A Study of Letters Written in the 1930s by Mountain People Displaced by the Creation of Shenandoah National Park

FAIN: FA-52141-05

Katrina Mary Powell
Louisiana State University and A&M College (Baton Rouge, LA 70803-0001)

Rhetorics of Displacement focuses on a situated literacy event: letters written by displaced Virginia mountain families to U.S. government officials in the 1930s. The 300-letter collection reveals a moment in American history where the social/political climate was ripe for this relocation. Through rhetorical and discourse analyses, this project considers literacy as social and symbolic action and explores what individual literate acts say about educational practices. This socioliteracy study places competing discourses about the region’s history alongside contemporary literacy theory to uncover complexities in resisting social position. The resulting analyses contribute to evolving theories of literacy and identity.

Media Coverage

Review of The Anguish of Displacement (Review)
Author(s): Catherine Christen
Publication: Public Historian
Date: 5/1/2010
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/tph.2010.32.2.94

Review of Answer at Once (Review)
Publication: H-Appalachia
Date: 6/1/2010
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=30158

Associated Products

The Anguish of Displacement: The Politics of Literacy in the Letters of Mountain Families in Shenandoah National Park (Book)
Title: The Anguish of Displacement: The Politics of Literacy in the Letters of Mountain Families in Shenandoah National Park
Author: Katrina M. Powell
Abstract: Following Congress's approval of the creation of the Shenandoah National Park in 1926, displaced Virginia mountain families wrote to U.S. government officials requesting various services, property, and harvested crops. The collection of 300 handwritten letters that resulted from this relocation reveals a complex dynamic between the people and the government and captures a moment in American history when the social, historical, and political climate was ripe for such uprooting. In The Anguish of Displacement: The Politics of Literacy in the Letters of Mountain Families in Shenandoah National Park, Katrina M. Powell explores the function of literacy as social and symbolic action and shows how these letters exposed multifaceted issues surrounding literacy, its use and disuse, and its power in documenting individual stories within the broader, overarching narratives about the Virginia landscape and the mountaineer. Through rhetorical and socioliterary analysis, Powell examines what individual literate acts say about public educational practices, placing competing discourses about the region's history alongside contemporary literacy theory. Through this approach, she both uncovers the complexities of gender, material condition, and education in determining and resisting social position and contributes to evolving theories of literacy and identity, arguing for their inextricable link.
Year: 2007
Primary URL: http://books.upress.virginia.edu/detail%2Fbooks%2Fgroup-3307.xml?q=author%3A%22Powell%2C%20Katrina%20M.%22
Primary URL Description: University of Virginia Press website
Secondary URL: http://www.amazon.com/Anguish-Displacement-Politics-Literacy-Shenandoah/dp/0813926289
Secondary URL Description: Amazon.com
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 0813926289

'Answer at Once': The Letters of Mountain Families in Shenandoah National Park, 1934-1938 (Book)
Title: 'Answer at Once': The Letters of Mountain Families in Shenandoah National Park, 1934-1938
Editor: Katrina M. Powell
Abstract: With the Commonwealth of Virginia's Public Park Condemnation Act of 1928, the state surveyed for and acquired three thousand tracts of land that would become Shenandoah National Park. The Commonwealth condemned the homes of five hundred families so that their land could be "donated" to the federal government and placed under the auspices of the National Park Service. Prompted by the condemnation of their land, the residents began writing letters to National Park and other government officials to negotiate their rights and to request various services, property, and harvests. Typically represented in the popular media as lawless, illiterate, and incompetent, these mountaineers prove themselves otherwise in this poignant collection of letters. The history told by the residents themselves both adds to and counters the story that is generally accepted about them. These letters are housed in the Shenandoah National Park archives in Luray, Virginia, which was opened briefly to the public from 2000 to 2002, but then closed due to lack of funding. This selection of roughly 150 of these letters, in their entirety, makes these documents available again not only to the public but also to scholars, researchers, and others interested in the region's history, in the politics of the park, and in the genealogy of the families. Supplementing the letters are introductory text, photographs, annotation, and oral histories that further document the lives of these individuals.
Year: 2009
Primary URL: http://books.upress.virginia.edu/detail%2Fbooks%2Fgroup-3883.xml?q=author%3A%22Powell%2C%20Katrina%20M.%22
Primary URL Description: University of Virginia Press website
Secondary URL: http://www.amazon.com/Answer-Once-Mountain-Shenandoah-1934-1938/dp/0813928532/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326165605&sr=1-1
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Type: Edited Volume
ISBN: 978-0-8139-285

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