Soldiers in Petticoats: —Appalachian Educators— Sophia Sawyer, Emily Prudden, Martha Berry

By Betty Jamerson Reed

Sophia Sawyer, Emily Prudden, and Martha Berry encountered sexism, prejudice, financial hardship, discrimination, challenging travel conditions, exclusion from the right to vote, and social complacency.

On one occasion two militiamen showed up at the school door and threatened to arrest the teacher if she continued teaching black children to read. Another instructor dealt with murder and mayhem, violence, loss of life, and racial hostility. And a third was shunned by her neighbors because she associated with poor mountaineers and “begged” to keep her school open. Their victories against overwhelming obstacles on behalf of struggling youth in the Southern Appalachian region, as well as in Oklahoma and Arkansas, led each into a deeper Christian life. With vision, audacity, and resolution these teachers enabled students to succeed.

Their accomplishments as educators and as Christians provide inspiration for today’s readers. Sawyer, Prudden, and Berry were viewed in their culture as weak. However, they battled ignorance, bias, superstition, and even dirt, as they effectively changed the lives of thousands of children and adults.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973637424

Betty Jamerson Reed

A retired educator with an interest in Christian missions, Betty Jamerson Reed has rigorously researched the lives of three school founders. Reed spotlights Sophia Sawyer, a committed instructor of Cherokees; Emily Prudden, a master builder of fifteen schools; and Martha Berry, an untrained educator who turned ignorant boys and girls into active learners. The author, a graduate of Bryan College, reveals details of their battle to overcome barriers confronting the youth of Appalachia. Reed’s previous books identified the accomplishments of black and white educators in their crusade to overcome the limitations of a segregated education: The Brevard Rosenwald School: Black Education and Community Building in a Southern Appalachian Town, 1920-1966 (McFarland, 2004) and School Segregation in Western North Carolina: A History, 1860s-1970s (McFarland, 2011).

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Copyright © 2019 Jamerson Reed.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Interior Image Credit: Sara-Ann Reed Sizemore, Willow Lamm, and Emily C. Prudden

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018909876

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/04/2018

Image2Spanogles.tiff

Courtesy of Howard and Juanita Spanogle

For Howard and

Juanita Long Spanogle

whose faith and tireless efforts

to support instruction at all levels and in every discipline,

to understand the viewpoints of children and teenagers,

to buttress sexual equality,

and to fight all forms of discrimination

while involved in educational projects from coast to coast,

have won my admiration.

In Memoriam

Public school educators rarely win acclaim, nor do they seek it; their purpose is to challenge and motivate students. The following teachers worked tirelessly and found joy in the accomplishments of young learners. Their lives were well spent:

Britt Burgess, 1967–1999, Guidance and Psychology

Margaret Rogers Nicholson, 1935–2006, Business

Jeannette Nelson Ballew, 1938–2011, English and Music

Mildred Powell Dodson, 1936–2013, Special Education

Dorothy Crosby Meador, 1920–2015, Business

Joseph M. Parker 1954–2017, Counselor and Coach

Acknowledgments

For extraordinary help and frequent encouragement and a willingness to assist me in my research, my thanks to Transylvania County (NC) Library’s Kris Blair, Susan Chambers, Kelly McBride, Robert Fleming, and Marcy Thompson; Berry College Chaplain Jonathan R. Huggins and Archivist Michael C. O’Malley; Spartanburg County (SC) Library’s Charity Rouse, Christen Bennett, and volunteer Sherri Isenhower; Henderson County (NC) Genealogical & Historical Society’s Virginia (Ginny) Thompson and Richard Wilson; South Carolina Department of Archives and History’s Brad Sauls; Tulane University Amistad Research Center’s Christopher Harter; Catawba County (NC) Library System’s Alex Floyd; Transylvania County’s Registry of Deeds’ Karin F. Smith; Orange (CT) Historical Society’s Ginny Reinhard; Oklahoma State University’s Kevin Dyke; ARC’s Keith Witt; Toccoa Falls College archivist Kelly Glenn Vickers and reference librarian Sara A. Dodge; Chattanooga Public Library archivist Suzette Raney, and my friends as represented by Patrick Gallagher, Wanda Farrell, Peggy McCartney Hay, David Kilpatrick, Sue Lamm, Judy Loveland, Anna McFadden, Frank Owenby, Maureen Hay Read, Betty O. Taylor, David Pates, David Watson, and Nancy F. Wilson, along with a special vote of gratitude to my family. And I am especially grateful that God allowed me to research the lives of these three remarkable Christian women and sustained my journey to share their story.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part 1

