Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 3.01 Literature
Presentation #1 Title
Southern Appalachian Mill Life in Poem and Song
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Southern Appalachian textile mill culture produced a large body of songs and poems about the various aspects of mill life, some during the years mill culture flourished, others later, in a nostalgic, retrospective vein. This study will survey these poems and songs and seek to categorize them thematically. Scholarly works such as Patrick Huber’s Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South detail the influence of mill culture on popular music, focusing on musicians and songwriters like Fiddlin’ John Carson, Charlie Poole, Ella May Wiggins, Dave McCarn, and Dorsey Dixon. Later folksingers such as Pete Seeger, Hedy West, Si Kahn, and Hazel Dickens carried on the tradition. Poets such as Ron Rash, Michael Chitwood, Linda Annas Ferguson, and Barbara Presnell have written books of poems about mill life. The migration to lowland mill villages on the part of many mountain people is an important facet of Appalachian economic history, and the culture they brought with them and retained “in exile,” especially music, remains a vital artifact. As a poet and musician myself, I am keenly interested in the interpenetration and cross pollination of these two arts, especially as they represent mill culture and mill life.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jim Clark is the Elizabeth H. Jordan Professor of Southern Literature and Dean of the School of Humanities at Barton College, in Wilson, North Carolina. He is a poet, writer, and musician, and has published numerous books and released five CDs, solo, and with his band The Near Myths.
Southern Appalachian Mill Life in Poem and Song
Southern Appalachian textile mill culture produced a large body of songs and poems about the various aspects of mill life, some during the years mill culture flourished, others later, in a nostalgic, retrospective vein. This study will survey these poems and songs and seek to categorize them thematically. Scholarly works such as Patrick Huber’s Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South detail the influence of mill culture on popular music, focusing on musicians and songwriters like Fiddlin’ John Carson, Charlie Poole, Ella May Wiggins, Dave McCarn, and Dorsey Dixon. Later folksingers such as Pete Seeger, Hedy West, Si Kahn, and Hazel Dickens carried on the tradition. Poets such as Ron Rash, Michael Chitwood, Linda Annas Ferguson, and Barbara Presnell have written books of poems about mill life. The migration to lowland mill villages on the part of many mountain people is an important facet of Appalachian economic history, and the culture they brought with them and retained “in exile,” especially music, remains a vital artifact. As a poet and musician myself, I am keenly interested in the interpenetration and cross pollination of these two arts, especially as they represent mill culture and mill life.
