Appalachian History

During the 1930s and 1940s Rose Thompson worked as a home supervisor with the Farm Security Administration in Georgia. While she worked with farmers and their wives — teaching them to put up preserves, make cotton mattresses, and build chick brooders — she listened to the stories they told. Thompson spent some time during the [...]

Back in the days when this was new ground you had to cotch a b’ar ef you wanted to keep warm. Yessuh, my pappy knew this country when she was somep’n. He come over the mountains from South Ca’liny with his pappy, my gran’pappy, and gran’maw, when he was jus’ a boy. When they decided [...]

“Which of you shall we say doth love us most?” asks King Lear of his three daughters at the opening of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Shakespeare often re-interpreted well known tales & legends in his plays—the Lear story is a very old European folk motif that turns up in literally hundreds of variants of the “Cinderella” tale. [...]

Author James Milton Hanna (b. 1932) has written 9 books chronicling local historical color from the mid-20th century.  Many, such as his first, “Cornbread and Beans for Breakfast,” published in 1995, portray the Depression era scene from his childhood in Cherokee, AL. This is the title story from that collection. When Milton was in the [...]

The Chicken Thumb A far fetched folktale from NC Well folks, sit right back and let me tell you a little tale about how Hoopie the farmer and the Rooster named Red went at it one day. Before I start, it is necessary for me to tell you a little something about Red. Red is [...]