1111 1':\1\'11<511) 01 '115515511'1'1 Ownby's New Book Studies Poverty, Shopping, and- Race Relations in Mississippi hen it comes wisdom about shopping, consumer to tracing the culture, and the South. In the process, history of consumer he offers a new way to understand the culture, the state of connections between power and culture Mississippi-not commonly in the American South. associated with urban stores, wide- For cash-poor farmers, the experi- spread abundance, or cultural interests ence of shopping was widely viewed that are new and modern-may seem with a duality that encompassed both an unlikely place to begin. fear and excitement. Along with its For the better part of the state's history, recognized potential to put people well into the 1960s and the civil into debt, evidence shows that it also rights era, its rural self-reliance, presented an opportunity for escape poverty, and divisions along class outside their everyday life. and racial lines appeared to preclude "It was no coincidence that many it as a place where modern ideas Mississippians used the same term to abou t shopping as part of American def- describe both the time needed to pay initions of freedom would flourish. z debts and the expenses they consid- o But a new book by a University of t;; ered frivolous," Ownby writes. "Both « Mississippi professor demonstrates ~ were indulgences, and in the language that the same dreams of abundance, :;:9 of 19th-century political and religious choice, and novelty that fueled the o thinking, indulgence was both eco- growth of modern consumerism in Ted Ownby nomically dangerous and sinful." the United States likewise played a A decade in the research and the significant role in the shaping of class, innovative study are surprising. His writing, the book analyzes the changing race, and gender relations in Mississippi analysis of Faulkner's fictional character relationship between shopping and race from the antebellum period to the present. Montgomery Ward Snopes, who represents relations. While postbellum general In his American Dreams in MississiPPi: the worst aspects of crass consumer culture, stores were some of the least segregated Consumers, Poverty, and Culture, 1830- reveals the small Southern town as an settings in the South, African Americans 1998 (University of North Carolina llllexpectedly modem shopping environment. never felt completely free in white- Press, $45.00 cloth, $18.95 paper), Ted Similarly, using sources as diverse as blues owned stores, out of fear of both debt and Ownby, associate professor of History and lyrics, plantation and general store potential violence. Southern Studies, examines the buying ledgers, letters from wealthy plantation Many wealthy whites in the postbellum habits of Mississippians from early plantation and store owners on buying trips, and era believed black Mississippians were days to the present. some of Mississippi's most respected fiction wasteful shoppers who spent their money Many of Ownby's conclusions in this writers, his treatment defies traditional (continued on page 26)

Ted Ownby signed copies of his new book, American Dreams in MississiPPi, and discussed the research process for this work during a session at Square Books in early June. Since then, reports store manager Lyn Roberts, the book "has been flying off the shelf here, and the response has been fantastic." To order a signed copy, call 800-648-4001. Director's Column

The past year has been an exciting one at the Center. Much of my energy has gone into consulting with faculty, staff, students, administrators, and alumni. Published Quarterly by Collectively, we have examined the Center's various activities and put forward a new The Center for the Study of Southern Culture The University of Mississippi mission statement and five-year plan. We have reviewed the Southern Studies curriculum Telephone 662-915-5993 and made adjustments to it. Fax: 662-915-5814 I am especially excited about plans made during the last six months for a Center E-mail: [email protected] endowment drive, which will be formally announced soon.A new Center Executive Internet: http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/south Council is coordinating the fundraising effort, led by Jim and Madeleine McMullan, the donors who have already made a dramatic impact on the Center through their previous IN THIS ISSUE Spring/Summer 1999 contributions and encouragement. They are delightful people with whom to work. Their vision and determination reinforce my sense that this is a special time at the Ownby's New Book Srudies Poverty, Shopping, Center, as we make plans for the future. and Race Relations The National Endowment for the Humanities has recently announced guidelines for 2 Director's Column its long-awaited Regional Humanities Centers initiative that is welcome news for all of 3 Symposium to Examine Ideas in the Civil Rights-Era South us studying American regions. This project proposes to endow regional studies centers 3 1999 Southern Foodways Symposium in each of ten regions in the United States. The first stage will be planning grants to be 3 Southern Foodways Group Forming awarded to up to two institutions per region. The implementation stage would be next 4 Btown Bag Schedule - Fall 1999 year, offering major endowment funds for one humanities center per region. I have met 5 Tennessee Williams Festival with Center and faculty and an on-campus planning committee as our Center prepares, 5 Columbus Forum with much enthusiasm, our proposal for this dramatic opportunity that will encourage 6 National Film Preservation Award more collaboration among cultural and educational institutions across the nation. 7 Gladin Studio Photography Exhibition I have learned much about the Center and the University of Mississippi during the 9 Teachers to Be Awarded Saks Fellowships past year, working with others on such important activities. I have also learned that for F& Y Conference being a director gives one a license to talk. The Center has always served as a clearing- 9 SSSL Call for Papers 10 Southern Studies Teacher Institute house of information and ideas. We are not a library or information center, but when we 10 2000 F&Y Call for Papers receive a call asking for some bit of information on the South, we try to refer the caller 11 "Telling a Southern Story"Is Theme to the appropriate authority or research guide. I enjoy working with reporters, and dur- 11 Southern Studies Students Honored ing the past year, I have had inquiries on an astounding range of topics, reflecting current 12 In Memoriam interest in Southern culture. 13 McClamroch Attends MHT Meeting Sometimes these calls are on serious topics indeed. During our national outrage and 13 Howorth Inducted to AlA College of Fellows puzzlement about the dragging death in Jasper, Texas, I received telephone calls about 13 ICMC Call for Proposals the state of Southern race relations, as that tragedy evoked the worst traumas of the 14 Regional Roundup older South. The same wicked impulse was there as in the past, but of course the perpetrators 15 Reading the South: Reviews & Notes of this incident were marginal outsiders, not the commllllity gathered, as in earlier racial violence. 20 Songs Adapted from Welty Works Around the same time, though, I talked to a reporter in South Carolina who was 20 Eudora Welty Books and Newsletter doing a very different story, one on sweet iced tea, thankfully not as intense a topic. For 21 1999 Oxford Conference for the Book anyone who does not know, iced tea has been a ceremonial drink of the South, often 25 Southern Culture Catalog Items served at formal occasions when tee-totaling families gather, and the sweet version of it 26 Notes on Contributors is a delicacy that restaurants and private homes traditionally have offered. 28 Address Section/Mailing List Form/ Having coedited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, I do know the South, but I Friends Information and Form confess I did not really have a carefully thought out recipe for making sweet iced tea. I quickly devised one, though, to help meet the reporter's deadline. It turns out she had asked many people for their recipes and mine thankfully was typical. REGISTER STAFF I remember a rather frantic call from a reporter trying to complete a story on Southerners J Editor: Ann J. Abadie eating pigs' feet. He was supposed to participate in a pigs' feet eating contest the next day and had to have his story in the paper the next morning providing context. I allowed that I had Publications Manager: Mickey McLaurin not actually eaten pigs' feet, but I knew it was an old Southern tradition. I proceeded into my set piece on the importance of King Hog in the region, and he seemed satisfied. Graphic Designer: Bea Jackson, Ivy Pages I have developed enough sense in the past year to know when to remain quiet on my Mailing List Manager: Mary Hartwell Howorth end of the phone. During President Bill Clinton's recent unpleasantness, a reporter called me at one point to ask whether oral sex did not really mean sex in the South in Lithographer: RR Donnelley Magazine Group which he had grown up. I have never made a better decision than my "no comment." I trust the next year as director will offer its own lessons.I want to thank all of those The University complies with all applicable laws regarding affirmative action and equal opportunity in all its activities affiliated with the Center for their support this past year. I look forward to continuing and does not discriminate against anyone protected by law our collaboration-and to more intriguing phone calls. because of age, creed, colof, national origin, race, religion, sex, handicap, veteran or other status. CHARLES REAGAN WILSON

Page 2 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register Symposium to Examine Ideas in the Civil Rights ..Era South

"The Role of Ideas in the Civil Rights-Era South" will be the and Foreign Relations, and African American church life. topic of the 1999 Porter L. Fortune Jr. History Symposium at the Participants will include Linda Reed, David Chappell, Charles University of Mississippi, September 29-0ctober 1. What ideas Payne, Walter Jackson, Richard King, Elizabeth Jacoway, Tony were part of debate and discussion, who formulated those ideas, Badger, Thomas Borstelman, Daryl Scott, Keith Miller, Lauren who used them, and how did they use them? These are some of Winner, Charles Marsh, and Gerald Smith. the questions the meeting will consider. Sponsored by the History Department and the Center for the Scholars at the symposium will analyze the nature of protest, Study of Southern Culture, the symposium is free of charge and the meanings of liberalism and conservatism, the local, region- does not require registration. All events will be held at the E. F. al, national, and international contexts for ideas, and religious Yerby Center Auditorium at the University of Mississippi. For ideas as inspiration for protest and opposing protest. Among information, contact Ted Ownby, Center for the Study of the papers are analyses of the Beloved Community, Fannie Lou Southern Culture, 662-915-5993, [email protected],or the Hamer, segregationists in Little Rock, Freedom Songs, inter- History Department at 662-915-7148. For a complete schedule, pretations of Reinhold Neibuhr and Gunnar Myrdal, the South see http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/history/symposium/index.html. Second Southern Foodways Symposium Scheduled for October 29~31, 1999

Building upon the successofthe inaugural Lectures, to be held in Barnard Miss campus. Featured foods will include Southern Foodways Symposium held in Observatory, the restored antebellum retired farmer Ed Scott's sandy-brown May 1998, a second gathering, during fried catfish and bubbling kettles of which conferees will be invited to explore that fall favorite Brunswick stew. the Creolization of Southern Cuisine, Evening events include a book signing, will be held October 29-31, 1999, on the regional food and drink tastings, and a University of Mississippi campus in performance of NYAM!, a folk opera Oxford. This event will provide an performed by author and National Public exciting opportunity for cooks, chefs, Radio personality Verta Mae Grosvenor. food writers, and inquisitive eaters alike Festivities will close with a dinner on to come to a better understanding of the grounds, served as a gospel choir Southern cuisine and, in turn, Southern performs. culture. Host for the event is the Center for the Among the featured speakers will be Study of Southern Culture. Sponsors Jessica Harris, author of The Africa include G. P. Putnam's Sons, publishers Cookbook and an expert on the foodways of A Gracious Plenty: Recipes and of the African diaspora; Ronni Lundy, Recollections from the American South. author of Butter Beans to Blackberries and Supporting sponsors include the an authority on the foodways of the American Center for Wine, Food, and Hillbilly diaspora; Damon Lee Fowler, the Arts. For details on the program, author of Classical Southern Cooking; ~ contact symposium director John T. Edge and John Martin Taylor, Lowcountry via phone at 662-236-7803 or e-mail, ~ foodways scholar and author. Along ::; [email protected]. Registration will with speakers from other regions of the tS be limited to 80 persons. Those planning South including New Orleans and Ed Scott at 1998 Foodways Symposium to attend are advised to register early in the Mississippi Delta, they will lead order to secure a space.The registration symposium attendees in an examination headquarters of the Center for the Study fee is $250. Contact Molly McGehee by of the myriad cultures and cuisines that of Southern Cµlture, willbe complimented phone (662-915-5993) or email melded to form what we now think of as by a series of informal lunches served in ([email protected]). Southern cuisine. the sylvan grove at the heart of the Ole

SOUTHERN Discussions are under way concerning the formation of a nonprofit organization devoted to the perpetuation of the South's unique food culture. Though still tentative at press time, plans FOODWAYS are to establish a member organization that will operate under the umbrella of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.For further information,callthe Center at 662-915-5993or e-mail GROUP FORMING [email protected].