Sophia Sawyer: 1792-1854

Educator of Cherokee Youth

Chapter 1    Life in New England: 1792–1822

Chapter 2    Life in Missions: 1823–1837

Chapter 3    Life in the Indian Territory: 1837–1839

Chapter 4    Life in Fayetteville, Arkansas: 1839–1854

Timeline: The Journey of Sophia Sawyer

Part 2

Emily C. Prudden: 1832-1917

Educator of Black and White Mountain Youth

Chapter 5    Prudden’s Formative Decades: 1832–1882

Chapter 6    Path to the Carolinas: 1882–1883

Chapter 7    Prudden Schools: 1884–1909

Chapter 8    Promoter of Classroom Curricula: 1884–1909

Chapter 9    Pattern for Success: 1884–1919

Chapter 10    Prudden’s Final Years: 1912–1917

Timeline: The Journey of Emily Prudden

Part 3

Martha Berry: 1866-1942

Educator of White Mountain Youth

Chapter 11    Influence of Berry Standards

Chapter 12    Effect of Social Environment: 1866–1896

Chapter 13    Berry Schools: 1896–Present

Chapter 14    Prominent Supporters: 1907–1940s

Chapter 15    Confrontations: 1919–1933

Chapter 16    Honors and Awards: 1936–1942

Timeline: The Journey of Martha McChesney Berry

Conclusion

References

A Selected Bibliography of Other Works Consulted

Preface

The value of life lies not in the length of days but in the use we make of them. A man may live long yet live very little.

— Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

My ongoing research into the history of education unearthed the achievements of remarkably courageous women who toiled diligently to provide havens of learning for needy children. Those educators often provided refuge from abuse and inequality as well as from ignorance. Attaining fame was not their purpose. They strove to impart knowledge to a population with little or no opportunity to acquire a formal education. While longing to improve young lives, those Christian teachers also coveted a life of usefulness for themselves. Each woman shared her Christian faith through words and actions; each invested her time and personal resources in the lives of disadvantaged youth.

During graduate studies at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, I discovered Emily Prudden’s role in providing schools for African American communities and sought to learn more about her. Internet searches revealed little, but I did learn that she had spent a portion of her life in Watauga County, North Carolina. Later, while advancing my study of the history of African American schools in western North Carolina, additional information surfaced about her amazing achievements, which led me to contact Ginny Reinhard, then president of the Orange Historical Society in Orange, Connecticut. She graciously shared her extensive knowledge of Prudden’s accomplishments.

Prudden enjoyed a comfortable life despite physical hardships. She had the support of family and was not weighed down with financial concerns. Her father had provided well for his wife and children. That provision, plus her mother’s expertise in running the family farm and managing rental properties, ensured a life free from economic hardship.

The next educator to capture my interest was Sophia Sawyer. I discovered her role in the history of Cherokee education while investigating schools for Cherokee students, under the guidance of scholar George Frizzell, former head of Special Collections and Archives for Hunter Library at Western Carolina University. Sawyer spent most of her adult life with families in the Cherokee Nation. She followed them from their tribal home in the southern Appalachians to the Oklahoma Territory, the end of the bitter and infamous Trail of Tears.

Amazingly, a simple internet search revealed that Sawyer created a prolific body of correspondence with her mission overseers headquartered in Boston and through her personal letters to friends and family. Reading Sawyer’s actual words brought her to life for me. She was a typical human being with strengths and weaknesses, but her force of character won my admiration. Never one to back down, she fought to establish schools that exemplified the academic principles she believed in. Drawing strength from her faith, Sawyer faced every obstacle with courage and fortitude. In today’s vernacular, one might say she possessed guts, grit, and swag.

