Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
The Fiction of Emma Bell Miles: A Crusade for Mountain Women's Rights
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
More than a hundred years ago, Emma Bell Miles published seventeen short stories in popular magazines of the day, including Harper’s, Lippincott’s, Putnam’s, and Red Book. Virtually every story revolves around the common lot of mountain women at the turn of the twentieth century: as Miles says in her first story entitled “The Common Lot,” the choice is “slavery in her father’s house or slavery in a husband’s.” A harsh choice, but one that Miles herself witnessed and experienced in the mountain culture she lived in on Walden’s Ridge, Tennessee. Her stories, written primarily between 1907 and 1917, move through a series of female protagonists who wrestle with domestic dilemmas related to husbands, to children, or to means of feeding and caring for husbands and children. Though her stories focus on hardships, she does not overlook the joys and fulfillment that can come to women through marriage and motherhood. Invariably, however, the message threading through the fiction is that mountain women are oppressed not only by poverty that most must endure but also by the bonds that a patriarchal culture imposes. Miles is best known for her book The Spirit of the Mountains (1905), an authentic account of the customs and traditions of mountain people, including the role of women. In 2014 her personal journals were published under the title Once I Too Had Wings, edited by Steven Cox. In 2016 a collection of the fiction described here is forthcoming from Ohio University Press, compiled and edited by this author.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Grace Toney Edwards is professor emeritus of Appalachian Studies and English at Radford University. She is editor of the forthcoming book from Ohio University Press entitled 'The Common Lot' and Other Stories: The Published Short Fiction, 1908-1921 by Emma Bell Miles.
The Fiction of Emma Bell Miles: A Crusade for Mountain Women's Rights
More than a hundred years ago, Emma Bell Miles published seventeen short stories in popular magazines of the day, including Harper’s, Lippincott’s, Putnam’s, and Red Book. Virtually every story revolves around the common lot of mountain women at the turn of the twentieth century: as Miles says in her first story entitled “The Common Lot,” the choice is “slavery in her father’s house or slavery in a husband’s.” A harsh choice, but one that Miles herself witnessed and experienced in the mountain culture she lived in on Walden’s Ridge, Tennessee. Her stories, written primarily between 1907 and 1917, move through a series of female protagonists who wrestle with domestic dilemmas related to husbands, to children, or to means of feeding and caring for husbands and children. Though her stories focus on hardships, she does not overlook the joys and fulfillment that can come to women through marriage and motherhood. Invariably, however, the message threading through the fiction is that mountain women are oppressed not only by poverty that most must endure but also by the bonds that a patriarchal culture imposes. Miles is best known for her book The Spirit of the Mountains (1905), an authentic account of the customs and traditions of mountain people, including the role of women. In 2014 her personal journals were published under the title Once I Too Had Wings, edited by Steven Cox. In 2016 a collection of the fiction described here is forthcoming from Ohio University Press, compiled and edited by this author.
