Folklore of Appalachia 

Sarah Craycraft, Jordan Lovejoy, Cassie Patterson, and Sydney Varajon 

From Jack Tales to Gangsta Grass, from Decoration Day to drag shows, the folklore of Appalachia is diverse and multifaceted. Yet, romantic constructions of both folklore and Appalachia have perpetuated cultural stereotypes, resulting in oversimplified views of the region and its folklife. Neither Appalachia nor folklore is a static entity; both include living people, environments, and cultures. Appalachia offers complex and ever-changing folklore as an interplay between tradition and change that is shaped and reshaped by contemporary people in their daily lives.

Introducing Folklore and Folklife 

Folklore, as a concept, is elusive. The term itself can conjure connotations of pastness, simplicity, make-believe, or untruths. When most people hear the term “folklore,” they think of fairy tales, or log cabins, the “old ways,” and generally things of the past. While folklore certainly includes historically rooted items or practices, it also includes emerging forms of expression such as internet memes, urban legends, street art, and graffiti on bathroom walls. 

There are lots of different interpretations of its meaning, and like the cultural objects and processes that folklorists study, what we in the field understand as “folklore” has changed, and continues to change, over time. The term “folklore” refers to both the content of what folklorists study, the materials, and also the field of study itself, which emerged in the late 19th century.^[1] With roots in both anthropology and literary studies, folklore as an academic discipline first centered on the study of cultural items and traditions thought to belong to people and cultures of a disappearing past. The self-conscious rush to document the cultural “remnants” of one’s own people was largely a response to cultural change brought about by urbanization and industrialization.

The word “folklife” is now generally used interchangeably with “folklore” and was adopted by the field when folklorists began to study material culture (e.g., foodways, vernacular architecture, textile arts) and belief, in addition to verbal forms like ballads and folktales. So, in addition to researching “lore,” we also research “life”–or, put another way, we study creative expressive culture in its various forms. Folklife includes the traditions and creative practices that we share with others and through which we make meaning in our daily lives. In an attempt to combine prior descriptions and examples of “folklore” (and “folklife,” interchangeably), Martha Sims and Martine Stephens propose this definition: 

Folklore is informally learned, unofficial knowledge about the world, ourselves, our communities, our beliefs, our cultures, and our traditions that is expressed creatively through words, music, customs, actions, behaviors, and materials. It is also the interactive, dynamic process of creating, communicating, and performing as we share that knowledge with other people.^[2] 

Scholars often sort folklore, or folklife, into three main categories: oral/verbal, customary, and material. Folklorists use the term genre to describe and organize different types of cultural items and practices. These genres often intersect and overlap within any given tradition. For example, Decoration Day^[3] is an annual homecoming tradition honoring the dead and involves songs and prayers (verbal), dinner on the ground  (customary), and the flowers and decorations that adorn the gravesites (material). Folklife, then, is unofficial knowledge that is informally learned or shared, and as the examples below will show, folklife is also quite complex. 

From the outset, folklorists have drawn on concepts of tradition (or the “traditional”) to guide who, what, and where they study. Like folklore, tradition is a concept that scholars still debate today.^[4] Traditions contain cultural patterns and meanings that persist through time and that also have the capacity to change. For example, someone may have handed down a family recipe that their descendents cook on special occasions, like a cornbread recipe or a way of preparing beans. When the new generation cooks these family recipes, they are repeating cultural patterns of preparing the dish and likely also sharing stories and meanings, too. Each time they make that dish, they are creating a new variation, despite using the same recipe and steps for making the dish. If they cook the recipe in a place that doesn’t stock the ingredients they need, they might innovate and substitute using similar ingredients that are available. Traditions comprise the folklife that we share as well as the processes we use to share them. Traditions can be understood along a continuum of continuity made up of dynamic and conservative aspects, or the parts that vary or change during transmission (dynamism) and the parts that stay the same (conservatism).^[5] In addition to the traditions themselves, folklorists have also considered the various kinds of traditions (genres) and how they are shared (transmission). Sharing traditions can happen intergenerationally, but traditions can also be passed along with members of the same generation, across and among cultural groups, and in a variety of modes and formats, including in-person (by word-of-mouth or by example) and digital spaces.  Neither these traditions nor those who practice them are static or unchanging. Instead, people adapt their cultural practices in new settings, contexts, and technologies; traditions can change and new ones can be created. In contemporary folklife studies, scholars prioritize the dynamic nature of traditions in contemporary communities–living traditions in living cultures.  

