Appalachian History

Home-Coming (1946) And I’ve come back to you,Mountain Earth–Come to laughAnd sorrowAnd sing– To dig my songs upFrom your soilAnd spin a melodyOf corn blades,Top-fodder,Crab-grass,And a clean-plowed furrow. I’ve come to sing and grope–With a people who knowDeep songs,Who stumble upA long crooked road…. I’ve come becauseYour great silent agonyEchoed everywhere And the weary foot-stepsOf [...]

“Long ago — hilahiyu jigesv — when the Sun became angry at the people on earth and sent a sickness to destroy them, the Little Men changed a man into a monster snake, which they called Uktena, “The Keen-Eyed,” and sent him to kill her (the Sun). He failed to do the work, and the [...]

The United States of Appalachia is now in paperback! “Biggers has fashioned a masterpiece of popular history.”–Citizen-Times, North Carolina “Jeff Biggers opens a new window on the complex history of the region called Appalachia. He takes a hard but affectionate look at both the myths and the facts, and what he finds is by turns [...]

“There’s a big old . . . there’s a big old boar possum come in here. I . . . I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what it was. And it come in here and in four days, I believe, three or four days, he killed . . . in my chickenhouse out there [...]

Temple Beth-Ha-Tephila, Asheville, NC Leo Finkelstein’s father came to Asheville, NC in 1903; Leo was born in 1905. “Kosher food and orthodox cooking was family tradition until my father died. I attended camp in Brevard and canoed on the French Broad to Arden. I left my lunch behind and ate the bacon and eggs with [...]