THE MANY FACES OF APPALACHIA: Exploring a Region's Diversity Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Appalachian Studies Conference Edited by: SAM GRAY Managing Editor: JACQUELINE STEWART The Appalachian Consortium was a non-profit educational organization composed of institutions and agencies located in Southern Appalachia. From 1973 to 2004, its members published pioneering works in Appalachian studies documenting the history and cultural heritage of the region. The Appalachian Consortium Press was the first publisher devoted solely to the region and many of the works it published remain seminal in the field to this day. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Humanities Open Book Program, Appalachian State University has published new paperback and open access digital editions of works from the Appalachian Consortium Press. www.collections.library.appstate.edu/appconsortiumbooks This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Original copyright © 1985 by the Appalachian Consortium Press. ISBN (pbk.: alk. Paper): 978-1-4696-3684-9 ISBN (ebook): 978-1-4696-3686-3 Distributed by the University of North Carolina Press www.uncpress.org Table of Contents INTRODUCTION, Sam Gray vii I. NORTHERN GEORGIA EXCEPTIONS: POLITICS The Reconstruction Careers of Joseph Brown and Benjamin Hill, Derrell Roberts 1 II. APPALACHIAN HANDICRAFT: COMMERCIALISM AND AUTHENTICITY Nineteenth Century Quilts in Macon County, North Carolina, Laurel Horton 11 III. INTERPRETING THE MOUNTAIN WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE Emma Bell Miles, Pioneer Folklorist of Appalachia, Grace Toney Edwards 23 The Science Poetry of Marilou Awiakta, Parks Lanier . 29 Going Home, Ron Willoughby 37 IV. SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL LIFE IN APPALACHIA: A PANEL A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Allen Bateau 41 V. CURRENT RESEARCH IN COMMUNITY ISSUES Households and Families in Eastern Kentucky in 1900, Thomas A. Arcury and Julia D. Porter 47 VI. PRE-COLUMBIAN CHEROKEES Pre-Columbian Cultural Contact Between Chibchan and Iroquoian Linguistic Groups, David K. Evans 57 VII. NORTH GEORGIA WRITERS-PAST AND PRESENT These Also Climbed Parnassus: An Overview of Georgia Mountain Authors, Paul McClure 71 VIII. THE BUSINESS OF TRADITION: TRADES, HANDICRAFTS AND HOUSEHOLD ENTERPRISES The Shell Button Industry in Appalachia, Cheryl Claassen 77 IX. REGIONAL POETRY Faces of Appalachia in Poetry, Bennie Lee Sinclair 89 X. COMMUNITIES: PARTICIPATION OR RETREAT Progress Is Our Most Important Product: Decline in Citizen Participation and the Professionalization of Schooling in an Appalachian Rural County, Tom Boyd 107 XI. ECONOMICS I: MACRO Surviving the 1990s: Inter-Regional Variation in Economic Problems, Thomas R. Shannon 125 Historical Perspectives on Energy, Industrialization and the Shaping of Appalachia, Ted Couillard 139 XII. NORTH GEORGIA MUSIC North Georgia Musicians and Groups in the 1920s and 1930s, Gene Wiggins 147 XIII. HISTORICAL DIVERSITY IN APPALACHIAN COMMUNITIES Diversity in Antebellum Mountain Life: The Towns of Western North Carolina, John C. Inscoe 153 XIV. THE THREE R'S: RESEARCH, RESOURCES, RECORDS The Great Smokies: Diverse Perceptions of the Park as a Resource, David Carpenter 169 XV. TOURISM THEN AND NOW A Plunge into the Past: Henry Ford and Friends Tour the Southern Appalachians, Charles Gunter 183 XVI. MOONSHINE AND BEYOND A Touch of Mountain Dew: Art and History of Whiskey-Making in North Georgia, Ray Rensi and Leo Downing 195 This page intentionally left blank Introduction In March of 1978 the first Appalachian Studies Conference was held at Berea, Kentucky. My memories of this event are surprisingly clear— the weather was fine, the company congenial and the energy, drawn from diverse places and personalities, was sharply focused. I recall that many individuals who have remained involved in the Conference over the years were instrumental in shaping with their words and concerns, the issues of that first conference and much of the agendae of those to follow. There were no papers read at Berea, instead, committees were formed upon an ad hoc and voluntary basis. The committees were actually discus- sion groups based on the various academic disciplines embraced by the notion of Appalachian Studies: Natural History, Literature, Geography, Folklore, History/Political Science, Economics, etc. The committees were supposed to distinguish and elaborate the issues and themes of Ap- palachian Studies and articulate intentions and strategies for the develop- ment and exploration of these issues. The eventual reports of the various committees were rendered on a Saturday afternoon too lovely for remain- ing indoors. These reports ranged from a somber call for a new text of Appalachian History to be written by the history committee to a delightful piece of impromptu theater (in verse no less) offered up by the literature committee. From these reports and the plenary session the following Sun- day morning emerged certain ideas, issues and positions that were to become