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The Soul of a Small Texas Town NEW BOOK BYTHE CENTER'S DIRECTOR OF DOCUMENTARY PROJECTS cDade, Texas, is a town of about 600 people, not far from Austin. David Wharton spent five years getting to know most of those people, ./ talking and listening and taking

tell stories about individuals, their families, their interests, their dispositions. In the text, the author describes with anecdotes or brief narratives how men or women like or hate some events, how people live out their understandings of religion and family, how the young people expect to leave McDade, how the town's

pictures. The result is The Soul of a Small Texas Town, a volume that combines photography, description, and history in a fascinating examination of the present and its interaction with the past. Many of us think we know slow-moving and sweaty towns like this, where nothing much seems to happen except the routine departures of young people looking for something better. This

older people cope with mobility, illness, and death. Family relationships, some far happier than others, dominate many of the photographs and descriptions. The reader learns something of the background of the individuals and, in many cases, something of how they envision their future. Best of all, the reader who goes slowly through the photographs

book goes far deeper, introducing us to people with stories worth telling.

and descriptions finds himself getting to know people, cross-referencing the people in the photographs, saying "Oh" a lot. "Oh, I know them from a scene at the Baptist Church." "Oh, I already met her parents." "Oh, he is part of that

This unique book consists of two parts of equal length. In the first part, 105 photographs display people of all ages in their environments. The photographs record the every~ day lives of people who happen to be rural and Texan and not especially wealthy. Subjects include

crowd that drinks beer in front of Sam Earl's." The history section relies on newspapers and written and oral

family life, the experiences of people of different ages, public celebrations such as weddings, reunions, VFW meetings, church services, the town's Watermelon well as less ritualized

Festival, as events-

D'd

aVl

arton

recollections to tell the human narrative of what has happened since McDade was founded in 1871. The history moves through the early period of settlement with a new railroad, cattle rustling, and Texas to the growth of schools, churches, and a

afternoons spent walking around town, or drinking beer, or tak- .

frontier

ing care of family members at home. In many photographs, people look directly into the camera in poses that show they are able to decide what images of themselves they chose to project. In a unique and remarkable feature of this book, Wharton pairs a description of the person and the setting with each photograph. Far more than mere captions, these descriptions

business district, to the coming of a significant German population, to the high point of business boosterism in the early 20th century, to tensions over a World War II camp built near McDade, to a declining population and the rise of disputes between "old-timers" and "new people" since the 1970s. Most (continued on page 11)

The Soul

of a Small

By David Wharton.

violence,

Texas Town: Photographs, Memories, and History from McDade.

Norman: University of Oklahoma

Press, 2000. 320 pages. $39.95.

Southern R~iswr Published Quarterly by The Center for the Study of Southern The University Telephone

Culture

of Mississippi

662-915-5993

Fax: 662-915-5814 E-mail: cssc@olemiss.edu Internet: http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/south

THIS

ISSUE

Winter 2000

The Soul of a Small Texas Town: 2 3

5 6 6

New Book by David Wharton Director's Column 2000 Oxford Conference for the Book Center Receives NEH Planning Grant Planning Meeting for Deep South Humanities Initiative Elderhostel Program for Faulkner Conference Participants

Director's Column I went to Birmingham, Alabama,

during the first week of February to par-

ticipate in the Southern Cultures Celebration hosted by the Advent Episcopal School. The Center serves as adviser to Craig Battles, who plans and coordinates a wonderful annual program, which includes teacher workshops and programs for students and a gala evening of entertainment and an awards ceremony honoring outstanding Southerners. Craig asked me to make awards to five Southern Achievers, an admirable ceremony that took place in the Episcopal Cathedral in Birmingham. The program included performances by, among others, the Birmingham Heritage Band playing superb swing music, Alabama Black Belt bluesman Jerry Daniel, Southern gospel singer George Carneal, the spiritual-rap poetry and gospel sounds of Tony Leonard and the Three Gifts, the stories of troubadour Bob Tedrow, and the haunting melodies of Native American musician Mary Youngblood. The Mockingbird Players of Monroeville, Alabama (Harper Lee's hometown) performed excerpts from her novel. Oxford's own Tom Arriola was master of ceremonies, effortlessly keeping the program on track. The event nicely captured the range of Southern creativity. The highlight of the evening was the presentation of awards to Frank "Doc" Adams, the beloved Birmingham jazzman and educator; Mary Badham, the child star of To Kill a Mockingbird; Rick Bragg, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; Emory Cunningham, founder of Southern Living magazine; and John Egerton, the award-winning writer and promoter of good Southern causes. Cunningham had died the week before, adding a

7 2000 F& Y: Faulkner in 21st Century 7 Saks Fellowships for 2000 F& Y 8 Scott Barretta, New Living Blues Editor 9 First Monday Sale and Trade Days 10 Barnard Observatory Exhibitions 12 Mississippi Folklife to Examine Vernacular Architecture

poignant note to the evening, as his daughters accepted the award. Teacher and student workshops the next day focused on "The Heroic Southerner," looking at the meaning of heroism, from ancient mythology to contemporary concepts, and its relationship to changing patterns of Southern culture. The Southern Cultures Celebration honors a wide range of Southerners, gives credit to the sometimes astounding creativity of Southern culture, and sponsors the hard, productive work of teacher and student training about the South. It is only one of many

13 Reading the South: Reviews & Notes

events that the Center is pleased to work with, but we are honored that Craig consults with us about his program and possible participants. He also works with the good folks at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who have been actively involved

17 Southern Foodways Alliance: Letter from Executive Director 18 Foodways Events and Announcements 19 Silver Rights: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta Exhibition 20 Smith Named Director of Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation 21 Friends of the Williams Library 22 In Memoriam 22 Regional Roundup 22 Notes on Contributors 23 Southern Culture Catalog Items 24 Address Section/Mailing List Form/ Friends Information and Form

STAFF

Editor: Ann J. Abadie Publications

Manager:

Graphic Designer: Mailing List Manager: Lithographer:

Mickey McLaurin

Bea Jackson, Ivy Pages Mary Hartwell Howorth

RR Donnelley

Magazine Group

The University complies with all applicable laws regarding affirmative action and equal opportunity in all its activities and does not discriminate against anyone protected by law because of age, creed, color, national origin, race, religion, sex, handicap, veteran or other status.

Page 2

with the program since its beginning. I thought of the program in terms of the

National

Endowment

for the Humanities

announcement of the recipients of planning grants for its Regional Humanities Center initiative. The Center has received one of those planning grants, and we are energetically working to put together a new plan for future Center work that will rest on bringing together the Center's mission with the work of other cultural institutions in our region. We hope to work with colleges and universities, primary and secondary schools, museums, radio and television stations, historic preservation agencies, libraries, historical societies, environmental groups, arts organizations, and other institutions concerned with regional history and culture. The Endowment divided the nation into 10 regions, awarding 16 planning grants with others likely to come. The Center's region is the Deep South-Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. We congratulate the other recipient in our region, Tulane University. This is a competitive program, designed to designate a NEH center in each region, but the University of Mississippi has cooperated often with Tulane on projects, and I am a fan of the work of Lawrence Powell, Sylvia Frey, and the others working on Tulane's project. We will surely find ways to cooperate as we all think more systematically about the relationship between region and the humanities. The Endowment program is about collaboration, and the coming year will be an exciting one as we assess the needs for cultural study in the Deep South, meet with representatives of a variety of institutions, and think imaginatively about the common ground that surely exists among institutions in the region. The Center will continue to study the entire South-as is our mission-but we will have a new commitment in the coming year to discerning

ways to assist the cultural institutions

meet our mutual goals of addressing

humanities

of the Deep South as we all

concerns. CHARLES REAGAN WILSON

Winter 2000

The Southern Register

G / h: year marks the seventh for the Oxford Conference for the Book. As always, a large and varied collection of writers, scholars, J and industry insiders will converge on Oxford-April 7-9, ZOOO-for readings, lectures, and discussions (and don't forget parties) on current issues affecting book culture. There will also be a book signing featuring all the conference authors on Saturday night. This year's conference is dedicated to the late Willie Morris (1934-1999) in recognition of his contributions to American letters.

THE NOVELISTS ... As in years past, one of the conference's biggest draws has been the quality and quantity of its fiction

Caitlin Hamilton-will discuss the business. Grove-Atlantic publisher Morgan Entrekin will speak on working one's way into print. And

writers. The authors are in no short supply again this year, the list of literary figures reading like a who's who of novelists on the rise. Several writers, who have turned up in

Knopf editor Jordan Pavlin will be along for the ride as well. THE POETS ... Readings and remarks by noted poets have been a mainstay in the

Oxford quite often over the past year, will participate on panels, including Steve Yarbrough (The Oxygen Man), William Gay (The Long Home), and Darcey Steinke (Jesus Saves). Mississippi Delta hero Lewis Nordan will be on hand to discuss his new memoir, Boy with

Gun, which presents a strangely familiar landscape to fans of his bizarre and fantastic novels. Former bookseller Karl Ackerman returns with a highly favored new book (Dear Will), along with Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler (Mr. Spaceman) and

conference program, and this year's slate features Robert Bly, a major American poet whose latest book is Eating the Honey of Words. Mississippi ties link the other featured poets, including University of Southern Mississippi creative writing teacher Angela Ball (The

Loaded

Museum of the Revolution); Brooks Haxton (Dances for Flute and Thunder), Delta native and son of Ellen Douglas; Willie Morris (2000), by Mildred Nungester Wolfe

most endearing

performances.

