Society and Culturehttp://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/en-US2010-02-09T14:17:16ZSquarespace Site Server v5.9.1 (http://www.squarespace.com/)Backcountry Folk of the Tennessee Mountainshttp://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2010/2/9/backcountry-folk-of-the-tennessee-mountains.htmlJay Henderson2010-02-09T13:16:26ZAppalachia Backcountry culture Great Smoky Mountains Tennessee Tennessee Tennessee Backcountry farms folklife frontier culture houses log cabins mountain crafts schools vintage log cabinCurtis Stiner, mountain farmer. National Archives. Note: Click on any image for a larger view.During the decades following the end of the Civil War, the mountainous reaches of northeastern Tennessee remained relatively isolated from the rest of the world.  There was growth in the urban areas of Knoxville and Chattanooga, and coal mining came to the Cumberland Plateau, but elsewhere life continued much as it had for generations.

The modern era arrived between the world wars, when Tennessee Eastman was established in Kingsport and the Bemberg Corporation built rayon mills in Elizabethton -- and when two major Federal projects, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Tennessee Valley Authority, brought the outside world irrevocably into the high country and its river valleys. The Park and the TVA dams displaced whole communities from ancient abodes and altered forever the way of life that had endured from the Colonial period. 

J. C. Nicely, Union County, TN. National Archives.With the Federal projects came resettlement plans and, during the Depression, public works projects. Reading the accounts surviving from this era, it is hard to escape the attitude of the Federal men that they were bringing indoor plumbing and enlightenment to backward, uneducated, gap-toothed hillbillies.  Yet among those archives are a scattering of photographs which reveal folks of a very different character. Perhaps unwittingly, the Federal men left us vignettes of an independent, hardy, resourceful, and industrious people, worthy descendants of the Backcountry settlers of long ago.

Mrs. Jacob Stooksbury of Loyston, TN, pictured with her spinning wheel and yarn winder. National Archives.

The mountain people made, grew, or gathered nearly everything they needed to survive.  They were remarkably skilled at crafts and handwork of all kinds, making their own clothing, pottery, tools, and musical instruments, growing and gathering their own food, and constructing their own shelter.  To the fullest extent possible, they lived in a world fashioned by their own hands.

Margaret (standing) & Louisa Walker, photographed in front of their home in the Great Smoky Mountains. Library of Congress.The mountain folk lived in handmade houses -- log cabins built with hewn timbers and planks and shakes, resting on hand-built stone piers or foundations, heated by stone fireplaces and chimneys.  Their farms featured handmade barns, corncribs, smokehouses, and springhouses. They educated their children in handmade schoolhouses and worshipped in handmade churches.  They made tables, chairs, benches, bedsteads, and other furnishings.  They wove cloth on handmade wooden looms. The surviving examples of this craftsmanship attest to the skills of the mountain folk.

Stooksbury homestead near Andersonville, TN. National Archives.

Children reading in doorway of Little Greenbrier School & Church, Sevier County, TN. National Archives.FAMILY LIFE.  Mountain families tended to be close-knit, sometimes clannish.  Extended families were the norm; it was not unusual to find three generations living in the same household.

Life was often hard in the mountains and children were expected to pitch in as soon as they were old enough to work.  Families worked together and worked with other families in the community to ensure that they had shelter, food, and clothing. 

Esco Glandon of Bridges Chapel, TN. National Archives.

Glandon family by the fireplace in their cabin. National Archives.

Sarah wilson of Bulls Gap, TN, shelling peas for supper. National Archives.The rules of mountain life tended to be simple.  Either you chopped wood in the fall, or you were cold in winter.  You tended the corn and the garden in summer, or you went hungry. Yet despite the hard work and sometimes long hours, families found time to socialize, celebrate, and sing old songs.

 

 

Farm family near Andersonville, TN. National Archives.Interior of Harriet Hankins' cottage. National Archives.