the durable content of each annual Appalachian Studies Con- ference. Three content areas can be identified from these 1978 Berea ses- sions. (1)A dichotomy between what was later designated "the action peo- ple and the creative people." At Berea, I believe two groups were designated, "the political types and the academic types," and the issue was which group would dominate the Appalachian Studies Conference. Neither ever did and the polarity has dimmed through the years for want of energy. This issue nevertheless serves some adaptive function for the continuation of the conference and is renewed annually. (2)A second theme that was evident at Berea in 1978 was the pur- poseful inclusion of women, workers, and minorities in the design and func- tion of the ASC and in our political and cultural analysis of the region. This theme, related to the first, has also undergone a slight shift in energy levels through the years. It would be hard to imagine any conference or convocation of educations and students in the 1970's that could ignore this crucial issue. The difficulty has been in determining as a conference, the appropriate practices to address the issue. (S)Appalachian identity and regional autonomy constitute a third thematic current that has run strong in all the years of the conference. This complex of ideas and issues concerns the Idea of Appalachia itself Vll and the various textures and perspectives that contribute to that idea. The long march of regional definition antedates the conference and will doubtless continue for as long as there are minds to reflect on the mean- ing of mountains. Some time near the end of that long day of words that began the Ap- palachian Studies Conference in 1978, Gurney Norman, native son and constant defender of the divine right of cultural deviancy, delivered a short, rambling address that delighted many, satisfied none and in a sub- tle way planted another thematic seed within the conference. Gurney's narrative that afternoon at Berea, like his novel, stories, and autobiography was a rich and varied amalgam of ideas, suggesting that regional identity, autonomy, institutions, images and issues are more diverse that homogeneous, more complex than simple and intricately con- nected to distant regions and institutions. This theme of cultural pluralism, of regional diversity and variation, adumbrated in 1978, achieved overt expression in 1984 at the Seventh Annual Conference held at Unicoi State Park, Helen, Georgia. Cultural diversity within a region that is presupposed to be a coherent whole is a theme that is difficult to access and delineate. It is one that moves sometimes in resonance with, and sometimes dialectically across the other established themes and issues in Appalachian Studies. The idea cultural diversity and interrelationship of social parts can be a useful in- tellectual tool. It is an idea designed to account for the complex textures of codes, texts, images, institutions, cultural and political transformations within the region, but one always in danger of evaporating into relativism or tautology. For better or worse, it is a part of the ongoing assessment of who we are and to whom (or what) we, as Appalachian people, are related. The Seventh Annual Appalachian Studies Conference at Unicoi State Park adopted the idea of diversity as the Conference theme. The conference did, in fact, enjoy more variety in the number and types of organizations and individuals attending as well as in papers and presentations. Budgetary and editorial constraints allow here only a remnant of the con- ference's diverse doings. It is our hope that these will offer the reader a glimpse of the varied texture of the whole cloth. Sam Gray January, 1985 Vlll NORTHERN GEORGIA EXCEPTIONS: POLITICS The Reconstruction Careers of Joseph Brown and Benjamin Hill Derrell Roberts; Dalton Junior College; Dalton, GA North Georgia Politics: 1872-1880 Ellen Garrison; East Tenn. State Univ.; Johnson City, TN Aspects of 20th Century Politics hi North Georgia Carl Ross; Appalachian State University; Boone, NC Convenor: Sam Dayton; Mtn. Regional Area Planning Comm.; Gainesville, GA The Reconstruction Careers of Joseph Brown and Benjamin Hill by Derrell Roberts The New South as proclaimed by Benjamin H. Hill, a product of the Antebellum South, recognized the advantages of the economic and political concept of the northern states of the United States. Joseph E. Brown, son of the Georgia mountains and Civil War Governor, recognized the benefits of that system some years before. The differences in their backgrounds possibly explain why Brown accepted Reconstruction and the New South sooner than Hill. Even so, economics provided the central force that merged their ideas in the 1870's. Meanwhile, their personalities and political followers clashed on most issues prior to that time. Born April 15,1821 in the Pickens District of South Carolina, Brown's family moved to Union County, Georgia. In the community of Gad- distown, Brown worked on the small farm owned by the family and at- tended the rural school in the area.