Yoknapatawpha should be considered part of the region.[citation needed] Almost all of the fiction which earned him the Nobel Prize is set there, including Light in August and Absalom, Absalom.
Folklore[link]
Appalachian folklore has a strong mixture of European, Native American (especially Cherokee), and Biblical influences. The Cherokee taught the region's early European pioneers how to plant and cultivate crops such as corn and squash and how to find edible plants such as ramps.[52] The Cherokee also passed along their knowledge of the medicinal properties of hundreds of native herbs and roots, and how to prepare tonics from such plants.[52] Before the introduction of modern agricultural techniques in the region in the 1930s and 1940s, many Appalchian farmers followed the Biblical tradition of planting by "the signs," such as the phases of the moon, or when certain weather conditions occurred.[52]
Appalachian folk tales are rooted in English, Scottish, and Irish fairy tales, as well as regional heroic figures and events. Jack tales, which tend to revolve around the exploits of a simple-but-dedicated figure named "Jack," are popular at story-telling festivals. Other stories involve wild animals, such as hunting tales. Regional folk heroes such as the railroad worker John Henry and frontiersman Davy Crockett are examples of real-life figures that evolved into popular folk tale subjects. Murder stories, such as Omie Wise and John Hardy, are popular subjects for Appalachian ballads. Ghost stories, or "haint tales" in regional English,[53] are a common feature of southern oral and literary tradition.[54] Ghost stories native to the region include the story of the Greenbrier Ghost, which is rooted in a Greenbrier County, West Virginia murder.[52]
Urban Appalachians[link]
Main article: Urban Appalachians
Urban Appalachians are people from Appalachia who are living in metropolitan areas outside the Appalachian region. In the decades following the Great Depression and World War II, many Appalachian residents moved to industrial cities in the north and west in a migration that became known as the "Hillbilly Highway". Mechanization of coal mining during the 1950s and 1960s was the major source of unemployment in central Appalachia. Many migration streams covered relatively short distances, with West Virginians moving to Cleveland and other cities in eastern and central Ohio, and eastern Kentuckians moving to Cincinnati and southwest Ohio in search of jobs. More distant cities like Detroit and Chicago attracted migrants from many states. Enclaves of Appalachian culture can still be found in some of these communities.[55]
Communications[link]
In the 1940s through the 1960s, Wheeling, West Virginia became a cultural center of the region because it had a clear-channel AM radio station WWVA, which could be heard throughout the entirety of eastern USA at night. Although stations such as Pittsburgh's KDKA and KQV were 50 kilowatt clear channels that dated back to the early 1920s (as well as spanning all the east coast in signal strength), WWVA prided itself on rural and farm programming that appealed to a wider audience in the rural region.
Appalachian studies[link]
Main article: Appalachian studies
Appalachia as an academic interest was the product of a critical scholarship that emerged across the disciplines in the 1960s and 1970s. With a renewed interest in issues of power, scholars could not dismiss the social inequity, class conflict, and environmental destruction encountered by America's so-called "hillbillies." Appalachia's emergence in academia is a result of the intersection between social conditions and critical academic interests, and has resulted in the development of many Appalachian studies programs in colleges and universities across the region, as well as in the Appalachian Studies Association.
Economy[link]
The economy of Appalachia traditionally rested on agriculture, mining, timber, and in the cities, manufacturing. Since the late 20th century, tourism and second home developments have assumed an increasingly major role.
Agriculture[link]
While the climate of the Appalachian region is suitable for agriculture, the region's hilly terrain greatly limits the size of the average farm, a problem exacerbated by population growth in the latter half of the 19th century. Subsistence farming was the backbone of the Appalachian economy throughout much of the 19th century, and while economies in places such as western Pennsylvania, the Great Valley of Virginia, and the upper Tennessee Valley in east Tennessee, transitioned to a large-scale farming or manufacturing base around the time of the Civil War, subsistence farming remained an important part of the region's economy until the 1950s. In the early 20th century, Appalachian farmers were struggling to mechanize, and abusive farming practices had over the years left much of the already-limited farmland badly eroded. Various federal entities intervened in the 1930s to restore damaged areas and introduce less-harmful farming techniques. In recent decades, the concept of sustainable agriculture has been applied to the region's small farms, with some success. Nevertheless, the number of farms in the Appalachian region continues to dwindle, plunging from 354,748 farms on 47 million acres (190,000 km2) in 1969 to 230,050 farms on 35 million acres (140,000 km2) in 1997.[56]
Early Appalachian farmers grew both crops introduced from their native Europe (such as sweet potatoes) as well as crops native to North America (such as corn and squash). Tobacco has long been an important cash crop in Southern Appalachia, especially since the land is ill-suited for cash crops such as cotton. Apples have been grown in the region since the late 18th-century, their cultivation being aided by the presence of thermal belts in the region's mountain valleys. Hogs, which could free range in the region's abundant forests, were the most popular livestock among early Appalachian farmers. The early settlers also brought cattle and sheep to the region, which they would typically graze in highland meadows known as balds during the growing season when bottomlands were needed for crops. Cattle, mainly the Hereford, Angus, and Charolais breeds, are now the region's chief livestock.[56]
Logging[link]
The mountains and valleys of Appalachia once contained what seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of timber. The poor roads, lack of railroads, and general inaccessibility of the region, however, prevented large-scale logging in most of the region throughout much of the 19th century. While logging firms were established in the Carolinas and the Kentucky River valley before the Civil War, most major firms preferred to harvest the more accessible timber stands in the Midwestern and Northeastern parts of the country. By the 1880s, these stands had been exhausted, and a spike in the demand for lumber forced logging firms to seek out the virgin forests of Appalachia.[57] The first major logging ventures in Appalachia transported logs using mule teams or rivers, the latter method sometimes employing splash dams.[58] In the 1890s, innovations such as the Shay locomotive, the steam-powered loader, and the steam-powered skidder allowed massive harvesting of the most remote forest sections.[57]
Logging in Appalachia reached its peak in the early 20th-century, when firms such as the Ritter Lumber Company cut the virgin forests on an alarming scale, leading to the creation of national forests in 1911 and similar state entities to better manage the region's timber resources. Arguably the most successful logging firm in Appalachia was the Georgia Hardwood Lumber Company, established in 1927 and renamed Georgia-Pacific in 1948 when it expanded nationally. Although logging in Appalachia declined as the industry shifted focus to the Pacific Northwest in the 1950s, rising overseas demand in the 1980s brought a resurgence in Appalachian logging. In 1987, there were 4,810 lumber firms operating in the region. In the late 1990s, the Appalachian lumber industry was a multi-billion dollar industry, employing 50,000 people in Tennessee, 26,000 in Kentucky, and 12,000 in West Virginia alone.[57]
Coal mining[link]
Coal mining is the industry most frequently associated with Appalachia in outsiders' minds,[59][60] due in part to the fact that the region once produced two-thirds of the nation's coal. At present, however, the mining industry employs just 2% of the Appalachian workforce. The region's vast coalfield covers 63,000 square miles (160,000 km2) between northern Pennsylvania and central Alabama, mostly along the Cumberland Plateau and Allegheny Plateau regions. Most mining activity has been concentrated in eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania, with smaller operations in western Maryland, Tennessee and Alabama. The Pittsburgh coal seam, which has produced 13 billion tons of coal since the early 19th century, has been called the world's most valuable mineral deposit. There are over 60 major coal seams in West Virginia, and over 80 in eastern Kentucky. Most of the coal mined is bituminous coal, although significant anthracite deposits exist on the fringe of the region in central Pennsylvania.[61] About two-thirds of Appalachia's coal is produced by underground mining, the rest by surface mining.[62] Mountaintop removal, a form of surface mining, is a highly controversial mining practice in central Appalachia due to its negative impacts on the environment.[61]