THE PUBLISHERS ... This year's publisher spotlight will be on MacMurray & Beck, the upstart house that came onto the scene strong last year with several big titles, including The Oxygen Man, The Long Home, and the National Book Award nominee Hummingbird House. Several of the folks who made this house so successful last year-publisher Fred Ramey,

editor

The Southern Register

Greg Michalson,

Claude

(Reading

the Earth),

Wilkinson a poet and

painter from Nesbit.

Alabama bestseller Melinda Haynes (Mother of Pearl). Florida writer Connie May Fowler has a new novel (Remembering Blue), as does Janice Daugharty (Like a Sister), of Georgia. Mississippi mystery writer Greg Iles (The Quiet Game) will drop in to speak on Southern politics. And last but not least, the indelible panel discussion leadership of Barry Hannah remains one of the conference's

and the impressive

newcomer

and marketing

director

THE

...

the short story collection For the Relief of be visiting from Jerusalem, while Richard Flanagan of Tasmania flies into town after having garnered accolades all over the world for his new novel, The Sound talked-about

debuts,

Unbearable

Urges. He'll

of One Hand Clapping. Rosa Shand's new novel of Africa, The Gravity of Sunlight, is mustering strong praise from big-time writers, while newcomer Jeffrey Lent of Vermont has written an ambitious first novel, In the Fall, which is destined to be a hit this

Winter 2000

I!lIII

NEWCOMERS

Part of the book conference fun is meeting and hearing young writers who bound into town and astound us with their fresh visions. This year's newcomers hold promise, as evidenced by their fine books, which we've already devoured. Among them are Nathan Englander, who published one of last year's most

Page 3

spring. Janisse Ray, author of the SEBA Award-winning memoir Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, will visit from Georgia. And Elizabeth Mitchell, a former executive editor at George magazine, is causing waves with her top-rate journalistic endeavor, W: Revenge of the Bush Dynasty.

Poet Robert Bly will be a featured speaker at the seventh Oxford Conference for the Book and contribute to the local celebration of American Poetry Month.

Endesha Ida Mae Holland, celebrated author of From the Mississippi Delta and a teacher at the University of Southern California, will return to her home state this spring to participate in the Oxford Conference for the Book.

Alice Faye Duncan, award-winning author, librarian, and educator of Memphis, Tennessee, will speak at the seventh Oxford Conference for the Book and visit local schools as part of the Young Authors Fair sponsored by the Junior Auxiliary of Oxford.

Page 4

THE CHRONICLERS ... Journalists and cultural historians have always provided a great foil to the fictionalists, and are often as equally weird and interesting. This year's slate features an old favorite, New York Times correspondent Rick Bragg (All Over But the Shoutin'), whose new collection of articles, Somebody Told Me, is due this spring. Also returning to the conference will be William F. Winter who, with others, will discuss Southern politics on a panel moderated by Curtis Wilkie, the Boston Globe reporter and coauthor of Arkansas Mischief: The Birth of a National Scandal with Jim McDougal. Anthony Walton (Mississippi), the esteemed poet, memoirist, and journalist, will be relating his experiences in autobiography, as will Endesha Ida Mae Holland, a theatre instructor at the University of Southern California and author of the revered memoir From the MississiPPi Delta, and Constance W. Curry, recent author of Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning. Also, John M. Barry, author of the immensely popular Rising Tide, will speak on books and the environment. And finally Alice Faye Duncan, teacher, librarian, and children's author (Willie]erome), will speak on readers of tomorrow with Elaine H. Scott, a leader in national literacy and library programs, and Richard Boyd, interim director of the new Barksdale Reading Institute. THE SCHOLARS ... The conference is supported by a backbone of academic writers whose conversation on a wide range of topics-from music to race to politics-makes for the most disciplined study of literary culture and its contribution to society. One of these discussions will be a panel on communities featuring Pete Daniel, a Smithsonian curator and author of Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s; Gay Gomez, a cultural geographer at McNeese State UniversitY and the author of A Wetlands Biography; and University of Mississippi professor David Wharton, who has authored and photographed The Soul of a Small

Texas Town: Photographs, Memories, and History from McDade. Also, David Shields, a professorat the Citadel, will give a presentation on print culture in the early South. Continuing a conference tradition, the panel on music and race will feature W. T. Lhamon (Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop), James Salem (The Late Great Johnny Ace), BMI archivist David Sanjek, Brian Ward (Just My Soul Responding), and Craig Werner (A Change Is Gonna Come). Moderating and participating in the various panel discussions are several distinguished professors at the University of Mississippi: Michael Bertrand, Michael Dean, Jay Watson (Forensic Fictions), Dan Williams (Pillars of Salt), and Charles Reagan Wilson (Judgment and Grace in Dixie). Speaking on Willie Morris will be Ted Ownby (American Dreams in Mississippi), professor emeritus David G. Sansing (The University of MississiPPi: A Sesquicentennial History), and Masaru Inoue, a visiting professor from Japan. Morris's widow, JoAnne Prichard Morris, will also speak. SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS ... Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, Department of English, Department of History, Department of Journalism, McDonnell- Barksdale Honors College, John Davis Williams Library, Junior Auxiliary of Oxford, and Square Books. Partially funded by the University of Mississippi and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, and the City of Oxford. SIGN UP ... The conference is open to the public without charge. To assure seating space, those interested in attending should preregister by contacting the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Reservations and advanced payment are required for two optional events honoring conference speakers: a cocktail party on Friday ($25 per person, all proceeds of which go to the conference and are tax deductible) and a brunch on Sunday ($15). JAMIE KORNEGAY

Center for the Study of Southern Culture • The University of Mississippi PO. Box 1848, University, MS 38677-1848 • phone 662-915-5993 • fax 662-915-5814 Internet: http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/south

Oxford Tourislll Council •

•

FOR TOURIST INFORMATION CALL 800-758-9177

Winter 2000

~£I ~'1; iI~

• email cssc@olemiss.edu

Square Books

160 Coucthou,e Squa<e, Oxford, MS 38655 662-236-2262 fax 662-234-9630 www.,quarebook,.com

The Southern Register

Center Receives NEH Planning Grant for Deep South Humanities Center The Center has received a $50,000 planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to prepare a proposal for designation as the regional studies center of the Deep South. This grant is part ofNEH's major initiative to designate 10 regional studies centers across the nation. The planning grant is the first stage in a process that could lead to a $5 million endowment for our Center, from NEH, to be matched by $15 million. Founded in 1977 and distinguished as the first regional studies center to offer bachelor's and master's degree programs in Southern Studies, the Center was one of two institutions in the Deep South region and one of only 16 in the natioµ recently awarded a $50,000 planning grant by NEH to take part in its new Initiative for Regional Humanities Centers program. In the initial stage of the NEH-sponsored enterprise, the Center and other grantees-including the University of

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Virgir:ia, Brown University, San Francisco State University, and the University of Pennsylvania-receive one year of funding to develop a plan for establishing a regional center within their geographic locales. The Center then will be eligible to apply for one of 10 full-scale, implementation grants of $5 million, which must be matched 3 to 1, resulting in attracting an additional $15 million over a seven-year period. The ultimate objective of the initiative is to foster development of regional study centers in the Pacific, Southwest, Rocky Mountains, Plains, Upper Mississippi Valley, Central, Deep South, South Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, and New England regions, each with a $20 million endowment to support regional humanities research, education, preservation, and public programs. The Center was selected to receive the funding based on its ability to "collaborate with other cultural institutions (in the South), support research on regional topics, document regional history, preserve cultural resources, develop K-12 learning opportunities, build college-level degree programs in regional studies, and foster cultural tourism," according to NEH officials. Tulane University also received a planning grant in the Deep South region. In the case of the Center, which has been studying the South

The Southern Register

history and Southern Studies. "For an existing regional center, such as ours, to receive this planning grant meant that we had to be quite specific and show new ways we can contribute to the study of the South," Wilson said. Beyond an impressive list of achievements-including publication of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, establishment of the Blues Archive and Southern Media Archive, the restoration of Barnard Observatory as a permanent headquarters, and innumerable multidisciplinary teaching, research, and outreach programs-the Center's NEH grant proposal outlines an ambitious plan to extend its reach

even further in the region. In addition to assessing the region's resources with an inventory of cultural institutions, collections, programs, and services, the Center will use the grant to develop plans and attract funds for a postdoctoral fellowship program for young scholars and a sabbatical program for teachers at traditionally black institutions of higher learning in the South. "The end result of the NEH initiative could be a program similar to the WPA-sponsored (Work Projects Administration) cultural programs of the 1930s that are still paying dividends in deepening Americans' understanding of their culture," Wilson said. "This planning grant will enable the Center to work closely with cultural authorities to chart a new plan for studying, preserving, and teaching about the South. It promises to be a truly collective effort." Congress created NEH in 1965 as an independent federal agency to support learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the classroom. NEH grants enrich classroom learning, create and preserve knowledge, and bring ideas to life through public television, radio, new technologies, museum exhibitions, and programs in libraries and other community places.