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1999 Page 3 Center for the Study

of., Southern Culture THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI

THE BROWN BAG LUNCH AND LECTURE SERIES

SEPTEMBER 8 "Blacl.~and White Allover: 20 "Southern Cool~ing, Southern Culture" Natchez Farm Security Administration John T. Edge photos of 1930" Oxford, Mississippi Don Simonton, Southern Studies Graduate Student 27 "Small Town Center: worl~ in Progress" 15 "The Delta Cooperative Farm Shannon Criss, Associate Professor, through the Photographs of Director of the Small Town Center, Dorothea Lange and the School of Architecture Memories of Mr. E. L. Will~inson" Mississippi State University Sarah Alford, Southern Studies Undergraduate Student NOVEMBER 3 "Babies for Sale: 23 "Lyle Saxon and the Southern Renascence" Tennessee Children's Harvey Chance Home Adoption Scandal" Department of English Linda T. Austin Memphis, Tennessee 29 "PorlerL. Rxhme Southern History Symposium: The Role of Ideas in the Civil Rights 10 "The Mississippi State Legislature Era South" in the year 2000: Ted Ownby, Associate Professor of History A Lool< Ahead" and Southern Studies Gray Tollison Oxford, Mississippi OCTOBER 6 "Walter Anderson Museum of Art" 17 "New Eyes: Clayton Bass, Director, A Photographer's First Year in Mississippi" Walter Anderson Museum of Art David Wharton Ocean Springs, Mississippi Director of Documentary Projects and Assistant Professor of Southern Studies 13 "Race, Sex, and Beauty Queens: Gender in the Era of Desegregation" Joseph Crespino, History Doctoral Student Stanford University

The Brown Bag Luncl,eon Series takes place each Wednesday at 1100n in ti,e Barnard Observatory Lecture Hall during the regular academic year.

Page 4 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register MISSISSIPPI DELTA TENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL The seventh annual Clarksdale's Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival will take place in Clarksdale on October 15-16,1999. As in the past, the festival program will include presentations by Williams authorities and friends, several performances, a session with papers by scholars, and tours of the house and neigh- borhood where the playwright lived as a child. Also scheduled in conjunction with the festival are workshops for teachers and for student actors and a drama competition, with prizes totaling $4,000 for the winners. Scholars are invited to submit papers for possible presentation at the festival. Papers on any topic related to Williams and his work are eligible for consideration. Presentations should be 20 minutes maximum. Authors whose papers are selected for presentation will receive free lodging during the festival and a waiver of the reg- istration fee. The deadline for submissions is August 30,1999. To enter, send a completed paper (7-8 pages) or an abstract (250 words) to Colby H. Kullman, Department of English, The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677. The Tennessee Williams Festival Acting Competition, hosted by Coahoma Community College, is open to high school students in Mississippi. The competition includes two acting categories, monologues and scenes. All material must be drawn from the plays of Tennessee Williams. Each monologue is to be two minutes or less, and each scene is to be between five and ten minutes and involve any number of characters. Cash prizes are given for winning monologues and scenes, which will be performed for the festival audience. Prize money will go to schools of the winners for use with drama activities or library books related to theater and literature. Students, with their teacher-spon- sors, will be given the opportunity to decide how the prize money will be spent. This year, for the second time, a special program for Elderhostel participants will take place in conjunction with the festival. Scheduled for October 13-16, the Elderhostel program will enable registrants to learn about Tennessee Williams in the playwright's boyhood home and also study cotton culture and blues music. For information about Elderhostel sessions, contact Missie Craig, Carnegie Public Library, 114 Delta Avenue, Clarksdale, MS 38614; telephone 662-624-4461; fax 662-627-4344. For information on the 1999 festival and drama competition, write Tennessee Williams Festival, PO. Box 1565, Clarksdale, MS 38614-1565; telephone 662-627 -733 7. Columbus Forum to Examine American Classicism The Columbus Historic Foundation announces the 1999 V. A. Patterson of}ackson and the Mississippi Craftsmen's Guild. Decorative Arts and Preservation Forum and Antiques Show and In addition to the lectures, which will be free and open to the Sale at the Trotter Convention Center in Columbus, Mississippi, public, there will be tickets available to the champagne reception October 21-24, 1999. The theme of this eighth annual forum is opening the Antiques Show and Sale on Thursday evening, "American Classicism," featuring lectures by noted experts in the October 21. The forum opening will be celebrated with a cocktail fields of history, architecture, and decorative arts. reception and dinner on Friday evening, followed on Saturday, Keynote speaker will be Robert Remini of Chicago, the nation's October 23, with a luncheon and a cocktail buffet to end the series. foremost scholar on Andrew Jackson, who will open the forum on There also will be tours of historic sites and exhibits at the Blewett- Friday evening, October 22, with his presentation "Jacksonian Harrison-Lee Home and at the Lowndes County Public Library. Democracy." Other scholars will include Barbara Bacot of Baton Historic homes of Columbus and historic buildings on the campus Rouge and the Louisiana Department of Archives and History, of Mississippi University for Women will be settings for the enter- speaking on "Greek Revival Architecture in the Gulf South"; Ken tainments. P'Pool of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Antiques Show additions for 1999 will include a browsing lunch whose topic will be "Greek Revival Architecture in Columbus"; hour, when shoppers can stroll through the show with a box lunch, and Stephen Harrison, Curator of Decorative Arts, Dallas Museum and an afternoon session to which individuals may bring personal of Art, who will lecture on "Classical Influences in Furniture." John antique objects to be described and identified by nationally recog- Keefe, Curator of Decorative Arts, New Orleans Museum of Art, nized experts on Friday, October 22. will conclude the series with his presentation "Classical Influences For information on all events, please contact the Columbus in the Decorative Arts." Among the introducers will be John Guice Historic Foundation by telephone (662-329-3533) or by Internet of Hattiesburg and Laurel, Carolyn Vance Smith of Natchez, and (www.historic-columbus.org) .

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1999 Page 5

~ NATIONAL FILM PRESERVATION FOUNDATION AWARD The Thomas Collection of 16mm home movie footage, The Thomas home movie film is historically significant preserved through a grant from the National Film Preservation because the couple trained their camera on everyday life as it Foundation, was just returned to the Southern Media Archive occurred and passed through the Gulf Station and Trailer Court, from ColorLab in Rockville, a community place that no longer Maryland. The grant award provided exists. Included in the collection is funds to make a negative from the footage of a parade and performance original camera reversal film, a by the Delta Center school band in preservation print, a broadcast front of the gasstation, smallchildren quality videotape, and a VHS viewing in the store standing next to a larger tape. The 16mm home movie than life shiny metal robot with footage was shot in Walls, blinking red eyes, the large trucks Mississippi, by James Sims Thomas that stopped at the station so the and his wife, Lucille, in the mid- day laborers en route from 1950s. The Thomases owned and Memphis to the Delta cotton operated Thomas Gulf Station and plantations could buy food for the Trailer Court in the heart of the day, a wild rock and roll party in small community of Walls from Christmas time at the Thomas Gulf Station and Trailer the "chicken shack," and local 1943 through 1960. Besidesproviding Court, Walls, Mississippi, 1959 residents visiting and shopping for the needs of Walls, the gas station! during Christmas time. grocerystore picked up a lot of business As always, the Southern Media from people traveling between Memphis and the Delta. Lucille Archive is interested in collecting and preserving motion picture Thomas said that her husband did most of the filming and that footage of everyday life in the South. Potential donors should he shot "anything that would come and go; he just loved to film." call Karen Glynn at 662-915-7811.

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE GLADIN COLLECTION AT THE SOUTHERN MEDIA ARCHIVE ~onn~~o~Williamson ~ ~ing~iscuitlime Photographs made from the original negatives are available as 8 x 10, b/w, glossy prints, or as 11 x 14, b/w, exhibition-quality photographs printed on fiber-based paper and selenium toned for permanence.

SETS AVAILABLE 8 x 10 SET OF THREE ITEM SMASET-8 $90.00 11 x 14 SET OF THREE ITEM SMASET-ll $325.00

8 x 10 ITEM SMA1941-8 $35.00 8 x 10 ITEM SMA 1942-8 $35.00 8 x 10 ITEM SMA1944-8 $35.00 II x 14 ITEM SMA1941-11 $125.00 II x 14 ITEM SMA1942-11 $125.00 II x 14 ITEM SMA1944-11 $125.00

1941 Sonny Boy Williamson, Sam Anderson 1 942 Joe Willie Wilkins, Dudlow Taylor. 1944 Joe Willie Wilkins, Joe "Pinetop"Perkins. (co-owner ofKFFA), and Robert Lockwood, Jr. Sonny Boy Williamson standing with Herb Sonny Boy Williamson standing with Hugh Smith at on the King Biscuit Time set. Langston at the microphone, James "Peck" Curtis, the microphone,James "Peck"Curtis, and Houston and Willie Love on the King Biscuit Time set. Stackhouse on the King Biscuit Time set.

To ORDER CALL 800-390-3527 (OUTSIDE OF THE U.S. DIAL 662-915-5577) VISA/MASTERCARD ACCEPTED. No C.O.D. MISSISSIPPIRESIDENTS ADD 7% SALES TAX. SHIPPING AND HANDLING $3.50 PER ORDER.

Page 6 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register Gladin Studio Photography Collection Exhibition

Its heyday is past. Even some of its original streets have been Lloyd McClamroch, curator of the exhibit along with photog- lost to the Mississippi River. But visitors can catch a glimpse of rapher Dan Sherman. what life was like in the once thriving port town of Helena, Anyone who has spent time in a small-town Southern setting Arkansas, thanks to the Gladin Studio Photography as recently as the 1950s and '60s will recognize the images in Collection exhibition that opened this summer at the the exhibition. Segregation is exemplified in photographs of University's Barnard Observatory Gallery. the local Bobbie Brooks garment factory, where white women From the construction of the Helena Bridge to the crowning operate sewing machines in one space while their black counter- of beauty queens, promotional shots of the town's numerous parts iron in another. musical groups, and scenes of commerce in The far-reaching influence of Hollywood downtown Helena, the Southern Media on American culture can be seen in the Archive's exhibition of vintage prints "There is a strong sense highly stylized portraits from the 1940s represents the lifework of I vey and of a civic community and the 1950s. "Portraits from the 1940s Morvene Gladin, who operated a photog- and '50s reflected Hollywood's pervasive raphy studio in Helena from 1939 to the captured in the Gladins' influence on popular culture," said Karen mid-1990s. photographs ... " Glynn, visual resources curator of the The Southern Media Archive acquired Southern Media Archive. "Both men and SUSAN LLOYD MCCLAMROCH the Gladin Studio Photography Collection women were often photographed in last summer. Approximately 40 prints movie-magazine poses, looking over their from the vast collection were selected for display in the shoulders into the camera or smiling broadly in close-ups." Barnard Observatory Gallery and will hang there throughout The Gladin Collection Exhibition also presents the the summer. unexpected. One memorable photograph depicts a stage full of The Gladins photographed thousands of people and events child accordion players-something that Ivey Gladin jokingly in Helena and Phillips County in their 55-year career, including attributes not to the presence of an accordion factory in the bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson, well known for his perfor- town, but, rather, to the fact that Helena had "one hell of an mances on the KFFA King Biscuit Time radio show in the accordion salesman here." 1940s. Also of special note are portrait photographs painted in For additional details, consult the Center for the Study of oil by Morvene Gladin. Southern Culture's website (www.olemiss.edu/depts/south) or "There is a strong sense of a civic community captured in call the Center at 662-915-5993. the Gladins' photographs of dances, church and school gatherings, MICHAEL HARRELSON and weddings," said Southern Studies graduate student Susan

Left: This promotional train visited Helena during a big cotton festival. Right: A parade though downtown Helena in the 1940s drew a crowd. PHOTOS COURTESY GLADIN COLLECTION, SOUTHERN MEDIA ARCHIVE, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SOUTHERN CULTURE, THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1999 Page 7 The Dain & Cofield Collection Posters High quality 18" x 24 duotone posters featuring timeless photographs of William Faulkner

Oain Poster Cofield Poster M1034 M1033 $18.95 $18.95

Faulkner's World Exhibit Poster M1789 $10.00

~lImel<&.