In my youth, I learned that Berry College provided a work program allowing its students to earn a degree. Curiosity about a free education, one earned with labor rather than money, drove me to research the achievements of Martha Berry and to read books about her life. Her accomplishments won my admiration. Unlike Prudden and Sawyer, Martha Berry lived a life of privilege and comfort. She ultimately attracted support from the great and the not-so-great. Successful, competent individuals visited the Berry campus and created favorable publicity for the school. Well-known philanthropists invested their capital, while the less wealthy regularly donated small amounts to support the Berry Schools.

Sophia Sawyer, Emily Prudden, and Martha Berry: The triumphs of these three women led to schools for Native Americans as well as for white and black students. Each woman’s struggles and triumphs resulted from her commitment to Christian service and to education. To glean the facts, I read letters written by and about those women, sought out archival records of their interests and accomplishments, searched for information about their schools, consulted journalistic accounts of their efforts, and read scholarly theses and dissertations dealing with their accomplishments. I also referenced bibliographies to identify additional sources of information.

Then I learned as much as possible about the times and regions in which each educator lived. What was happening within their environments during youth and adulthood? What were the concerns of the public during those times? How were their personal lives impacted by local, regional, or national events? I examined the personal journeys of each woman. What led Sawyer, Prudden, and Berry to devote their lives to education? How did their contemporaries view their mission? Who were their mentors? How had education changed their lives? They moved forward with confidence to address the needs of the ignorant and underprivileged. Where did such confidence come from? I wanted to know facts about where they lived and worked. I visited areas where they had taught in North and South Carolina and in Georgia and Tennessee to explore vestiges of their schools. I was unable to glean the answers to all my questions, but I found satisfaction as I mentally walked the roads where they had walked.

The research process highlighted these qualities of the three educators.

• In her role as a missionary teacher, Sophia Sawyer, with her keen sense of duty, emerged as a strong educator in diverse roles as manager, administrator, innovator, and transformer.

• Emily Prudden provided learning opportunities through perseverance. She traveled throughout the mountains and foothills of western North Carolina and nearby South Carolina to identify deprived communities in need of schools. She exhibited vision, devotion, and determination.

• Martha Berry improved her schools through the power of her lifestyle. Her image as a woman of prominence gained her an influence in accomplished circles and expanded her prospects to acquire support for creating schools to serve poverty-stricken mountain youth.

Once my quest commenced, it led me in several directions: I documented the personal life of each woman by studying her childhood and family, the role of education in her life, and any major influences affecting her accomplishments, and I looked carefully for evidence that her faith influenced her actions and achievements. Educators seldom attain celebrity status. Normally classified as ordinary citizens with ordinary jobs, occupying a small place in the overall scheme of civilization, teachers provide tools for major endeavors, but their accomplishments usually recede into the unknown. On the other hand, the impact they make on others continues. Noted historian Charles Joyner (1999, 1) famously asserted that micro-history aspires to search for answers to large questions in small places, which he defined as the intensive historical investigation of a well-defined unit which may be exemplified as a single event, a community, a family, or an individual. Teachers, especially those of the primary and elementary grades, fall into a nebulous area which allows their accomplishments to be remembered only vaguely or to be ignored or forgotten. I decided these three women deserved to have their lives introduced to the learners of this century.

For years I pursued information about them. My aim came to focus on the role of these educators within the populations they served. The large questions I pursued included what led such women to uproot themselves from home and family to serve small isolated communities and with what results. A similar motive spurs twenty-first-century youth to join the Peace Corps, to participate in mission trips by digging wells or constructing schools and churches, or to work in soup kitchens. The same drive prods middle-aged individuals and senior citizens to volunteer to tutor struggling students, to engage in political battles to support education, to offer their time to give aid to individuals and organizations in need. That same spirit drives people of faith to provide support for the poor, the ignorant, the sick, the addicted, and the abused. In the past, young single women often pursued a career in teaching. Their motivation was to make a difference in the world. Young ladies were spurred on by their wish to lead lives that would count in God’s kingdom. Frequently, being headstrong and independent was a plus. It did not pay to be backward if a woman wished to succeed in such endeavors.