Winter 2000

.....

for two decades, "this new planning grant is recognition of the work already achieved, based in our academic program, the research of Southern Studies faculty, and outreach activities represented by conferences and publications," said Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the Center and professor of

MICHAEL HARRELSON

Page 5

ALABAMA

TENNESSEE

THE HUMANITIES CENTER FOR

Center to Host Planning Meeting for Deep South Humanities Initiative

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The Center invites educators, librarians, and representatives of museums, historical societies, arts organizations, and other cultural institutions in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee to attend a meeting at Barnard Observatory on Thursday, April 6, at 2:00 p.m. The two-hour meeting will initiate a

survey of humanities resources in the Deep South and begin assessing ways to strengthen these resources through exchange of information and collaboration. The gathering is the first of a series of public meetings to help plan for a Deep South Regional Humanities Center. The project is funded through a planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is part of an effort to create a nationwide network of 10 centers dedicated to collaborating with other cultural institutions in their regions, supporting research on regional topics, documenting regional history, preserving cultural resources, developing K-12 learning opportunities, building college-level degree programs in regional studies, and fostering cultural tourism. The April 6 meeting at Barnard Observatory is scheduled in conjunction with the seventh Oxford Conference for the Book and will provide participants

opportunities to attend the April 7-9 program. (For details about the conference, see pages 3 - 4.) Additional information about the April 6 meeting is available by telephone (662915-5993), e-mail (cssc@olemiss.edu), and Internet (www.olemiss.edu/depts/ south). Persons who cannot attend the meeting are encouraged to send the Center information about their organizations bye-mail (cssc@olemiss.edu) or regular mail, addressed to Deep South Humanities Initiative, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, The University of Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677 -1848. As part of the project, the Center wishes to determine the extent of the moving image, still photograph, and oral history collections in the five state region. Institutions with such collections are encouraged to contact Karen Glynn, visual resources curator of the Southern Media Archive, by telephone (662-915-7811) or e-mail (kglynn@olemiss.edu). Repositories are asked to furnish information about the size, content, and format of their collections.

FIRST ELDERHOSTEL PROGRAM

OFFERED FOR FAULKNER CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS In July 2000, for the first time ever, the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference will host a group of students registered through the international Elderhostel program. "We are delighted to offer this program," said Carolyn Vance Smith, president of Educational Travel Associates of Natchez and coordinator of the Faulkner/Elderhostel program for the Southeastern Regional Elderhostel office. , Smith, until recently regional director of Elderhostel for Mississippi and Arkansas, currently develops new programs for the national and regional offices of the nonprofit organization. "The Faulkner conference partnership is ideal for Elderhostel," Smith said. "Participants will attend the entire conference as well as have special Elderhostel-only sessions led by Faulkner experts. And, just for fun, we'll try our hand at writing entries for the Faux Faulkner contest," she said.

Page 6

"Who knows? Maybe an Elderhosteler

will win it next year."

The Elderhostel/Faulkner program, designed for people 55 years old or older of any educational level, is called "From Yoknapatawpha with Love: Faulkner Then, Now, and Always," reflecting the conference theme, "Faulkner in the 21st Century." Cost of the program is $688 per person. The price includes the conference registration fee, lodging for five nights at the Alumni Center Hotel (double occupancy), all meals from supper July 23 through lunch July 28, field trips, and off-campus transportation. A limited number of single-occupancy rooms are available at extra cost. Registration information about the Elderhostel package is available by calling 601-446-1208 or writing P.O. Box 1307, Natchez,

Winter 2000

MS 39121.

The Southern Register

FAULKNER IN THE 21sT CENTURY "Faulkner in the 21st Century,"

the theme of the 27th annual

Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference (July 23-28, 2000), will explore what novelist Wright Morris once called "the territory ahead": the possible changes in the way we read Faulkner, the new issues to be raised, the new contexts to be brought to bear-and, perhaps most provocative, the new Faulkner that may emerge, the Faulkner we may have missed and who is still waiting for us to catch up with him. Among the scholars who will be speaking at the conference for the first time will be Deborah N. Cohn, of McGill University, author of History and Memory in the Two

Other events at the conference will include discussions by Faulkner friends and family; dramatic readings from Faulkner's works, and "Teaching Faulkner" sessions, led by James Carothers, University of Kansas, Robert Hamblin (who will also be presenting a paper), Arlie Herron, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga,

and Charles Peek, University of Nebraska at Kearney. The University's John Davis Williams Library will display Faulkner books, manuscripts, photographs, and memorabilia, and the University Press of Mississippi will exhibit Faulkner books published by university presses throughout the United States. Films relating to the author's life and work

Souths: Recent Southern and Spanish American Fiction; Michael Kreyling, of Vanderbilt University, author of several books, including

Figures of the Hero in Southern Narrative, Author and As"ent: Ewlora Welty and Diarmuid ~ I" Russel, and, most recently, Inventing Southern ~ Literature; Barbara Ladd, of Emory University, ::E Making his first appearance at this author of Nationalism and the Color Line in the summer's Faulkner Conference will Work of George W. Cable, Mark Twain, and be Michael Kreyling, one of the leadWilliam Faulkner; Walter Benn Michaels, of ing commentators on Southern literJohns Hopkins University, author of The ature and culture in the country. He is the author or editor of eight books, Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism and including the provocative study Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Inventing Southern Literature. Pluralism; and Annette Trefzer, who has recently joined the Department of English at the University of Mississippi and is the editor of Reclaiming Native American Identities, as well as several essays on Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. In addition, two scholars who will be returning to the conference are Robert Hamblin, of Southeast Missouri State University, coeditor of Faulkner: A Comprehensive Guide to the Brodsky CoUecrion and coeditor of the recently published William Faulkner Encyclopedia; and Theresa Towner, of the University of Texas at Dallas, author of the forthcoming volume Faulkner on the Color Line: The Later Novels.

will be available for viewing during the week. The conference will begin on Sunday, July 23, with a reception at the University Museums for an exhibition of paintings entitled Lou Jordan: Virginia Gardens and Pathways. Following the reception will be a program during which the winners of the 11 th Faux Faulkner Contest will be announced. Other events will include a Sunday buffet supper served at the home of Dr. and Mrs. M. B. Howorth Jr., a picnic served at Faulkner's home, Rowan Oak, on Wednesday, and a Thursday afternoon party

at the Lewis home, founder of Neilson's department store.

built

in 1859 by the

Among the registrants for the conference will be 30 high school teachers selected from five Southern states, who will receive full fellowships, to be awarded later this spring, funded by Saks Incorporated, on behalf of McRae's, Proffitt's, and Parisian department stores. For more information about the conference contact the Institute for Continuing Studies, P.O. Box 879, The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677 -0879; telephone 662-9157282; fax 662-915-5138, e-mail cstudies @olemiss.edu.

Saks Incorporated Fellowships Available to High School Teachers for Faulkner Conference Thirty high school teachers chosen from applicants in five Southern states will be attending the University's annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference July 23-28 without cost, thanks to fellowships funded by Saks Incorporated Foundation, on behalf of McRae's, Proffitt's and Parisian department stores. English and literature instructors in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee are eligible to apply.

The Southern Register

The Saks Incorporated Fellowships will provide the registration fee for the conference and cover expenses for the Six-day conference' and teacher work-

Requests for fellowship application forms should be submitted to Faulkner Conference-Saks Incorporated Fellowships, The University of

shops, including instructional materials and supplies, dormitory lodging, a travel stipend, and a meal stipend. The University will award 3.9 Continuing Education Units for the teacher workshops and the conference sessions. The application deadline is April 3.

Mississippi, P.O. Box 879, University, MS, 38677-0879. For further information regarding the teacher workshops, teachers may contact the University of Mississippi Institute for Continuing Studies by telephone (662-915-7282) or e-mail (cstudies@olemiss.edu).

Notification

will be made by April 17.

Winter 2000

Page 7

Scott Barretta, New Editor of Living Blues QThe Center

welcomes

Scott Barretta,

new editor of Living

Blues magazine.

Barretta, a native of Virginia from suburban Washington, D.C., received his master's degree in sociology from the University of Virginia. He moved to Oxford after a long stint in Sweden where he edited Jefferson, a Swedish blues magazine published by the nonprofit Scandinavian Blues Association, and worked on his Ph.D. in sociology at Lund University. No stranger to the media side of blues, Barretta is writing his dissertation on how blues has been presented to a white audience, comparing the means through which the music has been marketed to the largely white "revival" audience and the original black listening audience. Both his work at Jefferson and his dissertation topic prove to be solid backing for his new challenge of editing

Living Blues. Jefferson, named after Blind Lemon Jefferson,

is the oldest blues magazine still in existence. Founded in 1968, the magazine

attracts an audience that is mostly Swedish, yet has a large readership in Denmark and Norway as well. Barretta worked for Jefferson for three years, writing, editing, and doing layout. In the capacity of editor, he also coproduced and wrote the lengthy liner notes for I Blueskuarter, ("In the Blues Quarters"), a two CD set of previously unreleased recordings of blues artists made by the Swedish Radio Corporation in Chicago in 1964. A documentary radio series structured around these recordings introduced many Swedes to the blues. An article by Barretta on these programs and the reception of blues music in Sweden more generally will appear later this year in the Black Music Research Journal. While in Sweden Barretta also wrote articles for both popular and academic publications on folk and blues music. Barretta comes to Living Blues with a great admiration for previous editor David Nelson and the direction he led the magazine, focusing primarily on African American artists and culture. As the new editor, Barretta continues to lead the magazine in this direction, making a special effort to focus on those African American artists who play in one community all their lives, but are not featured in the most visible or commercial networks. This vision has already been borne out in Barretta's first issue

Clarence "Gatemouth"

Brown and Scott Barretta in New Orleans

Kansas City to attend a special concert commemorating the recognition to the often-overlooked Kansas City blues community. Held at the Gem Theater in the historic 18th and Vine district, the sold-out concert featured many of the artists featured in the issue, with profits from the show to be used for buying new instruments for the local Mutual Musicians Foundation. Barretta was first introduced to blues as a teenager through friends' records, and he also recalls hearing live blues at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., at a young age. After prodding, he names as his favorite artist Lighrnin' Hopkins, yet he is also a fan of Cajun music, zydeco, bluegrass, rockabilly, and jazz. He has lectured on Southern music at the university level and enjoys being in Oxford because of the University and the Southern Studies program as well as its prime location for blues. Though a lover of travel and a touch lonesome for Swedish culture and friends, Barretta is glad to be where he is-in the middle of the South's musical traditions.

