tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11838465.post5202802731500381372..comments2024-02-24T18:30:26.749-07:00Comments on prairiemary: FAMILY STORIESUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11838465.post-81868555572684393172014-05-06T19:10:38.982-06:002014-05-06T19:10:38.982-06:00Thanks for the cautions, Rebecca. I know you'...Thanks for the cautions, Rebecca. I know you're on the spot and doing the research which is different from what I'm doing. I'm as interested in the myth as in the reality and ultimately in how that myth meets and matches the mythology of the Plains Indians. Maybe, since you're a regular reader, you'll recall that I started this thread with my cousins' fascination with "The Outlander," the time-machine romance full of SM and porn!!!! And then the fire was fanned by "Game of Thrones." So I'm hardly looking for accuracy here, unless it's a sort of emotional need on the part of people who make these claims. They ARE appealing!<br /><br />Prairie MaryMary Strachan Scriverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00538160009129822362noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11838465.post-63252662846317412222014-05-06T18:35:32.089-06:002014-05-06T18:35:32.089-06:00I can't speak to the other three regions discu...I can't speak to the other three regions discussed in Albion's Seed, but the section on "Appalachia" turns out to be very weakly documented. I was interested enough to track down some of his sources, which include works of fiction, colorful (and fanciful) travel writing for Harper's Magazine, and works from Presbyterian missionaries, soliciting contributions. He cites Emma Bell Miles' "Spirit of the Mountains" as if it were a true personal account, but the author was the daughter of Northern missionaries, writing fictionalized local color in ladies' magazine style. (It is a really fascinating book, as is her biography, by Kay Baker Gaston, but it's not a reliable source.)<br /><br />I hesitate to criticize Jim Webb's writing, but he has absorbed the 19th century romance version of the Scots Irish that you find in John Fox Jr. ("The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come") and John C. Campbell's "The Southern Highlander and His Homeland." I enjoy reading books like these, but they're not necessarily accurate. If you define "Scots-Irish" so broadly that it includes Daniel Boone (a Quaker from Pennsylvania) and George Washington (family from Northampton, England, and a founding father of the American Episcopal Church) it just doesn't mean much.<br /><br />(If you're interested, I've got a pile of references. At first, I was disappointed that the romance was concocted, but the more I read about it, the more I became fascinated by the romance-creators, including Jim Webb.)Rebecca Claytonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06494730619850791609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11838465.post-80519739288022604232014-05-06T09:15:59.690-06:002014-05-06T09:15:59.690-06:00I'm responding to "Albion's Seed"...I'm responding to "Albion's Seed" and "Born Fighting" by Jim Webb, which seems pretty well documented to me. They emphasize that "Scotch Irish" is a sign of outsiders, since it's more proper to say "Scots Irish." My index term is "Ulster Men."<br /><br />My family, of course, is the victim of my observations. I've left out their sur names so search engines won't find this post. They don't read my blog anyway, so far as I know. I'm not sure they read at all.<br /><br />Prairie MaryMary Strachan Scriverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00538160009129822362noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11838465.post-58970675751401407692014-05-06T08:50:27.877-06:002014-05-06T08:50:27.877-06:00You've got to take the "Scots-Irish Appal...You've got to take the "Scots-Irish Appalachian frontiersman" story with at least a grain of salt. It was fostered by post-Civil War missionaries to the South, who initially went there to save and educate the freed blacks, but gave that up when it threatened to drive white Southerners out of their denominations. To keep things acceptable to their white Southern members, the missionaries turned their attention to the "Southern Highlanders." It was important to identify these people as white, and Protestant, so they had to be differentiated from the Irish Catholics (a threatening mass of unwelcome immigrants of the day) and from anyone of African descent. <br /><br />Jim Crow laws made it very important to pass as white, so enslaved ancestors have been carefully scrubbed from the family Bible. If you want to start a fight at an Appalachian music festival, just point out that the banjo is of African origin, and that bluegrass music has its roots in the blues. (These things are objectively true.)<br /><br />In fact, where I live (on the Allegheny front) the descendants of the frontiersmen have English and German surnames. Sicilian immigrant miners' descendants are well-represented, and the Irish names are likely to come from 19th and 20th century immigrants who came here for the timber boom. But most people will tell you about their "fighting Scotch-Irish" heritage. It's mythology developed and enhanced through the end of the 19th century to the present.<br /><br />In case you're interested, one of many books on this subject:<br />All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region by David E. Whisnant, 1986. (University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807841439.) I've collected quite a few other sources, but this is a good place to start. (I got it on Amazon for 1 cent and the price of postage.)<br /><br />Rebecca Claytonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06494730619850791609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11838465.post-84876770633474307232014-05-05T18:20:42.137-06:002014-05-05T18:20:42.137-06:00Kilmarnock, eh? My paternal grandmother's fam...Kilmarnock, eh? My paternal grandmother's family was from Kilmarnock. <br /><br />In the 1920s, a cousin was a Rhodes scholar (he went on to enter the Episcopal clergy) and--in a fit of genealogy, I guess--decided to visit Kilmarnock. The story he told me, some decades ago, was of getting off the train in Kilmarknock and looking around the streets feeling a little lost.<br /><br />A policeman happened by and asked him what he was about. He explained that he was a McEvoy and was looking for relatives. "A McEvoy, eh?" went the policeman. "Then ye'd best be lookin' at the jail." <br /><br />I guess my ancestry, Kilmarnockwise, is not as grand as yours!Diggitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16416825000872117152noreply@blogger.com