Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland.

Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland. Edited by Michael E. Birdwell and W. Calvin Dickinson. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, c. 2004. Pp. xii, 369. $45.00, ISBN 0-8131-2309-7.)

Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland is an anthology on the region defined as the drainage basin of the Cumberland River and its tributaries in Tennessee and Kentucky. (Two maps help the reader locate the region and its counties.) The editors explain that the essays focus on culture, construed in a broad way, and fall into three categories: popular culture, material culture, and warfare and culture. Topics such as traditional music, health and recreational spas, and folklore and legend, for example, fall into the first category; pieces on comb graves, housing, and crafts fall into the second. Essays on the Civil War, Sergeant Alvin Cullum York, and the army's use of the area for maneuvers during World War n fall into the third category.

The editors' introduction ties scholarship on the region--presumably, including the anthology--to Appalachian studies, as opposed to southern studies. (The latter seems to be defined as studies of the Deep South but not the upland South.) Indeed, some of the contributions link topically to many elements common in Appalachian studies. Charles K. Wolfe's work on traditional music investigates tunes, styles (e.g., bluegrass), and musicians (e.g., Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs) often connected to Appalachia, as well as to Middle Tennessee and the Grand Ole Opry, for that matter. Allison Ensor's essay on literature discusses such well-known Appalachian authors as Harriet Arnow, Mary Noailles Murfree, and John Fox Jr. The discussion on arts and crafts by W. Calvin Dickinson and Michael E. Birdwell not only examines styles and traditions peculiar to the Cumberland but also elaborates on the marketing, promotion, and artistic elevation of craft that began during the Great Depression. Another essay by Birdwell ties Alvin York, the World War I hero, to the Appalachian legacy of Davy Crockett. Wali R. Kharif's work on African Americans links closely to the history and recent historiography of blacks in Appalachia. Slaves in the Upper Cumberland, for instance, "worked in a wide variety of occupations, though most were employed as agricultural workers and domestics" on small holdings, as was common in Appalachia but not in the Deep South plantation world (p. 106). William Lynwood Montell's essay on oral narrative and folklore investigates ways of preserving community tradition common in rural Appalachia.

A number of the essays are most interesting in the way they connect events and people in the Cumberland to national trends and ideas. The Birdwell chapter on Alvin York, the Fentress County man who became famous and symbolic for the war exploits he was so shy about and who today is used by right-wing militias and fundamentalist Christian groups to espouse an intolerance that York disavowed, stands out. Stuart Patterson's study of the Cumberland Homesteads, a New Deal effort to relocate displaced miners and factory hands, links the national program's utopian and compassionate side to one of its local manifestations. Dickinson's piece, entitled "Radical Hillbillies," explores the founding and demise of the utopian community of Rugby and the establishment of Highlander Folk School and demonstrates how international political and philosophical thought influenced local action.

Overall, the collection is a most interesting one that contains pieces on both mainstream subjects (Civil War, religion, architecture) and niche topics (comb graves, nudist colonies, caves). A few of the essays could have been enriched, however, by the incorporation of gender analysis. All of them are documented, but a number are marred by sporadic citation. James B. Jones Jr.'s article on the Civil War clearly is the best-documented essay in the book. Nonetheless, the collection will prove useful to students and scholars of rural life in Appalachia.

MARIE TEDESCO

East Tennessee State University