Linking Folklore and Appalachia  

Beginning in the late 19th century in the United States, Appalachia became an abundant site for the documentation, collection, and study of folklife–from ballads and superstitions to herbal remedies and quilts. Similar to folklore, Appalachia has been defined and characterized in different ways, sometimes according to geography, other times according to economic conditions or language and speech patterns. Mary Hufford writes the following about the relationship between folklore and Appalachia: 

The idea of folklore is complicated; it may be cast as antiquarian, antimodern, communitarian, traditional, vernacular, or resistant. These concepts are all linked to the idea of progress but nevertheless exhibit a profound ambivalence toward it. This ambivalence reflects two perspectives on Appalachian culture: a rational perspective that idolizes progress on one hand and a romantic perspective that fears it on the other. Viewed through the romantic lens, Appalachia glimmers as a region uncontaminated by commerce and its excesses, a place where people know their neighbors, value their elders, live close to the land, and preserve old-time craft, music, and stories. Through a rational lens, these views give way to images of inbred, feuding, superstitious, welfare-dependent hillbillies. Both lenses serve to “distress” Appalachia as a region set backward not only in time but also in space (the “hinterlands,” the “backcountry”), separated from the rest of America.^[6] 

Hufford further notes an uneasy relationship in which “modern” America is set against “premodern” Appalachia, a dichotomy that has defined cultural work seeking to understand the relationships between region and nation.^[7] Several noteworthy studies of Appalachia give a clear picture of the ways that folklore, literature, and cultural tropes are entangled with the shaping of the region over time. Rosemary Hathaway’s study of the mountaineer figure in West Virginia demonstrates how writers, politicians, public figures, and intellectuals exemplify or demonize Appalachian regional identity according to their political and cultural agendas; depending on the context, for example, the West Virginia University Mountaineer mascot can serve as both a frontiersman culture-hero (for university public relations) or a trickster hillbilly (for exciting the crowd at games).^[8] These tropes are not only present in literature and cultural symbols; they are also present in the ways that Appalachian cultural practices are selectively curated and preserved to uphold the rural idyll that has come to characterize popular ideas of Appalachia. David Whisnant’s All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region explores how coastal elites (mostly wealthy White women) attempted to facilitate the preservation of “authentic” Appalachian cultural practices that were in line with their own ideas of progress to improve life in the region.^[9] By creating settlement schools and folk festivals that used handicrafts and folk songs as tools for “civilizing” mountain communities, these reformers, sometimes referred to as “fotched-on women,” sought to protect elements of cultural life that they deemed valuable as a means to promote coastal visions of development, behavior, and progress.^[10] In her work on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Michael Ann Williams points out that the park service's selective preservation of log cabins and destruction of more contemporary styles of housing (such as frame buildings) contributed to the physical and symbolic displacement of the communities who lived there.^[11] The park's insistence on curating a bucolic, historical, pioneer landscape further promoted the image of frontier Appalachia while erasing the contemporary buildings and those who lived in them.  

In each of these cases, scholars point to a curated image of Appalachians as poor Whites, sometimes celebrated for their resourcefulness and pure culture and at other times denigrated for their backwardness. Notably, these images leave out the stories and cultural practices of communities of color, urban Appalachians, Appalachian migrants, and cultural practices that defy an image of Appalachia as untouched, rustic, and set in another time. Further, these studies illustrate the dual nature of the fraught relationship between folklore and Appalachia.  

This is not to say that the celebration of “old timey” aesthetics and practices kept alive throughout the generations are either not present or are harmful in and of themselves. Appalachians use folklore and cultural symbols that they identify with to express their own understandings of who they are and where they come from, and these forms of expression sometimes align with etic depictions of the region. Etic refers to the ways that individuals outside of that group membership understand and analyze the group, whereas emic refers to the ways in which individuals within a group understand themselves, their group, and the beliefs and customs they practice. The above illustration of the National Park Service’s strategic editing of the landscape is an example of an etic interpretation and representation of the region. An example of emic communication is the way that people use slang within their conversations. Slang is often (though not exclusively) generationally coded, quickly shifting language that signals in-group status through proper use (which is why it can be funny when someone doesn’t use a slang term correctly). For instance, some people use “Bubby” or “Bub” to refer to their brother or to a male friend. Of course, etic and emic interpretations can overlap, too. For instance, Dolly Parton, a “relentlessly creative”^[12] and famous musician who grew up in Tennessee, uses tropes of rustic charm and rural life to paint a particular image of Appalachia in her mountain amusement park, Dollywood, for tourists of all types.^[13] This portrayal of Appalachia may resonate with many people who call the region home, but it is not prescriptive of all emic experiences of the region.  

