Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 4.03 Archives
Presentation #1 Title
Cultural Rhetorics and the Coal Creek Company Archive
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
My fifteen minute visual presentation includes a narrative of my research process and findings. I am a second-year graduate student in rhetoric and composition at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. My project for last semester's archival research methodology course was writing a finding aid for a private, unprocessed archive (about twenty-six cubic feet) belonging to the Coal Creek Company, a land-leasing business which played a key role in Appalachia's labor history in the late 19th and early 20th century. The goals for the project were to write a slice of the company's history, to create a practical application, and to represent historical research as a lived process – that is, to conduct regional historical research using feminist rhetorical practices. Feminist rhetorical scholarship (extends from but is not limited to the history of rhetoric and composition) is helping women scholars, researchers, and students to claim their voices in rhetorical studies and also offers provocative ways for thinking and writing about Appalachian history. I will continue to work and grow in this direction as a woman writer from the Appalachian region who seeks to understand the history of her homeland and its people. This seminar project is a step toward a thesis inspired by a drive to understand in the region social critical awareness. My thesis will examine how coal underpinned the industrial revolution in the Appalachian region. The politics of public memory and communal roles throughout the Coal Creek Convict Wars and two major mine explosions will also be explored.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Sumner is working toward a Master's thesis on the Knoxville-based Coal Creek Company, a land-leasing business that played a critical role in late 19th century and early 20th century Appalachian labor history.
Cultural Rhetorics and the Coal Creek Company Archive
My fifteen minute visual presentation includes a narrative of my research process and findings. I am a second-year graduate student in rhetoric and composition at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. My project for last semester's archival research methodology course was writing a finding aid for a private, unprocessed archive (about twenty-six cubic feet) belonging to the Coal Creek Company, a land-leasing business which played a key role in Appalachia's labor history in the late 19th and early 20th century. The goals for the project were to write a slice of the company's history, to create a practical application, and to represent historical research as a lived process – that is, to conduct regional historical research using feminist rhetorical practices. Feminist rhetorical scholarship (extends from but is not limited to the history of rhetoric and composition) is helping women scholars, researchers, and students to claim their voices in rhetorical studies and also offers provocative ways for thinking and writing about Appalachian history. I will continue to work and grow in this direction as a woman writer from the Appalachian region who seeks to understand the history of her homeland and its people. This seminar project is a step toward a thesis inspired by a drive to understand in the region social critical awareness. My thesis will examine how coal underpinned the industrial revolution in the Appalachian region. The politics of public memory and communal roles throughout the Coal Creek Convict Wars and two major mine explosions will also be explored.