(January/February), which focused on veterans from the Kansas City, Missouri, blues scene. On January 22 Barretta traveled to

THE

MAGAZINE

OF THE

AFRICAN

ANNE

AMERI

BLUES

EVANS

TRADITION

Celebrating Our 30th Year!

SUBCRIBE TODAY AND GET A FREE CD!

1.800.390.3527

FIRST MONDAY SALE AND TRADE DAYS EXHIBITION AT THE TIPPAH COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM When the Library of Congress celebrates its bicentennial on April 24, 2000, a

west side of Highway 15. The 1970s saw it change locations again, this time to an

Mississippi cultural tradition dating back more than a century will be a part of its birthday observance.

abandoned drive-in movie theater across the highway, where the event is now held.

Since 1893, the town of Ripley, Mississippi-the seat of Tippah Countyhas been the site of the First Monday Sale and Trade Days. These monthly gatherings, first held on the courthouse square and later just off the square, provided local farmers who had produce and livestock to trade or sell with an opportunity to meet potential buyers when they came to town. Over the years, Ripley's First Monday has grown far beyond its intended audience and its original purpose. The 1940s witnessed a move to the Tippah County fairgrounds, a mile from downtown on the

Today, even the main trading day has shifted from the first Monday of the month to the weekend before the first Monday to accommodate as many as 50,000 people who come from as far away as Pennsylvania, Indiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Along with goats, pigeons, and pea fowl, attendees now can buy, sell, or trade almost anything imaginable: toys, quilts, video games, sunglasses, auto parts, compact discs, wigs, T-shirts, and miscellaneous items of every description. But as Ripley's First Monday enters a third century, it now has joined a select group of American cultural traditions,

from all 50 states, that have been documented and preserved for posterity. At the suggestion of U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, First Monday in Ripley was recently documented by the Center for inclusion in a Library of Congress bicentennial project known as Local Legacies. David Wharton, director of documentary projects and assistant professor of Southern Studies at Ole Miss, visited Ripley nine times in 1999 to photograph First Monday as one of Mississippi's 11 Local Legacies projects to be featured in bicentennial activities at the Library of Congress this spring. Oral historian Wiley Prewitt Jr. often accompanied Wharton on his trips and interviewed many of the persons being photographed. Under Library of Congress guidelines, a

Goats for sale, First Monday Sale and Trade Days, Ripley, Mississippi

The Southern Register

Winter 2000

!!!!!

Page 9

FIRST MONDAY SALE AND TRADE DAYS

(continued from page 9)

local legacy is a "traditional activity, event or area of creativity that merits being documented for future generations"-a standard which Wharton said Ripley's First Monday Sale and Trade Days readily met. "It's a modem version of what life may have been like in 1900," said Wharton, a recent transplant to Mississippi whose photographic subjects usually encompass some aspect of the rural social landscape. "Ripley's First Monday Sale and Trade Days are a part of

Mississippi culture that goes back more than a hundred years and is alive and well

today." A representative selection of Wharton's First Monday photographs, along with selected portions of Prewitt's interviews, will be officially unveiled at a Library of Congress bicentennial event next May to be attended by Local Legacies participants

...

and their U.S. senators and representatives. But Ripley and Tippah County residents were able to have an advance look at the 69 photographs, which have become part of a permanent exhibition on First Monday at Ripley's Tippah County Historical Museum. Center Director Charles Reagan Wilson and Associate Professor of History and Southern Studies Ted Ownby joined Wharton and Prewitt for a trip to Ripley on January 22 for a special slide preview of the project at the People's Bank Operations Center. In addition to Wharton's slide presentation and comments by Wilson, Ownby, and Prewitt, the program included a welcome by Ripley Mayor Louis Davis and short talks by Tippah County Historical Museum Curator Odalene Coley, Ripley librarian and

Top: Robert Ginn looks at the First Monday exhibition on display at the TIppah County Historical Museum in Ripley. Bottom, from left: Hardie Richardson, David Wharton, Charles Reagan Wilson, and Susan Ditto examine a photograph of Richardson and Jack, a dog he bought at First Monday in 1946. The photograph was made in 1950, the year Jack was named world champion of the American Coon Hunters Association and became one of the few black and tans to earn this

local historian Tommy Covington, and Jerry Windham, son of First Monday proprietor Wayne Windham. The event was well attended. After the program, the crowd repaired to the Museum, where they viewed the photographs firsthand."This was our first exhibit of this kind," museum curator Odalene Coley said. "It's extremely well done and very professional. We've had many compliments on it." The event, the photography exhibition, and the oral histories were partially funded by a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council. The Center, the University of Mississippi Art Department, the Tippah County Historical Museum, and the People's Bank of Ripley also provided support. Donna Buzzard, graduate student in Southern

Studies, assisted with the project. MICHAEL

honor.

HARRELSON

Barnard Observatory Gallery EXHIBITION

SCHEDULE MARCH

Photographs

13 - MAY 31, 2000

from McDade,

Texas

David Wharton JUNE 5 - AUGUST

31,2000

Words and Photographs Bern and Franke Keating SEPTEMBER

Thirty Years Barnard Observatory

Page 10

4 - NOVEMBER

22, 2000

of ULiving

Blues"

is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., except for University holidays. Telephone: 662-915-5993.

Winter 2000

The Southern Register

The Soul of a Small Texas notably, the historical section comes back to the individuals we met in the photography section, so we have a fuller understanding of the backgrounds of people we feel we already know. The book is intriguing in part for what it is not. It is neither a celebration of community nor a lament about community's passing. It has no theory to prove or disprove,

no moderniza-

TOrwrl(c01ldnuedfrompagel)

tion or globalization

thesis to dramatize,

no gemeinschaft turn-

ing into gesellschaft. So many studies of rural people suggest a kind of timeless quality, as if they allow us to look into the eyes of the rural past. By getting to know the people of McDade as individuals-as well as one can get to know people through the medium of a book-The Soul of a Small Texas Town avoids the tendency to turn McDade's residents into examples of a story we already think we know, or, worse yet, into mere data for scholarly analysis. The author clearly likes his subjects, but he does not romanticize them. He takes seriously their disputes over beer sales, the school, and the dancing/no dancing issue at the Watermelon Festival, and he draws a conclusion that should surprise people who imagine small-town life to be calm and harmonious. "As of 1989, no one in McDade seemed able to agree on much of anything." Above all, the book encourages us to know and respect these people, without forcing us to see them as typical of the South, east Texas, declining small towns, or any other unsatisfying generalization. David Wharton is assistant professor and director of documentary projects at the Center, where he teaches courses in

Adeline Eschberger, with a photograph of her grandmother, who emigrated from Germany to Texas in the 1850s

Southern

Studies, fieldwork, and photography. TED OWNBY

Saturday afternoon at Dungan Drugs (better known as Sam Earl's), "uptown" McDade

The Southern Register

Winter 2000

Page 11

Mississippi Folklife to Examine Vernacular Architecture Vernacular

architecture

is the theme

of the next issue of MississiPPi Folklife, a journal published by the Center and supported in part by grants from the Mississippi Arts Commission. Scholars of folklife have largely been interested in two forms of Mississippi architecture: dogtrot homes and huge mansions. This issue studies forms of architecture that have been less often studied: farm houses in northeastern and central Mississippi, juke joints in the Delta and north-central parts of the state, a uniquely Mississippi form of road architecture outside Natchez, buildings that seem to come and go as they catch a photographer's eye, and a roadside "church" in Vicksburg. Full of pho-

ed porches from the front of the house to the back. Jennifer Nardone analyzes the

A review essay in the "Rereading a Classic" section revisits An American

uses and decorations of juke joints. Lori Robbins interprets the meanings of Mammy's Cupboard Restaurant in relation to the Natchez Pilgrimage. Photographer and architect Nils Gore describes his relationship to buildings as part of the Mississippi landscape. A short article describes how a Vicksburg preach-

Exodus, a 1939 work by Dorothea Lange

er uses his house and a uniquely designed bus as part of his ministry.

and Paul Taylor that combined photography and text to document the movement of farming people off the land and, usually, away from the South. One can subscribe to Mississippi Folklife, a twice-yearly publication, for $10.00 by writing to 301 Hill Hall, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677 or by calling 800-390-3527.

