Appalachian+Culture

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=Introduction= See also Songs as cultural artifacts, Ballad Projects

Appalachian Culture occupies an interesting position in mainstream American culture. For example, Appalachia is constructed as a polar opposite to New York City culture as represented in the New Yorker magazine. While New York City is sophisticated, urban, arts-centered, and the readers of the New Yorker tend to be highly educated, Appalachia in the eyes of New Yorker writers and editors is an incomprehensible Other. At the same time, Appalachian culture preserves aspects of Elizabethan English that got lost in mainstream English and this culture forms the basis of a lot of what is truly American in terms of various arts and crafts genres.

Ohio is part Appalachian and its cities have high numbers of families with roots in Appalachia due to the migration in the fifties and sixties for job opportunities. It is important for Ohio youngsters to learn about a culture that is so central to Ohio history and culture. Also, learning about this culture offers opportunities for extended study across the curriculum.

This page has many resources for the study of Appalachian culture. The focus here is particularly on Appalachian music.

=Teaching Resources= This handout has materials Carolyn has used in an Appalachian project with fourth graders

Here are a couple of descriptions of the project:

Appalachian Culture and Economic DevelopmentRonald L. LewisWest Virginia UniversityDwight B. Billings University of Kentucky

Tobey, AM. SIXTEEN TONS A Thematic Unit on the Music of the Coal Mining Industry

=Books for Children, Adolescents, and Adults=

=Appalachian Ballad Collections=

Ballads collected by Sir Francis Child
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Lomaxes
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Digital Library of Appalachia
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=Ballad Genres and Important Ballads=

Cowboy songs
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Wreck of the Old 97
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Roots of Country Music: Carter family
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Murder ballads
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Titanic
[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Titanic_(song)]

Amelia Earhart
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=Appalachian Language= [] An explanation [] A bibliography of books about dialect [] An article about Appalachian African Americans using language for identity

=Coal Mining= Coal mining songs are a reflection of Appalachia's complex and tragic relationship with coal mining. The following files were discovered on Google Scholar and cover many aspects of how coal affects Appalachian culture and history.

Improving and Optimizing Operations: Things That Actually Work!

Wrenn, Corey Lee. Powerlessness and Pollution in Alleghany County, Virginia: A Historical Analysis of Paternalism and Economic Coercion in Appalachia and its Relationship with Environmental Degradation

Weiler, Stephan. The Economics of the Struggling, Structurally Unemployed

Lewis, Ronald. Appalachian Restructuring in Historical Perspective: Coal, Culture, and Social Change in West Virginia

Maggard, Sally. Schooling, Work Experience, and Gender: The Social Reproduction of Poverty in Mining Regions

Winston, Laurie. Clean Coal Technology: Environmental Solution or Greenwashing?

Smith, Angela. Myles Horton, Highlander Folk School, and the Wilder Coal Strike of 1932

Liddy, Sobel, and Yanni. Should We Keep This Court? An Economic Examination of Recent Decisions Made by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals

Bingham, Clara. Under Mined - When a flood of toxic mining sludge wreaked havoc in Appalachia, how did the White House respond? By letting the coal company off the hook and firing the whistleblower.

Hufford, McMackin, Bady, and Fout. WAGING DEMOCRACY IN THE KINGDOM OF COAL: OVEC AND THE MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN CENTRAL APPALACHIA

Hook and Aleklett. Historical trends in American coal production and a possible future outlook

Geraghty and Wiseman, Conflict and Compromise: Changes in U.S. Strike Outcomes, 1880 to 1945

The Sociology of Southern Appalachia David S. Walls and Dwight B. Billings

AMOS SHUMAN FEUDAL STATE IN THE 20TH CENTURY: LIFE, UNIONIZATION, AND ARMED REVOLT IN THE STRIKE ON PAINT AND CABIN CREEK, WEST VIRGINIA, 1912-1913

Stephen D. Mooney. MOUNTAIN VOICES The Socio-Cultural Ramifications of Declines in Coal Mining Employment and Production in the Southwestern Virginia Coalfields

Rachael Williams. The Imaginary South of Country-Western Music

OVEC and the Movement for Social and Environmental Justice in Central Appalachia 2002-2003. WAGING DEMOCRACY IN THE KINGDOM OF COAL

Massey Energy 2008 Report. The Massey Energy Company owns the Upper Big Branch mine in which 29 miners were killed in 2010. This report shows their earnings and profits. They have a history of safety violations in their operations.

