Mode of Program Participation
Academic Scholarship
Participation Type
Paper
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N/A
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Presentation #1 Title
Mountain Consumerism: Southwest Virginia Stores, Landscape, and Consumption Arenas in pre-Industrial Appalachia, 1770-1850
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Current knowledge of the ways in which pre-industrial Appalachian residents engaged, participated, and made sense of themselves in the world of consumer goods is minimal. Pre-industrial Appalachian historiography has maintained a consistent, geographic scope: namely, western Maryland, the Valley of Virginia, and east Kentucky and Tennessee. In doing so, the scholarship has neglected to acknowledge the significance of southwest Virginia’s ‘Great Road’ communities as in providing a major national thoroughfare and hub before 1860. General stores of the Old South provide a medium to discern several historio-cultural considerations: what can be said about backcountry Virginia culture through goods? What do these stores reveal about the connection of consumer to consumer and their identities? Who could participate in the rituals of consumption over time? What ways did locals manipulate the landscape to reflect consumerism? What did the location of stores signify and how did they reflect change in southwest Virginia consumerism? My research answers these questions by examining store records, residents’ probate inventories, travel narratives, personal papers, road orders, artifacts, folk sketches, and vernacular architecture from the 1770s to 1850s. It embraces material culture and cultural geography analysis through the triangulation of merchant, consumer, and artifact. It demonstrates a sociocultural history whereby southwest Virginia’s presumed isolation from the international pursuit of refinement is demolished. Diversity and expansion of American markets and goods triggered a need for more store owners to locate their businesses along major thoroughfare points. I argue this triggered a wider participation in store patronage among women and both free and enslaved African-Americans, despite legal or normative barriers.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Spenser Slough is a second-year MA candidate in the Material Culture and Public Humanities program at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA). He earned his first MA in History, along with a Graduate Certificate in Public History in 2015 from Virginia Tech. He is now on track to begin an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in American History, Culture, and Public Humanities by 2017,whereas his public engagements advocate and apply a wide variety of skillsets from historic preservation, digital humanities, museum consultation, and oral history.
Mountain Consumerism: Southwest Virginia Stores, Landscape, and Consumption Arenas in pre-Industrial Appalachia, 1770-1850
Current knowledge of the ways in which pre-industrial Appalachian residents engaged, participated, and made sense of themselves in the world of consumer goods is minimal. Pre-industrial Appalachian historiography has maintained a consistent, geographic scope: namely, western Maryland, the Valley of Virginia, and east Kentucky and Tennessee. In doing so, the scholarship has neglected to acknowledge the significance of southwest Virginia’s ‘Great Road’ communities as in providing a major national thoroughfare and hub before 1860. General stores of the Old South provide a medium to discern several historio-cultural considerations: what can be said about backcountry Virginia culture through goods? What do these stores reveal about the connection of consumer to consumer and their identities? Who could participate in the rituals of consumption over time? What ways did locals manipulate the landscape to reflect consumerism? What did the location of stores signify and how did they reflect change in southwest Virginia consumerism? My research answers these questions by examining store records, residents’ probate inventories, travel narratives, personal papers, road orders, artifacts, folk sketches, and vernacular architecture from the 1770s to 1850s. It embraces material culture and cultural geography analysis through the triangulation of merchant, consumer, and artifact. It demonstrates a sociocultural history whereby southwest Virginia’s presumed isolation from the international pursuit of refinement is demolished. Diversity and expansion of American markets and goods triggered a need for more store owners to locate their businesses along major thoroughfare points. I argue this triggered a wider participation in store patronage among women and both free and enslaved African-Americans, despite legal or normative barriers.