In sum, folklore can be used to maintain an image of Appalachia that perpetuates an idea of the region and its people as part of the past. As in previous examples, folklorists and scholars have played a role in perpetuating these images. However, the approaches that contemporary folklorists use–careful listening, collaboration with community partners, attention to emic meanings, and an eye toward noticing how a form takes shape and acquires new meaning through practice–can provide rich, nuanced depictions of everyday life.

Stereotypes & the Politics of Representation 

Although the folklore of Appalachia is multifaceted, it often responds to (mis)representations and regional stereotypes. Notions of representation are often at the heart of any discussion of the Appalachian region. Concepts of representation in politics, for example, occur when elected delegates are expected to communicate the will of their constituents to broader audiences, such as in Congress. Representation is the act of an individual or smaller group speaking for a larger group. Similarly, folklorists have long been interested in understanding how everyday people’s experiences, especially historically marginalized groups’ experiences (e.g., women, children, BIPOC, LGBTQQIAP2S+, people living in poverty), reflect in scholarship, legislation, and popular culture.^[14] Representation is a fraught process in and beyond Appalachia because the region has historically been depicted in limited, disparaging, romanticized, and simplified ways–through tropes that become stereotypes.  

Stereotypes are generalizations that are made about a group of people that inform what individuals within a society believe and say about (as well as how they behave toward) the group. Stereotypes can affect national, regional, state, and local policies that impact the daily lives of Appalachians and people living within the region. A common stereotype about Appalachia is that the region is populated only by White people who have lived in rural areas for generations. While the contemporary Appalachian region as a whole is indeed predominantly White, historical analyses of Indigenous movements and dispossession as well as studies of the experiences and migrations of Asian American, Black, Latine, and White people have and continue to shape the region.^[15] Appalachian Studies scholars have likewise documented the Great Appalachian Migration that led to the urban Appalachian diaspora.^[16]

The politics of representation–the ways in which people negotiate the meanings that texts and images convey about a group and place–is an important topic in both folklore and Appalachian Studies precisely because notions of “the folk,” including residents and diasporas of the region, have been subject to these persistent stereotypes. Residents of the region engage in advocacy with one another, elected officials, regional organizational leaders, and the broader public about depictions of Appalachian communities because of the ways that funding, legislation, and commerce (especially that of extractive and polluting economies) impact the quality of their livelihoods and cultures.  

So, how do stereotypes and representational politics show up in the folklore of Appalachia? Many people associate folklore with storytelling, legends, superstitions, or traditions–things that people often associate with the past–and Appalachia with an unmodern, rural, White, and simple experience. Too often, what folklorists have historically collected, preserved, and curated does not fully represent the diverse experiences within Appalachia but rather has contributed to or bolstered stereotypical perceptions of people and place. New technologies, however, can equip people with the tools to expand upon existing–and limited–curations of folklore in the region. More recently, both folklorists and the folk are increasingly in conversation with one another through digital environments (like social media), and these interactions can illustrate the meaning and work of folklore in Appalachia. Below is an example of the politics of representation as seen in the historic collection of traditional storytelling through the Jack Tale as well as how folks employ emergent technologies to widen an understanding of folklore in Appalachia. 

Storytelling & Humor: From Jack Tales to Ramp News 

When many scholars consider Appalachian folklore, they may first think of Jack Tales, which are types of fairytales, or Märchen. Jack Tales are magical stories, often told orally, about a young protagonist named Jack who goes on adventures and accomplishes tasks. A mainstream version of the Jack Tale is Jack and the Beanstalk, which originated from English oral tradition and was eventually popularized through mainstream collections of children’s fairy tales.^[17] 

During the early 20th century, many politicians and story collectors in the United States wanted to identify a national spirit that would differentiate American culture from other places, which often led them to Appalachia. Collectors found Jack Tales orally told in the Appalachian region, but they argued that the Jack character and his relationship with magic and place are usually quite different from the popular British version. Whereas Jack is assisted by magic in the British version, the American Jack is more self-reliant and overcomes the magical forces used against him. Folklorist Carl Lindahl argues that the American Jack’s independence from magic suggests the unlimited opportunities in the United States where magic isn’t necessary to survive or thrive.^[18] Lindahl also notes, however, that the politicians and collectors of the early 20th century were very narrow in their search for a singular (American) Jack figure who could sum up a national personality through storytelling. In order to present a singular Jack figure, they curated a collection that excluded other types of diverse Jack heroes and tales that also exist within Appalachia and America.^[19] Although Jack Tale collectors curated a limited version of the American Jack, the internet provides a space where people have the ability to represent themselves to others and negotiate the meaning of Appalachian folklore and the representation of diverse beliefs and experiences in the region. 