Limited Edition Prints

Two limited edition prints of photographs of William Faulkner are available from the Southern Media Archive. One is a portrait made by Jack Cofield in 1962 and shows the author sitting in a wicker chair. The other photograph was taken by Martin Dain and shows Faulkner standing with his horse in the corral behind Rowan Oak. The images are printed on 11x14 inch, exhibition grade, double weight, fiber- based paper and are selenium toned for permanence by master printer Dan Sherman.Each numbered print costs $250.00.

William Faulkner by Martin Dain William Faulkner by Jack Cofield, 1962 Item SMA D-LE Item SMA C-LE To order caU800 ..390 ..3527 (Outside of the U.S. Dial 662-915-5577.)Visa/MasterCard accepted. No C.O.D. Mississippi residents add 7% sales tax. Add $3.50 per order for shipping and handling.

Page 8 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register High School Teachers in Five Southern States to Be Awarded Saks Incorporated Fellowships to Attend Faulkner Conference hirty high school teachers chosen from the University. "The result should be very University will award 3.9 Continuing applicants in five Southern states will be much in keeping with one of the purposes Education Units for the teacher work- attending the University's annual of the conference, which is to bring shops and the conference sessions. Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Faulkner to a larger, more general "The University is honored to join Conference July 25-30 without cost, audience." Brad Martin and Saks Incorporated in thanks to a fellowship being awarded for "With our corporate headquarters in providing this wonderful opportunity for the first time this year. Birmingham, Alabama, our corporate teachers throughout the South," said English and literature instructors in operations center in Jackson, Mississippi, University Chancellor Robert C. Khayat. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and the extensive operations of our "The Faulkner Conference is a unique Mississippi, and Tennessee are eligible to McRae's, Parisian, and Proffitt's businesses exploration of literature and its reflection apply for the Saks Incorporated in the Southeast, the associates of Saks of the human condition." Fellowships, newly created on behalf of Incorporated are deeply connected to Requests for fellowship application McRae's, Proffitt's and Parisian Southern culture," said Brad Martin, forms should be submitted to Faulkner department stores. Made possible by a chairman of the board and chief executive Conference-Saks Incorporated Fellow- four-year, $200,000 gift from the Saks officer of Saks Incorporated. "No element ships, The University of Mississippi, P.O. Incorporated Foundation, the fellowships of that culture is more treasured than the Box 879, University, MS, 38677-0879. are intended to further the study of literary tradition of our great Southern For further information regarding the William Faulkner, the Nobel-Prize- writers. Our sponsorship of these Faulkner teacher workshops, teachers may contact winning Mississippi author, at the Conference Fellowships is intended to pro- the University of Mississippi Institute for secondary school level. vide high school teachers in our communi- Continuing Studies by telephone (662-915- "The Saks Incorporated Fellowships ties with an opportunity to broaden their 7282) or e-mail [email protected]). will make an extraordinary contribution awareness and understanding of the impor- Since its creation in 1974, the Faulkner to the Faulkner Conference by giving tance and relevance of these great works." and Yoknapatawpha Conference has secondary school teachers the opportunity The Saks Incorporated Fellowships drawn scholars from throughout the to attend this internationally recognized will provide the registration fee for the United States and the world to Oxford, event, which in turn will enable these conference and cover expenses for the Mississippi, where the author lived and educators to introduce Faulkner to their week-long conference and teacher work- wrote his classic works. The theme of the students," said Donald M. Kartiganer, shop, including instructional materials 1999 conference is "Faulkner and Post- director of the conference and William and supplies, dormitory lodging, a travel modernism." Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies at stipend, and a meal stipend. The MICHAEL HARRELSON SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF SOUTHERN LITERATURE Calls for Papers on Faulkner and Other Topics The Society for the Study of Southern Literature (SSSL) will with papers on the following topics of special interest: Southern examine the theme "The South in the New Millennium" during its poetry, drama, nonfiction; New South; any and all kinds of theory conference on April 6-9, 2000, in Orlando, Florida. Rita Dove, and Southern fiction; antecedents of contemporary Southern liter- Commonwealth Professor of Poetty at the University of Virginia, ature; ethnic literature in the South. Proposals for papers, panels, or will read on Thursday, April 6. discussion groups are welcome. Submit 500-word abstracts for indi- Papers for the conference and for a special session on Faulkner vidual papers or for each participant in a panel or discussion group. are requested. Deadline for proposals is October 15, 1999. Send all correspon- A panel on "Faulkner in the New Millennium: Criticism and dence to Dawn Trouard, Department of English, University of the Politics of Difference" will explore the relationship between Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32751. Faulkner's work and its changing cultural context, patticularly the Visit the website http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/-sssI2000/ for up-to- complex and ever-evolving politics of difference. Proposals for date information on conference plans, panels, and speakers. papers on Faulkner and issues of race, class, gender, and ethnicity Membership in the SSSL is $10 for a calendar year. Checks are welcome. Send queries or one-page descriptions by September drawn on U.S. banks or U.S. dollar World Money Orders may be 20,1999, to Judith Wittenberg, either by mail (146 Allerton Road, sent to C. Ralph Stephens, Essex Community College, 7201 Newton, MA 02461) or e-mail ([email protected]). Rossville Blvd., Baltimore, MD 21237-3899. Papers on any topic will be considered for other SSSL sessions,

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1999 Page 9 SOUTHERN STUDIES TEACHER INSTITUTE

The Center hosted its fifth annual Southern Studies Teacher in their curriculums. Topics addressed included "Gender and Institute June 6-11, 1999.Directed by Kathryn McKee and Ted Slavery," "The Southern Lady and Gentleman," "Faulkner and Ownby, the institute took as its theme "Gender in Southern Gender," "Farming and Family Life," and "African American History and Literature." The intensive course, offered for gradu- Protest in the 20th Century." On the institute's final morning, ate credit hours for the first time, exposed participants both to participants met to trade ideas for possible lesson plans and class- strategies for rethinking the books and subjects they already room activities arising out of the issues discussed throughout the teach and introduced other texts they might consider including week.

Participants in the teacher institute were, left to right, row 1: Sally McNair, Jackson, Mississippi; Mary Thompson,Clarksdale, Mississippi; Martha Parker, Bruce, Mississippi; Sue Magee, Brookhaven, Mississippi; row 2: Greg Smith, Tupelo, Mississippi; Katie McKee, codirector; Emerson Wickuire, Memphis, Tennessee; row 3: Melanie Yelton, Batesville, Mississippi; Melanie Wood, New Albany, Mississippi; Sara lrby, Oxford, Mississippi; Ted Ownby, codirector; Donna DeDeaux, Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

CALL The aim of the first Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference of the new century is to begin explo- FOR PAPERS ration, as Wright Morris put it, of the territory ahead. Encouraging both prophecy and prescription (if remaining wary of the possibility that the past is indeed never dead), the conference will try to propose some of the new directions in which our reading in Faulkner should take us, the new critical and cul- THE 27TH tural paradigms that will test his endurance and relevance, the new Faulkner that may be out there, waiting for us to catch up with him. ANNUAL Here are some of the issues that might be raised: What are the likely and/or necessary shifts in our FAULKNER & evaluation of the Faulknerian corpus, as well as our placement of it in the various canons-Southern, American world-in which it presently figures so prominently? What forms of criticism seem most YOKNAPATAWPHA fruitful, and how, specifically, should they be practiced? What are the new contexts that need to be examined or reexamined: is it;the external culture-Faulkner's and our own-that demands our atten- CONFERENCE tion, or the internal, some uniquely Faulknerian energy, that needs to be identified? Authors whose papers are selected for presentation at the conference will receive (1) a waiver of the "Faulkner and the conference registration fee, (2) lodging at the University Alumni House from Sunday, July 23, through 21st Century" Friday, July 28, and (3) reimbursement of up to $500 in travel expenses within the continental United States ($.31 per mile by automobile or tourist class airfare). Papers presented at the conference will be published by the University Press of Mississippi. The 14th edition of the University of Chicago Manual of Style should be used as a guide in preparing manuscripts (3,000 to 6,000 words). Three copies of the manuscript must be submitted by January 15, 2000. Notification of selection will be made by March 1, 2000. Manuscripts and inquiries about papers should be addressed to Donald Kartiganer, Department of English, The University of Mississippi, •July 23~29, 2000 University, MS 38677. Telephone: 662-915-5793. E-mail: [email protected].

Page 10 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register "Telling a Southern Story" Is Seminar Theme

The diversity of interests and ideas Frank Ridgway, a senior from valuable information for the Southern within the South and the Southern Shreveport, Louisiana, examined Media Archive by obtaining more Studies Program were well represented in Southern poets and their place within detailed identifications for photographs Southern Studies 402 this spring. Taught Southern literature. Ridgway looked at originally taken by Dorothea Lange. by Kathryn McKee, McMullan Assistant how Southern poets were treated by critics Alford also snapped her own pictures of Professor of Southern Studies and assistant and anthologists, making a case for the cooperative's few still-standing professor of English, the seminar studied Southern poets to be given a more buildings. the South and the cultural forms that are prominent position within the canon of Several students turned to projects found within the region, in conjunction Southern literature. He compiled and close to home. Roblynn Curtis, a senior with the theme "Telling a Southern gave to the class a small collection of from Hattiesburg, studied the practice of Story." The course culminated with each poetry, featuring some of his favorite quilting by white women during the student preparing an original research Southern authors. Depression era, using her own grand- paper that told a Southern story and The story behind the mint julep was mother as one of her primary sources. As presenting it to the class. the subject for John Frierson's project. part of her presentation, Curtis used real Working with the theme of the course, Frierson, a senior from Athens, Georgia, quilts to familiarize the class with various the class read and discussed a broad range looked at the history behind the drink patterns and techniques. of works that dealt with many different and how its place within Southern Laura Heller compiled an oral history regions and eras of the South. Reading culture has changed over the years. Using of her maternal family's hometown, Rolling works such as The Mind of the South, a variety of sources spanning almost two Fork, Mississippi. As part of her project, Lanterns on the Levee, Black Boy, Dust hundred years, Frierson illustrated how Laura created a webpage. It is available for Tracks on the Road, and Bastard Out of the drink has changed in content as well viewing at http://www.geocities.com/ Carolina provided a solid foundation of as in status. Athens/8772. Southern stories upon which the students Justin Showah prepared one of the Casey Reed tackled what proved to be were able to tell their own. most interesting projects with his look at a challenging topic and a delicate issue In a class made up entirely of juniors Southern community through the lens of when he set out to research the troubled and seniors, a high level of work was Paul McLeod, owner and operator of path to integrating high school athletics expected and the students were up to the Graceland Too. Showah, a junior from in his native Alabama. Casey took integration challenge. They were able to select the Jackson, looked at how an Elvis fanatic in one county as his case study, but placed topics for their projects, and they came like McLeod fits in with the small that situation within a broader statewide up with subjects ranging from the evolution community of Holly Springs, where he and national context. of Acadian culture in Louisiana (by Chris has constructed his shrine to the king of Of local interest was the research of Price) to the history of NASCAR (by rock and roll. Much had previously been Kristi Robinson, a junior from Hamilton, David Ferris). written about McLeod and his obsession, Alabama, who wrote a history of the McKee was pleased with the way the but through numerous interviews, relationship between the antebellum projects turned out. "I was very impressed Showah worked to get behind the Elvis home Lochnivar and the community of with the scope and quality of the projects. persona and see how the man functions Pontotoc. And Oxford native Sommer The students showed the dedication within a small Southern community. Sneed compiled ghost stories from Oxford needed to get through some of the more Sarah Alford, a junior from Madison, and Lafayette County. complicated aspects of their work without combined fieldwork with photography to For additional information about any getting discouraged," McKee said. "I document the Delta Cooperative Farm, a of these projects or about the course in thought every project in the class was cooperative operating during the 1930s general, please contact Kathryn McKee original and dealt with an interesting in the Mississippi Delta and housing both at [email protected]. aspect of Southern culture." black and white workers. Alford gained JOHN FRIERSON Southern Studies Students Honored

Southern Studies undergraduate student Franklin Ridgway is Tiffany Kilpatrick's paper on a Mennonite community in the recipient of the Gray Award for his paper "Factories in Fields: Mississippi garnered her the Coterie Award for an outstanding Plantation Life in the Old Southwest," written for Nancy research paper on Southern culture. Kilpatrick, an undergraduate Bercaw's History of the Old South class. The Gray award, in Southern Studies, also received a $100 prize with her award. established by Colonel and Mrs. Homer Gray of Oxford, Her paper was prepared for Southern Studies 402, taught by includes a $100 prize and is designated for a paper that analyzes Kathryn McKee. aspects of the Southern experience. Ridgway set a record, The Center congratulates these outstanding students, who becoming the first student to receive two Gray Awards. Last year were recognized during the University's Honors Day ceremonies he won for his paper "Outward and Visible Signs: The Sacred on April 8. Symbolism of Walker Percy's Fiction."

