New South and Modern Local History

In this third Virginia History Blog in a series of four on Civil Rights and Modern Virginia, — political, gender, local and cultural – we look at local history. Moving east to west, we begin with “The Pentagon” located in Arlington. “Roanoke” and “Sustaining Identity” (Luray) are in the Great Valley. In Appalachia we look at “The Tennessee-Virginia Tri-Cities”, “Coalfield Jews”, and “Do, Die or Get Along: A Tale of Two Appalachian Towns” in Russell County, Virginia.

Current releases related to Virginia history in other eras from Spring 2018 journals can be found in previous Virginia History Blogs at Colonial Virginia – Spring 2018, Revolutionary Virginia – Spring 2018, and Civil War Virginia – Spring 2018, and New South and Modern Virginia – Spring 2018.

The Pentagon

Steve Vogel wrote The Pentagon: A History in 2007. It is available from the Random House Trade Paperbacks, on Kindle and online new and used.

This narrative of popular history relates an interesting episode of World War II with biographical sketches and anecdotes. The Pentagon is known for its unusual shape, but it is also notable for its size as an office building and the speed of its construction during wartime.

The central manager responsible for the Pentagon’s construction was General Brehon B. Somervell, his boss was Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, and his immediate subordinate was Leslie Groves who then headed up the atomic bomb project.

To buy “The Pentagon” at Amazon, click here.

Super-Scenic Motorway

Anne Mitchell Whisnant wrote Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History in 2006. It is available from the University of North Carolina Press, on Kindle and online new and used. A TVH top 300 pick for Virginia History.

This is a story of the unique mountainous path from Virginia’s Shenandoah to Georgia’s Great Smoky Mountain National Parks. Whisnant begins with a concise history of the parks movement in the United States, and continues with her narrative of the Blue Ridge Parkway construction.

It is a story of conflicts between federal agencies and regional boosters and local residents, between state and local governments over routes and tourist dollars, between advocates of wilderness and a sculpted landscape. Players include poor mountaineers facing resettlement, the Eastern Band of Cherokees and the elite North Carolina resort of Little Switzerland. Virginia’s Peaks of Otter tourist development was erased after half a century to protect the isolated and remote image of Appalachia.

To buy “Super-Scenic Motorway” at Amazon, click here.

Roanoke, Virginia

Rand Dotson wrote Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912: Magic City of the New South in 2007. It is available from the University of Tennessee Press, on Kindle and online new and used. A TVH to 300 pick for Virginia History.

The town of Big Lick, Virginia in 1850 was a local center for tobacco warehousing, manufacture and transit. From 1882 until the turn of the twentieth century, Roanoke Virginia was transformed from a small town to a large industrial center and railroad hub. Though located in Appalachia, the “Magic City of the New South” became the headquarters to both the Norfolk & Western and the Shenandoah Valley railroads, with many skilled workers from the North. A “company town” for corporate railroading developed alongside many independent manufacturers with an independent municipal government.

Rapid economic development brought class and racial tensions that compromised the city’s progressive image. Roanoke’s middle class sought to exploit the region’s working class in a partnership with absentee owners bringing in the new industrialization. The transition of Roanoke into a boomtown like so many post-Civil War cities was a tale of internal strife, inadequate public services and poor infrastructure.

Following the race riot lynching of a black prisoner in 1893, the city fathers redoubled reform efforts at prohibition, urban planning and sanitation infrastructure along with marginalizing the black population. Business leaders failed to address divisions in the city and sanctioned hangings continued in the Jim Crow era. Nevertheless, Roanoke became the fourth-fastest growing city in the country.

To buy “Roanoke, Virginia” at Amazon, click here.

Sustaining Identity, Recapturing Heritage [Luray]

Ann Denkler wrote Sustaining Identity, Recapturing Heritage: Exploring Issues of Public History, Tourism, and Race in a Southern Town [Luray, Va] in 2007. It is available from Lexington Books, on Kindle and online new and used.

