Research Catalog

Title

Proving ground : expertise and Appalachian landscapes / Edward Slavishak.

Author

Slavishak, Edward Steven

Publication

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 212 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"The Appalachian Mountains attracted an endless stream of visitors in the twentieth century, each bearing visions of the realm that they would encounter on high. The name "Appalachia" became shorthand for a series of moral and economic calculations and pop culture references. Well before large numbers of tourists took to the mountains in the latter half of the century, however, networks of missionaries, sociologists, folklorists, doctors, artists, and conservationists made Appalachia their primary site for fieldwork. Proving Ground studies a collection of these professionals in transit to show that the travelers' tales were the foundation of powerful forms of insider knowledge. The visitors represented occupational and recreational groups that used Appalachia to gain precious expertise, and it was to these groups that they became insiders. They were not immersing themselves in a regional culture, but rather in their own professional cultures. These were people who used the mountains to help themselves. Proving Ground is a cultural history of expertise, an environmental history of the Appalachian Mountains, and a historical geography of spaces and places in the twentieth century. By using these frameworks to analyze the personal papers, professional records, and popular works of these budding experts, the book presents mountain landscapes as a fluid combination of embodied sensation, narrative fantasy, and class privilege. It will attract students of Appalachian Studies who are interested in the phenomena of cultural and environmental intervention, environmental historians concerned with the construction of hybrid landscapes, and mobility scholars who recognize the organizational power derived from access and movement"--

Subjects

• Appalachian Region > Civilization
• Appalachian Mountains
• Cultural geography > Appalachian Region
• Travel
• Fieldwork (Educational method) > Appalachian Region
• 1900-1999

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [195]-206)and index.

Contents

Expert vision: J. Horace McFarland in the woods -- Terrestrial and human: Benton MacKaye's mountain work -- The stern grip of circumstance: hiking the Smoky Mountains, 1920-1940 -- A priceless asset: Marion Pearsall in isolation -- William Gedney and the look of coal country.

Call Number

JFE 18-7440

ISBN

• 9781421425399
• 1421425394

LCCN

2017037464

OCLC

1007036210

Author

Slavishak, Edward Steven, author.

Title

Proving ground : expertise and Appalachian landscapes / Edward Slavishak.

Publisher

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [195]-206)and index.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Research Call Number

JFE 18-7440