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1999 Page 11 11;1 memoriam

record business by chance. In the late the studio until two a.m., until he MAE BERTHA CARTER 1940s she was working as a bookkeeper recorded a song right," said McMurry. "If January 13, 1923 - April 28, 1999 in her husband's furnirure shop. Willard he said, 'Let's get out of here,' or made a McMurry bought a hardware store on few boo boos while recording, that was VIRGINIA FOSTERDURR North Farish Street in the black part of all right as long as the feeling was in it. August 6, 1903-February 24, 1999 Jackson and sent his wife there to supervise That's what sold records .... I had an the liquidation of the remaining inventory. advantage over some producers being so The shop still had some "race records," close to the record shop and hearing • • which she enjoyed listening to and what sold. Back then if you had the No. which sold very quickly. McMurry found 1 Billboard hit, you'd be lucky to sell out that such records were supplied by 50,000. We never did that but we did distributors in New Orleans and were well with Sonny Boy's Nine Below Zero, not easy to obtain in Jackson. She visited Mighty Long Time, Cat Hop, and Too these distributors on a trip to New Close Blues." Orleans and returned with a trunk full of Sonny Boy also served as a talent blues and spiritual 78s. Those records scout and was responsible for bringing also sold quickly, and before long Elmore James to the label. James's lone McMurry was phoning in record orders Trumpet release and recording debut, to New Orleans and Memphis. Dust My Broom, would be the label's The McMurrys kept the North only R&B chart entry. Sonny Boy also Farish location open as a combination recruited pianist Willie Love, whose record shop and furniture store called Nelson Street Blues was a best seller in Record Mart-Furniture Bargains. The the Delta. Other artists gravitated to store attracted a lot of walk-in traffic Jackson once they heard there was a and it also became a busy mail-order lady there who made blues records. outlet through advertisements over McMurry went as far as building a radio station WRBC. "We had listening studio in the back of the record shop, in booths in the shop with the record which many of the sessions were player on the counter," said McMurry conducted. LILLIAN SHEDD MCMURRY in a 1984 interview. "Groups of black Unfortunately, poor sales and escalating December 30, 1921-March 18, 1999 men would crowd into the booths and debts forced McMurry to shut Trumpet I found out they were singing spirituals down in 1955. She sold Sonny Boy Lillian Shedd McMurry, the founder along with the records. Some of them Williamson's contract to her pressing and owner of the legendary Trumpet were really good. By the middle of plant and worked for several years to pay Records label and the Globe Music 1950 I started thinking, 'Why can't I off bills the label had incurred. During Corporation, died in Jackson, make a record?' Gads, I didn't know the 1960s and '70s, she worked with her Mississippi, after suffering a heart attack, what I was getting into." husband at their store on Gallatin on March 18, 1999.She was 78. Trumpet's initial releases by the Street. For years she sold Trumpet 45s McMurry's Jackson-based label, which Andrews Gospelaires and the Southern and 78s to visiting blues collectors for a released blues, spirituals, country, pop, Sons were recorded at WRBC and aimed dollar each. In 1974 she liquidated the and rockabilly records, was one of the at the spiritual market. However, remaining stock at a nickel a disc to a first independent labels in the South. McMurry wanted to record blues and New England collector. But it was blues that Trumpet became auditioned Joe Hill Louis, Bo Carter, In the early 1980s, McMurry used best known for in the early 1950s. and Tommy Johnson-but she didn't reissue royalties to purchase an impressive Commercially, the label didn't rival think they were good enough to record. granite marker that was placed over Chess, RPM, King, Imperial, or She had heard about an entertaining Williamson's previously unmarked grave Specialty, but Trumpet's recordings were harmonica player in the Delta and went in Tutwiler, Mississippi. In 1985, she irmovative and the label inttoduced several looking for him to see if he was worth donated her written records, files, and important artists to the public. Under recording. In December of 1950 remaining masters and rights to the McMurry's supervision, Trumpet recorded McMurry found Sonny Boy Williamson University of Mississippi Music Library's Sonny Boy Williamson [Rice Miller], in a Belzoni juke joint and signed him to Blues Archive. McMurry is survived by a Elmore James, Tiny Kennedy, Big Joe a Trumpet Records contract. Sonny Boy daughter, Vitrice (Willard McMurry Williams, Willie Love, Percy and Luther would be the label's key artist over the died in 1996). She is buried at Lakewood Huff, and Jerry McCain. next five years. Cemetery in Jackson. McMurry became involved in the "Sometimes Sonny Boy would be in JEFFHANNUSCH

Page 12 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register McClamroch Attends MHT Meeting

At this spring's Mississippi Historic Preservation Conference, Southern Studies graduate student Susan Lloyd McClamroch was awarded Mississippi Heritage Trust's first conference scholar- ship. The conference, which was held on the Mississippi Gulf Coast April 8-10, 1999, was hosted by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Mississippi Heritage Trust (MHT). The conference was held at the Saenger Theater in downtown Biloxi, where speakers addressed the topic "Protecting the Irreplaceable!" with talks on Mississippi's 10 Most Endangered Historic Places listing, local history museums, heritage education, landscape and community design, disaster preparedness, preservation advocacy, and other topics. The conference's opening Pictured at the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs are, session and the MHT Board of Trustees meeting were held in from left, Susan Lloyd McClamroch; John Anderson, youngest son Ocean Springs. A special dinner tour of Bay St. Louis took place of artist Walter Anderson; Stella Gray Bryant, executive director, the second evening, and MHT's Heritage Awards luncheon was Mississippi Heritage Trust; Nancy Tinker, field representative, held on the final day, in Pascagoula. National Trust for Historic Preservation. Each year the MHT Conference moves to a new location in Mississippi, giving Mississippians the opportunity to visit people and places across the state and to learn about preserving their For information about membership and activities, write MHT, communities and the historic places that make Mississippi special. PO. Box 577, Jackson, MS 39205-0577. HOWORTH INDUCTED TO AlA COLLEGE OF FELLOWS Oxford architect Thomas Somerville the Center, Ventress Hall for the College Howorth was recently invested in the of Liberal Arts, and Barksdale- Isom House American Institute of Architects' presti- (1830s), one of Oxford's earliest structures gious College of Fellows. The honor is and now designated as one of the top ten given to AlA members who have made sig- bed and breakfast establishments in the nificant contributions to the profession. nation. In addition to his restoration work, The association has more than 63,000 which has won numerous awards, Howorth members, and fewer than 2,300 have has been recognized for his design of the received the honor of fellow. Howorth is Thad Cochran Center for the the only Mississippian among this year's 97 Development of Natural Projects and the honorees. Jamie Whitten National Center for Howorth was the principal architect for Physical Acoustics, both at the University, Thomas Somerville Howorth the restoration of Barnard Observatory for and other new buildings in the state. International Country Music Conference Call for Proposals The 17th annual International Country Music Conference (LMC) will be held June 1-3, 2000, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. ICMC solicits proposals in all disciplines related to all aspects of the history and contemporary status of country music. For details, check ICMC's website (http://plato.ess.tntech.edu/www/ci/icmc.html). All presenters will be expected to pay the $60.00 (U.S.) registration fee. Proposals should include title of paper, a 75-100 word abstract, name of presenter(s), institutional affiliation(s), complete address( es), phone and fax numbers, e-mail address(es). Proposals may be submitted bye-mail to [email protected] or sent by conventional mail to James E. Akenson, Box 5042, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN 38505, U.S.A. Deadline for receipt of proposals is Friday, October 29,1999.

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1999 Page 13 The inaugural Eatonton Literary men, storytelling, gospel and bluegrass Festival and Book Fair in Putnam County, music, and Native American exhibitions. Georgia, is scheduled for August 7, 1999. Admissionformembersis free; fornonmembers The day long program will open with a President Jimmy Carter and Ambassador pay $4 for adults, $2 for children. Fordetails, storyteller interpreting the African folk Andrew Youngwill be the keynote speakers contact RobertE Brzuszek,SeniorCurator,The tales that inspired Joel Chandler Harris. at an interdisciplinary conference, "Religion CrosbyArboretum,MississippiStateUniversity, Tours will introduce visitors to the signif- in the American South: Towardsa Renewed p.o. Box1639,PicaYlllle,MS394M;telephone icant places in the lives of natives Joel Scholarship," October 21-23,1999, at 601-799-2311;fax 601-799-2372. Chandler Harris and Alice Walker. After Emory University in Atlanta.Sponsored by lunch, served in a historic building, public the online Journal of Southern Religion lectures will consider the contributions of (http://isr.as.wvu.edu), the conference will Harris and Walker to American letters feature leading scholars in working sessions The Historic Chattahoochee and look at other Georgia Piedmont writers, on religion and politics, Christian theology, Commission has published The Very Worst including Flannery O'Connor of electronic media, non-Protestants, and Road: Travellers' Accounts of Crossing Milledgeville and Augustus Baldwin violence, capital punishment, and religion Alabama's Old Creek Indian Territory, 1820- Longstreet of Greensboro. Dealers in rare in the South.Registration will be limited. 1847, Compiled by JeffreyC. Benton, this books will be selling their best Georgia For more information and reservations, collection of 16 antebellum accounts of collectables, and current books by regional contact the]ournal (http://isr.as.wvu.edu). travelling the FederalRoad from Columbus, presseswill also be available. A registration Georgia, to Montgomery,Alabama, provides fee of $10 includes the cost of lunch and insight into the frontier nature of early tours. For details, call Glenn T. Eskew at Alabama; European and Northern attitudes 706-485-0388; visit the event's website The Pilgrimage Garden Club's 26th toward Southern whites and Native (www.arches.uga.edu/-stevew/elf); or write annual Antiques Forum will be held Americans; and the relationships of whites, the Eatonton Literary Festival and Book November 3-5, 1999, in Natchez, Native Americans, and African Americans. Fair,P.O. Box 4595, Eatonton, GA 31024. Mississippi, at the historic Radisson Eola Order copies of the 176-page, paperback Hotel. Among those scheduled to lecture book from Historic Chattahoochee on aspects of the 1999 theme "Old World, Commission, P.O. Box 33, Eufaula, AL New World: Cross Currents of Taste in the 36072-0033; by telephone (334-687-9755); The National Lighthouse Conference Arts" will be William C. Allen, architectural or online (www.hcc-al-ga.org).Send $12.95 1999, scheduled for October 12-16 in Key historian,United States Capitol, and Peter plus $3 postage for the first copy ordered; West, Florida, aims to promote historic M. Kenney, associate curator of American add $1 for each additional book. preservation of lighthouses and light sta- Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum of tion properties. The program exploring the Art. For information, check the web theme "Lighting the New Millennium" will (www.bkbank.com/ncvb/antiques)or contact bring together important decision makers The Antiques Forum,P.O.Box 1776, Vision Press of Northport,Alabama, to develop an agenda to preserve America's Natchez, MS 39121-1776; telephone 877- recently published A Guide to Literary Sites lighthouse facilities through the next 442-9796 or 601-445-2072. of the South (17.95), a travel guide by Ella decade. Participants will also evaluate the Robinson. The book that contains 113brief progressmade in the preservation field over biographiesof Southern writersand provides the pastseveralyearsand hear ofnew problems. information about 26 authors' homes that For details,check the web site (www.keywest. The Crosby Arboretum, a regional are open to the public. Also included are com/lighthouse) or contact National arboretum representing the native flora of details about 19 festivals; 106 markers, Lighthouse Conference 1999,3501 South the Pearl River drainage basin in Mississippi monuments, and burial sites;and 135'special Roosevelt Boulevard, Key West, FL and Louisiana, will sponsor the Piney library collections. Inquiries should be 33040; telephone 305-296-1702; fax 305- Woods Heritage Festival on Saturday and addressed to Joanne Sloan, Vision Press, 296-6202; e-mail [email protected]. Sllllday,November 13 and 14.The program, P.O. Box 1106, Northport, AL 35476; scheduled from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily, telephone 205-339-4528; e-mail will include demonstrations by local crafts- [email protected].

