Future / Retro

Interview with Dave Tabler, Appalachian History

Appalachia in the US often appears in popular culture.

Most famously, perhaps, in the 1972 movie Deliverance, when a group of urban visitors on a rafting holiday are terrorised by deranged locals as they attempt to battle their way out of the wilderness.

Less offensive to the local people is the 1987 film Matewan, featuring Chris Cooper as the union organiser and which is based on a real historical event – the Mingo County, West Virginia coal miners’ strike of 1920.

Dave Tabler

While another item on the coal industry worth watching is Barbara Kepples inspiring documentary on a 1973 coal miners’ strike in Kentucky called Harlan County, USA. This won a deserved Oscar in 1976.

Also, no musicologist worth their salt would fail to recognise the pivotal influence of Appalachian folk music on bluegrass and country music. Or, indeed, how folk music in this area was a direct descendant of English, Scottish and Irish folk songs that was bought over with the immigrants that made up the early population of this part of the US.

There’s much rich material here for historians: fundamentalist religion, hardship and work, labour strikes and a strong cultural identity.

Dave Tabler has been blogging about all these issues and more on his well-established site, Appalachian History.

Appalachian History Blog

It started some 12 years ago after his father, Kenneth, began to write his autobiography, as Dave explains:

"He was raised in humble circumstances during the Depression. He remembers a time of no indoor plumbing, having to use an outhouse, and no electricity.

"My dad was able to propel himself out of those conditions to rise up and earn a PhD. He was a member of the first group of scientists to work with the newly invented computer at the University of Illinois in the late 1940s.

"During the course of helping my dad edit his autobiography, I heard more and more fascinating stories, both good and bad, about Appalachia. Many of them I had grown up hearing, but I think it took me till middle age to really appreciate their value in the context of an entire culture and its worldview.

"And so, I began the blog as an offshoot of that project. It’s kind of taken on a life of its own!"

One of many images to be found on Appalachian History. This is the Metropolitan Theatre in Morgantown, WV sometime during the 1920s

What strikes the reader about the blog is the amount of time the author has spent on the project. There is wealth of information here in the form of articles, interviews, extracts, pictures and even audio samples.

It requires dedication and a methodological approach, as he makes clear:

"My aim is to post daily, Monday through Friday. Occasionally I’ll take a breather and run a photo whose caption pretty much says it, but generally I’m aiming for a fully developed 400-500 word article.

"One simply cannot attain this level of production without passion and a plan. I use a planner spreadsheet showing date of post, working title of subject of post, and state to map out my posting goals. I’d be lost otherwise!

"As to the research, I’ve by now compiled a lengthy list of sources, libraries and collections. Often I’ll start my inquiries with a ‘Ok, what happened on this particular day? In this state, in this town, in this county?’ Sometimes as I’m researching that premise I’ll come across an interesting offshoot item, and I’ll make a note on my spreadsheet to generate a separate article on that particular thing".

The Appalachia covers a vast expanse of area: It includes all of West Virginia and parts of 12 other states. Such a diverse constituency makes for interesting history as the author of Apalachian History notes:

"The identities are quite different throughout the region, as one might expect from areas that were settled by different ethnic populations at different times and are driven by different industries. True, coal, timber and millwork are dominant industries throughout most of the region, but are not uniformly concentrated.

"The media delight in painting a stereotype barefoot hillbilly, plunking on his banjo, ignorant, drinking and grinning toothlessly, incestuous, and suspicious of outsiders. And certainly people of that sort existed and do exist in the region. But like any stereotype the hillbilly caricature is just that. The reality is far more textured. And interesting!"

History provides a person – or group of people – with a sense of identity in the world, and former and current residents of Appalachia are constantly writing to the author with comments, praise and ideas for stories.

It is this in itself that is the aim of every on-line historian: interaction with the public that inspires greater work.

"The feedback overall has been wonderfully supportive," says Tabler.

"I often get emails from people to the effect of ‘Oh, my grandmother used to tell that story all the time!’ or ‘I always wondered how that phrase came about’ or ‘I heard that legend as a kid, but never knew where it came from till I read this.’ And yes, people have submitted pictures and stories quite regularly, and after checking their authenticity as much as I can, I’m always happy to run them if they add to the flow of the blog’s overarching narrative."

Dave Tabler has no plans to stop writing on Appalachian history, it’s an expansive subject that will consume his time and energy for sometime to come.

He does though offer advice to other historians:

"I recall that the greatest historian of all time, Edward Gibbon, author of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," was neither a Roman nor alive at the time about which he wrote.

"I found that when I began this blog several naysayers expressed surprise that I, who was not born in Appalachia during the Depression, would have the audacity to write about that place and time.

"Hopefully I’ve proven them wrong. One can write about any time or place, given huge drive, passion, creativity, and careful research; and have the humility to approach the task with grace."

You can purchase the autobiography of Kenneth Tabler here for $22.

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Jun. 20, 2008 | Weekly Post