Women of Appalachia
Serving Home and Community:
Women of Southern Appalachia
Ravenswood, Ivanhoe, Pippa Passes, Cherokee—the picturesque place names of the southern Appalachian highlands can belie the harsh realities of daily life in these hills. In a land of coal mines and company towns, the women of this lovely but isolated region have faced uncommon challenges in their struggles to keep their families, communities, and cultures intact. Many of these women have demonstrated admirable determination and dignity in the midst of unemployment, illness, and natural disaster. Their resourcefulness and perseverance are testaments to the American spirit.
Serving Home and Community: Women of Southern Appalachia paid tribute to these acts of personal heroism. Some 50 black and white photos by Barbara Beirne show women) of the region who have suffered economic hardships due to mining and agricultural issues and who have had to care for children, grandchildren and sick husbands. Sometimes pastoral, sometimes bleak, these haunting images of Appalachian towns and countrysides set the environmental stage for the stories told in the portraits.
Starting in 1992, Beirne traveled the small towns and quiet valleys of Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, photographing and interviewing many of the remarkable women who call this region home. Beirne's richly detailed black-and-white photographs capture the historic struggles and inspirational accomplishments of two generations of Appalachian women, revealing the region's social, racial, and cultural diversity. Each portrait is paired with an excerpt from Barbara Beirne's interviews, allowing each woman to recount her story in her own unique voice.
Organized by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and curated by David Haberstich, head of photographic collections at NMAH's Archives Center, this exhibition toured in nine states from 1999-2003.
My mother was a domestic, but she taught me I could be anything I wanted to be—if I worked hard
enough. Now that I'm a police captain, I want to be a pathfinder for those after me. I would not be
where I am today were it not for people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Eleanor
Roosevelt.
—Ivin Lee, Dunbar, West Virginia, 1996
Serving Home and Community: Women of Southern Appalachia Smithsonian Exhibition Link
Serving Home and Community:
Women of Southern Appalachia
Tour Itinerary 1999-2003
- Parthenon, Nashville, TN
- Rotunda Gallery, Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, NJ
- International Storytelling Center, Jonesborough, TN
- Three Rivers Gallery, Poplar Bluffs, MO
- Spartanburg County Public Library, Spartanburg, SC
- Dayton Cultural Center, Dayton, OH
- McMinn County Living Heritage Museum, Athens, TN
- Exhibit A Gallery, New York, NY
- Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA
- Noyes Museum of Art, Oceanville, NJ
- Georgetown College, Georgetown, KY
- Southeast Community College, Cumberland, KY
- Dayton and Montgomery Public Library, Dayton, OH
- Ann Arbor District Library, Ann Arbor, MI
- Morehead State University, Morehead, KY
- Ohio University, Zanesville, OH
- Wrather West Kentucky Museum, Murray, KY
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When I was little I lived right down thar in a two room house. We had five or six beds to a room, but it was the warmest house there ever was. My Daddy worked on the farm, and Mommy made our coats and dresses. She made our socks from the wool after they sheared the sheep. My Daddy had three or four guns. I was teached what to do.
Sylvie Turner
Kite, Kentucky
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Many lies and half-truths have been written about the mountain people, but we know God sent his strongest men and women who could enjoy life and search the few pleasures contained in a life of hard work. I wrote my book, “What My Heart Wants To Tell” because I wanted my grandchildren to be proud of their heritage. Now, surprisingly, my book is in it's fifth printing
Verna Mae Slone
Pippa Passes, Kentucky
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I taught school in Delaware but decided to come home to Kentucky. In 1977 the coal companies were hiring women right and left, so I decided to work in the mines. I can make money and I can afford to get what I want and do what I want. My grandmother probably turned over in her grave.
Mary Jack Hargins
Lebanon, Virginia
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My parents were missionaries, and my childhood was spent in China. I came to Kentucky when my husband was appointed president of Berea College. I worked twenty-eight years as a pediatrician, and had clinics all over the state. Many unprivileged folks had large families, and I introduced them to family planning. The mothers were so happy they soon sent their teenage daughters to me for advice.
Louise Gilman Hutchins
Berea, Kentucky
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I'll be 87 in January, and I'm still able to work and eat everything I can get ahold of. I own this grocery store. I make quilts in the back of the store and grow onions in a garden on the side. We've got Indian blood in us. That's why we work like we do.
Mary Steele
Swords Creek, Virginia
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We came to Bishop when I was nineteen, so my husband could work in the mines. I raised my four children in this house without running water. We had our good times and our bad times. Men were killed in explosions. There were strikes, layoffs, and we were flooded out twice. We lost everything, but we were a tight community basd on love. Color didn't make no difference. All the miners were brothers.
Dorthula Hargrave
Bishop, Virginia
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When I was a young'un I chopped down trees to make props for the mines and even dug coal in the mines. I worked hard doing a man's work. I had to or I'd git hit. Today young'uns don't want to do nothing. You got to raise them up right. If you tell children to do something - mean it.
Mary Gibson
Estill, Kentucky
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My ancestors hid in the mountains so they wouldn't have to march to Oklahoma when the government drove the Cherokees out of North Carolina. I think preserving our traditions is essential to our survival as a Cherokee people. I teach the Cherokee language to our young people. We are the only tribe with a written language that uses its own alphabet.
Myrtle Driver
Cherokee, North Carolina
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Me and Amos were married 51 years, but the Lord needed him worse than I did, so He took him away from me. I said, “Lord you know I'm left alone, but you're going to stay with me. I ain't doubting you for nothing.” I never did feel afraid, and I ain't going to give up. The Lord didn't come down here and promise me a bed of roses. Lord have mercy.
O.C. Puckett
Bonanza, Kentucky
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My mother was a domestic, but she taught me that I could be anything I wanted to be — if I worked hard enough. Now that I'm a police captain I want to be a pathfinder for those after me. I would not be where I am today were it not for people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Ivin Lee
Dunbar, West Virginia
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I grew up on a farm in Wythe County and got my first job teaching when I was 17 years old. It was a one-room school. The only water we had was what the kids carried to school in a bucket from a spring somewhere. I had to build the fires and sweep and everything. It was way back when.
Osa Price
Ivanhoe, Virginia
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Lots of folks come up here looking for their roots. I don't have to look, 'cause my roots are running deep in these mountains and way deep in the stories I've heard all my life. And I got to tell about the people in the mountain … I just got to tell those stories. People need them, specially those folks who come up here looking for something to comfort them.
Rosa Hicks
Banner Elk, North Carolina