In the late 19th century, the post-Civil War Industrial Revolution and the expansion of the nation's railroads brought a soaring demand for coal, and mining operations expanded rapidly across Appalachia. Hundreds of thousands of workers poured into the region from across the United States and from overseas, essentially overhauling the cultural makeup of Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania. Mining corporations gained considerable influence in state and municipal governments, especially as they often owned the entire towns in which the miners lived. The mining industry was vulnerable to economic downturns, however, and booms and busts were frequent, with major booms occurring during World War I and II, and the worst bust occurring during the Great Depression. The Appalachian mining industry also saw some of the nation's bloodiest labor strife between the 1890s and the 1930s. Mining-related injuries and deaths were not uncommon, and ailments such as black lung disease afflicted miners throughout the 20th century. After World War II, innovations in mechanization (such as longwall mining) and competition from oil and natural gas led to a decline in the region's mining operations.[61] Environmental restrictions, such as those placed on high-sulfur coal in the 1980s, brought further mine closures. While with annual earnings of $55,000, Appalachian miners make more than most other local workers, Appalachian coal mining employed just under 50,000 in 2004.[63][64]
Coal mining has made a comeback in some regions in the early 21st century as an alternative energy source as well as the increased prominence of CONSOL Energy, based in Pittsburgh. The Quecreek Mine Rescue in 2002 and continuing mine subsidence problems in abandoned coal mines in western Pennsylvania and other regions have also been highlighted in recent times.[citation needed]
Manufacturing[link]
The manufacturing industry in Appalachia is rooted primarily in the ironworks and steelworks of early Pittsburgh and in the textile mills that sprang up in North Carolina's Piedmont region in the mid-19th century. Factory construction increased greatly after the Civil War, and the region experienced a manufacturing boom between 1890 and 1930. This economic shift led to a mass-migration from small farms and rural areas to large urban centers, causing the populations of cities such as Knoxville, Tennessee and Asheville, North Carolina to swell exponentially. Manufacturing in the region suffered a setback during the Great Depression, but recovered during World War II and peaked in the 1950s and 1960s. However, difficulties paying retiree benefits, environmental struggles, and the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 led to a decline in the region's manufacturing operations. Pittsburgh lost 44% of its factory jobs in the 1980s, and between 1970 and 2001, the number of apparel workers in the Appalachian region decreased from 250,000 to 83,000 and the number of textile workers decreased from 275,000 to 193,000.[65]
U.S. Steel, founded in Pittsburgh in 1901, was the world's first corporation with more than a billion dollars in initial capitalization.[65] Another Pittsburgh company, ALCOA, helped establish the nation's aluminum industry in the early 20th century, and has had a significant impact on the economies of western Pennsylvania and east Tennessee.[66] Union Carbide built the world's first petrochemical plant in Clendenin, West Virginia in 1920, and in subsequent years the Kanawha Valley became known as the "Chemical Capital of the World."[67] Eastman Chemical, also established in 1920, is Tennessee's largest single employer. Companies such as Champion Fibre and Bowater established large pulp operations in Canton, North Carolina and Greenville, South Carolina, respectively, although the former was dogged by battles with environmentalists throughout the 20th century.[68]
Tourism[link]
One of the region's oldest industries, tourism became a more important part of the Appalachian economy in the latter half of the 20th century as mining and manufacturing steadily declined.[69] In 2000–2001, tourism in Appalachia accounted for nearly $30 billion and over 600,000 jobs.[70] The mountain terrain—with its accompanying scenery and outdoor recreational opportunities—provide the region's primary attractions.[69] The region is home to one of the world's most well-known hiking trails (the Appalachian Trail), the nation's most-visited national park (the Great Smoky Mountains National Park),[71] and the nation's most visited national parkway (the Blue Ridge Parkway).[72] The craft industry, including the teaching, selling, and display or demonstration of regional crafts, also accounts for an important part of the Appalachian economy, bringing (for example) over $100 million annually to the economy of Western North Carolina and over $80 million to the economy of West Virginia.[73] Important heritage tourism attractions in the region include the Biltmore Estate and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina, Cades Cove in Tennessee, and Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. Important theme parks include Dollywood and Ghost Town in the Sky, both on the periphery of the Great Smoky Mountains.
The mineral-rich mountain springs of the Appalachians—which for many years were thought to have health-restoring qualities—were drawing visitors to the region as early as the 18th century with the establishment of resorts at Hot Springs, Virginia and what is now Hot Springs, North Carolina. Along with the mineral springs, the cool and clear air of the range's high elevations provided an escape for lowland elites, and elaborate hotels—such as The Greenbrier in West Virginia and the Balsam Mountain Inn in North Carolina—were built throughout the region's remote valleys and mountain slopes. The end of World War I (which opened up travel opportunities to Europe) and the arrival of the automobile (which changed the nation's vacation habits) led to the demise of all but a few of the region's spa resorts. The establishment of national parks in the 1930s brought an explosion of tourist traffic to the region, but created problems with urban sprawl in the various host communities. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, states have placed greater focus on sustaining tourism while preserving host communities.[69]
Poverty in Appalachia[link]
Poverty had plagued Appalachia for many years but was not brought to the attention of the rest of the United States until 1960, by US President John F. Kennedy, who proceeded to establish the President's Appalachian Regional Commission in 1963. His successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, crystallized Kennedy's efforts in the form of the Appalachian Regional Commission, which passed into law in 1965.[74]
In Appalachia, severe poverty and desolation were paired with the necessity for careful cultural sensitivity. Many Appalachian people feared that the birth of a new modernized Appalachia would lead to a death of their traditional values and heritage. Because of the isolation of the region, Appalachian people had been unable to catch up to the modernization that lowlanders have achieved. In the 1960s, many people in Appalachia had a standard of living comparable to third world countries'. The film series "West Virginia", produced during the term of Governor Gaston Caperton, makes the point that at least on some level images of poverty were contrived.[citation needed] Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" while standing on the front porch of an Inez, Kentucky home whose residents had been suffering from a long ignored problem.[75] The Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965 stated:
| “ | The Appalachian region of the United States, while abundant in natural resources and rich in potential, lags behind the rest of the Nation... its people have not shared properly in the Nation’s prosperity.[76] | ” |
Since the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) in 1965, the region has seen dramatic progress. New roads, schools, health care facilities, water and sewer systems, and other improvements have brought a better life to many Appalachian residents. In the 1960s, 219 counties in the 13-state Appalachian Region were considered economically distressed. Now that list has been cut in half, to 82 counties, but these are "hard-core" pockets of poverty, seemingly impervious to all efforts at improving their lot.[77] Martin County, Kentucky, the site of Johnson’s 1964 speech, is one such county still ranked as "distressed" by the ARC. As of 2000, the per capita income in Martin County was $10,650, and 37% of its residents lived below the poverty line.