Little Greenbrier School and Church, Sevier County, TN. The children are seated in handmade bench-desks. Library of Congress.

Schoolchildren in Little Greenbrier School & Church. Library of Congress

Children went to school in one- or two-room schoolhouses which typically served other purposes.  Community life often centered around the church and church-school combinations were not uncommon.

Oakdale School, Loyston, TN. National Archives.

Interior of Oakdale School. National Archives.

FARM LIFE.  For most of their history, the residents of the Tennessee mountains were classified by the Census as "farmers" and their economy was based on "subsistence farming." The reality of mountain life was, of course, far more complex.  The people of this area, like other parts of the Backcountry, were also skilled artisans and craftsmen.  They lived on farms but had a long list of other occupations.  They were carpenters and loggers, stonemasons and bricklayers, tanners and bootmakers, weavers and quilters, blacksmiths and wheelwrights, and more.  Thus they were interdependent within their local communities, and largely independent of the outside world. See The "Other South."

Outdoor forge on the S. J. Barley farm in Campbell County, TN. National Archives.S. J. Barley blacksmithing. National Archives.

Curtis Stiner operating a portable sawmill. National Archives.

Agriculture in Tennessee was mule-powered well into the 20th century.  From the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture:

Until the widespread adoption of motor-powered machinery in the mid-twentieth century, mules powered most farm activities in Tennessee. . . . According to the research of agricultural historian Pete Daniel, mules were of extraordinary value, especially to families with small farms, who often treated their mules as unofficial members of the family. . . . Mules were more expensive than either workhorses or oxen, but farmers . . . considered mules to be more surefooted, smarter, and stronger than horses and oxen. . . . According to those who owned mules, the animal rarely succumbed to disease and performed well in the hot summer. . . . Mules typically responded to simple commands. Farmers yelled "gee" for a right turn, "haw" for a left turn, "whoa" to stop and "come up" to start. Farmers and mules worked together to produce the family subsistence. Perhaps that explains why rural families were so attached to their mules, giving them names and treating them as pets.

Mules.

Gaines McGlothlin with his prized mules on a farm near Kingsport, TN. National Archives.

Mule-powered plowing on the Melton farm, Anderson County, TN. National Archives.

Hauling logs with mule teams. National Archives.

Barnyard at the McHaffie homestead, Knox County, TN. National Archives.

HOME INDUSTRIES -- Spinning and Weaving.  The Scotch-Irish brought with them the skills needed to make linen and wool cloth.  See Frontier Culture Museum -- 1700s Irish Homestead.  Spinning and weaving produced "homespun" and woolens for making such clothing, blankets, and household linens. 

Faust family, Anderson County, TN, in 1910, pictured with spinning apparatus. Library of Congress.From The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture:

The early decorative arts of Appalachia were the hand-pieced quilts, handwoven coverlets, split oak egg baskets, and other "necessary" crafts once common to every remote household. In the Appalachian mountains of East Tennessee, art was often the result of need. The nonindustrialized Appalachian people were self-reliant, making do with materials at hand, crafting the cabins they lived in and all the furnishings, growing the flax and raising the sheep for the carding, spinning, and weaving of cloth for their clothing, and making any needed household implements, farming tools, toys, and bedding from the materials at hand.

Appalachian Decorative Arts.

Mary Faust, dressed in "homespun." Library of Congress.

The color that came into the Appalachian household came from natural material and natural dyestuffs, from walnut hulls and indigo, from inventive hands and minds adding "art" to everyday living. Intricate weaving patterns and dyes added life to the traditional coverlets, and surely many households contained "showoff" quilts made for marryings and buryings.

Appalachian Decorative Arts.

Mrs. James Watson spinning yarn in her cabin near Gatlinburg, TN. National Archives.Margaret Walker seated at the hand-built loom in her Great Smoky Mountains log house. Library of Congress.

Aunt Lizzie Regan working at her loom, Gatlinburg, TN. National Archives.