Page 14 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register Readin the South concentrate more on the last Civil War battle east of the Time Flowing Through: Mississippi River and subsequent Union occupation of A History of the Lower Chattahoochee River. Columbus and the river basin, or on slaves who made the transition from slavery to freedom. By Lynn Willoughby. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama While the first one hundred pages provide a good, albeit Press, 1999. 264 pages, maps, illustrations. $29.95. general, explanation of the antebellum events in the This is Lynn Willoughby's second book about the Chattahoochee basin, the remaining 89 pages add a new Chattahoochee River. The first, Fair to understanding of the river's history. Her Middlin' (1993), is an economic study of study of late 19th-century steamboats, the Chattahoochee River area from river boat culture, steamboat companies Columbus, Georgia, southward to and their management, and the Apalachicola, Florida, during the competition between the river and the antebellum years. The present book railroads offers a new view of emphasizes the cultural and social steamboats on a small river. Many history of the river, or as Willoughby readers may wish that she had done indicates, it is an attempt to chronicle more with railroads that owned "humankind's relationship with the steamboat lines. The steamboat Chattahoochee River" (xi) to the chapters (pp. 101-149) would benefit present. This is an admirable study of from a brief comparison with other the river's use and misuse by those who rivers and for successive time periods on lived along its banks and who depended the Chattahoochee. Perhaps a table on its largesse for their welfare. listing the boats on the river each year Willoughby, as with as any good or a table showing annual shipments by storyteller, starts at the beginning with river between significant river ports the early native American inhabitants would provide a better perspective on of the region. Two chapters chronicle the steamboat era. the known sociological and cultural The last three chapters, all too short, connections between these early deal with more recent developments inhabitants, the land, and the river. She along the river including the industrial is at her best when writing about the uses of the water, the growing pollution intriguing political relations between the Indians and the of the Chattahoochee River, and the efforts to create a interlopers from England, Spain, and the United States navigable waterway with locks and dams. The Historic during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. That history is Chattahoochee Commission and the Columbus Museum, indeed complex, but Willoughby sorts through the various which commissioned this book, have been well served. Lynn interests and presents a readable and informative version. Willoughby, now with two books on the Chattahoochee She does not present as strong a statement of Negro Fort, or River, is to be congratulated for her scholarship. of the Indian removal as both topics deserve. HARRY P. OWENS While the author emphasizes the economic and financial history of the area's cotton culture in her first book, she The History of Southern Drama. develops a broader story of the cotton kingdom by expanding By Charles S. Watson. Lexington: University Press of on the textile interests along the rapids and falls of the Kentucky, 1997. 259 pages. $29.95. Chattahoochee River. She pays due attention to the growing steamboat traffic and indicates Apalachicola's imp01;tance What identifies a playas "Southern," and what does the in supplying manufactured goods and providing markets for term "Southern drama" connote? Why is Robert Munford the distant hinterlands in Alabama and Georgia before the considered the first Southern dramatist? When was Southern Civil War. Her discussion of the war years portrays drama proclaimed as such, and what did the Civil War have Columbus's transition from a sleepy commercial village to a to do with this? As the first theorist of American drama of busy industrial center. One may wonder why she did not the South, Paul Green formulated what kinds of proposals for

Book Reviews and Notes by Faculty, Staff, Students, For these ond other books coli 800-648-4001 or fox 601-234-9630. ",....->~_II and Friends of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture 160 Courthouse Square· Oxford, Mississippi38655 ~~

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1999 Page 15 Reading the South continued DIXIE BEFORE DISNEY 100 Years of Roadside Fun a composition of a drama in the example, the poor white, the Southern By Tim Hollis " South? What claims can Charleston, belle, the plantation mistress, and the "A wonderful, nostalg;; look at Southern New Orleans, Atlanta, Memphis, and loyal black); (2) representations of tourist spots. Part hi$~.~rYand part Houston make as the foremost theatre scrapbook, Hollis's e~plbration of south- Southern violence (such as the rise of ern travelwilltranspo' you to a simpler cities in the South? How successful the Ku Klux Klan and its repeated time-a ti'~Wben YOUi?OUldstop at a was DuBose Heyward in portraying revi vals); (3) the dependence on Stl1i7keY's'~:n!l~¥t.~baC~.scratcher, full urban blacks with honest realism in Southern legendry with heroes such as tank\of gas, peaansjiilodlfireworks for :;:, . :;:::;:::~ :,<.... ',; ",':=:;,:",:.:,,,:-c the 192 7 play Porgy? How did the Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, arou Southern Literary Renaissance of 1920 -80 and Robert E. Lee; (4) the palpable to 1960 encourage artistically superior $45 u force of fundamentalist religion, which plays that analyzed the South is, as Reynolds Price has observed, critically? Who are the leading capable of assuming either a comical Southern civil rights playwrights who or a "transcendental" form; (5) a advocated Martin Luther King Jr.'s highly recognizable form of speech in doctrine of nonviolence? What are which rhythms and idioms mark the and how strong are Lillian Hellman's language as Southern; (6) a spirited Southern roots? In his Texas Trilogy, injection of local color; (7) a love-hate how does Preston Jones parody attitude toward to South; and (8) a Sou thern traits? What new interests revisionist spirit that sought to correct has Southern drama taken since 1970, false representations of the South. and how is this change reflected in the Not only does Watson carefully plays of Beth Henley and Romulus define his terms in the prologue, but Linney? Why is Anton Chekhov a he also skillfully sets Southern recurring influence on Southern theatrical events against a clearly '"::0 ..; dramatists? Will the current upsurge of E drawn backdrop of American and :! regional activity produce better world history. Robert Munford's 1770s .!! "l Southern drama? The answers to these Southern plays are performed at the '"... questions and hundreds of others are same time as Shakespeare's plays and a..... ::0 to be found in Charles S. Watson's Richard Cumberland's The West Indian ~ encyclopedic History of Southern are touring in Washington and ~ Drama. Annapolis.Northern dramatic ...... !- Watson begins with an important versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin are .... prologue that discusses preliminaries compared with Southern rebuttals of and establishes definitions. Using T. S. oci the play. Paul Green's proposals for the 00 Eliot's definition of culture as "all the ..... composition of drama in the South are .....I characteristics and interests of a examined beside the theories of C") ..... people," he concludes that culture, Cooper, Poe, and Howells, who 0 0 then, "embraces the attitudes, 00 considered the question of creating a I customs, and traditions of a particular distinctive American drama. DuBose -a -... people living in a particular place."He Heyward takes the lead in encouraging ,:;.... applies Eliot's idea of culture as "a way Southern literary artists in Charleston ...CI ::0 of life" to Southern drama ("drama a.. while at the same time H. L. Mencken ... that combines Southern authorship indicts the cultural barrenness of the -=E and subject matter") and Southern South in his infamous essay "The 0 .t: ... dramatists ("only those individuals Sahara of the Bozart." The realism of -a... who were born in the South and/or Henrik Ibsen helped bring about a 0 have lived a substantial part of their 0... revolution in world drama that was ... productive years in the South"). Using paralleled in Southern drama in the 0... -'" Paul Green's In Abraham's Bosom plays of Espy Williams, who --=0 0 (1926) and Tennessee Williams's ...CI incorporated the principles of realism ..l!! Streetcar Named Desire (1947) as ·c and took stands on issues such as 0 examples of what he means by "a religious tolerance, political a> ... Southern play," Watson singles out corruption, and moral infidelity. The -::0 0 >- eight characteristics for discussion and chopping down of the cherry tree in a analysis: (1) the presence of one or Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and the -a- .. more distinctive social types (for y: declines of the old order of Russia - Page 16 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register Reading the South continued

have influenced a number of Southern wealth of the material he presents economy, Kentucky is the upper South, dramatists who have seen the same make this an invaluable resource for the land of burley tobacco and decay in their vision of a vanishing old anyone interested in dramatic history independent farmers who work South. and Southern culture. relatively small tracts of land when Our world appears to be shrinking as COLBY H. KULLMAN compared with the sprawling cotton families scatter and leave the home operations of the Mississippi Delta or the large-scale agribusinesses of the town behind, as local dialects give way Clear Springs: AMemo. to a common CNN "newspeak," as Midwest. Consequently the By Bobbie Ann Mason. New York: town squares are abandoned for relationship between the farmer and Random House, 1999. 298 pages. shopping malls, and country stores are his or her land is an intimate one, and Illustrated. $25.00. replaced by brand-name outlets. How Mason expertly captures the rhythms of endangered is the culture and drama of In Clear Springs, Bobbie Ann Mason such a life. She recalls bountiful the American South? Comfort may be tells many stories. Only one of them is vegetable gardens, sumptuous meals, taken in Charles S. Watson's her own. In making sense of her life's and long days spent outside in both convincing thesis in The History of pattern, Mason seeks connections and work and play: "I look back at bursts of Southern Drama that "as Southern finds herself inextricably bound up in joy over daisy chains and bird feathers drama matures, it remains recognizably the lives of the people who have come and butterflies and cats. These were the Southern." A wealth of Southern before her, particularly the women. textures of bliss" (89). But if she drama has brightened the stage since Clear Springs is not, finally, so much idealizes childhood, Mason is careful to the 1970s-Preston Jones's Texas about Bobbie Ann Mason the writer as depict farm life in realistic terms. "Food Trilogy, Beth Henley's Crimes of the about the forces that made Bobbie Ann was the center of our lives," she recalls. Heart, Marsha Norman's 'Night Mother, Mason a writer-a childhood in rural "We planted it, grew it, harvested it, Romulus Linney's Holy Ghosts, and Kentucky, an abiding esteem for her peeled it, cooked it, served it, Horton Foote's The Young Man from mother, and a persistent sense of consumed it-endlessly, day after day, Atlanta. As such creative plays testify, difference that both led her away from season after season. This was life on a Southern drama is alive and well as it home and compelled her to return.A farm-as it had been time out of mind" continues to profit from the wealth of sense that the place where she finds (81). Behind all of this rote industry the South as the millennium herself is a good one, and that her looms the power of nature that approaches. journey to it has been well worth the unpredictably sends rain or withholds Watson's approach to Southern effort, combines with shimmering, it, batters down fields of corn or leaves drama is historically and critically powerful language to make Clear them to suffocate in stifling and adept. He is careful to point out that Springs both Mason's best and her most merciless heat. "I hated the constant every featured work is not a major important book. sense of helplessness before vast forces, American classic, however important it The framework that anchors Mason's the continuous threat of failure," may be to the history of the drama in storytelling is the daily routine of life Mason recalls (83). the South. The depth of his research, on the family farm where she grew up. Mason engineers her escape to the the diversity of his approach, and the Too far north to be part of the cotton cities of the Northeast. But as she ages,

North Carolina Women American Dreams Making History in Mississippi MARGARET SUPPLEE SMITH Consumers, Poverty, and Culture, AND EMILY HERRING WILSON 1830-1998 Foreword by Doris Betts TED OWNBY The strong influence of women in How shopping and consumer culture Tar Heel history. have influenced Mississippi's class, "Stunning in scope, elegantly presented, race, and gender relations. and meticulously researched." "A wonderfully rich and suggestive -Alan D. Watson, University of book. ... [Ownby] has been able to North Carolina at Wilmington reconstruct the history of consumer "Significantly reorders the past." culture over two centuries in ways -Anne Firor Scott, Duke University that are so wonderfully imaginative,

