Participation Type
Committee Sponsored Session
Session Title
Wilma Dykeman “Faces of Appalachia” Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship
Presentation #1 Title
Appalachian Women in Film: Building the Appalachian Movie Database, Revealing Trends
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
As a part of a larger project that catalogs and digitizes Jerry Williamson's extensive Southern Mountaineer Filmography, this research focuses on the trends of representations of Appalachian women in film. Enabled by the Wilma Dykeman "Faces of Appalachia" Postdoctoral Fellowship, this close look at the cyclical patterns and evolving female types of Appalachian women draws parallels between these representations and larger context of women in America. The emergence of the wild Appalachian woman, for example, seems to have peaks that align with increasing political power for American women. The threat of women’s suffrage, the second wave of the feminist movement, and steady increases in women elected to political office seem to align with increases of the images of threatening, unstable, wild women of the mountains. The evolution of the Mountain Granny, the Moonshiner's Daughter, the Feist, the Mae, and the Drudge provides a way of understanding not only the changing roles for women in Appalachia, but also the changing needs that America has to see Appalachian women in particular roles.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Raised in the mountains of Western North Carolina, and a graduate of Appalachian State University, Meredith McCarroll finds herself at the northernmost Appalachians at Bowdoin College. Her book, Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film, is forthcoming from University of Georgia Press.
Presentation #2 Title
Anna Creadick
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Anna Creadick will offer a response to my presentation.
Appalachian Women in Film: Building the Appalachian Movie Database, Revealing Trends
As a part of a larger project that catalogs and digitizes Jerry Williamson's extensive Southern Mountaineer Filmography, this research focuses on the trends of representations of Appalachian women in film. Enabled by the Wilma Dykeman "Faces of Appalachia" Postdoctoral Fellowship, this close look at the cyclical patterns and evolving female types of Appalachian women draws parallels between these representations and larger context of women in America. The emergence of the wild Appalachian woman, for example, seems to have peaks that align with increasing political power for American women. The threat of women’s suffrage, the second wave of the feminist movement, and steady increases in women elected to political office seem to align with increases of the images of threatening, unstable, wild women of the mountains. The evolution of the Mountain Granny, the Moonshiner's Daughter, the Feist, the Mae, and the Drudge provides a way of understanding not only the changing roles for women in Appalachia, but also the changing needs that America has to see Appalachian women in particular roles.