]]>Virginia Highlands Festival Announces Venue Changehttp://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2010/1/30/virginia-highlands-festival-announces-venue-change.htmlJay Henderson2010-01-30T14:57:54ZHighlands Virginia festival festivals street fairsThe Virginia Highlands Festival of Abingdon, Virginia, has announced that its popular Arts and Crafts show will have a new venue for 2010, moving from the Barter Green on Main Street to Remsburg Drive downtown.  While the Barter Green has some nice sidewalks, it is mostly what the name implies -- green lawn -- and tends to get muddy when the rains come during the Festival.  In 2009, the downtown site was limited when the inn next door withdrew its lawn from the event, concentrating the traffic in a smaller area. The move to Remsburg Drive will mean a paved way and closer parking. See details (somewhat inaccurate) in the local newsrag. (The entire Festival isn't moving; there already are numerous venues for the variety of Festival events.)

The Virginia Highlands Festival for 2010 begins on July 24 and continues to August 8.

]]>Backcountry Music -- The Bogtrotters Bandhttp://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2010/1/17/backcountry-music-the-bogtrotters-band.htmlJay Henderson2010-01-17T15:44:16ZAppalachia Backcountry culture Bogtrotters fiddlers' convention music old-timeyThe name "bogtrotter" is an Englishman's ethnic slur against the Irish. One wag's definition: "Slur directed against the Irish, mostly by jealous English bastards." Related to the use of the disparaging "bog Irish" to describe Irish commoners, and alternately rendered as "bog-trotter" or "bog trotter," the name came to America with the Scotch-Irish (along with another such ethnic slur -- "hillbilly"). The Scotch-Irish settlers' fine sense of irony led eventually to the naming of The Bogtrotters Band of Galax, Virginia.

Note: Click on any image for a larger view.

The epicentre of old-timey country music is Galax, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Plateau of Virginia. An independent city located between Carroll and Grayson counties, Galax hosts the grand-daddy of all mountain music events, the Old Fiddler's Convention. This gathering of musicians began in 1935 and in its early years featured one of the great mountain-music bands, The Bogtrotters Band.  During the late 1930s and early 1940s more than one hundred examples of the music of the Bogtrotters Band were recorded by John Lomax and Alan Lomax for preservation in the Library of Congress.  These recordings are a treasure-trove of old-timey music.

]]>Cedar Bluff Heritage Festival 2009http://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2009/9/20/cedar-bluff-heritage-festival-2009.htmlJay Henderson2009-09-20T11:00:55ZAppalachia Cedar_Bluff festivals street fairsThe town of Cedar Bluff, Virginia, has an annual street fair which draws a good selection of exhibitors, vendors, and fairgoers.  The 2009 version went off well, with very sunny weather instead of the scattered showers that had been forecast.

Note: Click on any image for a larger view.

Fairgoers and loiterers in front of the Cedar Bluff Elementary School, which serves as a hub for the festival.

]]>Recalling The Log Cabin Times Of The Southern Piedmonthttp://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2009/7/29/recalling-the-log-cabin-times-of-the-southern-piedmont.htmlJay Henderson2009-07-29T11:36:10ZNorth_Carolina Piedmont Virginia frontier culture log cabinsThe following is from my friend Tom Evans, a distant kinsman through Clan Gunn, who hails from the Virginia Piedmont.

My father, sixth of the seven children of his family, was born in July, 1919, in a one-room log cabin on a rented farm near Wentworth in Rockingham County, North Carolina. A later owner of this land burned the cabin in the late 1960s to "get rid of that nuisance." It had stored farm tools for more than 30 observed years, before it was burned, and probably since the Evans family moved out of it.]]>Backcountry Architecture - - The Craft of Log Cabin Corner Jointshttp://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2009/7/23/backcountry-architecture-the-craft-of-log-cabin-corner-joint.htmlJay Henderson2009-07-23T21:17:36ZBackcountry culture cabin colonial American houses frontier culture houses joints log cabins log_construction pioneer cabin pioneer houses vintage log cabinWhile it is possible to simply stack logs without notching the corners and thus make some sort of enclosure, such structures are neither stable nor durable.  Log cabin construction thus requires some sort of notching at the ends of the logs where they are to be stacked to form the corner joints of the "crib."