Sawyer, Prudden, and Berry each won respect by assuming a small role and by performing well. Although their names rarely appear in mainstream histories, these women were inspired to make a difference. They became a driving force in small, neglected communities and are worthy of notice. My goal is to honor three heroines of education by documenting their personal courage and accomplishments. The chapters that follow are a personal salute to their Christ-driven lives.

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The Appalachian Regions.

Courtesy of Appalachian Regional Commission. Public domain

Students enrolled in schools served by Sophia Sawyer, Emily Prudden, and Martha Berry were chiefly from communities in the southern and south-central regions of Appalachia. Though the region has a distinctive culture, geographic beauty and abundant natural resources, it was also associated with feuds, moonshine, and inbreeding. Mountaineers toiled from sunup to sundown to survive the hardships that came from living in the rugged Appalachian mountains.

Introduction

The Cherokee Presence

In North America Native American culture developed long before white settlers appeared. The Cherokee Nation was a key population within the Appalachian boundaries. By 1771 it had laid claim to land in regions that would become the states of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. Included in that territory were the southern Appalachians, the Piedmont of northwestern Georgia, and the Tennessee Valley (Ehle 1989). Native American homes and hunting grounds were established much earlier than the arrival of Spanish explorers, the original English colonists, the African Americans, the Germans, the Low Dutch, the Huguenots, or the Scots-Irish. Cherokees held prior claim to hunting grounds and tribal land dating from well before the 1700s. Originally their homes were in villages along the rivers of western North Carolina, northwestern South Carolina, northern Georgia, and eastern Tennessee.

Invasion into Indian territory by white settlers resulted in skirmishes and battles, but national laws ultimately pinpointed certain regions as rightfully belonging to these Native Americans. With the passage of time, Cherokees began to adopt white culture. Hunting was their chief means to acquire food, but raising beans and corn became important. A number of Cherokees grew wealthy, established prosperous plantations, traveled in style, became educated, and invited whites to establish schools for their children, but threats from outsiders who coveted tribal land continued. Hostile whites were willing to kill or to enslave Native Americans in order to gain control of their territory.

One early motive to attack the Cherokee Nation dates back to the colonial fight for independence; the Cherokee council’s decision to side with their British trading partners during the Revolutionary War resulted in great casualties for their own people (Van Noppen and Van Noppen 1973). Backing the British was a mistake. Afterwards, the Cherokee Nation dealt with carnage from invaders. Led by men such as Griffith Rutherford and John Sevier, whites burned Cherokee villages, took the lives of women and children, and drove the Cherokees to remote western regions (Cashion 1994).

Educators accompanied missionary leaders into Native American territory, and education became a tribal priority. A number of denominations supported educational efforts. Their backing sustained industrial schools, which provided instruction in the practical skills needed to earn a living. Eventually the federal government sponsored schools through its Cherokee Agency, which funded a high school as well as an elementary school in each tribal township (Van Noppen and Van Noppen 1973).

The Role of Cherokee Women

In contrast to white mountaineers, Cherokees venerated the role of women among their people; females occupied a prominent position in their homes and in the community. Kinship was matrilineal, an indication of female power. Due to her tribe’s adoption of the white people’s standards, a Cherokee woman lost significant privileges. Describing the female role prior to white dominance, noted scholar Theda Perdue, in Blacks in Appalachia (Turner and Cabbell 1985), spotlighted the elevated position women occupied among their people. Their role in tribal affairs was major.