Denkler focuses on the town of Luray and surrounding Page County, documenting the phenomenon that a “shared history” does not translate into contemporary “shared heritage”. Two local histories of 1907 and 1952 focused on German-Swiss settlers and Confederate past, excluding resident Native Americans and African Americans.

Tourism in Luray seeking out the celebrated local caverns attracted both white and black tourists, accelerating after the development of the Shenandoah National Park in the 1930s. Related books relating heritage, race and identity include David Blight’s “Race and Reunion: the Civil War in American Memory” and W. Fitzhugh Brundage’s “The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory”.

To buy “Sustaining Identity” at Amazon, click here.

The Tennessee-Virginia Tri-Cities

Tom Lee wrote The Tennessee-Virginia Tri-Cities: Urbanization in Appalachia, 1900-1950 in 2005. It is available from the University of Tennessee Press and online new and used.

This book traces the evolution of three market centers in Appalachia into an region encompassing fourteen counties in three states. Kingsport TN, Johnson City TN and Bristol TN/VA began as railroad boomtowns. Their initial development was to extract local coal, timber and iron. Most of the industrial labor was supplied by out-of-area immigrants and African Americans. That boom played out in the 1920s.

The local commercial-civic elites took advantage of the New Deal, WWII and the Cold War to promote the local work force as a natural resource, attracting federal largesse. Boosters highlighted their “untainted, Anglo-Saxon, non-union” labor force with local social control reinforced by urban-based Ku Klux Klan claverns to expand low-wage manufacturing in the region. That boom played out in the 1970s, leaving high unemployment, pollution and out-migration.

To buy “The Tennessee-Virginia Tri-Cities” at Amazon, click here.

Coalfield Jews

Deborah R. Weiner wrote Coalfield Jews: An Appalachian History in 2006. It is available from the University of Illinois Press, on Kindle and online new and used.

This study focuses on six counties in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. At the turn of the 20^th century, Jews from Eastern Europe migrated to the U.S. (two million between 1880 and 1920). Various ‘middlemen’ from the European countryside found fertile ground for family relocation and setting up retail operations in small town, rural-industrial Appalachia using connections to urban center wholesellers.

The Jewish stores entered into direct competition with the employer company stores, the proprietors and their families became integrated into local society, yet the immigrants maintained a separate identity through synagogues and other Jewish organizations. After mid-century, second-generation Jews of Appalachia intermarried or left for more economically promising regions, and many of the distinctive Jewish mountaineer communities vanished.

To buy “Coalfield Jews” at Amazon, click here.

Do, Die, or Get Along

Peter Crow wrote Do, Die, or Get Along: A Tale of Two Appalachian Towns [St. Paul and Dante] in 2007. It is available from the University of Georgian Press, on Kindle and online new and used.

This book develops an interpretive narrative of oral history in two Appalachian towns located in Russell County, Virginia. St. Paul was a commercial center with a variety of businesses and professionals. Dante was a company-owned town with a company store, a company church and segregated housing for the mineworkers.

Crow includes speakers from the demographic diversity of the area by race, age and class. Complex racial patterns emerge between conflicting interracial respect and cooperation, versus hurtful slurs and childhood fights. The accounts of two Pittston strike protagonists in 1989-90, Frank Kilgore, attorney defending UMWA striking miners, and Dink Shackleford, executive director of the Virginia Mining Association, are expanded with narratives from residents and workers who experienced events.

Community activists have made a difference following the mine closings and resulting local economic depression, from a native college student, a high school teacher and an outsider VISTA volunteer.

To buy “Do, Die, or Get Along” at Amazon, click here.

Additional history related to Virginia during this time period can be found at the Table of Contents of TheVirginiaHistorian website on the page for Gilded Age, New South and 20th Century. Titles are organized by topics, political and economic Virginia, social history, gender, religious, African American, and Wars in Virginia 1750-1824.

General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.

Note: Insights for these reviews include those available from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary Quarterly, the Journal of the Civil War Era, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.