Appalachian Aristocrats: How Tourists, Elites, and Mountaineers Created a New Western North Carolina, 1880-1920
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2017 Appalachian Aristocrats: How Tourists, Elites, and Mountaineers Created a New Western North Carolina, 1880-1920 Matthew Robert Blaylock University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Blaylock, Matthew Robert, "Appalachian Aristocrats: How Tourists, Elites, and Mountaineers Created a New Western North Carolina, 1880-1920. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2017. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4680 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Matthew Robert Blaylock entitled "Appalachian Aristocrats: How Tourists, Elites, and Mountaineers Created a New Western North Carolina, 1880-1920." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in History. Lynn A. Sacco, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Derek H. Alderman, Ernest F. Freeberg, Robert J. Norrell Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Appalachian Aristocrats: How Tourists, Elites, and Mountaineers Created a New Western North Carolina, 1880-1920 A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Matthew Robert Blaylock August 2017 Abstract Appalachian Aristocrats explores the efforts of local boosters and businessmen in western North Carolina as they developed a regional, elite branding campaign from approximately 1880 to 1920. Influenced by the cycle of prosperity that had long connected tourism to regional development and regional development to tourism, boosters and businessmen worked to reestablish elite tourism in western North Carolina after it stymied in the wake of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Turning to three promotional components, infrastructure, elite residences, and resort hotels, boosters and businessmen embarked on a branding campaign that utilized symbols evoking the region’s continuity and change. These themes became embedded within regional promotion, and a series of paradoxes began to define regional branding. In particular, boosters and businessmen worked to show that the region was both rural and urban, embracing modernity while honoring their southern heritage, and inhabited by folksy mountaineers and progressive urbanites. By maintaining a promotional model that embraced so many seemingly contradictory images, boosters and businessmen were not only able to attract elite tourists from across the nation but easily adapt their campaign to larger changes within American culture. Through these wise branding efforts, the elite tourist market flourished, and western North Carolina once again became the Land of the Sky. ii Table of Contents Introduction: Antebellum Tourism and the Beginning of a Way of Life ........................... 1 Disruption: The Civil War, Reconstruction, and the need to Rebrand Western North .. 4 A New Elite Class and Changes to Western North Carolina’s Luxury Tourism............ 9 The Progressive Era and the Beginnings of Middle-Class Tourism ............................. 16 Organization .................................................................................................................. 21 Chapter One: Constructing Western North Carolina: The Role of Railroads, Good Roads, and Businesses in the Development of Post-Civil War Luxury Tourism ........................................................................................................................................... 31 Western North Carolina Before the War ...................................................................... 34 Local Color and the Emergence of the Hillbilly Stereotype ......................................... 39 Appalachia as Part of the New South ........................................................................... 43 The Importance of the Railroad to Regional Growth and Tourism .............................. 48 Good Roads as a Driving Force of Regional Tourism and Development .................... 53 Western North Carolina’s Modern Economy ............................................................... 58 Chapter Two: Building Homes and Building Status: How New Houses Symbolized Position in Western North Carolina in the New South Period ........................................................................................................................................... 63 Business Changed More than Just the Economy: How Class became Part of Industrialization ....................................................................................................................................... 66 Moving Into the Cities: Appalachian Elites become Urban ......................................... 70 High-End Neighborhoods: Montford and the Urban Elite Enclave .............................. 84 What’s In A Name: Smith as the Region’s Architect to the Elite ............................... 93 Chapter Three: Luxury Hotels and the Resurgence of Elite Tourism in Western North Carolina ........................................................................................................................................... 97 Luxury Hotels get Rural: The History and Success of Health Tourism in Western North Carolina ............................................................................................................................. 98 New South Amenities Mixed with Old South Flare: The Importance of Historical Memory in Western North Carolina’s Luxury Hotels ................................................................... 101 Battery Park: A New Hotel on an Old Spot ............................................................... 109 The Manor: An English Inn with Old South Charm in Western North Carolina ....... 121 Chapter Four: The Beginning of Middle-class Tourism in Western North Carolina ......................................................................................................................................... 129 The Importance of Continuity: Rural Places and People as Part of Tourism ............. 131 The Role of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in Middle-Class Tourism . 138 The Importance of Geography in Suburban Construction .......................................... 143 Keeping Grove Park Pure: The Role of Race in Community Building and Advertising150 The Importance of Homes in Western North Carolina’s Progressive Era Tourism ... 153 William Jennings Bryan: the Great Commoner Makes Asheville Home and becomes a Spokesperson for Middle-Class Tourism........................................................................ 161 Chapter Five: Tourism Gets Religion: The Emergence of Middle-Class Retreats in Western North Carolina ................................................................................................................ 167 The Background of Lake Junaluska’s Development: The Importance of Location to Protestant Tourism and Resort Identity ........................................................................................... 171 Mountaineers as Part of the Local Geography and a Tourist Attraction ................... 187 iii The Importance of Summer Homes at Lake Junaluska Assembly ............................. 195 Epilogue .......................................................................................................................... 206 Tourism after World War One .................................................................................... 207 Modernity as a Cornerstone of 1920’s Promotion ...................................................... 210 Tourism Embraces the Past ......................................................................................... 213 The Rhododendron Festival ........................................................................................ 217 The Role of Debutante Culture in the Rhododendron Festival................................... 218 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 231 References ....................................................................................................................... 235 Vita .................................................................................................................................. 268 iv Introduction: Antebellum Tourism and the Beginning of a Way of Life Throughout the antebellum period, wealthy, white planters across the South, especially those from South Carolina’s low country, ventured to the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina to avoid the unhealthy climates of their plantations while socializing with like- minded peoples.1 These wealthy southerners gave the small, isolated region a national prestige and soon the area was known for its high-end leisure and for having the “richest landscape