Government Power and Rural Resistance in the Arkansas Ozarks

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2014 Dynamics of Defiance: Government Power and Rural Resistance in the Arkansas Ozarks J. Blake Perkins Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Perkins, J. Blake, "Dynamics of Defiance: Government Power and Rural Resistance in the Arkansas Ozarks" (2014). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 6404. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/6404 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you must obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in WVU Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Dynamics of Defiance: Government Power and Rural Resistance in the Arkansas Ozarks J. Blake Perkins Dissertation submitted to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Kenneth Fones-Wolf, Ph.D., Committee Chairperson Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, Ph.D. Joseph Hodge, Ph.D. James Siekmeier, Ph.D. Brooks Blevins, Ph.D. Department of History Morgantown, WV 2014 Keywords: Ozarks; Arkansas; rural; government; liberal state; populism; resistance; dissent; smallholder; agrarianism; industrialization; agribusiness; liberalism; conservatism; economic development; politics; stereotypes Copyright 2014 J. Blake Perkins Abstract Dynamics of Defiance: Government Power and Rural Resistance in the Arkansas Ozarks J. Blake Perkins This dissertation explores the dynamics of rural resistance against government interventions in the Ozark uplands of Arkansas during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It employs microhistorical analysis to delve deep into the experiences and attitudes of rural folks as they encountered and interacted with different arms of government authority during this long period of change and transition for rural America. The findings question and complicate long-held assumptions about an “exceptional” rural hill culture that supposedly eluded change and remained isolated from mainstream American developments since the pioneer settlers of the Early Republic. In particular, this work’s collection of case studies probes the reasons for conflicts between rural people and government power, how hill folks perceived these conflicts, and how conflicts and attitudes changed over time. Historians have shown a growing interest in the Ozarks in recent years. A number of them have attempted to understand how rural regions such as the Ozarks contributed to the rise of modern conservatism in America during the second half of the twentieth century. Bethany Moreton’s and Darren Dockuk’s works, for instance, both emphasize a continuity of rural conservativism from the first half of the twentieth century to the second. This study, however, discovers significant change and nuance in the dynamics of rural conflict with and attitudes toward government power in the Ozarks during the long twentieth century. More often than not, rural resistance sprang from a populist Left during the early twentieth century, as smallholder farmers in the backcountry saw their struggles against intrusive arms of government as stands against the self-serving capitalist elites who controlled them. By the 1960s, however, the long evolution of agricultural consolidation and industrialization in the region led to the virtual extinction of small family farms. Thousands of rural Ozarkers hit the migrant trails to Western and Midwestern cities during and after World War II, and an industrial- and agribusiness-oriented political economy that depended upon low-wage, non-union labor finally replaced the region’s smallholder farm society in the backcountry. In this New Ozarks environment, town business elites and local political officials who feared a slippage of their local control led a new brand of conservative resistance that came to characterize a number of the major standoffs against government in the region during the second half of the twentieth century. Unlike the populist backcountry defiance that had shaped most rural clashes with government during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this more recent New Ozarks conservatism most resembled the tea party culture that is commonly associated with the region today. This dissertation also contributes to a body of scholarship led by political scientist/anthropologist James C. Scott on governments’ attempts to solve social problems and encourage progress. While Scott places the “high modernism” of distant bureaucracies at the center of conflicts and failures between governments and their people around the twentieth-century world, my work finds local disputes and uneven access to government power at the heart of the story. Dedication I dedicate this work to my wife, Jodie, and our two sons, Maddox and Rylan. iv Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have happened without the contributions of many talented and generous people. I owe a lot to my many fine professors at Lyon College, Missouri State University, and West Virginia University whose excellent teaching and examples fostered my development as a historian. They include Brooks Blevins, John Wienzierl, Edward Tenace, Bradley Gitz, Scott Roulier, Tom Dicke, Marc Cooper, Bob Miller, the late George Hummasti, William Piston, Ken Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, Brian Luskey, Jack Hammersmith, and Mark Tauger. The social and intellectual comrarderie of fellow graduate students at MSU and WVU has also been invaluable. I would especailly like to thank Greg French, Rachel Fuller, Mary Stansfield, Hal Gorby, Jenny Turman, Adam Zucconi, Jake Ivey, Joe Super, Joe Rizzo, Josh Esposito, Karina Garcia, and Josh Howard. I owe a big debt of gratitude to the staffs at Lyon College’s Mabee-Simpson Library, Missouri State University’s Duane G. Meyer Library and its Special Collections division, the Downtown Campus Library at West Virginia University, Williams Baptist College’s Felix Goodson Library, the Arkansas History Commission, the Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives, the University of Arkansas Libraries’ Special Collections, the Archives at the University of Central Arkansas’s Torreyson Library, the Archives and Special Collections at Hendrix College’s Olin C. and Marjorie Bailey Library, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law Library, the Old Independence Regional Museum, the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, and Fort Worth, Texas, and the many county couthouses and local historical societies I visited throughout the Arkansas Ozarks. Certain indiduals who also helped in various ways with my research or analysis deserve recognition. They include James Johnston, Lynn Morrow, Steve Saunders, Patrick Williams, Lynn Gentzler, Lisa Perry, Michael Pierce, Gregory Kiser, Thomas Kiffmeyer, Bruce Stewart, Ronald Lewis, Ronald Eller, Lawrence Christenson, Matt Vester, Jackie Stites, Brian Jeffery, Don Cullimore, June Westphal, Mike Luster, Susan Mosier, and Mildred Thomas. I also appreciate all of the comments and critiques I received on academic papers related to this project that I presented at conferences hosted by the Southern Historical Association, the Appalachian Studies Association, the Society of Appalachian Historians, the Arkansas Historical Association, the State Historical Society of Missouri, the Ozarks Studies Symposium, and the Arkansas History Commission. I could not have asked for better mentors along this journey, and, though I alone assume responsibility for all shortcomings and errors, they deserve much of the credit for whatever merits this work may have. Brooks Blevins first took me under his wing when I was an undergraduate student of his at Lyon College. In fact, this fellow rural Arkansawyer’s example as a teacher and scholar most influenced my decision to pursue a career as a historian in my own right. After embarking on my path from Lyon, I was lucky enough to get to continue my studies with him in graduate school at Missouri State University, where he took a new position in 2008. His teaching, guidance, and friendship—not to mention his pathbreaking scholarship on the Ozarks—have been and continue to be indespensible, to say the least. In addition, I thank him for patiently poring over and commenting on nearly everything I have ever written and for his willingness to serve as the outside reader on my dissertation committee. I first met Ken Fones- v Wolf, my mentor/advisor at West Virginia University, on the phone in 2010, and I was immediately drawn to his enthusiasm. I have benefitted immensely from his keen editorial eye, his interpretive insights, and his ability thoughout the writing of this work to help me see the bigger pictures when I was lost in the mountains of detail. Above all, I thank him for his constant encouragement in shepherding to me to the completion of this project. My family and I also appreciate his and Elizabeth

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