Common Book 2015-2016: The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture, and Enlightenment to America: Related Library Resources

Cultural historian Jeff Biggers takes us to the dark amphitheatre ruins of his family’s nearly 200-year-old hillside homestead that has been strip-mined on the edge of the first federally recognized Wilderness Site in southern Illinois. In doing so, he not only comes to grips with his own denied backwoods heritage, but also chronicles a dark and missing chapter in the American experience: the historical nightmare of coal outside of Appalachia, serving as an exposé of a secret legacy of shame and resiliency.

Cultural historian Jeff Biggers takes us to the dark amphitheatre ruins of his family’s nearly 200-year-old hillside homestead that has been strip-mined on the edge of the first federally recognized Wilderness Site in southern Illinois. In doing so, he not only comes to grips with his own denied backwoods heritage, but also chronicles a dark and missing chapter in the American experience: the historical nightmare of coal outside of Appalachia, serving as an exposé of a secret legacy of shame and resiliency.

State Out of the Union is award-winning journalist and historian Jeff Biggers' riveting account of Arizona, the famed frontier state whose conflict over immigration and state's rights has become a national bellwether. Biggers shows how Arizona's long history of labor and civil rights battles, its contentious entry into the union, as well as cyclical upheavals over immigration rights, place the state front and center in a greater American story playing out across the United States. From President Eisenhower's Operation Wetback to the legacy of Arizona native son César Chávez to the powerful influence of the state's politicians, like Sen. Barry Goldwater and Tea Party President Russell Pearce, Biggers reveals how Arizona has played a pivotal role in determining the nation's conservative and liberal agendas. Today, more than 25 state legislatures have introduced anti-immigration bills that are virtual copies of Arizona's controversial SB 1070 "papers please" law. The state is ground zero in the clash over a historic demographic shift taking place across the country with the rise of a newly empowered Latino electorate. But Arizona is not only home to some of the most virulent anti-immigration legislation in the country--it is also the birthplace of a new movement of young Latino activists and allies who have not only challenged the self-proclaimed architect of SB 1070 in a historic recall election, but are also mobilizing to defend the state's education system from censorship. A lasting and important work of cultural history, State Out of the Union vividly unveils the showdown over the American Dream in Arizona--and its impact on the future of the nation.

Born into slavery in Kentucky, raised on the Western frontier on the farm adjacent to Daniel Boone's, "rented" out in adolescence to a succession of steamboat captains on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, the young man known as "Sandy" reinvented himself as "William Wells" Brown after escaping to freedom. Ezra Greenspan's masterful work, elegantly written and rigorously researched, sets Brown's life in the richly rendered context of his times, creating a fascinating portrait of an inventive writer who dared to challenge the racial orthodoxies and explore the racial complexities of nineteenth-century America.

In 1908 and 1909, noted social reformer and "songcatcher" Olive Dame Campbell traveled with her husband, John C. Campbell, through the Southern Highlands region of Appalachia to survey the social and economic conditions in mountain communities. Throughout the journey, Olive kept a detailed diary offering a vivid, entertaining, and personal account of the places the couple visited, the people they met, and the mountain cultures they encountered. Although John C. Campbells book, The Southern Highlander and His Homeland, is cited by nearly every scholar writing about the region, little has been published about the Campbells themselves and their role in the sociological, educational, and cultural history of Appalachia. In this critical edition, Elizabeth McCutchen Williams makes Olives diary widely accessible to scholars and students for the first time. Appalachian Travels only offers an invaluable account of mountain society at the turn of the twentieth century.

The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples.   Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.

Families, communities, and the nation itself were irretrievably altered by the Civil War and the subsequent societal transformations of the nineteenth century. The repercussions of the war incited a broad range of unique problems in Appalachia, including political dynamics, racial prejudices, and the regional economy. Andrew L. Slap's anthology Reconstructing Appalachia reveals life in Appalachia after the ravages of the Civil War, an unexplored area that has left a void in historical literature.

This oral history complements earlier works conducted during the Great Depression through the Federal Writers' Project (FWP). The work covers not only covers the depression-era but also sentiments on World War II and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and is unique in that lhe oral histories portray a long-isolated region of the South -Appalachia and its unique racial subcultures, Cherokee Indians, Mountain Whites and Local Blacks.

Culture, Class, and Politics in Modern Appalachia takes stock of the field of Appalachian studies as it explores issues still at the center of its scholarship: culture, industrialization, the labor movement, and twentieth-century economic and political failure and their social impact. A new generation of scholars continues the work of Appalachian studies' pioneers, exploring the diversity and complexity of the region and its people. Labor migrations from around the world transformed the region during its critical period of economic growth. Collective struggles over occupational health and safety, the environment, equal rights, and civil rights challenged longstanding stereotypes. Investigations of political and economic power and the role of social actors and social movements in Appalachian history add to the foundational work that demonstrates a dynamic and diverse region.

An incredible true story of the top-secret World War II town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the young women brought there unknowingly to help build the atomic bomb. At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, and consumed more electricity than New York City, yet it was shrouded in such secrecy that it did not appear on any map. Thousands of civilians, many of them young women from small towns across the U.S., were recruited to this secret city, enticed by the promise of solid wages and war-ending work. What were they actually doing there? Very few knew. The purpose of this mysterious government project was kept a secret from the outside world and from the majority of the residents themselves. Drawing from the voices and experiences of the women who lived and worked in Oak Ridge, The Girls of Atomic City rescues a remarkable, forgotten chapter of World War II from obscurity. Denise Kiernan captures the spirit of the times through these women: their pluck, their desire to contribute, and their enduring courage.