The Saddle Joint.  The Scotch-Irish immigrants learned the craft of log construction from settlers who brought the techniques with them from Sweden and Finland.  The Nordic cabin-builders used two very similar methods.  The simpler method is the saddle joint, which needed few tools and but a little practice . . .

]]>Log Houses Of Abingdon, Virginiahttp://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2009/7/18/log-houses-of-abingdon-virginia.htmlJay Henderson2009-07-18T10:26:26ZAbingdon Backcountry culture Virginia colonial American houses frontier culture houses log cabins pioneer cabin pioneer houses vintage log cabinThe Parson Cummings Cabin

Parson Cummings Cabin at Sinking Spring, Abingdon, VirginiaCharles Cummings was minister of the Sinking Springs Presbyterian Church from 1773 until 1792. “Parson” Cummings built this cabin, which was originally located about two miles north of Abingdon on the road now known as U.S. Route 19. The cabin was given to the church by Cummings’ descendants and was moved to its present location at Sinking Spring Cemetery in 1971.

]]>Log Cabins and Stone Buildingshttp://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2009/7/8/log-cabins-and-stone-buildings.htmlJay Henderson2009-07-08T12:15:19ZBackcountry culture Crab Orchard Museum Pioneer Park cabin colonial colonial American history colonial American houses early American history houses log cabins museums pioneer cabin pioneer houses pioneers settlers vintage vintage log cabinDavid Peery Cabin at Crab Orchard Museum, Tazewell. This is a nice single-crib log cabin with a loft.The early settlers of the Backcountry built cabins, barns, spring-houses, and other structures of the materials at hand - - logs and stone.  Foundations, fireplaces, chimneys, and sometimes walls were built from fieldstones and river-rocks.  Trees were felled and hewn into logs, planks, and shingles used to construct cabins, sheds, barns, and shops. Because nails and iron hinges were expensive, these structures were made as much as possible without them; a cabin can be built entirely from stone and wood.

]]>Fiddlers' Conventionshttp://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2009/6/20/fiddlers-conventions.htmlJay Henderson2009-06-20T13:00:13ZBackcountry culture backcountry bluegrass festivals fiddlers fiddlers' convention music old-timeyclick on the picture for "A Fiddler's Convention In Mountain City, Tennessee [1925]"A tradition throughout the Backcountry - - and these days, beyond - - the "fiddlers' convention" is a gathering to celebrate traditional folk ("old time") music. Fiddlers' conventions go back at least a century, and probably grew out of smaller community gatherings where music was played.

]]>How To Pronounce "Appalachia"http://www.backcountrynotes.com/society-and-culture/2009/4/8/how-to-pronounce-appalachia.htmlJay Henderson2009-04-08T13:35:03ZAppalachia Appalachian Backcountry culture early American history geography geology language speechThe Appalachian Mountains stretch from northeastern Alabama to southern New York. An "extension" called the "Northern Appalachians" runs from southern New York, through New England and into New Brunswick; the New England range is not however characterized by the geology of the ancient Appalachian Basin, which is composed of many layers of sedimentary rocks - - sandstone, shale, and limestone. So the New England range is the Fake Appalachians. Strictly speaking, Appalachia consists of two geological provinces, the Ridge and Valley Province and the Appalachian Highlands or Appalachian Plateau (see map at right).

All of Appalachia was encompassed within the Backcountry of colonial and early American times. The point where my abode is located sits on the hinge line between the Ridge and Valley Province and the Appalachian Highlands.]]>