tographs, the special issue both documents architectural styles and analyzes their relationship to everyday life. Uniting these pieces is their authors' emphasis on telling the human stories of how people used the buildings. Rather than tracking house types and searching for their origins, the articles study how people use or react to buildings, often in creative ways. Susan Ditto studies how farming people changed their relationships

people around them as they shift-

Saddlebag House: Robert Johnson House, Rankin County, Mississippi

The church and grounds of Reverend H_ D_ Dennis in Vicksburg

Page 12

Winter 2000

The Southern

Readin the South Faulkner Volume Provides Guide for Readers A William Faulkner Encyclopedia. Edited by Robert W. Hamblin and Charles A. Peek. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999. 504 pages. $89.50. Since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950, William Faulkner has been the subject of more than 5,000 scholarly books and articles.

persons, and places; social and cultural developments; and literary and philosophical terms and movements. Entries typically conclude with suggestions for further reading, and the volume closes with a bibliography and detailed index. The volume is dedicated to Evans Harrington (1925 -1997), longtime faculty member of the University of

Among his contemporaries, only James Joyce has received as much critical attention. Academic and critical interest in his work has been matched by popular acclaim, with some of his works adapted for the cinema. During the last five decades, growing numbers of Faulkner admirers from all over the world have traveled to Mississippi to visit his home Left: Robert W. Hamblin and to the area that is the prototype for his fictional Jefferson and Yoknapatawpha County. Mississippi and director of the annual A book recently published by Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Greenwood Press provides a welcome Conference from its inception in 1974 guide and ready reference for Faulkner's until his retirement in 1993. Evans lifelong admirers and first-time readers. Harrington-described in the dedica-

A William

Faulkner

compiled and edited Hamblin and Charles authoritative guide to literature, and legacy. scholars contributed to

Encyclopedia, by Robert W. A. Peek, is an Faulkner's life, More than 50 the work, which

includes nearly 500 alphabetically arranged entries for topics relating to Faulkner and his world. Included are entries for his works and major characters and themes, as well as the literary and cultural contexts in which his texts were conceived, written, and published. There are also entries for relatives, friends, and other persons important to Faulkner's biography; historical events,

tion as "Teacher, Writer, Scholar, Citizen, Gentleman, Friend"-was a mentor to the encyclopedia editors, many of the contributors, and many who will benefit from it.

Politics, Society, and the Klan in Alabama, 1915-1949. By Glenn Feldman. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999.456 pages. $49.95 cloth: $19.95 paper. In Southern history, the second phase of the Ku Klux Klan-the period from 1915 into the 1930s-is by far the least studied. The first phase during

Book Reviews and Notes by Faculty, Staff, Students, and Friends of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture

The Southern Register

Reconstruction and the third phase that grew in response to the civil rights movement have attracted far more attention, so a book that surveys Klan activity from 1915 to 1949 is immediately important. The so-called Second Klan is famous as a national movement that reacted in anger to many changes in modernizing America but aspired to be a mainstream civic organization for conservative white Protestants. Glenn Feldman lays out the various features of the second version of the Klan in Alabama. Klansmen and women supported civic patriotism, Protestant churches, and a public identity aspiring to respectability. They opposed the sale of alcohol, prostitution, sexual and family life that offended conventional standards, and public actions by immigrants, especially Jews or Catholics. Above all, they reacted both violently and politically against violations of codes of racial segregation. The specifically Southern features of this Klan were the centrality of anti-black sentiment, the romanticization of the first Klan, and the dominance of Methodists and Baptists. The most active point of the second phase Klan in Alabama was 1925-1927. In the mid-I920s, membership in Alabama Klans reached about 115,000. The Klan had enormous power in electing political figures in 1926, helping elect Klansmen as governor and senator. Inspired by those successes, Alabama Klansmen went on a violent tear in 192 7, whipping and flogging countless violators of their ideals. The book is best at detailing the specific features and events of the Ku Klux