Like Johnson, President Bill Clinton brought attention to the remaining areas of poverty in Appalachia. On July 5, 1999, he made a public statement concerning the situation in Tyner, Kentucky. Clinton told the enthusiastic crowd:
| “ | I'm here to make a simple point. This is the time to bring more jobs and investment to parts of the country that have not participated in this time of prosperity. Any work that can be done by anybody in America can be done in Appalachia.[77] | ” |
The region's poverty has been documented often since the early 1960s. John Cohen documents rural lifestyle and culture in The High Lonesome Sound, while photojournalist Earl Dotter has been visiting and documenting poverty, healthcare and mining in Appalachia for nearly forty years.[78] Another photojournalist, Shelby Lee Adams, has been photographing Appalachian families and lifestyle for decades.
Appalachian Regional Commission[link]
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) was created by the U.S. Congress in 1965 to bring poor areas of the 13 U.S. states of the main (southern) range of the Appalachians into the mainstream of the American economy. The commission is a partnership of federal, state, and local governments, and was created to promote economic growth and improve the quality of life in the region. The region as defined by the ARC[79] includes 420 counties, including all of West Virginia; counties in 13 other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia; and also eight cities in Virginia, where state law makes cities administratively separate from counties. The ARC is a planning, research, advocacy and funding organization; it does not have any governing powers.
The ARC's geographic range of coverage was defined broadly so as to cover as many economically underdeveloped areas as possible; it extends well beyond the area usually thought of as "Appalachia". For instance, parts of Alabama and Mississippi were included in the commission because of problems with unemployment and poverty similar to those in Appalachia proper, and the ARC region extends into Northeastern states, which are never considered part of Appalachia culturally. More recently, the Youngstown, Ohio, region was declared part of Appalachia by the ARC due to the collapse of the steel industry in the region in the early 1980s and the continuing unemployment problems in the region since, though aside from Columbiana County, Ohio, the Youngstown DMA isn't traditionally or culturally considered part of the region.[citation needed] The ARC's wide scope also grew out of the "pork barrel" phenomenon, as politicians from outside the traditional Appalachia area saw a new way to bring home federal money to their areas.
Transportation[link]
Main article: Transportation in Appalachia
Transportation has been the most challenging and expensive issue in Appalachia since the arrival of the first European settlers in the 18th century. Until major federal intervention in the 1960s, the region's mountainous terrain continuously thwarted attempts at major road construction, leaving large parts of the region virtually isolated and slowing economic growth. Before the Civil War, major cities in the region were connected via wagon roads to lowland areas, and flatboats provided an important means for transporting goods out of the region. By 1900, railroads connected most of the region with the rest of the nation, although the poor roads made travel beyond railroad hubs difficult. When the Appalachian Regional Commission was created in 1965, road construction was considered its most important initiative, and in subsequent decades the commission spent more on road construction than all other projects combined.[80]
The effort to connect Appalachia with the outside world has required numerous civil engineering feats. Millions of tons of rock were removed to build road segments such as Interstate 40 through the Pigeon River Gorge at the Tennessee-North Carolina state line and U.S. Route 23 in Letcher County, Kentucky. Large tunnels were built through mountain slopes at Cumberland Gap to speed up travel along U.S. Route 25E. The New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia, completed in 1977, is the third-longest single-arch bridge in the world. The Blue Ridge Parkway's Linn Cove Viaduct, the construction of which required the assembly of 153 pre-cast segments 4,000 feet (1,200 m) up the slopes of Grandfather Mountain,[80] has been designated a historic civil engineering landmark.[81]
Image in popular culture[link]
The people, and the scholars, of Appalachia have for over a century paid close attention to how they are depicted in the popular media. The images are typically ugly and violent, making the region an object of humor, derision, and social concern.[82] Ledford writes, "Always part of the mythical South, Appalachia continues to languish backstage in the American drama, still dressed, in the popular mind at least, in the garments of backwardness, violence, poverty, and hopelessness."[83] Otto argues that comic strips "Li'l Abner" by Al Capp and "Barney Google" by Billy de Beck, which both began in 1934, caricatured the laziness and weakness for "corn squeezin's" (moonshine) of these "hillbillies." The popular 1960's "Andy Griffith Show" on television and James Dickey's 1970 novel Deliverance perpetuate the stereotype, although the region itself underwent so many changes after 1945 that it scarcely resembles the comic images.[84]
- The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, and other early 20th-century novels of John Fox, Jr., set in the Appalachian town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and surrounding areas, gave readers an image of frontier life in Appalachia and were made into popular films. Fox himself graduated from Harvard, and was a bon vivant newspaperman in New York City. He returned home to the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee to write his stories because of poor health.[85]
- Big Stone Gap also is the setting for the early 21st-century Big Stone Gap series by Adriana Trigiani.[86]
- The motion pictures Coal Miner's Daughter (based on the life of noted country singer Loretta Lynn), Where the Lilies Bloom and Songcatcher attempt an accurate portrayal of life in Appalachia which stresses the tensions between Appalachian traditions and the values of urbanized America,.[87]
- Songcatcher takes place in rural Appalachia in 1907 and features the "lost" ballads of the Scots-Irish brought over in the 19th century and a musicologist's quest to preserve them.[88]
- Stranger with a Camera is a documentary film from Appalshop about the representation of Appalachian communities by outsiders in film and video.[89]
- The 1972 film Deliverance takes place in southern Appalachia. The film perpetuated extremely negative stereotypes of subhumanity.[90]
- Large-format photographer Shelby Lee Adams, himself a son of Appalachian emigrants, has portrayed the Appalachian family life sympathetically in several books.[91]
- Appalachian Spring is the name of a musical composition by Aaron Copland and a ballet of the same name by Martha Graham. Copland did not intend for his music, which he composed for Graham and which incorporates Shaker melodies, to have an Appalachian theme. Graham gave the work its name; her ballet told the story of a young couple living on the frontier in western Pennsylvania.[92]
- Composer Frederick Delius wrote a theme and variations entitled Appalachia; he first composed Appalachia, subtitled "Variations on an Old Slave Song with final chorus." in 1896.[93]
- Alan Hovhaness in 1985 composed a tone poem named To the Appalachian Mountains (Symphony no. 60).[94]
- Author Catherine Marshall wrote Christy, loosely based on her mother's years as a teacher in the Appalachian region. The novel was highly popular and became the basis of a short-lived television series of the same name in 1994.[95]
- The book Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver explores the ecology of the region and how the removal of the predators, wolves and coyotes, affected the environment.[96]
- The comic strips often featured Appalachia, especially in "Li'l Abner" by Al Capp (1909–1979). Inge notes that the strip, which ran 1934–77, largely ignored religion, politics, blacks and the Civil War, but instead focused its humor on the morality of Dogpatch, examining its memorable and often eccentric people who typically relied on violence to control the social order, and held deep to their faith in land, home, self-sufficiency, and antipathy to outsiders.[97] Arnold finds that starting with World War II Capp increasingly emphasized sex and violence.[98]
- The fictional television program, Justified, is set in the eastern hills of Kentucky in and around Harlan County.
- Much of the popular book series The Hunger Games is set in "an area that used to be called Appalachia" which is referred to in the book as District 12. Much of the surroundings and culture reflect present day Appalachia, such as reliance on coal mining as an industry.[99]
Regions[link]
The six physiographic provinces of Appalachia are:
- Appalachian Plateau
- Allegheny Mountains
- Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians
- Great Appalachian Valley
- Blue Ridge Mountains
- Piedmont (United States)
See also[link]
- Appalachian Ohio
- Appalachian Trail by state
- Appalachian State University
- Birth in Southern Appalachia
- List of feuds in the United States
- Museum of Appalachia
- Ozark culture
- Settlement school
- Social and economic stratification in Appalachia
- Upland South
- Urban Appalachians
- Whiskey Rebellion
Notes[link]
- ^ a b "Appalachian Region". Appalachian Regional Commission. http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=2. Retrieved November 27, 2008.