420 pp., 8'/, x 11, 12color/238 b&w illus. $29.95 cloth thorough, and fascinating." -Daniel Horowitz, Smith College 248 pp. $45 cloth / $18.95 paper f AT BOOKSTORES OR BY TOLL-FREE ORDER FAX [800]272.6817 I www.uncpress.unc.edu rEt The University of North Carolina Press CHAPEL Hill I PHONE [800]848.6224 I

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1999 Page 17 Reading the South continued

her impatience to leave home work with the natural world paramount of every summer. The foods are as transforms itself into a desire for in mind." specific and their preparation as familiar trees and dirt and a dawning Although Faulkner belonged to an prescribed as those for Passover: fresh realization that her "move to the North American generation of writers deeply com is cut, then 'milked' from the cob meant an abdication of responsibility" influenced by the high modernist with the edge of a spoon and simmered (166). Like so many Southerners, revolt "against nature," he reveals in a cast-iron skillet with butter, cream, Mason has had to leave home to see throughout his work an abiding salt, and pepper; white half-runner what was always around her; like so sensitivity to the natural world. He beans and small, creamy white potatoes many country people she has had to be writes of the big woods, of animals, and in their jackets are braised slowly all a part of the city in order to turn her of the human body as a ground of being day on the back of the stove; deep-red back on it and embrace the mud she that art and culture can neither and warm-yellow tomatoes are laid out used to scrub from her shoes. Debating transcend nor completely control. in thick slabs on a china plate turning the merits of staying close to your roots The 11 essays that make up this translucent with age; cucumbers not versus wandering freely, Mason volume, including a paper written by the bigger than a grown man's thumb are concludes: "The way I see it, a clever cat acclaimed novelist William Kennedy, sliced, salted, and chilled in a glass dish prowls but calls home occasionally" (280). explore the place of "the unbuilt world" with ice cubes on top; coleslaw is made Cleaning out an old trunk in in Faulkner's fiction. They give particular the painstaking way my mother always preparation for her mother's move to attention to the social, mythic, and made it, with hand-slivered cabbage; town, Mason unearths letters that she economic significance of nature, to the trimmed green onions are served has saved, but that are now physically complexity of racial identity, and to the standing tall in a water glass or mug; a disintegrating. She finds herself angry inevitable clash of gender and sexuality. jar of chow-chow or some other hot at her inability "to save what is of real These essays were presented in 1996 homemade relish is passed on the side; value. What endures is peripheral and as papers at the Faulkner and something from the garden is dredged empty" (247). But unlike fragile Yoknapatawpha Conference, held in seasoned cornmeal and fried in a correspondence, Clear Springs is a thing annually at the University of black cast-iron skillet-green tomatoes of real value that will endure. It is Mississippi. Included are essays from or okra, maybe; and always there is a Bobbie Ann Mason, the farm girl and Lawrence Buell, Thomas L. McHaney, pan of hot cornbread and a pitcher of storyteller, at her best. Theresa M. Towner, Jay Watson, Mary iced tea with sugar melted in it and KATHRYN McKEE Joanne Dondlinger, Louise Westling, lemon on the side." Myra Jehlen, Diane Roberts, David H. As satisfying and salivating as Faulkner and the Natural World. Evans, Wiley C. Prewitt Jr., and Lundy's prose may be, her recipes are as William Kennedy. good or better, her historical and Edited by Donald M. Kartiganer and STEVEN B. YATES cultural asides, inspiring and Ann J. Abadie. Jackson: University informative. With Lundy as their Press of Mississippi, 1999. 237 pages. guide, readers learn how to prepare $50.00 cloth, $18.00 paper. Butter Beans to Blackberries: Recipes from the Southern William Faulkner once spun out a Garden. yarn about how an opossum was treed By Ronni Lundy. New York: on his farm by several yelping dogs, two North Point Press, 1999.347 yowling cats, and a silent horse."It just pages. $27.50. isn't in the nature of a horse," Faulkner said, "to whinny when he trees a Score one for the Southern possum." In a new book, Faulkner and side dish. With Ronni Lundy's the Natural World, scholars from across new cookbook, Butter Beans to the United States explore the Mississippi Blackberries, vegetables and fruits writer's connections to nature, both the finally get their due.Simply put, whimsical and the mythical. this is a paean to the pleasures of "Faulkner's identity as a writer of the the Southern garden, a book natural world is, as in most things, a beautiful in both conception and complex one," says literary scholar execution. Donald M. Kartiganer, coeditor of the "Growing up in a city, I volume. "There is a clear sensitivity to nevertheless marked my calendar nature in Faulkner, including not only by the rituals of the garden," the big woods, but the body, animals- writes Lundy, a native of especially horses-the life of farming Kentucky. "In my family we have people, that invites us to examine his a ritual dinner served in the heart

Page 18 Spring/Summer 1998 The Southern Register Reading the South continued

fried green tomatoes napped in a But that is not to say that bacon-perfumed cream gravy, not to Fowler gives short shrift to the mention sweet potatoes glazed with dishes of his native Southland. Blenheim's, a super-spicy ginger ale Far from it. "The core ingredients from South Carolina. What's more are pretty static: chicken, flour, they learn the difference between salt, pepper, and frying fat," butter beans and rattlesnake beans, writes Fowler of what he argues shuckies and sivvies. Reports from the might well be the South's road-institutions like Bryce's national dish. "Yet you could Cafeteria in Texarkana, Texas, and give those same ingredients to a King Cotton Produce in Montgomery, roomful of Southern cooks, and Alabama-will set stomachs to you will have as many variations, rumbling. And practical information each tasting completely different on farmer's markets and mail order from the others, as you will have sources put the bounty of our Southern cooks." gardens within easy reach. Twelve variations on that JOHN T. EDGE theme follow, a wide-ranging sampling of chicken dishes-all Fried Chicken: Southern, all distinct-from The World's Best Recipes Jewish Georgia-sty Ie chicken coated in matzoh meal and fried from Memphis to Milan, of Appalachia, it is the chorus of in vegetable oil rather than lard, herb- from Buffalo to Bangkok. mountain voices included herein that and-spice coated chicken, batter-fried By Damon Lee Fowler. New York: give this book life. Readers meet Amos chicken, buttermilk-marinated Broadway Books, 1999. 196 pages. Owens of Rutherford County, North chicken, chicken fried with the cover $15.00. Carolina, a moonshiner known for his on the skillet, chicken fried with the cheery bounce liquor, and Granny The opening salvo of Damon Lee cover off; chicken smothered in cream Tipton, a native of the north Georgia Fowler's new cookbook, Fried gravy, chicken enveloped in a bourbon mountains who fermented cabbage in Chicken: The World's Best Recipes from and mushroom ragout. old castor-oil barrels and loved to drink Memphis to Milan, from Buffalo to Fowler's examination of fried kraut juice.Along the way, varied Bangkok, is likely to raise the hackles chicken is complete, indeed mountain folk wax poetic about the of many a chauvinistic Southerner: exhaustive.You will turn the last page, joys of eating rabbits and raccoons, "Dearly as we love and prize it, and impressed by the breadth of his possums and persimmons. like to think we have perfected it," research and recipes and inspired to fry Vignettes, based upon interviews the author confesses, "we Southerners up a batch of your own. Dabney conducted over the years, give don't have a gridlock on fried JOHN T. EDGE insights to food events like hog killings: chicken. I have discovered that "I always had to stay out of school on wherever in the world there are Smokehouse Ham, Spoon hog-killing day to help out, of course," chickens and fat, cooks are, and Bread, & Scuppernong Wine: recalls Sam Gates of Gilmer County, probably always have been, frying the The Folklore and Art of Georgia. "What I enjoyed most was bird in one form or another." Appalachian Cooking. getting the hog's bladder, inflating it In Fowler's able hands, fried chicken By Joseph E. Dabney. Foreword by John with a homemade reed, and turning it is not merely the skillet-fried Sunday Egerton. Nashville: Cumberland into a kickball. You had to blow it up dinner staple of the South. Instead, House, 1998.57 photographs. 493 before it dried. It was like a leather ball Fowler embraces myriad countries and pages. $27.95 cloth, $19.95 paper. almost." cuisines, not to mention an astonishing At nearly 500 pages, this is a big variety of ingredients and techniques. In the tradition of the Foxfire Book of book, suffused with the smells of From Cuba comes a twice-fried chicken Appalachian Cookery, Joseph E. country-cured ham, buoyed by the laced with bitter Seville oranges, from Dabney's Smokehouse Ham, Spoonbread, sweet rhythms of the mountain Armenia a butter-fried chicken with & Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and vernacular in which many of the cooks eggplant. In a chapter entitled "The Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking is speak.Sure, it is a book of recipes- Shallow End: Sauts and Stir-Fries," he an evocative portrait of the fast- dozens and dozens of them, in fact- extols the virtues of hot curried vanishing food habits of the mountain but years from now it will be chicken livers from Nepal and French- South. remembered as a proud testament to a inspired chicken breasts in brown Though Dabney is credited as the way of life long gone. butter. author, and his prose sings with a love JOHN T. EDGE

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1998 Page 19 Songs Adapted from Welty Works Available on CD

The Southern Culture Catalog is pleased to offer a new CD, The Memory Is a Living Thing, as part of the celebration of Eudora Welty's 90th birthday on April 13, 1999. In this recording, internationally known mezzo-soprano Lester Senter of Jackson, Mississippi, sings the lyrics of her friend Eudora Welty. Senter and Janet Kopec, theatre and opera director/producer from Dallas, Texas, selected texts from Welty's works and commissioned their favorite com- posers to write music for the eight songs on the CD. The lyrics of "Love," "Tea Time," and "Washing Machine" are adapt- ed from The Ponder Heart; the ballad "Rosamund's Dream" is based on The Robber Bridegroom; and other selections present passages from Welty stories and her autobiography, One Writer's Beginnings. Information about ordering the CD is on page 25 of this issue of the Register. Eudora Welty with Lester Senter EUDORA WELTY BOOKS AND NEWSLETTER The Library of America recently collection of original tributes to Welty's of Eudora Welty, a collection of 14 new published a two-volume set of Eudora genius includes writings by 22 essays on the writer's last two novels, Welty's work. These volumes, edited by contributors, among them Ellen Losing Battles (1970) and The Optimist's Richard Ford and Michael Kreyling, are Douglas,George Garrett, Barry Daughter (1972). The volume, edited by the first collection in the series devoted Hannah, Reynolds Price, Louis D. Jan Nordby Gretlund and Karl-Heinz to a living writer's literary career. In one Rubin Jr., William Jay Smith, and Westarp, contains a foreword by volume, Welty: Complete Novels, are Elizabeth Spencer. The editor of the Reynolds Price. Contributors include The Robber Bridegroom, Delta Wedding, collection is Pearl Amelia McHaney, Richard Gray, Michael Kreyling, The Ponder Heart, Losing Battles, and assistant professor of English at Georgia Bridget Smith Pieschel, Peggy Whitman The Optimist's Daughter, Welty: Stories, State University and also editor of the Prenshaw, Mary Ann Wimsatt, and Essays, & Memoir collects A Curtain of Eudora Welty Newsletter. Sally Wolfe. Green, The Wide Net, The Golden The University Press of Mississippi Detailed information about the Apples, The Bride of the Innisfallen, reissued Eudora Welty's first published author and her work is available in the Selected Essays, and One Writer's story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," semi-annual Eudora Welty Newsletter, Beginnings, from 1936. The volume, limited to 500 available online (http://www.gsu.edu/ Hill Street Press of Athens,Georgia, copies, also contains a 1979 essay in -wwweng/ew) and through Thomas published Eudora Welty: Writer's which the author reflects on her career McHaney, Managing Editor, Georgia Reflections upon First Reading Welty on and her first story. State University, Department of the occasion of the author's 90th The University of South Carolina English, University Plaza, Atlanta,GA birthday on April 13, 1999. This rich Press recently published The Late Novels 30303-3083. E-mail: [email protected].