In his Trail of Tears (1988), Appalachian writer John Ehle affirmed that the Cherokee woman had more rights and power than European women. She decided whom she would marry (3). She owned property and served as the head of her household. This power of the Cherokee female astonished the first white men to visit them. The Cherokee Council welcomed input from women about major decisions. Female warriors fought actively in battles alongside the men (Perdue 1985). War women, as they were known, were honored for bravery, but adoption of white ways eventually destroyed their elevated position. By the early 1800s, the Cherokees had become dominated by whites. Ultimately, the tribe’s decision to embrace the white man’s practice of protecting the weaker sex while denying them prominent roles in public life was costly for Cherokee women. Their basic tribal right of empowerment was lost once they began modeling their lives after those of the white women (Maclean, M. Women’s History. Retrieved from http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/p/hi-im-maggie-maclean-author-of-history.html, n.d.).

The Roles of Sawyer, Prudden, and Berry

History chronicles the achievements of Sophia Sawyer, Emily Prudden, and Martha Berry. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these three women pursued teaching as an avenue of service. What were these educators like? Where did they live? By what path did they travel to achieve God’s will? With what results? What forces at play within their environments affected their lives? Each woman provided the groundwork for educating children in the southern Appalachians. Sawyer directed her efforts toward advancing the education of the Cherokees, Prudden focused on educationally deprived black and white students, and Berry dedicated her life to training poor mountain whites. Each woman routinely made executive decisions, organized fund-raising events, sought outside support, founded schools, bought land and supplies, erected buildings, furnished those buildings, and hired and fired employees. At times they faced efforts to put them in their place, especially by those who rejected any tendency to rank a woman’s place of service as equal to a man’s. But competition with or victory over men was not important in the lives of these teachers. Their energy converged on sharing their Christian faith and on training their pupils.

Sophia Sawyer, Emily Prudden, and Martha Berry displayed strong religious devotion while advocating education as a key to strengthening a child’s confidence in God and in the Bible. They believed learning would improve a child’s day-to-day life. Such conviction spurred these educators to provide education as a tool to empower underprivileged children. A generous spirit also prodded each woman to invest personal funds in constructing and equipping schools. Each was a true philanthropist, generously sharing what she possessed. In Sawyer’s case, the amount was the proverbial widow’s mite, while Prudden and Berry invested the riches of their bank accounts and land holdings.

The Appalachian Terrain

American writer Horace Kephart (1922/1976) identified the backdrop for Sophia, Emily, and Martha’s careers as southern Appalachia. In his book Our Southern Highlanders, Kephart pinpointed this region as a vast area extending into a number of states. It encompasses Maryland’s four western counties; the entire Blue Ridge Valley, as well as the counties of the Allegheny Ridge in Virginia. The territory takes in all of West Virginia; eastern Kentucky and eastern Tennessee; western North Carolina; and the four northwestern counties of South Carolina. In addition, the region extends into northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama. Kephart documents the region’s abundance of mountain ranges, which includes the prominent Unaka or Great Smoky Mountains. Steep parallel ridges, intervening valleys, and ... rock-infested rivers ... [with a] variety ... of mineral resources, plant life, soil quality, topographical features, weather patterns, and ... unique human subcultures create a remarkable landscape (Davis n.d., 1).

Lush with a rich variety of trees and plants, the Appalachian terrain of today is enchanting, quite in contrast to the dismal poverty of its inhabitants during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This region earned its christening as the Land of Do Without, but its residents mastered the art of making do with available resources. Ash, balsam, mountain laurel, oak, poplar, rhododendron, and spruce highlighted mountain slopes and supplied building materials. Southern Appalachia also contained a rich variety in mineral deposits and native plants. Additionally the territory was marked by ethnic diversity, a regional characteristic frequently ignored.

Appalachian Culture

Deborah V. McCauley (1995), an independent scholar with a unique knowledge of the role of religion in American history, goes beyond describing Appalachia as simply a topographical area. She affirms that it is also a cultural entity, one not necessarily driven by geographic boundaries. Hers is a valid argument. Mountaineers who sought employment in the North following the Great Depression carried their habits of speech, dress, behavior, values, food preferences, and manners—all elements of their unique Appalachian culture—to their new homes. In addition, the removal of the Cherokee population to what is now Oklahoma resulted in the relocation of an especially important Appalachian community. Exiled Cherokees carried a segment of cultural Appalachia to the new Indian Territory. A few missionaries accompanied the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears, while others joined them in Oklahoma. The missionaries also transported their own regional culture westward, as they had transported it south into the Appalachians.