- ^ a b c d e f Rudy Abramson, Introduction to Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. xix—xxv.
- ^ In Virginia, all municipalities incorporated as "cities" are legally separate from counties.
- ^ a b c John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), pp. 11–14.
- ^ After Florida, Dry Tortugas and Cape Canaveral: Stewart, George (1945). Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States. New York: Random House. pp. 11–13, 17, 18.
- ^ Walls, David (1977), "On the Naming of Appalachia," In An Appalachian Symposium, pp. 56–76.
- ^ Stewart, George R. (1967). Names on the Land. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- ^ Walls, David (2006). "Appalachia." The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press), pp. 1006–1007.
- ^ Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1993), p. 102.
- ^ Charles Hudson, The Juan Pardo Expeditions: Explorations of the Carolinas and Tennessee, 1566–1568 (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2005), p. 17.
- ^ a b Williams, Appalachia: A History, pp. 30–44.
- ^ Caudill, Night Comes to the Cumberlands, pp. 7–13, 19.
- ^ a b Richard Drake, A History of Appalachia (Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), pp. 59–69.
- ^ John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History, pp. 64–68.
- ^ John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History, pp. 118–9.
- ^ John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History, p. 141.
- ^ Eric Lacy, Vanquished Volunteers: East Tennessee Sectionalism from Statehood to Secession (Johnson City, Tenn.: East Tennessee State University Press, 1965), pp. 122–126.
- ^ a b c Gordon McKinney, "The Civil War." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1579–1581.
- ^ a b John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History, pp. 160–165.
- ^ Curry, Richard O. A House Divided, Statehood Politics & the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1964, pgs. 141–147. Twenty-four of the most mountainous counties of West Virginia voted for the Secession Ordinance on May 23, 1861.
- ^ "Most of West Virginia went through the Civil war not as an asset to the Union but as a troublesome battleground, while the Unionist Ohio River counties struggled to cope with the tide of refugees fleeing to their sanctuary from the interior." Weigley, Russell F. A Great Civil War, W.W. Norton, 2003, pg. 55
- ^ a b c Drake, A History of Appalachia, p. 109-123.
- ^ Caudill, Night Comes to the Cumberlands, pp. 39–45.
- ^ Drake, A History of Appalachia, 131–141.
- ^ a b John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History, pp. 187–193.
- ^ Keith F. Otterbein, "Five Feuds: An Analysis of Homicides in Eastern Kentucky in the Late Nineteenth Century," American Anthropologist, June 2000, Vol. 102 Issue 2, pp 231–43, provides a theoretical analysis
- ^ Dwight B. Billings and Kathleen M. Blee, "'Where the Sun Set Crimson and the Moon Rose Red": Writing Appalachia and the Kentucky Mountain Feuds," Southern Cultures, Summer 1996, Vol. 2 Issue 3/4, pp 329–352
- ^ a b Drake, A History of Appalachia, pp. 200–210.
- ^ John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History, pp. 310–312.
- ^ "ARC-Designated Distressed Counties, Fiscal Year 2010". Appalachian Regional Commission. http://www.arc.gov/appalachian_region/ARCDesignatedDistressedCountiesFiscalYear2010.asp. Retrieved August 17, 2010.
- ^ David Newhall, "English." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 253–255.
- ^ Rouse, Parke Jr., The Great Wagon Road, Dietz Press, 2004, pg. 32; Leyburn, James G., The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, Univ of NC Press, 1962, pg. 180
- ^ a b David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 620–630.
- ^ John Ellis, "Welsh." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 282.
- ^ Bruce Betler, "Swiss." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 281–282.
- ^ Dwight Billings and Kathleen Blee, "African-American Families and Communities." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 155–156.
- ^ Ima Stephens, "Black Dutch." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 248.
- ^ Howard Dorgan, Introduction to the "Religion" section, Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1281–1289.
- ^ a b Clifford Grammich, "Baptists, the Old-Time Groups." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee, 2006), pp. 1298–1300.
- ^ Conrad Ostwalt, "Presbyterian, Denominational Family." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1342–1344.
- ^ Heather Ann Ackley Bean, "Methodists." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1330–1332.
- ^ Stanley Burgess, Patrick Alexander, and Gary McGee, "Pentecostals." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1336–1339.
- ^ Harvey Neufeldt, "Mennonites." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1327–1329.
- ^ Johnstone, Barbara. "Steel Town Speak". Language magazine. http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/pittsburghese/. Retrieved September 1, 2011.
- ^ William Labov, Sharon Ash & Charles Boberg, Atlas of North American English, Mouton de Gruyter, 2005
- ^ South Regional Map
- ^ Michael Montgomery, Language – Introduction, The Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 999–1004.
- ^ a b Alan DeYoung, Introduction to Education section, Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1517–1521.
- ^ Philis Alvic, "Settlement, Mission, and Sponsored Schools," Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 1551.
- ^ Ted Olson, "Music – Introduction". Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1109—1120.
- ^ Grace Toney Edwards, "Literature – Introduction," Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1035–1039.
- ^ a b c d Deborah Thompson and Irene Moser, "Appalachian Folklife." A Handbook to Appalachia: An Introduction to the Region (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 143–156.
- ^ Dictionary of American Regional English, Belknap Press, 1985
- ^ Joseph M. Flora, Lucinda Hardwick MacKethan, Todd W. Taylor, The Companion to Southern Literature, Louisiana State University Press, 2001, pg. 304.
- ^ Appalachian Odyssey, ed. Phillip J. Obermiller et al. (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000).
- ^ a b Michael Best and Curtis Wood, Introduction to the Agriculture section in the Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 395–402.
- ^ a b c Linda Daily Paulson, "Lumber Industry." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 501–504.
- ^ Vic Weals, The Last Train to Elkmont (Knoxville, Tenn.: Olden Press, 1993), pp. 1–8.
- ^ http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_bearing_areas.pdf
- ^ http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_locations.pdf
- ^ a b c Rudy Abramson, "Bituminous Coal Industry." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 457–460.
- ^ "U.S. Coal Production by State, Region and Method of Mining – 2007" (PDF). National Mining Association. http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_production_method.pdf.
- ^ "Profile of the U.S. Coal Miner – 2007" (PDF). National Mining Association. http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_profile.pdf.
- ^ "U.S. Coal Mine Employment by State, Region and Method of Mining – 2007" (PDF). National Mining Association. http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_employment_state_region_method.pdf.
- ^ a b Jack Hurst, Introduction to Business, Technology, and Industry section, Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee, 2006), pp. 441–447.
- ^ Janice Willis Barnett, "Aluminum Industry," Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 449–451.
- ^ Martha Avaleen Egan, "Chemical Industry," Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee, 2006), pp. 468–471.
- ^ Daniel Varat, "Champion Fibre," Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 466–467.
- ^ a b c Benita Howell, "Tourism." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 611–616.
- ^ Economic Effects of Tourism in Appalachia. Appalachian Regional Commission Online Resource Center. Retrieved: August 7, 2009.
- ^ Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Official site. Retrieved: August 7, 2009.
- ^ Blue Ridge Parkway. Official site. Retrieved: August 7, 2009.
- ^ Appalachian Regional Commission Tourism Council, Roadmap for Tourism & Craft. July 2003. Retrieved: August 7, 2009.
