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The Exploitation of Women and Nature in Appalachia : an Analysis of Labor

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The Exploitation of Women and Nature in Appalachia : an Analysis of Labor THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND NATURE IN APPALACHIA: AN ANALYSIS OF LABOR RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AS PRESENTED BY THREE APPALACHIAN WOMEN WRITERS A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Western Carolina University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in English By Holly Rose Cian Director: Dr. Mae Miller Claxton Associate Professor of English English Department Committee Members: Pam Duncan, M.A., English Dr. Laura Wright, English March 2016 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my thesis director, Dr. Mae Miller Claxton, for her continual guidance and support throughout the writing of this thesis. I would also like to thank my committee members, Pam Duncan and Dr. Laura Wright, for their assistance and for the valuable suggestions that they provided throughout the process. I would also like to thank my fiancée for his constant encouragement and support. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv Chapter One: Ecofeminism and Appalachian Literature: A Theoretical Discussion ......................1 Chapter Two: Devaluing the Environment and Women’s Labor in Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron-Mills .............................................................................................................................16 Chapter Three: The Tall Woman’s Response to Economic Privilege and Environmental Degradation ....................................................................................................................................33 Chapter Four: Ownership and Power in the Company Towns of Florence Cope Bush’s Dorie: Woman of the Mountains ...............................................................................................................53 Chapter Five: Exposing the Costs of “Progress”: Industrialization and Literary Studies in the Appalachian Mountains .................................................................................................................71 Works Cited ..................................................................................................................................82 iii ABSTRACT THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND NATURE IN APPALACHIA: AN ANALYSIS OF LABOR RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AS PRESENTED BY THREE APPALACHIAN WOMEN WRITERS Holly Rose Cian, M.A. Western Carolina University (March 2016) Director: Dr. Mae Miller Claxton Environmental activism in Appalachia in recent years has focused on the harm that practices such as mountaintop removal mining, hydraulic fracturing, and deforestation contribute to the natural landscape of the Appalachian region. However, because of a history of outside industries exploiting Appalachia for its natural resources, writers in Appalachia have been grappling with the environmental and social effects of industrial development for centuries. Wilma Dykeman’s 1962 novel The Tall Woman, Rebecca Harding Davis’s 1861 novella Life in the Iron-Mills, and Florence Cope Bush’s 1989 biography Dorie: Woman of the Mountains are three relatively unstudied Appalachian texts that wrestle with the economic and environmental changes facing Appalachia from the early days of the American Civil War to the mid-20th century. These texts more specifically show how marginalized populations such as women, immigrants, and the poor are disproportionately affected by decisions that are made about the environments in which they live—decisions often made by outsiders. As texts written by three Appalachian women, the works studied here offer perspectives on feminism and iv environmentalism that too often go unnoticed in both American literature and American history. In an acknowledgement of the marginalization of women and of the silencing of Appalachian voices overall, this thesis looks to ecofeminist theory and literary analysis in order to explore the connections between environmentally harmful practices, increases in women’s labor, and the suppression of women’s voices in outcry over social and environmental concerns. In addition, this thesis examines the ideological and economic reasons why labor exploitation and environmental degradation in the Appalachian Mountains are able to continue despite the far- reaching ecological and social consequences of such practices. v CHAPTER ONE: ECOFEMINISM AND APPALACHIAN LITERATURE: A THEORETICAL DISCUSSION Appalachia stretches across 13 states in the eastern U.S., forming a 205,000 square mile region that has been the subject of both fascination and misunderstanding in pop culture, in the media, and even in literature. Part of the overall focus on Appalachia in recent years, however, has been on efforts to address concerns over mountaintop removal mining, hydraulic fracturing, pollution of water sources, and the overall irresponsible use (or abuse) of natural resources in the region. Often, logging, mining, and other environmentally harmful industries that move into Appalachia uninvited and then leave once it is no longer profitable to stay contribute not only to vast environmental devastation in the region but to economic and social problems as well. However, conversations about environmental advocacy in Appalachia have often failed to include intricate examinations of industry efforts to increase profits at the expense of Appalachian communities. In many ways, environmental and social issues in Appalachia are connected to the region’s history and are as unique as the region itself. As such, these issues cannot be solved without careful attention to how environmental devastation has been permitted to occur, nor can they be solved without acknowledgement of the unique social implications that arise when outside industries manage to exert control over what happens to the forests, mountains, rivers, and people of a region. At first glance, one might argue that concerns for the Appalachian environment have mostly followed more recent national movements towards clean energy (and thus away from energy extracted from the mountains) and forest conservation, but in reality, Appalachian writers have been calling attention to these issues long before they appeared on the national radar. 1 Diligent study of Appalachian social and environmental issues demonstrates how problematic it is to articulate questions about these issues from a national rather than from a local standpoint, particularly when the industries and stockholders contributing to environmental damage do not experience any of the social or environmental drawbacks to which local communities are subjected. As a result, environmentalism as a movement has persisted for centuries in Appalachia, as study of Appalachian literary history reveals. In an effort to demonstrate Appalachian environmentalism and social advocacy as well as to uncover the linkage of environmental and women’s labor exploitation in the Appalachian Mountains, this project will focus on works by three local community-minded women writers that each take place in Appalachia around or soon following the American Civil War: Rebecca Harding Davis’s 1861 novella Life in the Iron-Mills, Wilma Dykeman’s 1962 novel The Tall Woman, and Florence Cope Bush’s 1989 biography Dorie: Woman of the Mountains. Each work points to the manipulation of women and families and to the exploitation of the environment that ultimately harms Appalachian communities. Dykeman’s The Tall Woman, for example, contains heartbreaking examples of suffering at the hands of those who exploit other humans and nature, yet much of the published scholarship on the novel tends to focus on environmental concerns within the story’s characters and plot rather than on social concerns. When the novel begins, most of the male characters are fighting in the Civil War, and Lydia McQueen is forced to take on extra work and responsibility in order to care for her mother and siblings. Immediately, the masculine (war) has an effect on women and families that literary scholarship has not yet fully articulated. When Lydia’s husband Mark leaves again later in the novel to head West with other explorers, Lydia once more takes responsibility for running the household, farming, caring for their children, and making extra 2 money by harvesting ginseng in the mountains. But even while Lydia demonstrates ecological care and understanding, Dykeman contrasts her with other characters, such as the wealthy Ham Nelson, who care more for profit than for living in ways that benefit natural and human-made communities. In other texts, such as Dorie: Woman of the Mountains and Davis’s Life in the Iron-Mills, women are often voiceless against labor oppression and environmental concerns because dominant social structures have determined that women and nature are to be compliant to masculine endeavors. Often, decisions made concerning the well-being of women and the environment are made by men in the interest of industry. For example, when industry moves into Dorie’s home town, Dorie’s mother has to take in many of the new employees as boarders. In such a role, her work hours are increased and her home becomes open to others. Ultimately, Dorie’s family is forced to leave the place where she grew up because the land has been purchased by American officials who have the power to tell them that they can no longer live in their home communities. In Life in the Iron-Mills, the protagonist Deborah trudges through rainy streets to deliver supper to Hugh after her own 12-hour work
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