Survival was challenging in the southern Appalachians. Amid magnificent landscapes accented with towering mountains and lush woodland, mountaineers continuously endured hardships that diverted their attention from the region’s lack of classrooms. Living in bleak isolation tested their skills. A common hardship was travel, especially treacherous in the harsh mountain landscape with its steep slopes and rushing waters. Major travel routes led traders, drovers, and businessmen away from rugged terrain. Since travelers preferred to arrive quickly at places of commerce, their taking shorter routes effectively shoved the mountain region into a state of isolation and forced highlanders to fend for themselves.

Mountaineers discovered plants to harvest for medicinal properties as well as for fireside uses, such as dyeing threads spun from wool. Their ingenuity paid off, and they survived far from well-developed regions. Typical homes were log cabins with stone chimneys. During daylight, families usually left their doors wide open to draw in light and air, but that habit also created an inviting sense of hospitality. Travelers were welcomed and often allowed to bed down for the night. Families were willing to vacate their own beds in order to accommodate strangers.

Labor was demanding. If mountain families were fortunate enough to own horses or oxen, heavy work in the fields and woods became more bearable. Frequently married couples who owned no draft animals took turns pushing and pulling plows. Those without plows used sticks or hoes to dig rows to plant. Their crops and the meat from chickens, pigs, sheep, goats, and cows became food on their tables. Pigs required little care as they could scrounge for themselves. Men cut the sheep’s wool with razor-sharp shears; women then carded the wool, dyed it, spun it into thread, and wove it into fabric on the loom. The end purpose was clothing for the family or linings for quilts (Davis n.d.).

Exchanging goods for needed items was common among neighbors. Since selling farm produce or animals entailed challenging travel to distant regions, highlanders normally shunned that costly option. They learned to convert the products of their labor into necessary items. Women preserved food, by drying it in the sun or placing vegetables in brine and salting or smoking meat. They made hominy and grits from corn. A surplus of a mountaineer’s food or a healthy litter of animals provided a means to help others or a way to persuade others to help them.

Each farm animal required food, water, and attention, but cows produced milk and pigs became hams, smoked or salted–or dried into jerky. Farmers used every part of a slaughtered animal. They pickled the pig’s feet and scrambled its brains for a breakfast treat. If an animal required medical attention, neighbors banded together to decide how to restore it to health. Often, one man in the neighborhood would become known as having a way with animals or being able to cure a sick calf, and he became the designated veterinarian.

Each household needed at least one gun to use for protection and for hunting. Of necessity, men hunted wild game. Venison, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and even possums whetted appetites. At times, the family gun meant the difference between hunger and starvation, between life and death (Kephart 1922/1976). If a wild animal posed a threat, there was normally no alternative but to shoot it. Protection of home and family was the parents’ first priority. Highlanders might not have acquired formal learning, but they mastered the lessons of life’s daily demands.

The social order of the hill people was patriarchal, as it was in most of nineteenth-century America. The man was master within his home, regardless of how humble that home might be. He would discuss issues with his wife, but decisions were his alone. His word was law, and his wife abided by it. Any menial labor in the home or in the fields was her responsibility. It is little wonder that women who were near neighbors transformed their labor, whenever possible, into social events by meeting with one another to make lye soap, to snap beans, to quilt, or to preserve food. Such meetings were rare. The distance between homesteads intensified a mountain woman’s loneliness and drudgery. Her place was not confined to laboring inside the home; she often plowed the fields and cared for livestock. Highland women owned the dignity that comes from honest labor.