- ^ ARC History
- ^ Jackson, David (April 23, 2008). "McCain's economics talk follows LBJ path". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-04-23-mccain-ky_N.htm.
- ^ "United States Code Title 40 Subtitle IV – Appalachian Regional Development". Appalachian Regional Commission. http://www.arc.gov/about/USCodeTitle40SubtitleIV.asp. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
- ^ a b Appalachian Regional Commission Arc.gov
- ^ Earl Dotter, "Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining and the Environment" Southern Spaces, July 16, 2008.
- ^ "Counties in Appalachia". Appalachian Regional Commission. http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=27. Retrieved August 22, 2008.
- ^ a b Mark Burton and Richard Hatcher, Introduction to Transportation section, Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 685–690.
- ^ "Designated Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks". American Society of Civil Engineers. http://www.asce.org/history/landmark/search.cfm. Retrieved September 14, 2009.
- ^ D. Russell Crane; Tim B. Heaton (2008). Handbook of families and poverty. SAGE. p. 111. ISBN 978-1-4129-5042-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=6uHU5l_o3MAC&pg=PA111.
- ^ Katherine Ledford (2000). Back Talk from Appalachia: Confronting Stereotypes. U. Press of Kentucky. pp. 9–10. ISBN 978-0-8131-9001-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ta0DU3ojPrUC&pg=PR9.
- ^ John Solomon Otto, "Hillbilly Culture": The Appalachian Mountain Folk in History and Popular Culture," Southern Quarterly, (1986) 24#3 pp 25–34
- ^ Edward L. Tucker, "John Fox, Jr., Bon Vivant and Mountain Chronicler," Virginia Cavalcade, (1972) 21#4 pp 18–29
- ^ Sharon B. Ewing (2008). Big Stone Gap. Arcadia Publishing. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-7385-5393-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=uGS1UNoQ7rIC.
- ^ Ruth A. Banes, "Mythology in Music: The Ballad of Loretta Lynn," Canadian Review of American Studies, (1985) 16#3 pp 283–300
- ^ Kimberley M. Holloway (2003). From a race of storytellers: essays on the ballad novels of Sharyn McCrumb. Mercer University Press. p. 175. ISBN 978-0-86554-893-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=-pyYFXY7uewC&pg=PA175.
- ^ Appalshop website
- ^ John O'Brien, At Home in the Heart of Appalachia (2002) p 15
- ^ Richard B. Drake (2003). A History of Appalachia. University Press of Kentucky. p. 263. ISBN 978-0-8131-9060-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=Q9m6Zw0QY-YC&pg=PT263.
- ^ Robert Kapilow and John Adams (1999), "Milestones of the Millennium: "Appalachian Spring" by Aaron Copland", NPR's Performance Day (National Public Radio), http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/milestones/991027.motm.apspring.html
- ^ Chris Woodstra; Gerald Brennan; Allen Schrott (2005). All music guide to classical music: the definitive guide to classical music. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 364. ISBN 978-0-87930-865-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=nlDOICBmhbkC&pg=PA364.
- ^ Ivan March; Edward Greenfield; Robert Layton; Paul Czajkowski (2008). The Penguin guide to recorded music. Penguin. p. 588. ISBN 978-0-14-103335-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=-AL1AAAAMAAJ.
- ^ Emily Satterwhite, Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction Since 1878 (2011) Chapter 4, Part I:
- ^ Barbara Kingsolver with Guy Mendes, "Messing with the Sacred: An Interview with Barbara Kingsolver," Appalachian Journal, (2001) 28#3 pp 304–324
- ^ M. Thomas Inge, "Al Capp's South: Appalachian Humor in Li'l Abner," Studies in American Humor (2001) 3#8 pp 4–20
- ^ Edwin T. Arnold, "Abner Unpinned: Al Capp's 'Li'l Abner,' 1940–1955," Appalachian Journal, (1997) 24#4 pp 420–436
- ^ Lois H. Gresh, The Hunger Games Companion: The Unauthorized Guide to the Series (2011) p. 188
References and bibliography[link]
- Abramson, Rudy and Haskell, Jean, editors (2006). Encyclopedia of Appalachia, University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 1-57233-456-8
- Becker, Jane S. Inventing Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930–1940 (1998).
- Biggers, Jeff (2006). The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture and Enlightenment to America (New ed.). Shoemaker and Hoard. ISBN 1-59376-031-0.
- Caudill, Harry M. (1962). Night Comes to the Cumberlands. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-13212-8.
- Davis, Donald Edward. Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians 2000.
- Dawley, Jr., Thomas R. (March 1910). "Our Southern Mountaineers: Removal The Remedy For The Evils That Isolation And Poverty Have Brought". The World's Work: A History of Our Time XIX: 12704–12714. http://books.google.com/books?id=bHIAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA12704. Retrieved July 10, 2009.
- Dotter, Earl. "Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining and the Environment" Southern Spaces, July 16, 2008.
- Eller, Ronald D. (2008). Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945. The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-2523-7.
- Eller, Ronald D. Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880–1930 1982.
- Ford, Thomas R. ed. The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey. (1967), includes highly detailed statistics.
- Kephart, Horace (1922). Our Southern Highlanders (New and revised ed.). Macmillan. ISBN 0-87049-203-9. full text online
- Lewis, Ronald L. Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads, Deforestation, and Social Change in West Virginia, 1880–1920 (1998) online edition
- Light, Melanie and Ken Light (2006). Coal Hollow. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24654-6
- Noe, Kenneth W. and Shannon H. Wilson, Civil War in Appalachia (1997)
- Obermiller, Phillip J., Thomas E. Wagner, and E. Bruce Tucker, editors (2000). Appalachian Odyssey: Historical Perspectives on the Great Migration. Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-96851-0
- Olson, Ted (1998). Blue Ridge Folklife. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-023-0
- Pudup, Mary Beth, Dwight B. Billings, and Altina L. Waller, eds. Appalachia in the Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century. (1995).
- Sarnoff, Susan; Yoon, Hong-Sik (2003). "Central Appalachia – Still the Other America". Journal of Poverty (The Haworth Press) 7 (1 & 2): 123–139. DOI:10.1300/J134v07n01_06. http://www.journalofpoverty.org/JOPABS/JPOABS21.HTM.
- Slap, Andrew L., ed. Reconstructing Appalachia: The Civil War's Aftermath (University Press of Kentucky; 2010) 379 pages
- Walls, David (1977). "On the Naming of Appalachia" An Appalachian Symposium. Edited by J. W. Williamson. Boone, NC: Appalachian State University Press.
- Williams, John Alexander. Appalachia: A History (2002) online edition
External links[link]
- Appalachia at the Open Directory Project
- "Appalachia: Hollow Promises", a comprehensive 1999 series of articles on the region and the ARC published in the Columbus Dispatch
- Appalachian Center for Economy and the Environment
- Digital Library of Appalachia
- Morehead State University Center for Virtual Appalachia
- University of Kentucky Appalachian Center
- "Space, Place, and Appalachia", Southern Spaces, June 3, 2009.
Coordinates: 38°48′N 81°00′W / 38.80°N 81.00°W / 38.80; -81.00
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For other uses, see Red Bird (disambiguation).