The essentialized depiction of the region through a curated collection of stories has created one unified image of folklore in Appalachia, but emerging technologies offer new tools for sharing stories and other genres of folklore, like jokes and legends, that expand this depiction. Digital spaces provide new avenues for participation in the collection and transmission of folklore. From conspiracy theories and podcasts to hashtags and TikTok videos, folklore is a major part of our social and digital lives. Tagged as #AppalachianFolklore, social media contains numerous images and videos of people sharing stories, expressions, and beliefs that are unique to the region, like the traditional knowledge of herbalism, spiritual healers (e.g., dowsing), cryptid legends and encounters with Mothman and Sheepsquatch, and Appalachian ballad singers.^{[20] [21] [22] [23]} Folklore legends like West Virginia’s Mothman have exploded across the internet, leading to a surge in local artists who rework the cryptid’s image away from doom and gloom and into a more empathetic, human-like creature who carves jack-o-lanterns or surfs the web.^{[24] [25] [26]}

Numerous forms of folklore genres–like legends, jokes, satire, and even fake news–occupy digital spaces. Sometimes, these folklore genres may even leak or blend into one another, as is the case with the West Virginia cryptid legend of Bat Boy. Although often considered to be a local cryptid, the Bat Boy is not actually based on any claimed sightings or family legend. Instead, the story of the half-boy/half-bat creature who was found in a West Virginia cave was created in the 1990s by a fake news tabloid called Weekly World News. Bat Boy quickly became one of the tabloid’s most popular figures, and several joke stories followed, including Bat Boy running for president of the United States.^[27] The “legend” of Bat Boy is an example of what Michael Dylan Foster calls folkloresque: “popular culture’s own (emic) perception and performance of folklore” that seemingly “derive directly from existing folkloric traditions,” like legends.^[28] Through the folklore genre of a legend, or a narrative told as true that entertains the possibility of belief, satirists can spread stories that mirror the traditional components of the genre. Much like the invented legend of the Slender Man, some people may begin to believe that variations of the created story come from personal narratives or experiences.^[29] Foster also notes that the popular culture connection of the folkloresque often leads to greater exposure, which can inspire “a feedback loop in which the folkloresque version of the item is (re)incorporated into the folk cultural milieu that it references.”^[30] As such, the Bat Boy has recently been welcomed into the league of regional cryptids, and Lost World Caverns in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, now claims the Bat Boy was found in their caves.^[31] The Bat Boy legend and its transformation over the years is an example of how digital media intersects with several folklore genres (and popular culture) in Appalachia. 

Like the Weekly World News, other satirical or parodic media outlets also rely on our understanding of how traditional genres function in order to create joke variations of informational news through intentional, humorous “fake news” stories. The Onion, for example, is a satirical news source famous for using the recognizable genre of a news article to deliver humorous stories by following the “default public genre for describing objective reality” that has been employed for centuries.^[32] According to Ian Brodie, fake news outlets like Weekly World News and The Onion work as recognizable jokes or satire as long as they meet these criteria:

(1) their performance of objective reportage demonstrates a fluency with the form; (2) the dissonance between the presented text and our understanding of the world is resolved through the recognition of an appropriate incongruity; and (3) a reflective process akin to the evaluation of legend, that is, how the story, which we know to be untrue, is not so much plausible as it is plausibly plausible, that we are not fooled by it but we can imagine those who would be.^[33]  

As variations of stories, legends, and fake news spread, are transmitted, or even altered to garner quick clicks across the digital world, though, their recognizability as humorously fake, intentionally misleading, or outright false might also become fuzzy. Tom Mould notes three variations of fake news today: “fake news that is created knowingly as false with the intention to mislead, fake news created knowingly as false with the intention to satirize, and fake news that is deployed rhetorically as a label to dismiss stories that we do not like or do not believe to be true.”^[34] Identifying intention and holding emic knowledge, then, can be incredibly important for getting the joke or recognizing the lie when encountering fake news in its various forms. That emic knowledge is especially helpful in a local variation of The Onion-style reporting in the Ramp News, the new home for “the hardest-hittingest, breakiest of breakingness news from the Holy Mountain State, West Virginia.”^[35]