For these and other books call 800-648-4001 or fax 601-234-9630'1

Winter 2000

~~~ 11

160 Courthouse Square路

Oxford, Mississippi38655

~~UA~g Page 13

Reading the South continued Klan. The reader is most impressed by the stories-narratives of 1926 Klan raids on Chinese restaurants in Birmingham for selling alcohol, 192 7 beatings of white teenagers Jeff Callaway and Fannie Daniels and black landowner Arthur Hitt, and a raid on a Girl Scout Camp in 1948. The author does a good job describing the organized opponents of the Klan. Traditional elites Feldman calls "patricians" combined with city business leaders to mount serious opposition to Klan political power. The author also shows the limits of the vision of Klan opponents, who wanted order and a peaceful business climate, but generally not a more open and just society. In the 1930s, a declining Klan membership of about 5,000 concentrated on a few specific issues-the Scottsboro case, labor radicalism, and controversies over the appointment of Alabama Klansman Hugo Black to the Supreme Court. Feldman breaks new ground by showing that the KKK grew in membership and activism during the 1940s, when World War II nativism and oppo-

The essays are partly historiographical, and Cobb offers sage comments on the works of other scholars who have wrestled with issues of the South's development. "Beyond Planters and Industrialists" is a classic chapter, which the Southern Historical Association honored as the best article of the year in the Journal of in 1988. This wideranging review of scholarship is an excellent place to begin any understanding of Southern economic development. He examines the seeming ten-

when

it appeared

Southern

History

sions between industrial development and agriculture after the Civil War,

as a significant

IVIind & Identitv in the Modern South

embraced the regional culture with much affection, having in the process redefined it as one they created. He concludes that the civil rights movement gave Southerners "the opportunity, or better yet, the responsibility to save southern culture." Cobb is witty and always stimulat-

TED OWNBY

ing in bringing together issues of the South's cultural identity and its eco-

Athens: University

of Georgia Press, 1999. 251 pages. $40.00 cloth, $17.95 paper. James C. Cobb's new book of essays focuses on the economic development of the South and the cultural implications of the South's modernization. His major argument is that "the South's journey toward economic modernization came in a different historical, cultural, technological, and resource context than did that of the North." He draws from the South's experience broader meanings, stressing the failure of anyone model of development to explain modernity.

Page 14

culture

in historical context. Cobb protests the overemphasis in Southern historical study on continuities and changes, noting that scholars wanting to write on other issues "must do so with great care lest they be trampled by the galloping cavalry" that W. J. Cash used to symbolize planter dominance throughout Southern history or be "crushed by the bourgeois-piloted bulldozers" that C. Vann Woodward

opponent

Redefining Southern Culture: Mind and Identity in the Modern South. C. Cobb.

places these forms of Southern

very contemporary effort of whites and blacks in the South to find common ground. In the postsegregation South, African Americans seem to have

civil rights activism.

By James

ly, read about Bill Monroe and Alice Walker. The book's essays on country music, the blues, and the Southern Literary Renaissance are original and interesting, among the best writing that

employed as the "vehicles of change." Perhaps the most compelling chapter is on "Community and Identity in the South," in which Cobb explores the

sition to mounting African American activism sparked new interest in the Klan. Feldman thus shows a degree of continuity between the second phase Klan and the better known Klan that emerged

nomic theory so that we also, thankful-

nomic development-as no one else writing on the South does so well. concluding that both systems rested "in a regional economy where labor-intensive industry and labor-intensive agriculture maintained a delicate coexistence." The book shows the changes in the 20th century as industry came to surpass agriculture, and the coverage includes sage thoughts on the South's position in the ,global economy. Cobb emphasizes throughout

this

book, in fact, that the South's economy always needs to be seen in terms of its position in the national and international economic systems. He makes appropriate use of such theorists as Reinhard Bendix and Immanuel Wallerstein. His feel for Southern culture, though, takes him beyond eco-

Winter 2000

CHARLES

Reflections

REAGAN

of South

Photographs by Robert

WILSON

Carolina.

C. Clark.

Text by Tom Poland. Foreword by Walter Edgar. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999. 195 pages, 193 color photographs. $39.95.

Reflections

of South

Carolina is not the

first or last coffee table book one will every need, but it is one of the musthaves. Nearly 200 color images ranging from Civil War reenactments, coastal shrimping, slave cabins, and the everyday enjoyableness of South Carolina are to be found in this 10" x 12", 195-page,

The Southern Register

Reading the South continued hardbound

treasure. There is something

for everyone in Reflections. Nature lovers, historians, and antique hunters will find their interests reflected as they unfold these treasures county by county. Images dominate the book with just

Won

clers

!7Jeho/cI

enough text to keep the pages flowing. If there is one word to sum up the best of these pages it would be contrast. Photographer Robert Clark has done a remarkable job in capturing the energy of the state: the speed of horse power at the Colonial Cup steeplechase, the slow moving Sumter Irish parade, replete with color, the gentleness required from the mud covered hands of an Edgefield County potter. These and the many images overflowing in Reflections of South Carolina begin the never ending trail of Southern contrast. The bright blue/green landscape dotted with 300 rolled bales of hay, with the ubiquitous three crosses standing guard; the waterfall of blue and yellow kayaks in Easley, window washers high atop a modern building; children hunting eggs and racing frogs; these are the images that construct a state, filled with diversity of industry, people, places, and not to be outdone, by things. Big things, little things, and things in between, commonly referred to as antiques ranging from duck decoys, saw palmetto baskets, tin solders, and rocking chairs. For the "never have been" to the "returnee,"

Reflections of South Carolina lets you see exactly what you are missing when you are not there. PHOENIX SAVAGE

Wonders to Behold: The Visionary Art of Myrtice West. Edited by Carol Crown. Memphis: Mustang Publishing,

1999.

144 pages. $50.00.

in her marriage, had cancer, and an abusive son-in-law murdered her beloved daughter Martha Jane. She has taken care of her own mother as she aged and cares for her husband, who has cancer, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It aches to recount the pain and sacrifice of Myrtice West's story, but it is essential background to her vibrant art. She finds redemption for her pain in painting scenes that explode out of the Southern religious context that produced her. She is an evangelical Protestant, ever believing in the possibility of salvation. This evocative book is sharply focused on a series of 13 works West painted around the themes of the book of Revelation. She painted the series during her time of awful personal turmoil, and the work helped her preserve her sanity. Rollin Riggs, an art collector who first became famous for Elvis

of northeastern Alabama and has had a hard life. She was poor and picked

black velvet p,aintings and then became a sensitive collector of Southern folk art, bought the series, and his publishing company has brought West the attention that one of the preeminent contemporary Southern folk artists deserves. Carol Crown, who was trained as a historian of medieval art and teaches at the

cotton. She had two miscarriages

University

Myrtice

West

is a contemporary

Southern folk artist, representative of the extraordinary outcropping of visionary painters who are a contemporary expression of Southern creativity. She is from the rural white culture

The Southern Register

early

of Memphis,

Winter 2000

has superbly

edited the book, reflecting her expertise as a scholar of religious iconography and her deep knowledge of the works of self-taught artists.

Wonders to Behold is a well-executed interdisciplinary study. Folklorist Roger Manley analyzes the most vivid and original of West's paintings, Satan Takes Over, which came to her in a horrifying dream. Miriam Fowler, from the Birmingham Museum of Art, discusses West's depiction of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden in light of the artist's own experience with her family, while Rebecca Hoffberger provides a complex, feminist reading of West's

Woman Christ.

on the Moon Giving Birth to Adding

much

gusto

and

insight, Howard Finster comments on one of the paintings, drawing from his own visionary work. The paintings in this book were exhibited at the University of Memphis Art Museum, and the staff there, along with Riggs and Crown, deserve much credit for providing excellent presentations of Myrtice West's work. She hopes her paintings will save souls; they represent her form of the traditional evangelical belief in testifying to the faith. Her paintings of Revelation images are strikingly original and should indeed touch many souls who ponder them.

Page 15

Reading the South continued vogue. Nonetheless,

NORTH TOWARD HOME

Mama

Dip and Weaver D tell stories all their own, stories worth knowing. Council's Mama Dip's Kitchen is the more conventional of the two: a book of recipes from her Chapel Hill,

By Willie Morris Introduction by Edwin M Yoder, Jr. In honor and memo'\of this beloved author'sliterary lega~y,a commemorative &lition of hiS1il1ighly-praised aphy

North Carolina, restaurant-banana pudding and crackling cornbread, fruitcake and fried chicken, and other Southern favoritesintroduced by a 27 -page recollection from Council. She calls her method of cookery "dump cooking," and the description reads like a modified version of the soul food explications that were rife in the 1970s. "Dump cooking means no recipes, just measure by eye and feel and taste and testing," she writes.

Mama Dip's Kitchen. By Mildred Council. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. 230 pages. $27.50 cloth, $15.95 paper.

Automatic Y' all: Weaver D's Guide to the Soul. By Dexter Weaver with Patrick Allen. Athens, Georgia: Hill Street Press, 1999.187 pages. $17.50. The culinary memoir with recipes is the literary genre of the moment. In 1998 Ruth Reichel's Tender at the Bone and Elizabeth David's South Wind through the Kitchen-and a dozen or so lesser works-fanned the flames of cooks with their noses in books. In 1999 Southerners-specifically African American Southerners-got their due, with the publication of Mama Dip's Kitchen by Mildred Council and Automatic Y'all: Weaver D's Guide to the Soul by Dexter Weaver. To be sure, these are not the first such books penned by African Americans with Southern roots. Books like Vertamae Grosvenor's Vibration Cooking or the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl and Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine by sisters Norma Jean and Carole Darden have remained popular since the 1970s when soul food was first in

Page 16

Winter 2000

"Cooking by feel and taste has been heritage among black American women since slavery, and that's the way I learned to cook." Automatic Y'all is a different bird all together, equal parts hip lifestyle primer, entrepreneurial history, and four-point plan for soulful living, with a selection of recipes tacked to the back end. Weaver, an Athens, Georgia, restauranteur who rose to international prominence when the rock group REM adopted his slogan "Automatic for the People" as the tile for their Grammynominated album, offers opinions on everything from backsliding vegetarians with a taste for bacon drippings in their collard greens ("Some of those vegetarians'll eat a little pork if the pig has his back turned"), to the eating habits of our Northern neighbors: "For one thing, they just never sit down to have a square meal, meat and three. They just eat sandwiches all the time, sandwiches, sandwiches, sandwiches. Just sandwiching it and hitting it, getting on the get-go." In response, Weaver offers a contrarian's bounty of black pot cooking, ranging from oxtails to spaghetti pie, squash casserole to stewed okra. JOHN

T. EDGE

The Southern Register

Southern ~oodwavsRe~ister CENTER

FOR

THE

STUOY

SOUTHERN

CULTURE

THE

UNIVERSITY

MISSISSIPPI