Page 20 Spring/Summer 1998 The Southern Register The 1999 Oxford Conference for the Book attracted a large and appreciative audience, both on campus and on television. It was the sixth program in a series that celebrates books, writing, and reading, as well as practical concerns on which the literary arts depend, including literacy, freedom of expression, and the book trade itself. The conference took place April 9-11 and, for the first time, was open to the public without charge. Also for the first time, the program was televised over the cable network. Funding was provided by the University z « of Mississippi and grants from the City of ~ Oxford, the Yoknapatawpha Arts 8l"' Council, and-another conference ~ first-the National Endowment for the ~ I• Humanities through the Mississippi WendellBerry speakswith admirers after his reading at the conference. To his right are Susan Humanities Council. Millar Williamsand Mary Wheeling, panelists for Kathryn McKee's session on "Writing r d C r r h Women Writers' Lives." The 1999 O Xlor onlerence ror t e Book was dedicated to Eudora Welty in writer in residence at the University of Gourevitch, Peter Guralnick, and celebration of her 90th birthday and her Mississippi and author of acclaimed Randall Kenan. lifetime achievements as Mississippi's novels and story collections, led two Next came a discussion on "Charting First Lady of Letters. In recognition of sessions on writing, being published, and New Paths with Publishing" moderated the occasion and continuing the reaching an audience. David Gernert, by John McLeod, publicity manager for conference tradition of a lecture on the formerly an editor at Doubleday and now Counterpoint Press in Washington, D.C. history of the book in the South, literary an agent who represents John Grisham, Stella Connell, who worked for three scholar Noel Polk discussed Welty and Peter Guralnick, Stewart O'Nan, among publishing houses in New York City her writing. '''Living Near a Mountain': others, joined authors Kevin Baker, before returning home to Oxford to Welty, Faulkner, and the Mississippi Tristan Egolf, and Darcey Steinke for establish Southeast Media and Literary Literary Landscape" was the title of his one panel. Elisabeth Sifton, senior vice Associates, a public relations firm and lecture, presented on Friday, the opening president of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, literary agency, talked about her day of the conference. and publisher of Hill and Wang, was on experiences and predicted future trends. The program on Friday morning the second, along with authors Philip Also contributing to the discussion was consisted of three panels. Barry Hannah,

The 1999 Oxford Conference for the Book was sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the Department of English, John Davis Williams Library, and Square Books with support from ti,e Yoknapatawpha Arts Council. The program was partially funded by the University of Mississippi and a grant by the City of Oxford and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Mississippi Humanities CouncJ . '. ~ ,

For touris•t information, contact: Oxford Tourism Council • The po. Box 965, Oxford, MS 38655 phone 800-758-9177, University of !v1ississippi 601-234-4680 fax 601-234-0355

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1998 Page 21 rni g 0 _ ~

Barry Hannah (left) tells a joke during the panel discussion From left: Poet Wendell Berry, publisher Jack Shoemaker, author "Finding a Voice/Reaching an Audience." Pictured with him are Patty Friedmann, and Square Books owner and conference organizer author Randall Kenan (center) and Elisabeth Sifton, senior vice president of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and publisher of Richard Howorth enjoy their discussion during the panel Hill and Wang. "Counterpoint: Publishing and the Book Business."

Oxford resident Don Stanford, the Commonwealth University in Situation, published in the fall of 1998. owner and developer of Author's Richmond. Julie Smith, the author of more than Interface (www.authorsinterface.com). Stewart O'Nan was the first of three a dozen novels, including the popular the first online site devoted to providing novelists who read from their work on Skip Langdon series set in New Orleans, an authors' manuscript database for Friday afternoon. O'Nan's six volumes of presented a reading on Friday evening publishers and agents. fiction have earned him praise as "not and took part in the "Southern Mystery The program on Friday afternoon, in merely one of the best young novelists in Writing" panel on Saturday morning. addition to the Polk lecture, offered a America, but one of the finest novelists Joining her on the panel were Tony session on poetry, readings by three of our time." Other readers were Tristan Dunbar, a practicing New Orleans novelists, and a presentation on Egolf and Jane Mullen, authors of attorney who has written five books, four "Reckoning with Extremity: A Writer's recently published first books. Egolf of which comprise the popular Tubby Journey" by Philip Gourevitch, staff received 76 rejections before his Lord of Dubonnet series, and John Armistead, a writer for the New Yorker. Gourevitch's the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Baptist minister, journalist, and author of talk focused on his book We Wish to Arming the Aware in the Corn Belt was four mystery novels dealing with Sheriff Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Glover Bramlett. Dan Williams, Killed with Our Families, an analysis of professor of English at the University of the genocide in Rwanda and the Mississippi, organized and chaired the international community's response to panel. this modern tragedy. It won the 1998 Two other panels took place on National Book Critics Circle Award for Saturday. Ted Ownby, who teaches Nonfiction. History and Southern Studies at the Poets T. R. Hummer, Robert Morgan, University, organized and moderated rni and James Seay discussed the state of "Writing, Race, and the South." poetry in America and read selections ~ Panelists for this session were Eddy L. from their work. Morgan, a native of ClI..• "' I Harris, the author of several personal Noel Polk talks to a member of the audience North Carolina, is the author of nine narratives, including MississiPPi Solo and after his presentation in celebration of volumes of poetry and four books of Eudora Welty's 90th birthday on April 13. South of Haunted Dreams: A Ride through fiction. He teaches at Cornell Slavery's Old Backyard; William Heath, University. Seay, the author of four whose works include The Children Bob books of poetry, most recently Open published last year in France to great Moses Led, a novel about the civil rights Field, Understory: New and Selected acclaim. Also published in England, movement in Mississippi; Randall Poems, grew up in Panola County, Holland, and Spain, the novel made its Kenan, whose new book is Walking on Mississippi, and teaches in the Creative American debut in March. Mullen, who Water: Black America on the Eve of the Writing Program at the University of has lived in Oxford for more than a Twenty-First Century; and Henry North Carolina at Chapel Hill. decade, read from a novel in progress. Wiencek, author of The Hairstons: An Hummer, also a Mississippian, is the Her stories have appeared in numerous American Family in Black and White. author of five collections of poetry. He literary magazines and in a highly praised Saturday's second panel, organized by teaches creative writing at Virginia debut collection, A Complicated visiting assistant professor of History and

Page 22 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register From left: Carrie Brown; Philip Gourevitch, photo by Jacqueline Gourevitch; Jane Mullen; Janice W. Murray; Stewart O'Nan, photo by Jerry Bauer; Darcey Steinke, photo by Marion Ettlinger; and George F. Walker.

Southern Studies Michael Bertrand, unfamiliar with it. Winner of the John published by Algonquin Books of brought together scholars who have W. Campbell Award for Best New Chapel Hill. Friedmann is the author of written on the music of the South: Bill Science Fiction Writer in 1986, Scott three books, including the novel Malone, author of Country Music has published 17 novels and a nonfiction Eleanor Rushing, recently published by U.S.A., Southern Music/American Music, book about writing science fiction. Counterpoint Press. and Singing Cowboys and Musical While in Mississippi, she also spoke to Saturday's program ended with Mountaineers; Cecelia Tichi, whose students throughout the Delta. Scott's comments about publishing and the book books include High Lonesome: The school visits were arranged by Ron business by Jack Shoemaker and readings American Culture of and remarks by essayist, nov- Country Music; Stephen elist, and poet Wendell Tucker, a specialist on the Berry. Shoemaker, founder history of Louisiana and editor in chief of country music; and Charles Counterpoint Press, began Wolfe, author of The Life his literary career as a book- and Legend of Leadbelly and seller in 1963 in Santa two books on folk and Barbara, California. Since country music. Also on the then he has owned or panel was Judith managed several important McCulloh, assistant bookshops and headed up director and executive several small presses. In 1979 editor of the University of he founded North Point Illinois Press, where she Press, which published serves as general editor of nearly 400 titles and garnered nearly every liter- the Music in American ~ ary and design award Life series. ~ Before the lunch break, ~ available in this country. In during which authors"' ~ 1995, after several years as signed books at Square 0 West Coast editor of B k 'd Talking after the session on "The Endangered Species: Readers Today and Pantheon Books, Shoemaker 00 s In owntown Tomorrow" are Ron Nurnberg, executive director of Teach for Oxford, J ill Conner America/Mississippi Delta, Square Books proprietor Richard Howorth, and founded Counterpoint Press. Browne entertained the Carol Hampton Rasco, senior advisor the Secretary, U.S. Department of One of Counterpoint's ' , h h "Ad' Education, and director of the America Reads Challenge. aud lence Wit er vICe recent publications is The from the Sweet Potato Selected Poems of Wendell Queen" presentation. Browne lives in Nurnberg, executive director of Teach Berry, which gathers 100 of Berry's Jackson, Mississippi, where she writes a for America/Mississippi Delta. poems selected from nine previous weekly humorous fitness column for the Established authors Eddy L. Harris collections. Berry is the author of more Clarion-Ledger. Her first book, published and Robert Morgan presented readings than 30 books and has received numer- this spring, is The Sweet Potato Queens' from their works on Saturday afternoon, ous awards. Book of Love. as did relative newcomers Carrie Brown Sunday began with a tour of the Melissa Scott's presentation and Patty Friedmann. A former Mississippi Hall of Writers at the John "Conceiving the Heavens: Writing and journalist and newspaper editor who Davis Williams Library and a Reading Science Fiction" made a great now teaches fiction writing at Sweet continental breakfast hosted by John impact, providing a special treat to fans Briar College, Brown is the author of Meador, Dean of University Libraries. of the genre and enlightening those Rose's Garden and Lamb in Love, novels Afterwards, Kathryn McKee, who

Spring/Summer 1999 Page 23 The Southern Register .,.... z 6 ~ t;; ~ ;a ~ ~ ~ o 9 9 ~ :;: :;: o o o Signing books are Randall Kenan (left) and Authors at the booksigning are, from left, At the booksigning are, from left, authors Tony Dunbar. James Wilcox, Darcey Steinke, Melissa Wendell Berry and Kevin Baker with Square Scott, John Armistead. Talking with them is Books bookseller Kathryn Clark. Judy Hottenson of Grove Atlantic Press.

teaches English and Southern Studies at writer at the University of Mississippi, Following the discussion about the con- the University, moderated a session and James Wilcox, visiting writer at nections between fiction and historical focusing on recent biographies of Mississippi State University. Steinke is fact, Douglas concluded the panel and women writers of the South. Panelists the author of three novels, Suicide the conference, to overwhelming were Lucinda MacKethan, editor of Blonde, Up Through the Water, and Jesus applause, by reading selections from Recollections of a Southern Daughter and Saves, Wilcox is the author of Modern Truth. author of two books on Southern Baptists and other novels, literature; Mary Wheeling, author of the most recent being Plain Fighting the Current:The Life and Work and Normal. of Evelyn Scott; Susan Millar Williams, The conference ended author of A Devil and a Good Woman, with "Fiction, History, and Too: The Lives of Julia Peterkin. Truth" as the topic for A panel titled "The Endangered commentaries by Kevin Species: Readers Today and Tomorrow" Baker, author of Dreamland, provided comments by Janice W. a historical novel set on Murray, chair of the University's Art Coney Island; Peter Department and a member of the Guralnick, author of Last Lafayette County Literary Council; Train to Memphis and Carol Hampton Rasco, senior advisor of Careless Love, the highly the Secretary, U.S. Department of acclaimed two-volume Enjoying the conference are, from left, Isaac Scott, Dorothy Education, and director of the America biography of Elvis Presley; Lee Tatum, Vasser Bishop, and Elaine Scott. Reads Challenge; and Jennifer and Stewart O'N an, whose Westbrook, director of chapter novels The Names of the programs for the two-year college honor Dead and A Prayer for the Dying are based From beginning to end, the 1999 society Phi Theta Kappa and on extensive historical research. Ellen Oxford Conference for the Book was a coordinator of the organization's Douglas, who published six novels and great success. The next conference is participation in the America Reads two story collections over four decades scheduled for April 7-9, 2000. Details Challenge. Businessman and before the appearance of her new book about the program, when available, will community leader George F. Walker of Truth: Four Stories I Am Finally Old appear on the Center's web site Clarksdale, Mississippi, also served on Enough to Tell, also served on the panel. (http://www.cssc.olemiss.edu) . the panel, which was moderated by Elaine H. Scott. Scott is former chair of the Arkansas State Board of Education, a member of the Education Commission Mark Your Calendars! of the States 1987-1997, and a leader in several organizations concerned with The Seventh education, teacher training, libraries, and literacy. Oxford Conference for the Bool~ "Literally Inspired: Writing with Religion" featured comments and APRIL 7-9,2000 readings by Darcey Steinke, visiting