Ramp News was started by a group of friends in West Virginia who are fans of satirical news sites like The Onion. Much like The Onion, Ramp News does not outright identify itself as a humorous fake news outlet, but those familiar with the genre as well as Appalachian foodways like a ramp, a wild onion that grows across the Appalachian region, will recognize the intention of the storytelling on the site. For example, many folks associate the state of West Virginia with the popular John Denver song “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” but those deeply familiar with the state and its geography often question whether the lyrics of the song are more descriptive of the state of Virginia than West Virginia. Ramp News identifies its emic status as a localized fake news site by humorously including this knowledge in their self-description: “From the Blue Ridge Mountains to Shenandoah River, the Ramp News is here to take you Home.”^[36] The creators of Ramp News comment on Denver’s lyrics in the opening of the song: “Almost heaven, West Virginia / Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.”^[37] Although West Virginia may be almost heaven, both the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah River are geographic features more commonly associated with Virginia. If a reader misses such emic jokes, though, they may still catch onto the satirical fake news intent through the content published by the outlet.  

The creators of Ramp News believe the state of West Virginia is misunderstood and too often a stereotypical punchline for jokes. Rather than using humor to further such stereotypes, the folks at Ramp News acknowledge how emic and etic interpretations interact with cultural performances and representations: “Our articles are meant to shed light on the political influence of the shortcomings of our state, rather than demonizing the individuals affected by the outdated and backwards policies that continue to hinder our potential.”^[38] By using the satirical form, Ramp News creators shift the focus away from individual shortcomings and toward institutional failures. Similarly, the memes examined below are a form of critique (or what others have called “backtalk”) that also reframes the stereotypical punchline of the joke and shifts the intended group from a dominant popular culture to a more in-group audience.^[39]

Memes 

One of the most recognizable forms of internet folklore is probably the meme. Memes are digital expressions that are shared or transmitted over and over again, transforming a little with each new iteration that is recreated by a new person.^[40] Memes even have their place as a part of Appalachian folklore and often are shared as celebrations or humorous commentary of unique cultural beliefs, practices, expressions, and even dialect features. Jordan Lovejoy, for example, notes how leftist Appalachian social media groups employ stigmatized dialect features through memes that reclaim authority over the construction of identity and culture; rather than mock regional dialect features (like demonstrative them and alveolar -ing) and stereotype all Appalachians as backward,^[41] the memes intentionally incorporate those vernacular features to celebrate diverse language use and highlight progressive beliefs within the region.^[42] One meme format that made its way around internet groups over the past few years was Interview Possum.^[43] 

Figure 1. Interview Possum is a meme that has changed its text and context frequently. Photo courtesy of Wild West Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.

The foundational image of the Interview Possum meme (the traditional component) is a woman with blonde hair holding a stressed-looking possum that appears to be screaming into a microphone held by a human reporter, but as the meme format spreads, people change the text to reflect their personal thoughts or feelings (the dynamic component), and those two components together solidify memes as folklore, especially as they are shared with others. When the memes express and share Appalachian identity or culture, they are also pieces of Appalachian folklore. 

One example of the Interview Possum meme that circulated around some of the Appalachian social media groups placed this text around the image: “…Then after I killed all the ticks, mice & snakes in her backyard, she had the NERVE to ask me if I have RABIES!?!?! And I says, ‘Lady, YOU’RE more likely to get rabies than I am!!!’”^[44] Opossums–most widely known as “possums”–are the only marsupials in North America, and they are common critters in the Appalachian region. Much like Appalachians, possums are often associated with trash, property destruction, and ugliness or negative stereotypes like spreading rabies or being vicious and aggressive. In reality, though, the marsupials are not threatening at all, do not carry rabies or dig up land, and actually eat ticks, rattlesnakes, and others’ waste, making them important players in local ecosystems. Because of the possum’s bad reputation and its association with Appalachia, many communities, fearing even further representational harm, have worked to disassociate their place from the marsupial. Others, though, are breathing new life and power into the animal as a positive representative of Appalachia: much like the residents of this region, this misunderstood creature has an unfair, untrue reputation. Deeper than the stereotypes, the meme conveys the benefits, beauty, and necessity of such a creature (or culture). Many artists, makers, and advocates for Appalachia are reclaiming the creature as a representative of resilience that should be celebrated, and the possum memes they create and circulate contribute to the reshaping of that narrative.^[45] [46] 

As these examples reveal, folklore circulates in both face-to-face interactions and in virtual spaces, making it possible for folks to share their own folklore in ways that expand an understanding of genre, tradition, and cultural practice in Appalachia. Another arena where folklife, representation, and cultural meaning are debated is public commemoration. 

