Appalachian History

During the 1870s, William Murphy of Greenville, S. C., wandered through these mountains making music every day. He, like Stephen Foster, was regarded as a half-vagabond, but he was tolerated for the pleasure his enchanted violin gave whenever he drew his magic bow across its strings. There can be little doubt that men of his [...]

In this excerpt from her 1979 autobiography “What My Heart Wants to Tell,” Kentuckian Verna Mae Slone (1914-2009) relates the story of how her father Isom ‘Kitteneye’ Slone proposed to her mother, Sarah Owens Slone. Kitteneye finished his breakfast real fast, then, pushing his chair from the table, he hurried for the door. “Wait, son, [...]

“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. [...]

Publishers’ Weekly 145 (March 25, 1944): “Strange Fruit banned by Boston booksellers” Says a Cambridge adage: “Banned in Boston is the trademark of a good book.” On March 25,1944 Cambridge Police Chief Timothy J. O’Leary, Boston’s Police Commissioner Thomas F. Sullivan, and the Boston Bookseller’s Association all joined in squashing the sale of Strange Fruit, [...]

I was borned right here in these mountains, and since I was a boy I’ve knowed ever trail within twenty-five mile. My pappy were a gunsmith afore me and he teached me the trade. Pappy were the best gunsmith in four counties, and I wouldn’t swap one of them ole muzzle-loaders fer all the britch-Ioading [...]