The Hidden Hand is a succinct accessible and up-to-date survey of the Central Intelligence Agency's history from its inception in 1947 to the present. Covers both aspects of the CIA's mission - the collection and analysis of intelligence and the execution of foreign policy through covert, paramilitary operations De-mythologizes the CIA's role in America's global affairs while addressing its place within American political and popular culture Written by an esteemed scholar and high-ranking officer in the intelligence community, drawing on the latest research Assesses the agency's successes and failures, with an eye to the complex and controversial nature of the subject

Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia is a landmark anthology that brings together the work of 105 Appalachian women writers, including Dorothy Allison, Harriette Simpson Arnow, Annie Dillard, Nikki Giovanni, Denise Giardina, Barbara Kingsolver, Jayne Anne Phillips, Janice Holt Giles, George Ella Lyon, Sharyn McCrumb, and Lee Smith. Editors Sandra L. Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson offer a diverse sampling of time periods and genres, established authors and emerging voices. From regional favorites to national bestsellers, this unprecedented gathering of Appalachian voices displays the remarkable talent of the region's women writers who've made their mark at home and across the globe.

Appalachia has played a complex and often contradictory role in the unfolding of American history. Created by urban journalists in the years following the Civil War, the idea of Appalachia provided a counterpoint to emerging definitions of progress. Early-twentieth-century critics of modernity saw the region as a remnant of frontier life, a reflection of simpler times that should be preserved and protected. However, supporters of development and of the growth of material production, consumption, and technology decried what they perceived as the isolation and backwardness of the place and sought to "uplift" the mountain people through education and industrialization. Ronald D Eller has worked with local leaders, state policymakers, and national planners to translate the lessons of private industrial-development history into public policy affecting the region. In Uneven Ground: Appalachia since 1945, Eller examines the politics of development in Appalachia since World War II with an eye toward exploring the idea of progress as it has evolved in modern America. Appalachia's struggle to overcome poverty, to live in harmony with the land, and to respect the diversity of cultures and the value of community is also an American story. In the end, Eller concludes, "Appalachia was not different from the rest of America; it was in fact a mirror of what the nation was becoming."

"Based in part on the author's extensive collection of oral histories from the remote highlands of West Virginia, Signs, Cures, and Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore describes various occult practices, symbols, and beliefs; how they evolved within New World religious contexts; how they arrived on the Appalachian frontier; and the prospects of those beliefs continuing in the contemporary world."--BOOK JACKET.

Tourism is the world's largest industry, and ecotourism is rapidly emerging as its fastest growing segment. As interest in nature travel increases, so does concern for conservation of the environment and the well-being of local peoples and cultures. Appalachia seems an ideal destination for ecotourists, with its rugged mountains, uniquely diverse forests, wild rivers, and lively arts culture. And ecotourism promises much for the region: protecting the environment while bringing income to disadvantaged communities. But can these promises be kept? Ecotourism in Appalachia examines both the potential and the threats that tourism holds for Central Appalachia. The authors draw lessons from destinations that have suffered from the "tourist trap syndrome," including Nepal and Hawaii. They conclude that only carefully regulated and locally controlled tourism can play a positive role in Appalachia's economic development.

In the Stranger People's Country tells the story of contact between a late-nineteenth-century Tennessee mountain community and an amateur archaeologist who wants to open the graves of the prehistoric leetle stranger people, a source of myth to the mountaineers. Author Mary Noailles Murfree (1922) uses dialect and vivid descriptions of mountain scenes to introduce the reader to Appalachia and its people. She creates respectful representations of Appalachian life and explores some of the changes the arrival of outsiders brought to the mountains. Murfree's depiction of social and aesthetic issues increases our understanding of the nineteenth century and serves as a literary precursor of the twentieth-century Appalachian activist movements to preserve the environment against the strip-mining and chemical industries. This edition of Murfree's 1891 novel, reprinted for the first time, includes notes about Appalachian dialect and the novel's references to archaeology, which have some basis in actual archaeological discoveries in Tennessee.

"These essays, arranged chronologically in the order they were first written, represent Donald Edward Davis's twenty-year career as a writer, environmental activist, and scholar of all things Appalachian. Join Davis in an exploration of a region consistently under attack by mining interests, developers, and the tourist industry, and consistently misunderstood by scholars. Approaching this unique region from both historical and environmental angles, Davis presents twenty essays to help illuminate the problems, peoples, and places of what may be the oldest mountain range in the world."--BOOK JACKET.

Like an old-fashioned hymn sung in rounds, Something's Rising gives a stirring voice to the lives, culture, and determination of the people fighting the destructive practice of mountaintop removal in the coalfields of central Appalachia. Each person's story, unique and unfiltered, articulates the hardship of living in these majestic mountains amid the daily desecration of the land by the coal industry because of America's insistence on cheap energy. The people who live, work, and raise families in central Appalachia face not only the physical destruction of their land but also the loss of their culture and health in a society dominated by the consequences of mountaintop removal. Included are oral histories from both well-known activists and people rarely in the media. Each oral history is prefaced with a biographical essay that vividly establishes the interview settings and the subjects' connections to their region. Written and edited by native sons of the mountains, this compelling book captures a fever-pitch moment in the movement against mountaintop removal.

A near-obsessive pursuit of ghost stories and odd superstitions cranks up this serious study of Appalachian tales of the supernatural and their origin in both old-world customs and real historical events. An effort to preserve and record one aspect of a dying way of life, the book relies on interviews and historic documents to search for the facts behind local lore of murder, witchcraft, and weird hauntings. Several campfire-worthy ghost stories are recounted in their entirety—including "The Swinging Gate of Fern Lake Hollow"—and an unexpectedly large number of stories about aliens and UFOs provide an interesting comparison of three-century-old mysteries and those stirred up in comparatively recent times