East Tennessee Doctor

Inspires Medical Students to Help Under Served Communities

The beautiful Appalachian mountains of Hancock County are home to some 6,600 people. Most of them wouldn't dream of living any place else, at least that's the story Dr. John Short tells. After his residency 14 years ago, he returned to his home town of Sneedville.

"You have to enjoy it, you have to want to be in a small town to practice in a small town."

It's a place where everybody knows everybody and Dr. Short is just about everybody's doctor.

"He's a good friend too, very good friend," Patty Gibson says.

Patty's daughter graduated high school with the town doc. She's one of Dr. Short's many homebound patients. Two days a month he makes house calls for patients who can't get out to see a doctor.

To continue reading this story from WBIR in Knoxville and/or watch the original news story reported from Sneedville: Click Here.

Appalachian Journal

A Regional Studies Review

Appalachian State University

Appalachian Journal, founded in 1972, is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed quarterly featuring field research, interviews, and other scholarly studies of history, politics, economics, culture, folklore, literature, music, ecology, and a variety of other topics, as well as poetry and reviews of books, films, and recordings dealing with the region of the Appalachian mountains.

Back issues may be ordered; their tables of content are available online.

The visit the Appalachian Journal's web site: Click Here.

Fire Up the Christmas Pudding!

Not every place has the distinction of being named after a Christmas treat. Tradition holds that Pudding Ridge, NC, in western Davie County, got its name one rainy day in February 1781 during a Revolutionary War engagement. British General Cornwallis was driving his troops through the soggy hillsides in hard pursuit of American General Nathanael Greene, before finally battling his rival near the current day site of Guilford College in Greensboro. The crossing at Dutchman Creek, until the early 1900s the main crossing toward Yadkin County, was so boggy and thick with mud that it reminded the British of pudding (by which they meant “Christmas pudding.”)

The name stuck with the colonists, who would have been as familiar with Christmas pudding as their rivals and understood the reference immediately. Fortunately most Appalachian traditions associated with this classic seasonal treat have a much more positive connotation than that of being chased by enemies through the mud.

For more, including a 19th century recipe for Christmas pudding: Click Here.

Note: Another winner from Dave Tabler and his Appalachian History blog!

The Whimmydiddle and the Flipperdinger

Computer games haven’t always dominated the world of childrens’ toys. Two classic wooden folk toys, the whimmydidle and the flipperdinger, have been enjoyed by children for hundreds of years throughout Appalachia. These toys were handmade by people for their own use. Many of the designs for such folk toys were passed down from one generation to the next.

To read the rest of this article, including diagrams, on Dave Tabler's highly recommended Appalachian History blog: Click Here.

National Genealogical Society's 2011 Family History Conference

The National Genealogical Society is pleased to announce that registration has opened for next year's Family History Conference, which will be held at the Charleston Area Convention Center, 5001 Coliseum Drive, North Charleston, SC 29418, 11-14 May 2011. The Society selected Charleston because of its significance in American history. In addition to attending the NGS 2011 Family History Conference, participants will have an opportunity to tour Charleston's historic buildings, churches and homes as well as its many museums and research facilities. The National Genealogical Society anticipates 2,000 genealogists from around the country will attend next year's event.

April 2011 will mark the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War at nearby Ft. Sumter, so the four day family history conference will feature talks on both Revolutionary War and Civil War records. More than seventy-five nationally recognized speakers will provide over one hundred and eighty lectures on a wide variety of topics including research in South Carolina and the surrounding states, migration patterns, religious records, research methodology, and problem solving. The conference program will also include lectures about researching various ethnic groups including Germans, Cherokee, African Americans, Huguenots, Irish, Scots, and Scots-Irish.

Special Saturday workshops include an all day beginner's workshop, "Genealogy 101: Getting Started with Family History" and a "Kids' Kamp" for children and young adults ages eight through sixteen.

An exhibit area with more than one hundred exhibitors will be open and free to the public Wednesday through Saturday including the latest in genealogical software, online research providers and DNA testing services.

For more information and registration: Click Here.

Native American Resource Center

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke

The mission of the Native American Resource Center is to educate the public about the prehistory, history, culture, art and contemporary issues of American Indians, with special emphasis on the Robeson County Native American community; to conduct scholarly research; to collect and preserve the material culture of Native America; to encourage Native American artists and craftspersons; and to cooperate on a wide range of projects with other agencies concerned with Native America.

Our museum contains exhibits of authentic Indian artifacts, arts and crafts. These items come from Indian people all over North America, from Abenaki to Zuni. Many other items come from North Carolina Native Americans, with special emphasis on Robeson County Indian people. Particular focus is placed on the largest North Carolina tribe, the Lumbee.

To visit: Click Here.

Sundown Towns

A sundown town is a town that is or was purposely all-White. The term is widely used in the United States and Canada in areas from Ohio to Oregon and well into the South. Even in Canada many towns in Southern Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec were sundown towns prior to 1982, when it was outlawed. The term came from signs that were allegedly posted stating that people of color had to leave the town by sundown. They are also sometimes known as “sunset towns” or “gray towns”. The term is less common in suburbia and on the East Coast, even though the concept was still prevalent in those places. Residents were often systematically excluded from living in or sometimes even passing through these communities after the sun went down. This allowed maids and workmen to provide unskilled labor during the day. They came into existence in the late 19th century during what sociologists have described as the nadir of American race relations. Sundown towns existed throughout the United States, but more often were located in the northern states that were not pre-Civil War slave states. There have not been any de jure sundown towns in the country since the legislation in the 1960s inspired by the American Civil Rights Movement, though de facto sundown towns and counties, where few if any black families live, are still exist.

The definite work on sundown towns is James Loewen's Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. New York: The New Press, 2005.

For an excellent article on sundown town written for The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture: Click Here.

For an interview with James Loewen: Click Here.

For James Loewen's Sundown Towns web page: Click Here.