Letter from the Executive Director he Southern Foodways Alliance has been generating a great deal of positive press coverage in the weeks and months following our 1999 Southern Foodways Symposium in Oxford, including articles in the Atlanta] ournal-Constitution, the Charlotte Observer, the St. Petersburg Times, the Dallas Morning News, Gourmet, and Spirit, the in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines. The membership committee plans to leverage this media attention in an effort to garner more members. As of February, rolls stand at approximately 125 individuals and institutions, with 300 members projected by August 2000. The program committee met recently in New Orleans to begin exploring topics for this year's symposium, tentatively slated for the weekend of October 21. Among the topics being considered is

"Travel in' On: Routes and Influences of Southern Food Beyond the Region." In other words, what happens when Southerners-and by extension Southern foodways-move west, north, even across the Atlantic? Many of you-aware that the first two gatherings sold out quickly-have already contacted me about registration procedures for this year's symposium. Rest assured that SFA members will be offered an opportunity for early registration. In a related matter, the fundraising committee is working with potential sponsors in an effort to expand the symposium's impact. Among the ideas being considered are adding a postsymposium event in Memphis, Tennessee, and hosting a summer Southern Foodways Alliance event in another Southern city. Last, and certainly not least, the SFA is pleased to announce that our program of oral history collection is now under way. In concert with the

Baton Rouge file maker Lionel Key Page 17

opens in 2001, they will be incorporated in a series of exhibits on regional food habits. If you don't already know about the American Center, you should. They plan to foster traditional and experimental programs in viticulture, enology, agriculture, cuisine, artistic and literary expression, the study of the history, science, and politics of food, nutrition and health, and such emerging issues as sustainable agriculture and world food supply. Complete with auditorium, concert terraces, demonstration kitchen, classrooms, restaurant, gift shop, exhibition galleries, resource center and gardens, the American Center will present a lively array of public programs, including films, classes, readings,

Leah Chase, of Dooky Chase restaurant in New Orleans American Center for Wine Food and the Arts of Napa, California, we have more than 30 life stories on videotape. Under the direction of Daphne Derven, curator of the American Center, we captured interviews with, among many others, New Orleans restauranteur Leah Chase, Baton Rouge file maker Lionel Key, catfish farmer Ed Scott of Drew, Mississippi, and cookbook author and culinary historianJohn Martin Taylor of Charleston, South Carolina. Soon, the tapes will be available to visiting researchers here at the University of Mississippi. And, when the American Center

Foodways Three

Women

and Their

Restaurants

The Newcomb College Center for Research on Women at Tulane University in New Orleans, from April 15 through May 8, will present an exhibition on the lives of three New Orleans women and their restaurants. The exhibition will feature menus, china, and other artifacts from the restaurants, as well as photographs and written accounts documenting the lives of Elizabeth Begue, Marie Esparbe, and Corinne Dunbar. For those unaware of the three, a brief synopsis of their careers is warranted: Corinne Dunbar's grand Garden District restaurant was in operation from the 1930s until the 1970s. Maylie's was opened originally as a coffee shop in the Poydras Market by Madame Esparbe. By 1876, it had moved to a larger building across the street and soon became famous around the world, remaining so until its closing in 1986. In 1863 Dutrey's Coffee House began as a Decatur Street cafe run by Madame Begue and her first husband. She remarried after his death and changed the restaurant's name to Begue's in 1880. Breakfast at Begue's became nationally known during the Cotton Exposition of 1885. In her own way, each woman left a mark on New Orleans restaurant history.

Page 18

Events

lectures, demonstrations, tastings, and workshops. The American Center will be situated on 12 acres fronting the banks of the Napa River and will celebrate its grand opening in the fall of 200l. In a recent conversation with Derven, she stressed the importance of working with the SFA: "Our mission as a cultural museum and education center is to explore wine and food by means of the arts and humanities. And we plan to rely upon the Southern Foodways Alliance for expertise in the South." For further information, point your web browser to www.theamericancenter.org. To my mind, this is just the type of relationship that the SFA should seek out. If any of you have suggestions for similar partnerships, please contact me via email at johnt@dixie-net.com or by phone at 662-915-5993. JOHN T. EDGE

and Announcements

The exhibition will run in conjunction with an April 15 conference titled Cuisine de la Coeur-New Orleans' Love Affair with Food. Prospective registrants should contact Tulane's Office of Alumni Affairs at 504-865-5901 or visit the Tulane Alumni web page, http://alumni.tulane.edu.

Grits, Greens, and Everything in Between: Foods of the African Diaspora and Their Transformations in America This summer, the Culinary Historians of Chicago, in cooperation with the Chicago Historical Society and the University of Illinois Press, will present a two-day symposium on African American food, titled "Grits, Greens, and Everything in Between: Foods of the African Diaspora and Their Transformations in America." Papers presented at the June 24-25 conference will explore African and African American culinary history, food's role in African American culture, and food businesses in the social, political, and economic life of African American communities around the nation, including Chicago's historic Bronzeville. Additional activities such as bus tours, food tasting events, a book signing, and a screening of the film Soul

Food will supplement the conference. For more information,

Winter 2000

contact

Susan

Ridgeway

of the Culinary

Chicago at 815-439-3960 susan.ridgeway@wl.com.

Historians

or via email at

Writer's Colony with Culinary Emphasis Debuts The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH), in the Ozark Mountain resort town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, will open its doors on June 5,2000. The MidSouth's first writers' colony, it will provide writers with residency fellowships of one to three months' duration. Residency is by application; if accepted, writers pay on a sliding scale, and there are several fellowships that cover all expenses. WCDH is located at the site of the former Dairy Hollow House Country Inn and Restaurant. The nonprofit organization was cofounded by SFA charter members Ned Shank and Crescent Dragonwagon, the former innkeepers. Oragonwagon says that reaching out to culinary writers is one of the Colony's priorities. Just as important is the interdisciplinary mix, with culinary writers taking their place with novelists, poets, composers, and others. Download an application form at www.writerscolony.org, or send an SASE requesting a form to WCDH, 515 Spring Street, Eureka Springs, AR 72632.

The Southern Register

Silver Rights: Photographs from the MississiPPi Delta Brought Carter Family Struggle to Life at Barnard Observatory Gallery Mae Bertha Carter was a foot soldier in the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi. The now deceased Delta sharecropper never sought newspaper headlines or received the notoriety achieved by other civil rights strategists and activists. Rather, Carter's passion for justice and equality was rooted in a singular dream she shared with her husband, Matthew: to get their 13 children out of the cotton fields. But more than three decades after she defied "J im Crow" and sent her seven youngest children to integrate the Drew, Mississippi, ,. school system, the University of ~ Mississippi paid tribute to Carter, ~ one of the unheralded giants of Mae Bertha Carter (left) with her Aunt Bert, Sunflower River social change, with a photography exhibition in its Center for the Study of Southern Culture. In January and February, the public viewed Silver Rights:

Bertha Carter. My sister was doing oral histories of the Carter family. She had enough material to put together her book."

Photographs from the MississiPPi Delta in the Barnard Observatory Gallery. The exhibition recalled the triumphant story of the Carters' struggle to claim their civil rights as seen through the eyes of Knoxville, Tennessee, photographer Ann Curry. The show-consisting of 31 black-and-white images chosen

Described as "a powerful antidote to cynicism and a welcome tribute to the power of faith" by Hodding Carter III, the bookwhich includes photographs of Drew and Sunflower County shot by Ann Curry on her visits to the Delta-takes its title from a passage in a book by novelist Alice Walker, In Search of Our

by Curry from more than 300 she took in the Delta over a fiveyear period beginning in 1989-chronicled the power of the human spirit to endure trying circumstances. While individual

Mother's Gardens.

portraits of the Carters at various stages of their lives seem as typical as those in any family photo album, a defining strength is added to the exhibit through juxtaposed images-such as the barn where Emmett Till was thought to have been murdered in 1955, abandoned cotton gins, city scenes, and the high school central to the Carter's story.

has no poetry. It makes one think of the bureaucrats rather than of sweaty faces, eyes bright and big for Freedom!, marching feet .... Older black country people did their best to instill what accurate poetry they could into this essentially white civil servants' term ... so that what one heard was 'Silver.'''

Unlike most exhibitions, where the viewer is often left to read between the lines for meaning and detail, Silver Rights: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta offers the added bonus of being part of a wider, collaborative effort in the form of a book, Silver Rights, on the same subject. The photography project came about as a result of Curry's traveling to Drew with her sister, ' Constance Curry, an Atlanta writer and civil rights activist who first met Carter while serving as a field representative for the American Friends Service Committee from 1964 to 1975. "In 1989, my sister Connie asked me to travel with her to Drew to meet Mrs. Carter," Ann Curry said in a recent interview. "I went to photograph the town and Mrs. Carter and her family. I didn't have any project in mind. Over the next five years, I visited

"Although I value the Civil Rights Movement deeply," writes Walker, "I have never liked the term itself. It has no music, it

The Ole Miss exhibition followed an opening in Clarksdale at the Delta Blues Museum and showings in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Asheville, North Carolina. As part of the activities surrounding the opening at the Center, Ann and Connie Curry took part in a noon brown bag lecture January 19 in the Center. The official opening reception took place later the same day, with Carter family members and friends in attendance. While the public saw "a sprinkling of history" and a view of the Mississippi Delta's past in scenes like Drew's now demolished Reno Dance Club, Ann Curry said her hope was that viewers would come away from Silver Rights: Photographs from the MississiPPi Delta with another lasting impression. "I hope they get a personal glimpse of what a powerful woman Mrs. Carter was, and how she touched so many people."

the town five times and took photos. We would travel with Mae

The Southern Register

Winter 2000

MICHAEL HARRELSON

Page 19

SMITH NAMED DIRECTOR OF SOUTHERN CULTURAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION Ted J. Smith has been named executive Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation Mississippi.

The Foundation

operates

director of the in Vicksburg,

the five-building

The first topic is "St. Francis Memories," with interviews of former students, teachers, and administrators from the school

that was operated

in the buildings

for 130 years.

Southern Cultural Heritage Complex, located at the historic St. Francis Xavier Convent and School, home of the Sisters of Mercy from 1860 to 1991. The Center for the Study of Southern Culture has assisted with the development of the Complex since the City of Vicksburg purchased the property in June 1994. "The Center played a pivotal role in the creation of our organization and continues to provide us with invaluable support," said Smith. "I thoroughly enjoy working with the Center's faculty and staff. Their support continues to make a great difference as our organization strives to become an outstanding cultural activities center that preserves and interTed Smith, director of the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation in Vicksburg prets the diverse cultural heritage of Vicksburg, the Mississippi Delta, and Smith has also been busy with many other events at the the American South." Complex. In July, it was used for filming of scenes for 0, Smith's duties include working on the restoration and Brother, Where Art Thou?, produced and directed by Joel and development of the Complex while running its day-to-day Ethan Coen of Raising Arizona and Fargo fame. The fourth operations. For these tasks he is well qualified. Smith earned a bachelor's degree in administrative management and a master's in history from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He worked for the Arkansas Territorial Restoration in Little Rock and the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale,