Kephart (1922/1976, 332), the expert on mountain ways, described the female spouse, perhaps unfairly, as little more than a superior domestic animal. Unwilling to defy the system; she usually accepted her husband’s decrees without complaint, since gender deemed it so. Life was challenging enough, and knowing one’s place in the social hierarchy was a key to maintaining order. Even late into the twentieth century, parents in Appalachia regarded educating girls beyond the basics as a waste of time. They reasoned that book learning could not improve a woman’s ability to care for babies or to feed a family and was therefore a useless investment of time or money.

Even though the mountain woman served as the unifying force in the family and the community, she commanded little appreciation for her important role. A man had the right to order his wife out of bed to prepare his meal, even shortly after childbirth, and though it was difficult, she would do it. When a mountain woman gave birth, her obstetrician was often a granny woman or midwife who used herbal remedies to treat the mother. Doctors were rare, and any woman could be called on to act as a midwife. Births were frequently unattended, and deaths of mothers or children were common. Kephart, who lived among the highlanders, interacting with them side by side within their homes and on treks across the mountains, pictured mountain women with these words:

Many of the women are pretty in youth; but her toil in house and field, early marriage, frequent child-bearing with shockingly poor [medical] attention, and ignorance or defiance of the plainest necessities of hygiene, soon warp and age them. At thirty or thirty-five a mountain woman is apt to have a worn and faded look, with form prematurely bent—and what wonder? Always bending over the hoe in the cornfield, or bending over the hearth as she cooks by an open fire, or bending over her baby, or bending to pick up, for the thousandth time, the wet duds that her lord flings on the floor as he enters from the woods—what wonder that she soon grows short-waisted and round-shouldered? (Kephart, as cited in Online Exhibit 2005).

In other more prosperous regions, women enjoyed few economic benefits. Employment for white women in nineteenth-century America went well beyond the colonial emphasis on working as seamstresses or running boardinghouses. Employment in textile mills and as household servants expanded their opportunities to earn wages. A woman’s role in the labor force was limited. There were always exceptions; occasionally a woman became a doctor or a lawyer. Normally, except for teaching or for writing, women were barred from the professions (Women’s History in America n.d.).

Nevertheless, female empowerment via education ultimately won women a more dominant position in American society. Education for girls and boys in the southern Appalachians developed slowly. Unfortunately, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, adding desks in an Appalachian classroom required a concerted effort. Daily survival demanded an investment of almost total energy by highlanders, leaving them little time to build schools, but help arrived from outside Appalachia via the home missions movement (McCauley 1995). In its early years, the Second Great Awakening lured the faithful to focus on foreign missions, but during the early nineteenth century, earnest Christians also targeted Native American and rural populations within the United States.

Changes in Appalachian Traditions

Constructing rural schools for all races required the efforts of regional missionaries, but other crusades directly targeted the residents of the southern Appalachian region. Those campaigns included local color writing, the Christian America movement, the Social Gospel movement, and the revival of regional crafts such as weaving, chair caning, basketry, carving, and rug making. Local color writers drew attention to the region but also stereotyped the mountaineers as ignorant families gripped in decades-long feuds without any recollection of the causes of the conflicts. By depicting mountaineers as ignorant, lazy, and often mean, such writers created a national stereotype of the hillbilly. On the other hand, the highlanders’ know-how and their ability to create needed items with their own hands earned widespread respect. Northerners embarked on efforts to preserve those skills, and their efforts were beneficial for the highlanders. The craft revival provided an opportunity for mountaineers to earn money as well as a means to preserve the techniques of producing homemade crafts. Metal-smiths and potters created objects such as tableware, flatware, bowls, and pitchers for family use. Eventually outsiders, impressed by the expertise of such artisans, provided a way to safeguard the valuable techniques of mountain crafting.

The Appalachian highlanders were not alone in finding their lives impacted by foreigners. In the mid-nineteenth century, North Americans experienced a massive intellectual challenge: Darwin’s Origin of Species sparked widespread opposition to the literal interpretation of the Bible, but a counter movement supported the Christian focus to live according to biblical teaching (Christian Modernism n.d.). Upon learning about the theories of evolution and natural selection, men and women who rejected those ideas sought divine intervention to defeat what they considered an atheistic movement. Viewing the role of science as a force defying Christian