Red Bird (c. 1788 – 1828) was a leader of the Winnebago (or Ho-Chunk) Native American tribe. He was a leader in the Winnebago War against the United States. He attacked settlers in the area of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, but surrendered when American forces marched into Ho-Chunk territory. He died in prison in 1828 while awaiting trial.[1]
Notes[link]
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Bird, Red |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 1788 |
| Place of birth | |
| Date of death | 1828 |
| Place of death | |
 |
This article about an Indigenous person of North America is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 |
This Wisconsin-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
http://wn.com/Red_Bird
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bird
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Yo-Yo Ma 馬友友 |
|
|---|---|
 Ma plays the cello during the "Presentation of the Crystal Award" at the Annual Meeting 2008 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 25, 2008. |
|
| Background information | |
| Born | (1955-10-07) October 7, 1955 (age 56) Paris, France |
| Genres | Classical |
| Occupations | Cellist, composer, pedagogue |
| Instruments | Cello, piano, viola, violin |
| Years active | fl. ca. 1961–present |
| Labels | CBS, RCA, Sony Classical |
| Associated acts | Silk Road Ensemble |
| Website | yo-yoma.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Violoncello Davydov 1712 Stradivarius Domenico Montagnana 1733 Luis and Clark |
|
| Yo-Yo Ma | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 馬友友 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 马友友 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is an American[1] cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001[2] and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.[3] Ma is regarded by some as the most famous cellist of the modern age.[4]
Contents |
Early life[link]
Yo-Yo Ma was born in Paris on October 7, 1955, to Chinese parents and had a musical upbringing. His mother, Marina Lu, was a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, was a violinist and professor of music at Nanjing National Central University. His family moved to New York when he was five years old.
At a very young age, Ma began studying violin, and later viola, before settling on the cello in 1960 at age four. According to Ma, his first choice was the double bass due to its large size, but he compromised and took up cello instead. The child prodigy began performing before audiences at age five, and performed for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was seven.[5][6] At age eight, he appeared on American television with his sister, Yeou-Cheng Ma, in a concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Ma attended Trinity School in New York but transferred to the Professional Children's School which he graduated at fifteen years of age. [7]He appeared as a soloist with the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra in a performance of the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations.
Ma studied at the Juilliard School at age nine with Leonard Rose and briefly attended Columbia University before ultimately enrolling at Harvard University later on. Prior to entering Harvard, Ma played in the Marlboro Festival Orchestra under the direction of nonagenarian cellist and conductor Pablo Casals. Ma would ultimately spend four summers at the Marlboro Music Festival after meeting and falling in love with Mount Holyoke College sophomore and festival administrator Jill Hornor his first summer there in 1972.[8]
However, even before that time, Ma had steadily gained fame and had performed with most of the world's major orchestras. His recordings and performances of Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites recorded in 1983 and again in 1994–1997 are particularly acclaimed. He has also played a good deal of chamber music, often with the pianist Emanuel Ax, with whom he has a close friendship back from their days together at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
Ma received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1976.[9] In 1991, he received an honorary doctorate from Harvard.[10]
Career[link]
Ma currently plays with his own Silk Road Ensemble, which has the goal of bringing together musicians from diverse countries all of which are historically linked via the Silk Road, and records on the Sony Classical label.[11] Ma's primary performance instrument is the cello nicknamed Petunia, built by Domenico Montagnana in 1733. It was named this by a female student that approached him after one of his classes in Salt Lake City asking if he had a nickname for his cello. He said, "No, but if I play for you, will you name it?" She chose Petunia, and it stuck.[12] This cello, more than 270 years old and valued at US$2.5 million, was lost in the fall of 1999 when Ma accidentally left the instrument in a taxicab in New York City.[13] It was later recovered undamaged. Another of Ma's cellos, the Davidov Stradivarius, was previously owned by Jacqueline du Pré who passed it to him upon her death, and owned by the Vuitton Foundation. Though Du Pré previously voiced her frustration with the "unpredictability" of this cello, Ma attributed the comment to du Pré's impassioned style of playing, adding that the Stradivarius cello must be "coaxed" by the player.[citation needed] It was until recently set up in a Baroque manner, since Ma exclusively played Baroque music on it. He also owns a modern cello made by Peter and Wendela Moes of Peissenberg, Germany, and one of carbon fiber by the Luis and Clark company of Boston.[14]
In 1997 he was featured on John Williams' soundtrack to the Hollywood film, Seven Years in Tibet. In 2000, he was heard on the soundtrack of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and in 2003 on that of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. He collaborated with Williams again on the original score for the 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha. Yo-Yo Ma has also worked with world-renowned Italian composer Ennio Morricone and has recorded Morricone's compositions of the Dollars Trilogy including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He also has over 75 albums, 15 of which are Grammy Award winners. Ma is a recipient of the International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.
Ma was named Peace Ambassador by UN then Secretary-General Kofi Annan in January 2006.[15]
On November 3, 2009, President Obama appointed Ma to serve on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.[16] His music was featured in the 2010 documentary Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, narrated by Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman.[17][18][19]
Playing style[link]
Ma has been referred to as "omnivorous" by critics, and possesses a more eclectic repertoire than is typical for classical musicians.[20] A sampling of his versatility in addition to numerous recordings of the standard classical repertoire would include his recordings of Baroque pieces using period instruments; American bluegrass music; traditional Chinese melodies including the soundtrack to the film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; the tangos of Argentinian composer Ástor Piazzolla; an eclectic and unusual collaboration with Bobby McFerrin (where Ma admitted to being terrified of the improvisation McFerrin pushed him toward); as well as the music of modern minimalist Philip Glass in such works as the 2002 piece Naqoyqatsi. He is known for his smooth, rich tone as well as his considerable virtuosity, including a cello recording of Niccolò Paganini's 24th Caprice for solo violin, Zoltán Kodály's cello sonata, and other demanding works.
Notable live performances[link]
On July 5, 1986, Ma performed on the New York Philharmonic's tribute to the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, which was televised live on ABC Television.[21]. The orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta, performed in Central Park.
Ma performed a duet with Condoleezza Rice at the presentation of the 2001 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Awards. Ma was the first performer on September 11, 2002, at the site of the World Trade Center, while the first of the names of the dead were read in remembrance on the first anniversary of the attack on the WTC. He played the Sarabande from Bach's Suite in C minor (#5). He performed a special arrangement of Sting's "Fragile" with Sting and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ma has also appeared as a Pennington Great Performers series artist with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra in 2005.
He performed John Williams' "Air and Simple Gifts" at the inauguration ceremony for Barack Obama on January 20, 2009, along with Itzhak Perlman (violin), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet). While the quartet did play live, the music played simultaneously over speakers and on television was a recording made two days prior due to concerns over the cold weather damaging the instruments. Ma was quoted as saying "A broken string was not an option. It was wicked cold."[22]
On May 3, 2009, Ma performed the world premiere of Bruce Adolphe's "Self Comes to Mind" for solo cello and two percussionists with John Ferrari and Ayano Kataoka at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The work is based on a poetic description written for the composer of the evolution of brain into mind by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, and featured, at the premiere, a film of brain scans provided by Hanna Damasio plus other images, coordinated with the music during the performance.
On August 29, 2009, Ma performed at the funeral mass for Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Pieces he performed included the Sarabande movement from Bach's Cello Suite No. 6, and Franck's Panis Angelicus with Placido Domingo.[23]
On October 3, 2009, Ma appeared alongside Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the National Arts Centre gala in Ottawa. Harper, a noted fan of The Beatles, played the piano and sang a rendition of "With A Little Help From My Friends" while Ma accompanied him on his cello.