annual Historic Vicksburg Landscape Symposium was held in October, and the second Red Tops Revisited Reception and Dance took place on November 7. Information about these and other activities is available on the Complex's new

Arkansas, before entering the doctoral program in history at the University of Mississippi. He is writing his dissertation on

web site (www.southernculture.org). For additional information or to make a tax-deductible contribution to help restore the buildings or assist with pro-

Southern migration during the 19th century. Since moving to Vicksburg last April, Smith has reinstated the humanities lecture series and other proj ects that lapsed during the absence of a director. He has also inaugurated new initiatives, among them an oral history program.

grams, contact Ted J. Smith, Executive Director, Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation, 1302 Adams Street, Vicksburg, MS 39183; e-mail tjs@southernculture.org; telephone 601-631-2997;

fax 601-631-3734.

THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SOUTHERN CULTURE AND THE SOUTHERN CULTURAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION PROUDLY PRESENT

@Y! (~;{11i;:itJ~f7;O:iL90/Zbtad An Online

Photography

Exhibit featuring

Vicksburg and Warren County

during the 19305, as seen by FSA Photographers

WWw.southernculture.org/exhibits.htm Preview the Vicksburg/Warren County segment of the Southern Media Archive's upcoming CD-Rom, A Mississippi Portrait on the web. The web site showcases the 44 images made in Vicksburg/Warren County during the Great Depression by Farm Security Administration photographers. The CD-Rom will include over 1200 images from Mississippi and is scheduled to be released in Spring 2000. For more information of the CD-Rom, contact the Southern Media Archive at 662.915.7811.

Page 20

Winter 2000

The Southern Register

FRIENDS OF THE WILLIAMS LIBRARY Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part article dealing with Friends of the Library. The second part will appear in the next issue. donor gave the last segment of funds for the Coptic manuscripts.After More than half a century has passed since Friends of the Library paying for the New York Times, Friendsturned to acquiringother newswas first organized at the University of Mississippi. Its first years, papers on microfilm and early American research materials. In this when the university grew enormously from the influx of veterans of manner thousands of pages of research material were added to the World War II, are now so shrouded in obscurity that little is known library. As contributions increased, Friends began to buy books about them. The reorganization of Friends in 1953, however, through its agency account in the university and the library. remains a clear landmark to those who participated in it. Bookplateswere designed and inserted in each book to show the name The reorganization in 1953 coincided with several events. of the donor and the person honored (both deceased and living). Professor David Robinson, who discovered the Greek remains at In the 1950s and 1960s Friends did not enjoy the uncritical supOlympus and who retired to Ole Miss from the Johns Hopkins port of everyone. Many faculty members and administrators thought University, purchased a very rare collection of Coptic manuscripts that the library had enough books to support a small liberal arts instiduring an expedition to the Middle East. Five Ole Miss professors tution with an emphasis upon teaching and not research. When and deans had signed a note to repay him, and university personnel Friends was asked to administer the sizable Billups and Barksdale asked Friends of the Library to raise the money. funds, it canvassed the various departments and schools to find out The Friends also emerged out of a need to coordinate the logistheir library needs. A considerable number replied that they had tics of gifrs to the library. A person who was known throughout the enough books. In fact, every year many state could best direct an appeal for private departments failed to spend their annual donations. Mrs. Robert McClain, wife of an library allotment. On those occasions Friends executive of the Southern Railway, became stood ready to utilize these last-minute funds. chair of the newly reorganized Friends of the During these years Friends made some Library. She directed the program, representTo Honor notable additions to the library. Among ed Friends of the Library, and set up an Donor them, in addition to the New York Times, accounting system for Friends. Dr. John Friends added microfilm of early American Pilkington, a "fresh-caught" assistant profesmagazines, microforms of early accounts of sor in the English department, who had mantravels throughout the South, a complete file ifested a zeal for the library, became secretaryof Vanity Fair, many UNESCO art books, treasurer. His job was to write thank-you the multivolume Grove dictionary of music, notes, deposit the contributions, and help rare Southern books, photographs of the with appeals for contributions. Friends of the Faulkner family, and scores of scholarly books. Friends also particiLibrary was to have its own bank account in Oxford and an agency pated in the efforts of acquisitions librarian Tommy Tullos to build account with the university. It made its purchases through the an extensive collection of secondary material relating to Faulkner. library. Thus it was, and still is, a semi-autonomous organization. The 1970s saw changes in Friends of the Library. In 1974 Mrs. The main function of Friends was to support the library, and the McClain retired, and Dr. Pilkington took over the work of Friends. primary goal of Friends in 1953, and for a time thereafter, was to Other members of the executive board of Friends either retired or raise funds to pay for the Coptic manuscripts. They consisted of a were deceased. The racial tensions of the 1960scontinued to influnumber of papyri and a single book written in Coptic. This last was ence the flow of contributions. one of the oldest volumes in existence, of priceless value. Together The mid-1970s, however, marked a turning point in the focus Mrs. McClain and Dr. Pilkington prepared letters to alumni and of the university. Senior university administrators began to push others requesting donations for the purchase. Ole Miss in the direction of research and publication. The legisMeanwhile, the chair and secretary-treasurer had other ideas. lature appropriated money called "library catch-up" funds. At They wished to help the library acquire greater research resources. Ole Miss the Graduate School under the leadership of Dean They saw microforms as the best and least expensive way to acquire Joseph Sam distributed these funds to stress research. With help such materials. Their first project was to purchase the New York from the Graduate School the library purchased five Recordak Times newspaper on microfilm at a cost of $6,000, a considerable sum microfilm reader-printers that made this research material easily in those days. accessible. The climate of opinion within and without the Solicitations ofren combined the two projects in the same letter. ' library became more and more cognizant of the role of research. Sometimes an insert showed the number of volumes in the Ole Miss in the university. By 1980 clearly Friends of the Library needed library,as compared with those in neighboring state universities. Ole another reorganization-the subject of the second article on Miss was always at the bottom of the list. During these years Hugh Friends of the Library to appear in the next issue of the Southern Clegg was director of university development and in charge of solicRegister. iting funds for the university. He did not allow Friends of the Library For additional information or to make a contribution, write to ask for money from "big-spenders" for fear they would give Friends Friends of the Library of the University of Mississippi, P.O. Box a small amount and consider they had done enough. Friends was thus 473, University, MS 38677-0473. a relatively small operation-and still is. FRIENDS

THE

UNIVERSITY

THE

fiBI

LIBRARY

MISSISSIPPI

JOHN PILKINGTON

The two projects took years to complete. At the end, a wealthy

Page 21

Winter 2000

The Southern Register

CRAIG SEPTEMBER

CLAIBORNE

4, 1920 - JANUARY

22, 2000

Native of Sunflower, Mississippi Acclaimed Food Critic and Editor for the New York TImes Cookbook Author East Hampton, New York

EMMA KNOWLTON DECEMBER

LYTLE

3, 1911- FEBRUARY 21, 2000

Artist, Poet, Filmmaker, Art Patton, Friend Perthshire Boliver County, Mississippi

ANNA KEIRSEY ROSAMOND McLEAN JULY

8, 1906 - FEBRUARY 26, 2000

Newspaper Publisher, Community Supporter of Education Tupelo, Mississippi

Lucy JUNE

Leader,

8, 1999

Longtime Member Center's Advisory Committee Vicksburg, Mississippi :e: 1f:E=ÂŁ

WALTER OSBORNE NOVEMBER

13, 1903 - NOVEMBER

SR.

The Water Valley Casey Jones Railroad Museum in Water Valley, Mississippi, will observe the 100th anniversary of the Casey Jones wreck at Vaughan on Saturday and Sunday,

23, 1999

Founding Member, Drummer, Manager Famous Red Tops Dance Band Vicksburg, Mississippi

NOTES JOHN

T. EDGE, director

travel. He WADE WALTON OCTOBER

Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, will host a Summer Institute of Christian Spirituality comprised of biblical, historical, pastoral, and moral courses led by faculty from its division of philosophy and theology. Session 1 will be held June 4-10, and session 2 will be June 1117. For more information contact Pat Warren, coordinator of the Institute, at 334-380-4672.

MONEY

18, 1921 - SEPTEMBER

April 29 and 30. Events are also planned in Jackson, Tennessee, and at :Vaughan, Mississippi. For information, contact Museum Curator J. K. Gurner at 662-473-2849 or gurnerjk@watervalley.net. The museum web site is hh t:/ /www.watervalley.net/users/ caseyjones/home.htm.

The Southern Women Writers Conference will take place at Berry College April 13-15, 2000. Featured speakers will include literary scholars Peggy Prenshaw and Susan Ketchin and authors Nikki Giovanni, George Ella Lyon, Jill McCorkle, and Brenda Marie Osbey. For information, contact Emily Wright, English Department, Berry College. P.O. Box 495010, Mount Berry, GA 30149; e-mail ewright@ berry.edu; telephone 706-233-4081; fax 706-238-7827.

10,1923

- JANUARY

ON of the Southern

CONTRIBUTORS Foodways Alliance,

writes about Southern

food and

the author of A Gracious Goodness: Recipes and Recollections from the American

South, recently published

by Putnam.

10, 2000

Barber and Blues Musician Played Blues at His Barber Shop International Shrine for Blues Fans Clarksdale, Mississippi

ANNE

EVANS

is a second-year

B.A. from Notre

graduate

student

Dame, she lived in California

in Southern

Studies.

After receiving

her

for three years. Her primary interests are liter-

ature and writing. MICHAEL

University

HARRELSON

is a writer for the public relations

and marketing

department

at the

of Mississippi.

C. VANN WOODWARD NOVEMBER

13, 1908 - DECEMBER

17, 1999

Native of Vanndale, Arkansas Renowned Historian of the American South Hamden, Connecticut

EARLY WRIGHT FEBRUARY

10, 1915 - DECEMBER

10, 1999

Legendary Disc Jockey Host of Soul Man on WROX for More than 50 Years Clarksdale, Mississippi

is a bookseller

JAMIE KORNEGAY

and a freelance

at Square Books, editor of the store's Dear Reader newsletter,

writer. He lives in Water Valley, Mississippi.

TED OWNBY holds a joint

appointment

in Southern

Studies

JOHN

is distinguished

PILKINGTON

a two-volume PHOENIX

edition

CHARLES

is African

REAGAN

Among

professor emeritus

of English. Among

of the works of Stark Young and a book on William

SAVAGE is a second-year

area of iriterest

Studies.

graduate

magico-medical

WILSON

is director

his publications

student

in medical

Winter 2000

his publications

are

Faulkner.

anthropology.

Her primary

systems in Mississippi. of the Center

and professor of History and Southern

are Baptized in Blood: The Religion

Judgment and Grace in Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner

Page 22

and History. He is the author of

Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920 and American Dre~ms in Mississippi: Consumers, Poverty, and Culture, 1830-1998.

of the Lost

Cause and

Elvis.

The Southern Register

Gift Ideas Voices of Perthshire Voices of Perthshire depicts life on a Mississippi Delta cotton plantation from 1938 to 1942, as seen through the home movie camera of Emma Knowlton lytle. Mrs. lytle donated the original silent 8mm film to the Southern Media Archive. Producers Karen Glynn and Peter Slade added recorded commentary from both the filmmaker and retired Perthshire farm warkers ta the film. Voices of Perthshire depicts the full cycle of a cotton crop from breaking the ground, to making a bale, to weaving cloth in the textile mills af North Carolina. (Voices of Perthshire is a new release from the Southern Media Archive, replacing Raisin' Cotton.)

VQ~~cettPerthshire

V3001

1999, 63 minutes $25.00

liThe Memory Is a Living Thing"

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