The Union Avoidance Industry in the United States John Logan

No Rock Unturned: Revitalizing the Economies of Mining Dependent Communities By: Joan Kuyek and Catherine Coumans

Historical Summary of Coal Mine Explosions in the United States, 1959-81 By J. K. Richmond, G. C. Price, M. J. Sapko, and E. M. Kawenski

Methane Emission From US. Coal Mines, A Survey UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Thornburg, Elizabeth. Judicial Hellholes, Lawsuit Climates, and Bad Social Science: Lessons from West Virginia

The Southern West Virginia Coal Mine Wars: An Interpretation Karen DM Harris

LAW AND PROPERTY IN THE MOUNTAINS: A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF RESOURCE LAND IN THE APPALACHIAN COALFIELDS Johanna Marie Haas, J.D.

Greenlee, R.W. And Yet They Are Poor: A Naturalistic Study of Rural Poverty and the Working Poor People of Appalachian Ohio

Gender struggle, scale, and the production of place in the Appalachian coalfieldsChristiana E MiewaldôEugene J McCannô

CALL AND RESPONSE Who Is the World?: Reflections on Music and Politics Twenty Years after Live AidReebee Garofalo

Hendrix and Ahern. Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining Regions: The Value of Statistical Life Lost

Toxic Substances from Coal Energy: An Overview by Carl M. Shy*

Billings, Dwight. Economic Representations in an American Region: What's at Stake in Appalachia

The Decline of Central Appalachian Coal and the Need for Economic Diversification Rory McIlmoil Evan Hansen

Home in the McDowell County Coalfields: The African-American Population of Keystone, West Virginia Deaner, Larry Scott

THE CULTURAL OPPOSITION TO CAPITALISM: MYTHBUSTING THROUGH OUR PAST Claudia R. Williamson

Behavior of a coal pillar prone to burst in the southern Appalachian Basin of the United States Anthony Iannacchione

U.S. Coal Supply and Demand: 2009 Review Fred Freme

The Women of Appalachia: Their Heritage and Accomplishments

Faith, Power, and Conflict: Miner Preachers and the United Mine Workers of America in the Harlan County Mine Wars, 1931-1939 Carletta A. Bush

Bringing Down the Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal Surface Coal Mining on Southern West Virginia Communities, 1970-2004 Shirley L. Stewart Burns

WOMEN COAL MINERS: ANOTHER CHAPTER IN CENTRAL APPALACHIA’S STRUGGLE AGAINST HEGEMONY, 1973-1998Carletta H. Savage The Life Cycle of a Coal Town: Widen, West Virginia, 1911-1963 Amanda J. Griffith

The de/re-territorialization of struggle in Appalachia: The legacy of “coal and class” and the cultural politics of community Stuart Lorkin

A History of Jewish Life in the Central Appalachian Coalfields, 1870s to 1970s Deborah R. Weiner

Matewan Before the Massacre: Politics, Coal, and the Roots of Conflict in Mingo County, 1793-1920 Rebecca J. Bailey

The United Mine Workers of America and the Recognition of Occupational Respiratory Diseases, 1902-1968 Alan Denickson, PhD

Ross, M.H. The Appalachian Coal Miner: His Way of Living, Working, and Relating to Others

THE VALUE OF STORY THEORY IN PROVIDING CULTURALLY SENSITIVE ADVANCED PRACTICE NURSING IN RURAL APPALACHIA Cynthia Denice Gobble

Merchant, Taylor, Hodous. Coal Workers' Pneumoconiosis and Exposure to Other Carbonaceous Dust

Agreement between UMW and Bethlehem Mines Corporation, 1934

DEFENDERS OF APPALACHIA: THE CAMPAIGN TO ELIMINATE MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL COAL MINING AND THE ROLE OF PUBLIC JUSTICE BY MARK BALLER∗ & LEOR JOSEPH PANTILAT**

=General Resources= [] General info [] A list of related topics linked to wikipedia articles [] A ministry page but has a lot of good resources Technical information about the culture [] Glossary [] An Appalachian blog (one person's perspective)

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[] Another blog

[] Info about a photographer (and incidental info about aspects of Appalachian culture, including snake handling)

[] Blue Ridge Parkway [] Photos and other resources