On October 16, 2011, Ma performed at the memorial for Steve Jobs held in Stanford University's Memorial Church.[24]
In 2011, Ma performed with American dancer Charles "Lil Buck" Riley in the United States and in China at the U.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culture.[25]
Media appearances[link]
Ma has appeared in an episode of the animated children's television series, Arthur, as well as on The West Wing (episode "Noël", in which he performed the prelude to the Bach Cello Suite No.1 at a Christmas dinner at the White House), Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. In The Simpsons episode "Missionary: Impossible", Ma, (voiced by Hank Azaria) runs after Homer Simpson along with many other frequent guests of PBS.
He also starred in the visual accompaniment to his recordings of Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello.
Ma was also seen with former Apple Inc. and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs. Ma was often invited to press events for Jobs's companies, and has performed on stage during event keynote presentations, as well as appearing in a commercial for the Macintosh computer.
Ma was a guest on the Not My Job segment of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on April 7, 2007, where he won for listener Thad Moore.[26]
On October 27, 2008, Ma appeared as a guest and performer on The Colbert Report.[27] He was also a show's guest on November 1, 2011, where he performed songs from The Goat Rodeo Sessions with fellow musicians Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile.[28]
According to research done by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., of Harvard University, in 2010 for the PBS series Faces of America, in which Ma made an appearance, a relative had hidden the Ma family genealogy in his home in China to save it from destruction during the Cultural Revolution. Ma's paternal ancestry can be traced back eighteen generations to the year 1217. This genealogy had been compiled in the 18th century by an ancestor, tracing everyone with the surname Ma, through the paternal line, back to one common ancestor in the 3rd century BC. Ma's generation name, "Yo", had been decided by his fourth great grand-uncle, Ma Ji Cang, in 1755.[29][30]
Personal life[link]
Ma married his long-time girlfriend Jill Hornor, a German language professor, in 1977. He proposed outside her apartment. They have two children, Nicholas and Emily, and reside in Winchester, Massachusetts.[31] Ma's elder sister, Yeou-Cheng Ma, who was also born in Paris, is a violinist married to Michael Dadap, a New York–based guitarist from the Philippines.[32]
Discography[link]
Further information: Yo-Yo Ma discography
Awards and recognitions[link]
- 1978
Award of Distinction (International Cello Festival)
- 2007
- 2006
Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) (honoris causa)
- 2005 Princeton University
Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance:
- 1996 Brahms/Beethoven/Mozart: Clarinet Trios (Sony 57499)
- 1993 Brahms: Sonatas for Cello & Piano (Sony 48191)
- 1992 Brahms: Piano Quartets Op. 25, Op. 26 (Sony 45846)
- 1987 Beethoven: Cello and Piano Sonata No. 4 in C & Variations (CBS 42121)
- 1986 Brahms: Cello and Piano Sonatas in E Minor Op. 38, and F Op. 99 (RCA 17022)
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance:
- 1998 Yo-Yo Ma Premieres – Danielpour, Kirchner, Rouse (Sony Classical 66299)
- 1995 The New York Album – Works of Albert, Bartók & Bloch (Sony 57961)
- 1993 Prokofiev: Sinfonia Concertante/Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme (Sony 48382)
- 1990 Barber: Cello Concerto, Op. 22/Britten: Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 68 (CBS 44900)
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance:
Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition:
- 1995 The New York Album, Stephen Albert: Cello Concerto (Sony 57961)
Grammy Award for Best Classical Album:
- 1998 Yo-Yo Ma Premieres – Danielpour, Kirchner, Rouse (Sony Classical 66299)
Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album:
- 2010 Songs of Joy & Peace (Sony Classical B001BN1V8U)
- 2004 Obrigado Brazil (Sony 89935)
- 2001 Appalachian Journey (Sony 66782)
- 1999 Soul of the Tango – The Music of Ástor Piazzolla (Sony Classical 63122)
- 1999
- 2011
Latin Grammy for Best Instrumental Album
- 2004 Obrigado Brazil (Sony 89935)
- 2006
- 2001[2]
References[link]
- ^ Hatch, Robert; William Hatch (2005). The Hero Project. McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 82. ISBN 0-07-144904-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=cqwB7kDGIBEC&dq=yo+yo+ma+naturalised+citizen. Retrieved September 8, 2007.
- ^ a b National Medal of Arts. National Endowment for the Arts.
- ^ Presidential Medal of Freedom. Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- ^ "Yo-Yo Ma's 'Obrigado Brazil'". National Public Radio. September 3, 2003. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1419318. Retrieved January 29, 2009.
- ^ Salzman, Mark (2001). Classic Yo-Yo (Album notes). Sony. 089667. http://www.artsandlectures.ucsb.edu/archive/2003-2004/perform/ma.asp.
- ^ "1". Faces of America. episode 1. season 1. February 10, 2010. PBS.
- ^ Whiting, Jim "Yo-Yo Ma: A Biography" p.39
- ^ Weatherly, Myra (2007). Yo-Yo Ma: Internationally Acclaimed Cellist. Minneapolis, MN: Compass Point Books. pp. 49–50. ISBN 0-7565-1879-2. http://books.google.ca/books?id=jlgWSj_F0ssC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
- ^ "Yo Yo Ma named U.N. peace ambassador". USA Today. Associated Press. January 14, 2006. http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-01-14-yo-yo-ma_x.htm. Retrieved April 10, 2007.
- ^ "Yo-Yo Ma". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9328691. Retrieved April 8, 2007.
- ^ "Silk Road Project". The Silk Road Project. http://www.silkroadproject.org/about/index.html. Retrieved January 15, 2007.
- ^ Tyrangiel, Josh (March 27, 2005). "10 Questions for Yo-Yo Ma". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1042474,00.html. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
- ^ Katherine E. Finkelstein (October 17, 1999). "In Concert, Searchers Retrieve Yo-Yo Ma's Lost Stradivarius [sic]". New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00914FD3D5D0C748DDDA90994D1494D81. Retrieved January 15, 2007.
- ^ "Testimonials". Luis and Clark. Archived from the original on November 29, 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20061129011906/http://luisandclark.com/testimonials.php. Retrieved January 15, 2007.
- ^ "Yo-Yo Ma becomes UN peace ambassador". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. January 14, 2006. http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/01/14/YoYoMa-peace.html. Retrieved February 12, 2007. [dead link]
- ^ "President Obama appoints Yo-Yo Ma to the Presidents Committee on the Arts and Humanities". The White House. http://www.yo-yoma.com/news/president-obama-appoints-yo-yo-ma-presidents-committee-arts-and-humanities. Retrieved December 8, 2009.
- ^ Kenneth Turan (November 19, 2010). "Movie review: 'Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story'". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/19/entertainment/la-et-jews-baseball-20101119. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
- ^ "Film". Jewsandbaseball.com. http://www.jewsandbaseball.com/film1.html. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
- ^ Scott Barancik (July 7, 2010). "New film explores our love affair with baseball". Jewish Baseball News. http://www.jewishbaseballnews.com/tag/kevin-youkilis/page/2/. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
- ^ Andrew L. Pincus (June 20, 2002). "Yo-Yo Ma: Exploring culture with passion and involvement". Berkshires Week. http://www.berkshiresweek.com/062002/default.asp?filename=story1&adfile=ads4. Retrieved January 15, 2007.
- ^ "Liberty Receives Classical Salute, Sun Sentinel, July 5, 1986". http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1986-07-05/features/8602090161_1_liberty-weekend-liberty-festivities-great-lawn.
- ^ – Quartet pre-recorded Obama music. BBC News (January 23, 2009). Retrieved on July 1, 2011.