Page 24 Spring/Summer 1998 The Southern Register udo1fa'Welty in celebration of her 90th birthday &Jift Items from the Southern C9ulture C9atalog

VIDEOS William Faulkner and Eudora Welty This film features Eudora Welty at the opening session of the 1987 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, Welty reads from her story "Why I Live at the P.O." and answers questions about her work and Faulkner's, Color, 34 minutes, V1230 $50.00 Friends $45.00 Four Women Artists "I wonder if a man would confess all the visions that I have had?" osks Theora Hamblett. An intimate look at the memories, traditions, and visions gUiding the art and lives of four Southern women, this film features novelist Eudora Welty, quilter Pecolia Warner, embroiderer Ethel Mohamed, and pointer Theora Hamblett. In related interviews, these women discuss the creative life and their personal motivations, Welty's strong sense of place, Worner's keen eye for color and detail, Mohamed's family memories, and Hamblett's dreams and visions. This film is not only about these four women and their art, but about the creative spirit that drives all artists. Awords and screenings: Ann Arbor Film Festival, American Film Festival, Margaret Mead Film Festival, American Film Institute, Produced by Judy Peiser and Bill Ferris/Center for Southern Folklore, 1978. Color, 25 minutes. Vl072 $120.00 Friends $ 108.00

BOOKS POSTER The Mississippi Writers Directory and Literary Guide The Sixth Oxford Conference for the Book Poster (1999) A directory of post and present Mississippi authors, detailing statewide resources Poster features Eudora Welty portrait by Mildred Nungester Wolfe from the National available to anyone interested in writing. In addition, the directory features a literary Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution,Washington, D,C guide to Mississippi with photographs and descriptions of Significant literary land- Full color, 17.5 x 23.5" marks, as well as lists of independent bookstores, libraries, theaters, and presses. M9901 ... $10.00 128 pages, softcover. Bl013 Originally $9.95 Now ... $6.00 T·SHIRT CDs The Sixth Oxford Conference for the Book T·Shirt (1999) liThe Memory Is a Living Thing" T-Shirt features Eudora Welty portrait by Mildred Nungester Wolfe from the Songs based on the writings of Eudora Welty National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution,Washington, D.C Lester Senter, mezzo-soprano Full color, please specify XL,XXLonly. Quantities limited, Featuring the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty, set to music by M9992 ... $15.00 some of the finest contemporary composers. 1996 ROS Production AUDIO AND VIDEO TAPESFROM THE CONFERENCE SR2001 ... $16.00 See page 26 for a complete listing of conference programs and order information.

See page 27 for order form and other ordering information.

The Southern Register Spring/Summer 1998 Page 25 The Sixth Oxford Conference for the Book AUDIO TAPES ($10 pee progrgm! gad VIDEO TAPES ($20 per progrgm! NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS o BC99001 Welcome o V99001 Richard Howorth Submitting ManuscripWWorking One's Way into Print Bany Hannah, moderator JOHNT. EDGE,a graduate student in Southern Studies, writes Kevin Baker, Tristan Egolf, David Gernert, Darcey Steinke about Southern food and travel. o BC99002 Finding a Voice/Reaching an Audience o V99002 Bany Hannah, moderator JOHN FRIERSONjust graduated from the University of Philip Gourevitch, Peter Guralnick, Randall Kenan, Elisabeth Sifton Mississippi with a degree in Southern Studies and Journalism o BC99003 Charting New Paths with Publishing and is currently seeking employment as a newspaper writer. o V99003 Stella Connell, John Mcleod, Don Stanford

o BC99004 Reckoning with Extremity: A Writer's Journey JEFFHANNUSCHis a contributor to Living Blues magazine. o V99004 Philip Gourevitch

o BC99005 "living Near a Mountain": MICHAELHARRELSONis a writer for the public relations and o V99005 Welty, Faulkner, and the Mississippi literary landscape Noel Polk marketing department at the University of Mississippi. o BC99006 Poetry: Readings and Remarks o V99006 Andrew P. Mullins Jr., moderator COLBYH. KULLMANteaches in the English Department at T. R, Hummer, Robert Morgan, James Seay the University of Mississippi. He is the author and editor of o PfWJJ7 Readings numerous works on American drama. o V9rx1J7 Tristan Egolf, Jane Mullen, Stewart D'Nan o BC99008 Readings/Remarks KATHRYNMcKEE is James M. and Madeleine McMullan o V99008 Julie Smith Assistant Professor of Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. She also holds a joint appointment in English. o BC99009 Writing, Race, and the South o V99009 Ted Ownby, moderator Grace Elizabeth Hole, Eddy L Harris, William Heath, Randall Kenan, Henry Wiencek HARRYP. OWENS taught history for many years at the University of Mississippi and is now professor emeritus. o BC99010 Writing Mysteries o V99010 Don Williams, moderator John Armistead, Tony Dunbar, Julie Smith STEVENB. YATESis promotions manager for the University o BC99011 Advice from the Sweet Potato Queen Press of Mississippi. o V99011 Jill Conner Browne o BC99012 Developing the Pictures from life's Other Side: o V99012 The Art of Writing Southern Music literature Michael Bertrand, moderotor Judith McCulloh, Cecelia Tichi,Stephen Tucker, Bill Malone, Ownby's New Book (cantinued) Charles Wolfe on useless novelties and were thus better off as sharecroppers who o BC99013 Conceiving the Heavens: had little cash for most of the year. As the book relates, African o V99013 Writing and Reading Science Fiction Ron Nurnberg, moderator Americans tried to economize but also used shopping and goods Melissa Scott as ways to rebel against the expectations of white landowners to look the part of the poor in their dress and other forms of self o BC99014 Readings o V99014 Carrie Brown, Potty Friedmann, Eddy L Harris, Robert Morgan expression. Along with the arrival of department stores and five-and-dime o 0C9Sll15 Counterroint: Publishing and the Book Business stores and the effects these more egalitarian shopping opportunities DVm15 Wendel Berry, Potty Friedmann, Jock Shoemaker Readings/Remarks had on women, class, and race relations, the book looks at the Wendell Berry ways different groups interpreted the changing nature of goods o 0C9Sll16 Writing Women Writers' lives and shopping as segregation came to an end. It examines the way OVm16 Kathryn McKee, moderator four of Mississippi's greatest writers-William Faulkner, Eudora lucinda MacKethan, Mary Wheeling, Susan Millar Williams Welty, Richard Wright and William Alexander Percy-treat the o BC99017 The Endangered Species: Readers Today and Tomorrow subject of goods and shopping. It also discusses the role of consumer o V99017 Elaine H. Scott, moderator boycotts in the civil rights movement and closes with an epilogue Janice W. Murray, John A. Pritchard, Carol Hampton Rasco, that details the rise of retail operations like Wal-Marts and George F.Walker, Jennifer Westbrook antique stores. o BC99018 literally Inspired: Writing with Religion In addition to American Dreams in Mississippi, Ownby is the V99018 Darcey Steinke, James Wilcox o author of Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the o BC99019 Fiction, History, and Truth Rural South, 1865-1920. He is also editor of the journal MississiPPi o V99019 Kevin Boker, Ellen Douglas, Peter Guralnick, Stewart O'Nan Folklife. Readings/Remarks Ellen Douglas MICHAELHARRELSON

Page 26 Spring/Summer 1999 The Southern Register Southern Culture Catalog International The University of Mississippi Orders Hill Hall, Room 301 • U ni versity, MS 38677 Other video formats Phone 800-390-3527 • Fax 662-915-7842 may be available. Please call for Raisin. Cotton Sold To: information. Raisin' CoHon depicts life on a Mississippi

Delta cotton plantation from 1938 to 19421 as seen Name _ through the home movie camera of Emma Knowlton Lytle.Mrs. Lytle donated the original Address 8mm silent home movies to the Southern Media Archive. Producer Karen Glynn has interwoven City ______State Zip _ these movies with a recently recorded commentary from Mrs. Lytle. Raisin' CoHon depicts the full Country _ cycleof a cotton crop from breaking groundl to making a balel to weaving the cloth in the textile Daytime Phone __ mills of North Carolina. The film was recently feo- o Payment enclosed (checklmoney orderl international money order in U.S.currency or international checkdrawn tured in an article in Soybean Digest. 19971 34 minutes. on a US bank; made payable to The Southern Culture Catalog) o Charge my: 0 Visa 0 MasterCard Account # _ R A 15 Exp. Date Signature _ How To Order Delivery By mail: Southern Culture Catalog Orders for delivery in the continental United States are Hill Halll Room 301 • The University of shipped by US Postal Service unless other means of delivery are requested. Orders for delivery outside the Mississippi • Universityl MS 38677 continental United States are shipped by Parcel Post. Bye-mail: Credit Card orders only: V9997 $25.00 [email protected] Shipping and Handling Costs By telephone: Credit Card orders only: United States: $3.50 for first video or other iteml $1.00 800-390-3527 (Monday-FridaYI 8: 15 a.m.- each additional item sent to the same address. Foreign: 4:45 p.m. CST) in the US. $5.00 for each item. Outside the US call 662-915-5577 Posters. United States: $3.50 for any number of By fax: Credit Card orders only: posters sent to the same address. Foreign: $10.00 for Red Tops 662-915-7842 (DailYI 24 hours a day) any number of posters sent to the same address. A 13-song CDcontaining never before released material from a legendary Mississippi band. The Red Tops performed throughout Mississippi Return Policy All sales are final. No refunds will be made. If an order beginning in the 1950s1 bridging the gap between contains faulty or damaged goods, replacements will be made when such items swing music and rock and roll. are returned with problem(s) noted.

Item # Title/Description QIy. Price Total

Order Total This form may be Mississippi residents add 7% sales tax SR2000 $17.00 photocopied. Shipping and Handling Faxed orders accepted. TOTAL "" .S3DNVH:J SS3)IQQV DNDIVW N3.HM. i3.9YI DNnIVW 3.QOi:JNI

9L 'ON IlWJ8d SV'J 'B!qoIBU8S anfd a6BlSOd ·S 'n 6JO l!jOJd-UON 3.1111::1>nn8

Please help us reduce waste and Please give us your correct information: postage costs. Complete this form and Name ------return it with your mailing label, or fax Address __ it to 662-915-5814. o Please continue sending me the Register City o I'll read the Register online 0 Name misspelled State Zip _ o Contact person changed 0 Address wrong Fax: 662-915-5814 e-mail: [email protected] o Received more than one o Delete me from your list Internet Address: http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/south

Cel1ter .for the Study Qi·Sonthern Cultfire

University, MS 38677 • 662-915-5993 • 662-915-5814

I/We would like to contribute $ to the Center's I/We will support The Center for the Study of Southern Annual Appeal right now. Enclosed is my tax-deductible Culture with a $ pledge. contribution. Payment Schedule: Annual Memberships: Please complete this section exactly as you wish your pay- o Student: $25 0 Regular: $50 o Associate: $100 ments to be scheduled by the Center: o Sponsor: $250 0 Sustaining: $500 o Patron: $l,OdO Monthly: $ Beginning _ Please fill out the information below when returning this card: Quarterly: $ Beginning _ Name (please print) _ Yearly: $ Beginning _

1\00'= 'A&iaill 11 I I liE I ~

1~. __ ~xp."\)a't'e__ 'S\gn.'a:tutt _