Public Commemoration and Cultural Critique

Public commemoration, the act of creating, maintaining, and modifying aesthetic representations in public spaces, can take many forms, from highly formalized productions like the Smithsonian Folklife Festival to informal, even spontaneous arrangements, such as graffiti or roadside shrines for those killed in motor vehicle accidents (also called “spontaneous shrines”).^[47] Representations of the Appalachian region take center stage in the public landscape through exhibits (such as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival), commemorative markers (e.g., statues, murals, historical districts and designations), tourist attractions (e.g., historic reenactments, theme parks), and gatherings (e.g., festivals, parades, protests). Folklorists, among others, have long studied these culturally and politically charged public displays, theorizing their meanings and significance.^[48]

In Portsmouth, Ohio, several organizations and individuals have contributed to articulations of what the city means to them. For example, both the Portsmouth Street Art Project and the Portsmouth Unity Project have intentionally opened space for local artists’ work and to promote solidarity, while a longstanding mural project continues to grow by addressing previous omissions.^[49] [50] Portsmouth is known for its large-scale murals project, which depicts 2,000 years of local history. The entire project has been painted in a historical realist style: images of major figures, events, and industries of the area join other thematic scenes, such as a tribute to the loyal motorcycle club and windows into Portsmouth’s sister cities–Orizaba, Mexico; Corby, England; and Zittau, Germany.^[51] While the majority of the Portsmouth Floodwall Murals have depicted a predominantly White and conflict-free history, as of 2024, plans are underway to commission another mural that focuses on the Underground Railroad activity in the area, a subject previously referenced only in the border of a tribute to the Civil War. The planned mural is a collaboration between the City of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Murals, Inc., the 14th Street Community Center, Dr. Andrew Feight (professor of history at Shawnee State University), and muralist Robert Dafford.

In contrast to a more formalized project that seeks consistency of artistic style, the Portsmouth Street Art Project hosts “free walls” around the city where anyone can paint or add graffiti.^[52] Grassroots artists in the city are taking representation into their own hands by engaging in artistic expression and articulating a desire for racial solidarity.^[53] The Portsmouth Street Art Project hosts “free walls” around the city where anyone can demonstrate their artistic talent. The Portsmouth Unity Project, which formed in 2020, also installed multiple murals throughout the city to directly address racial divisions by promoting solidarity.^[54] 

Understandably, representations that are highly visible and are built on public land with public funds spark debates about their capacity to encapsulate the experiences of those they aim to represent as well as the symbolic work such representations do in the world. Specifically, since commemorative projects seek to pick out particular individuals and moments in history in order to elevate them in public awareness, the decision-making processes involved in selecting, funding, designing, installing, and maintaining public displays brings the politics of commemoration to the forefront. Whose history is being commemorated, and which stories are being told? Whose stories are not being told and why? Who is able to participate in the decision-making processes that determine what public spaces look like?

The examples below, which span contexts ranging from the national to the local, reveal how public commemoration sparks debate about the ways that marginalized groups and their histories are excluded and/or depicted in the public realm. At the heart of these debates is the question of whose experiences and culture are worthy of elevation as well as how groups of people are represented and represent themselves. Similarly, the examples illustrate what is at stake in such representations and how both researchers and residents of the Appalachian region “talk back” to these representations. The politics of representation of Appalachia asks, who gets to represent Appalachia? Which representations of Appalachia are able to challenge these powerful stereotypes? And what impacts do Appalachian stereotypes have on the lives of those who live in the region and call it home? 

Appalachian Studies scholar Emily Satterwhite engages these questions and the politics of representation within the realm of folklife in her analysis of visitor experiences at the 2003 Smithsonian Folklife Festival exhibit, Appalachia: Heritage and Harmony. Satterwhite compared how Appalachia was exhibited under a “national framework” (dating back to as early as 1976, when the event was called the Festival of American Folklife) and when it was exhibited under an “international framework,” after the festival was rebranded as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1988.^[55] The Smithsonian Institution describes its annual Folklife Festival as “an international exposition of living cultural heritage annually produced outdoors on the National Mall of the United States in Washington, D.C.”^[56] Situated both physically and conceptually between Scotland and Mali, Satterwhite’s interviews with attendees of the exhibit “insisted over and over...that the [Appalachian] region embodied ‘real American culture’ and the ‘roots of the whole culture.’ The point of the Appalachian program, they averred, was ‘To be reeducated into our own roots, who we are, where we came from.’”^[57] Satterwhite compares the previous American Folklife Festival with the newly rebranded, globally focused Smithsonian Folklife Festival: 

