Community in Appalachia
Dr. Michael Joslin, Professor, Humanities Division, Lees-McRae College "Community in Appalachia" is the theme of the Digital Library of Appalachia's pilot project. While the complexity of Appalachian culture defies simple stereotypes that have colored public perceptions for over a hundred years, a defining characteristic of the inhabitants of these mountains is the enduring sense of what unites them as a people The multiplicity of digital media contained in the DLA demonstrates the diversity while at the same time showing a common, distinctive culture.

The Appalachian Mountains have always been rich in resources, such as fresh water, fertile soil, abundant and various vegetation from medicinal herbs to timber, minerals, and wildlife. These resources have promised a good life to self-reliant, independent men and women willing to work; yet the isolation imposed by the difficulties of travel and the necessity for cooperation in order to survive the challenging environment have encouraged a sense of community among the inhabitants. Whether gathering to raise a log cabin, to husk corn, to celebrate a marriage, to share songs, or to hear a sermon, Appalachian folk have cherished a sense of neighborliness and hospitality from the time of the first settlers to the present.

To reflect this diverse community, six member colleges of the Appalachian College Association, Cumberland College, Tennessee Wesleyan College, Lincoln Memorial University, Berea College, West Virginia Wesleyan College, and Lees-McRae College, have contributed materials from their archives and special collections. Photographs and other two-dimensional artwork, audio recordings, letters, manuscripts, books, pamphlets and images of realia comprise the library.

One of the defining aspects of the Appalachians is of course the mountains and the eco-system that has formed upon them. A number of holdings show how the environment has formed the culture. Berea College has contributed an essay, Historical Survey of Log Structures in Southern Appalachia, that has 84 illustrations that demonstrate this interrelationship. Also, West Virginia Wesleyan College has brought together a number of items that reflect the coal mining culture of the area: photographs, stock certificates, and annual report of the Pennsylvania and West Virginia Coal Company from 1920, postcards, and a pamphlet containing the epistolary argument concerning union concession to management between Eugene Debs and John Mitchell.

Another enduring part of communal life in Appalachia is the music and crafts that began through isolation and necessity. Berea College's collection of music by Hiram Stamper and other musicians playing traditional music of Kentucky illustrates the classic mountain styles. Berea also presents outstanding examples of various mountain handicrafts through their pictures. From Lees-McRae's collection come folk and religious songs in Miller's A Study of Folklore in Watauga County.

Religion has brought people together since the earliest settlers. Lees-McRae College has selected several narratives of the experiences of early missionaries. Guerrant's The Galax Gatherers and Smith's Experiences in Mountain Mission Work are firsthand accounts of such endeavors, and West Virginia Wesleyan's Rise and Progress of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ in West Virginia by J. L. Hensely details the story of that sect.

Change in Appalachia shows clearly in such photographic collections as Cumberland College's series of pictures of Williamsburg, Kentucky, as it moved from the age of horses to the age of automobiles. Lees-McRae College presents a startling view of the role of women in the high mountains through Reverend Edgar Tufts moving essay depicting life at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.

A picture of literacy in Appalachia emerges from Cumberland College's series of articles concerning the WPA's pack horse library that served people in the Wiilliamburg, Kentucky, area during the depression. Another aspect of literacy in Appalachia comes through the letters of Jesse Stuart to his friend, Dr. Roland Carter, held in the collection of Lincoln Memorial University.

Lees-McRae College presents several articles dealing with race in the southern mountains. Hawkins' Cherokee legends and Myths, Zeigler and Grosscups' section on native Americans from The Heart of the Alleghanies, and Duggers' Story of a Cherokee Indian Family look at Cherokee culture. Joslin's essay on the mixed race community of Beech Bottom in Avery County, North Carolina, shows how blacks, Native Americans, and whites have lived and inter-married harmoniously for over a hundred years.