Sense of Place: American Regional Cultures

University of Kentucky UKnowledge Folklore Anthropology 10-23-1992 Sense of Place: American Regional Cultures Barbara Allen University of Notre Dame Thomas J. Schelereth University of Notre Dame Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Allen, Barbara and Schelereth, Thomas J., "Sense of Place: American Regional Cultures" (1992). Folklore. 9. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_folklore/9 SENSE OF PLACE SENSE OF PLACE American Regional Cultures EDITED BY BARBARA ALLEN & THOMAS J. SCHLERETH THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Sense of Place has been selected as a Publication of the American Folklore Society, New Series, Patrick B. Mullen, General Editor Copyright © 1990 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40508 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sense of place : American regional cultures / edited by Barbara Allen & Thomas J. Schlereth. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8131-1730-5; -0817-9 (alk. paper) 1. United States—Social life and customs—20th century. 2. Regionalism—United States. 3. Folklore—United States. I. Allen, Barbara, 1946- II. Schlereth, Thomas J. E169.S448 1990 306.4'0973—dc20 90-44010 This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. These essays are intended to honor William Lynwood Montell, whose work as a folklorist and oral historian in the Upper Cumberland region of Kentucky and Tennessee serves as a model of regional scholarship. Contents Regional Studies in American Folklore Scholarship BARBARA ALLEN 1 Folklore and Reality in the American West BARRE TOELKEN 14 Tornado Stories in the Breadbasket: Weather and Regional Identity LARRY DANIELSON 28 "One Reason God Made Trees": The Form and Ecology of the Barnegat Bay Sneakbox MARY HUFFORD 40 Mankind's Thumb on Nature's Scale: Trapping and Regional Identity in the Missouri Ozarks ERIKA BRADY 58 Regional Consciousness as a Shaper of Local History: Examples from the Eastern Shore POLLY STEWART 74 Image and Identity in Oregon's Pioneer Cemeteries RICHARD E. MEYER 88 Carbon-Copy Towns? The Regionalization of Ethnic Folklife in Southern Illinois's Egypt JOHN M. COGGESHALL 103 A Regional Musical Style: The Legacy of Arnold Shultz WILLIAM E. LIGHTFOOT 120 Creative Constraints in the Folk Arts of Appalachia CHARLES E. MARTIN 138 The Genealogical Landscape and the Southern Sense of Place BARBARA ALLEN 152 Regional Culture Studies and American Culture Studies THOMAS J. SCHLERETH 164 Notes 184 Contributors 212 Regional Studies in American Folklore Scholarship BARBARA ALLEN A sense of place, a consciousness of one's physical surroundings, is a fundamental human experience. It seems to be especially strong where people in a neighborhood, a community, a city, a region, possess a collective awareness of place and express it in their cultural forms. In the United States, this consciousness of place has most often been identified with regions, large and small, within which distinctive cultures have developed. These regional cultures and the regional consciousness that both shapes and is shaped by them are the subject of the essays in this book. While regional studies as an interdisciplinary field is a relatively recent development in American scholarship, regionalism has long been a theme, although often a muted one, in the work of American geographers, economists, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians, literary scholars, and folkloriste. Perhaps because so many researchers in such diverse fields have concerned themselves with region, definitions of the concept are abundant. In chapter 1 of American Regionalism, for instance, Howard Odum and Harry Estil Moore list forty-one definitions of region, among them: A complex of land, water, air, plant, animal and man regarded in their special relationship as together constitut- ing a definite, characteristic portion of the Earth's surface. An area within which the combination of environmental and demographic factors have created a homogeneity of economic and social structure. Any part of a national domain sufficiently unified phys- iographically and socially, to have a true consciousness of its own customs and ideals, and to possess a sense of distinc- tion from other parts of the country.1 2 BARBARA ALLEN Devising a single formulation that will satisfy all regionalists clearly cannot be done, for each discipline involved in regional studies conceives of the nature of region somewhat differently. While geographers regard regions primarily as chunks of physical space, economists prefer to think of them as systems of human activity. Historians see them as the products of events or experiences over time; anthropologists, as areas marked by the presence of one or more culture traits. Beneath the surface of this diversity, however, lie several ele- ments that virtually all regionalists would agree are fundamental to a region. The first of these is place: a region is at its heart a geograph- ical entity. What makes a region more than an arbitrarily designated spot on earth is its human dimension. "A region is a reservoir of energy," according to the French geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache, "whose origins lie in nature but whose development de- pends upon man."2 Thus, the second element of a region is the people who live there and organize their lives within the context of the environmental conditions and natural resources of that place. Because the relationship between a place and its residents evolves through time, the third component of a region is the history of residents' shared experiences in and with that place. For Odum and Moore, this dimension fosters an organic unity in a region, com- prising "the land and the people, culturally conditioned through time and spatial relationships."3 The final element in a region is distinctiveness, both from the areas surrounding it and from the whole (e.g., the nation) of which the region is a part. That distinctiveness may lie in economic and social structure and systems, in historical development and experiences, in cultural patterns, or in all three. Whatever the bases for its identity, argues Rupert Vance, a region "sufficiently unified to have a consciousness of its customs and ideas . thus possesses a sense of identity distinct from the rest of the country."4 That identity, according to Louis Wirth, stems from the fact that people living under similar conditions and in a state of interdependence develop similar traits and a sense of belonging. "Thus," he writes, "regions develop a con- ception of themselves and acquire a more or less stereotyped con- ception in the minds of others who think about them or have relations with them."5 The idea of regional consciousness and regional identity—a regional sense of self—crops up in virtually every serious discussion of regions and regionalism. It is at the basis of the concept of vernacular region, that is, "a region perceived to Regional Studies in Folklore Scholarship 3 exist by its inhabitants and other members of the population at large."6 Writing about New England as a region, George Pierson points out that even though "no matter how you measure it— geographically, economically, racially, or religiously—there is no New England region today," the idea of the region persists; in the face of this idea, Pierson concludes that New England is a region "of heart and mind."7 As Pierson suggests, regional identity is as much a matter of subjective perception as of objective observation. "A region may be described loosely," says V.B. Stanbery, "as an area of which the inhabitants instinctively feel themselves a part." In his introduction to Land of the Millrats, a study of the folk cultures of the Calumet region of northwestern Indiana, Richard Dorson follows the same line of reasoning. "The folk region," he says, "lies in the mind and spirit as much as in physical boundaries." James Shortridge echoes this sentiment in his study of vernacular regions in Kansas. "For people trying to discern general cultural or humanistic areas for planning and other purposes," he writes, "perceived regions are the ones that matter." A full understanding of the nature of a region, then, may best be achieved by adopting the perspective of residents to see a place from the inside rather than the outside, to understand "the totality of perceptions and knowledge of a place gained by residents through their long experience of it, and intensified by their feelings for it." The key to getting at this insiders' view is investigating its regional culture, which provides the vehicle for inhabitants to express both personally and collectively their sense of regional identity and regional consciousness. This esoteric view of the regional experience is most richly manifested, according to Archie Green, when people in a region "use its lore to mark [regional] consciousness."8 The essays gathered together here are all concerned in some way with this sense of place as expressed in American regional cultures. This is an appropriate focus for a tribute to Lynwood Montell, whose academic career has been devoted to the study of the Upper Cumberland region of south central Kentucky and northern Tennessee.

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