Both eras, then, manifested a kind of rural longing for Appalachia as untainted by modern or postmodern commercial society. But in 2003, Appalachia took on an added meaning of “home.” Appalachia as home and nation became a site from which visitors understood all Americans as simple pioneers facing a global frontier full of dangers that threaten to victimize a people simply trying to make do and get by… 

Despite repeated attempts on the part of festival staff and other organizers, the dominant images of Appalachia have remained essentially unchanged romanticizations of rural agrarian culture from the 1960s to the twenty-first century.^[58]

Satterwhite demonstrates both the meanings visitors took away from this exhibit and how those meanings were created through aesthetic choices. Black and white photos throughout the exhibit tapped into stereotypical representations of Appalachia, especially in contrast to the colorful photos present in the Scotland and Mali exhibits, connecting with visitors’ stereotypes of the region. Satterwhite argues that using images of the region that evoke a sense of a historic past (instead of more contemporary images) enabled festival goers to identify with Appalachia as both home and nation in a way that allowed them “to deny the real power and ambition of the United States in the world.”^[59] That is, identification with simplistic ideas of the region fostered a notion of false innocence among visitors about the role of the United States in global affairs.   

As Satterwhite explains, Appalachia has historically been invoked as the historic “home” of the nation. Indeed, in his 2014 keynote address to the Appalachian Studies Association, Silas House said, “The truth is, Appalachia is America. We always have been, yet we have always been underneath a microscope…we are a mirror being held up to the face of the country.”^[60] As a mirror of the nation, then, interpretations of Appalachia’s past take on new significance amid contemporary reflections on inequality more broadly. After George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, a national re-awakening to the impacts of structural racism turned attention to public commemoration of Civil War heroes through large statues placed in prominent locations throughout the nation, particularly in the South. The call for their removal sparked fierce debate over the symbolic and emotional impact of these statues on residents as well as what to do with such large, historic, and controversial figures.^[61] [62]

At the University of Kentucky in Lexington in 2020, the debate over cultural and historical representation played out over a 1934 Public Works of Art Project mural by Ann Rice O’Hanlon depicting bucolic rural life, including scenes of slavery.^[63] Students from the Black Student Advisory Council staged a sit-in to advocate for the removal of the mural because it was a painful reminder of the oppression of their ancestors in a room that is frequently used for university events. Wendell Berry, a prominent poet, Appalachian Studies scholar, and alumnus of University of Kentucky, filed a lawsuit against the university when the administration announced that the mural would be removed, claiming that the University of Kentucky had a responsibility to uphold the original intention toward the public when the mural was commissioned.^[64] Karyn Olivier, a Black artist who was commissioned in 2018 to paint Witness, a counter mural in response to critiques of O’Hanlon’s mural, also advocated for the 1934 mural to remain installed since her piece directly responds to it. Witness repaints the figures from O’Hanlon’s mural on a gold dome in Memorial Hall with a quotation from Frederick Douglass that reads, “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.”^[65] The students from the Black Student Advisory Council, Berry, and Olivier make differing claims about the contested roles, purposes, and effects of public art, illustrating how humans continually confront the legacies of the past through their personal experiences in the present. University officials decided to remove the mural in June 2020,^[66] but in March 2024 Kentucky’s 48th Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate dismissed Berry’s lawsuit. However, Judge Wingate also declared that the mural “must be maintained and cannot be removed” since its removal would result in its destruction.^[67] The debate around this mural continues longstanding and important questions about the commemoration of traumatic histories.

Public commemorations are highly contentious and subject to contestation not only because they can exclude some groups while privileging others, but also because, as is often the case in Appalachia, they may serve as important economic drivers within struggling communities that are redefining their future after the departure of anchor economies such as coal mines and steel factories. In some instances, goals of expedient economic revitalization may be pitted against deliberative processes that ensure equal and just representation. To appeal to the tourism industry, communities can engage visitors by demonstrating the significance of local events, achievements, industries, and ideas to broader audiences, including local, regional, out-of-state, and international visitors. In Appalachian Ohio, for instance, large-scale murals commemorating the steel industry in Portsmouth and Steubenville connect working-class people to national physical infrastructure. The Steel Industry mural painted by Robert Dafford is part of the Portsmouth Floodwall Murals project described earlier. The murals project aims to attract tourists (who will hopefully spend money locally during their visit) while it also promotes civic pride. The prevalence, however, of smaller commemorative projects surrounding and responding to the narrative of the Floodwall Murals sparked one folklorist’s curiosity about the relationship between large historical representations and smaller, less funded projects within the city. 