- ^ Kennedy Funeral Includes Family, Music, President. Thebostonchannel.com (August 28, 2009). Retrieved on July 1, 2011.
- ^ Vascellaro, Jessica E. (October 17, 2011). "Steve Jobs's Family Gave Moving Words at Sunday Memorial". The Wall Street Journal. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/10/17/steve-jobs%E2%80%99s-family-gave-moving-words-at-sunday-memorial/.
- ^ Chin, Josh (November 21, 2011). "Yo Yo Ma and Lil’ Buck Perform ‘The Swan’ in Beijing". The Wall Street Journal. http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2011/11/21/yo-yo-ma-and-lil-buck-perform-the-swan-in-beijing/. Retrieved February 26, 2012.
- ^ Not My Job: Yo-Yo Ma. NPR (April 7, 2007). Retrieved on July 1, 2011.
- ^ Colbert Report. Comedycentral.com (June 27, 2011). Retrieved on July 1, 2011.
- ^ Colbert Report. colbertnation.com (November 1, 2011). Retrieved on November 2, 2011.
- ^ "Faces of America: Yo-Yo Ma", PBS, Faces of America series, with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 2010.
- ^ The Mystery of Yo-Yo Ma's Name, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Daily Beast, February 9, 2010
- ^ Bell, Bill (March 29, 1998), "Suite Sounds Of Yo-yo Ma", The New York Daily News, http://articles.nydailynews.com/1998-03-29/entertainment/18064663_1_six-suites-yo-yo-ma-petunia, retrieved January 23, 2012
- ^ "Children's Orchestra Society – Administration". http://www.childrensorch.org/index.php?pID=16. Retrieved September 29, 2009.
- ^ whitehouse.gov. whitehouse.gov. Retrieved on July 1, 2011.
- ^ Watch Live: President Obama Honors Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients | The White House. Whitehouse.gov. Retrieved on July 1, 2011.
External links[link]
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yo-Yo Ma |
- Official Website
- Yo-Yo Ma at Allmusic
- About Us, The Children's Orchestra Society, ChildrensOrch.org, 2007
- Yo-Yo Ma in Conversation from WGBH Radio Boston
- Yo-Yo Ma Interview on Time.com, October 2008
- Yo-Yo Ma Podcast Series produced by Sony BMG Masterworks
- Yo-Yo Ma TV Interview with Ennio Morricone from C Music TV
- 2006 Dan David Prize laureate
- Welcome to Baku: Yo-Yo Ma: Silk Road Ensemble with Alim Gasimov and Fargana," by Aida Huseinova in Azerbaijan International, Vol. 14:2 (Summer 2006), p. 14
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Ma, Yo-Yo |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 1955-10-07 |
| Place of birth | Paris, France |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Yo-Yo_Ma
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Yo-Yo Ma
http://cs.wn.com/Yo-Yo Ma
http://id.wn.com/Yo-Yo Ma
http://es.wn.com/Yo-Yo Ma
http://ru.wn.com/Йо-Йо Ма
http://nl.wn.com/Yo-Yo Ma
http://pt.wn.com/Yo-Yo Ma
http://pl.wn.com/Yo-Yo Ma
http://fr.wn.com/Yo-Yo Ma
http://de.wn.com/Yo-Yo Ma
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-Yo_Ma
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Edgar Meyer | |
|---|---|
 Meyer with his double bass. |
|
| Background information | |
| Born | (1960-11-24) November 24, 1960 (age 51) |
| Origin | Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Genres | Classical Bluegrass Progressive bluegrass Jazz, World music |
| Occupations | Musician Composer |
| Instruments | Double Bass Piano Guitar Banjo Violin Mandolin Dobro |
| Labels | Sony Deutsche Grammophon Sugar Hill |
| Associated acts | Nickel Creek, Strength In Numbers |
| Website | edgarmeyer.com |
Edgar Meyer (born November 24, 1960) is a prominent contemporary bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. Meyer has worked as a session musician in Nashville, part of various chamber groups, a composer, and an arranger. His collaborators have spanned a wide range of musical styles and talents; among them are Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, Jerry Douglas, Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Sam Bush, James Taylor, Chris Thile, Mike Marshall, Mark O'Connor, Alison Krauss, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and the trio Nickel Creek.
Contents |
Biography[link]
Meyer grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He learned to play the double bass from his father, the late Edgar Meyer, Sr., who directed the string orchestra program for the local public school system. Meyer later went on to Indiana University to study with Stuart Sankey.[1]
Meyer is noted for achieving virtuosity on an instrument of unusual technical difficulty. Following in the footsteps of other bass players like Gary Karr and Mark Bernat before him, he has tried a hand at performing music originally composed for other instruments, such as Bach's unaccompanied cello suites.
Meyer has also composed a number of works, including two double bass concertos, a string quintet, a double concerto for bass and cello, and a violin concerto in 1999 composed specifically for Hilary Hahn.
In 2000, he won the Avery Fisher Prize, given once every few years to classical instrumentalists for outstanding achievement. In 2002, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. Meyer's collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O'Connor on the widely acclaimed Sony Classical disc Appalachia Waltz reached the top of the United States pop charts for 16 weeks when it was released. Meyer collaborated again with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O'Connor on Appalachian Journey, that earned a Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album.[2]
On Meyer's self-titled 2006 Sony Classical release, he performs accompanied only by himself on a wide variety of instruments besides his usual piano and double bass, including guitar, banjo, viola da gamba, mandolin and dobro.
Meyer is Adjunct Associate Professor of Double Bass at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music, as well as at the Curtis Institute.[3]
Discography[link]
- Solo work
- Unfolding (1986)
- Dreams of Flight (1987)
- Work in Progress (1990)
- Bach: Unaccompanied Cello Suites Performed on Double Bass (2000)
- Meyer and Bottesini Concertos (2002)
- Edgar Meyer (2006)
- With Jerry Douglas and Russ Barenberg
- Skip, Hop, and Wobble (1993)
- With Béla Fleck and Mike Marshall
- Uncommon Ritual (1997)
- With Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O'Connor
- Appalachia Waltz (1997)
- Appalachian Journey (2000)
- With Joshua Bell
- Short Trip Home (1999)
- Grammy nominated
- With David Grisman
- Dawg Duos (1999)
- With Béla Fleck
- Perpetual Motion (2001)
- Won two Grammys
- B Song (Live at Bonnaroo 2002)
- Music for Two (2004)
- With Béla Fleck and Zakir Hussain
- The Melody of Rhythm - Triple Concerto & Music for Trio (2009)
- With Chris Thile
- Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile (2008)
- With Emanuel Ax, Pamela Frank, Rebeca Young, and Yo-Yo Ma
- Schubert: Quintet, Op. 114 "The Trout" (1996)
- With Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan and Chris Thile
- The Goat Rodeo Sessions (2011)
References[link]
- ^ http://oakridger.com/stories/050400/stt_0504000062.html
- ^ "Edgar Meyer Biography". Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.. http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/composer_main.asp?composerid=15101&ttype=BIOGRAPHY&ttitle=Biography/. Retrieved 2008-08-11.
- ^ "Blair Faculty". http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Blair/faculty/faculty_strings.html.
External links[link]
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Meyer, Edgar |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | November 24, 1960 |
| Place of birth | |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Edgar_Meyer
Related pages:
http://de.wn.com/Edgar Meyer (Musiker)
http://it.wn.com/Edgar Meyer
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Meyer
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