Cassie Rosita Patterson describes how Portsmouth engages in “commemorative dialogues,” a proliferation of local commemorative sites (physical as well as digital), projects, and actions that offer “differing conceptions and representations of place.”^[68] Patterson explains how residents produce their own commemorative representations that speak back to the Portsmouth Floodwall Murals, a large-scale, 30+ year project run by a local nonprofit organization that depicts a largely White-centered and conflict-free narrative of local history. A granite bench with Portsmouth resident Walter Stout’s poem “A Struggle to Be Free” about a freedom-seeker crossing the Ohio River along the Underground Railroad, a swimming pool reopening that celebrates racial integration through the slogan “fun in the sun for everyone,” graffiti, and social media for the Black community in the area challenge the idea that the Portsmouth Floodwall Murals tell the full story of the city by populating the digital and physical landscape with Black history and life. “Investigating the commemorative dialogues that occur through various inscriptions on the local landscape,” Patterson argues, “provides insight into the struggle for representational space and power in a small postindustrial city.”^[69]   

Participatory Methodologies 

Since the decision-making processes behind any public commemoration are crucial for ensuring that installations reflect the people who live with them, some artists and organizations have developed more inclusive approaches that center the needs, lives, and futures of Appalachian communities and environments, especially those that have been historically excluded and exploited. Artist-activist Lacy Hale, for instance, who coined, popularized, and now sells merchandise with the phrase “No Hate in my Holler,” consulted school children living in Jenkins, Kentucky, a former coal town, to design a mural that not only reflected their personal experiences of place but also included their artistic efforts.^[70] Along with collaborator Pam Oldfield Meade, Hale “designed a paint-by-numbers system which allowed for community painting parties where over 60 people, from children to senior citizens, could add their touch to the installment.”^[71] In Harlan County, the Mountain Mega Mural Fest of 2018 supported artistic as well as administrative education around producing enduring public art. Farther north, Ohio’s Winding Road, developed by grassroots nonprofit leaders at Sunday Creek Associates, offers locally relevant and curated historical and ecotourism experiences that support the local economy in the Little Cities of Black Diamonds, which are former coal towns located across Hocking, Perry, and Athens Counties. Tours focus on labor history, Black history, and innovative mine reclamation strategies, such as the collaboration between Rural Action and Ohio University to transform acid mine drainage into paint pigment.^[72] 

Folklorists and Appalachian Studies scholars share an interest in participatory methodologies and approaches as ways for communities to advocate for themselves and to engage in direct cultural representation. Finding common ground in analyses of dynamic cultural expressions from the region, participatory methodologies center individuals and groups that are most impacted by policies and representations in the decision-making processes that bring about change in their communities. Participatory methodologies blend emic and etic understandings of culture by continually prioritizing community understandings, engaging in reflection and dialogue, and being committed to outcomes that are relevant to the participants. Susan Keefe explains that the “purpose of intervention through participatory development is to strengthen stakeholders in contesting power holders’ authoritative control of cultural meaning.”^[73] By engaging in participatory research, inclusive dialogues, local capacity building, and shared decision-making, collaborators work together to shape the folklore of Appalachia so that it is equitable and reflective of the individuals and groups that constitute it. 

Black By God: The West Virginian, a news outlet founded and directed in 2021 by Affrilachian poet, activist, and entrepreneur Crystal Good, for example, produces political commentary by and for Black West Virginians.^[74] Drawing on a long history of Black news publishing, Black By God’s Folk Reporters program recruits Black writers and artists from the state to interpret legislative information that is typically communicated through a White cultural perspective and translates it into culturally relevant stories, opinion pieces, and comics that cater to a Black readership.^[75] In Charlottesville, Virginia, the Lua Project’s Mexilachian Son project draws inspiration from founder Estela Knott’s personal history of blended Mexican and Appalachian heritage to produce new songs that blend the two musical traditions.^[76] Sophia Enriquez argues that acknowledging the Latine history of Appalachia and the creation of new sounds like those produced by the Lua Project “fosters a better understanding of how Latinxs find belonging in spaces where they are not part of the dominant cultural narrative and creates the possibility of musical resistance and response to xenophobic ideologies.”^[77] Creators and scholars like Good, the Lua Project, and Enriquez live out the very definition of tradition: the dynamic interplay of cultural continuity and innovation. 

Conclusion 

The folklore of Appalachia (some of which readers may not have realized were folklore!) demonstrates the connection between the two fields of inquiry–Folklore Studies and Appalachian Studies–as well as major concepts that sit at the intersection of their approaches to studying culture and aesthetic practices of the region.   

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