African American Miners and Migrants: THE EASTERN KENTUCKY SOCIAL CLUB

by Thomas E. Wagner, Philip J. Obermiller

Overview

Thomas E. Wagner and Phillip J. Obermiller's African American Miners and Migrants documents the lives of Eastern Kentucky Social Club (EKSC) members, a group of black Appalachians who left the eastern Kentucky coalfields and their coal company hometowns in Harlan County. _x000B__x000B_Bound together by segregation, the inherent dangers of mining, and coal company paternalism, it might seem that black miners and mountaineers would be eager to forget their past. Instead, members of the EKSC have chosen to celebrate their Harlan County roots. African American Miners and Migrants uses historical and archival research and extensive personal interviews to explore their reasons and the ties that still bind them to eastern Kentucky. The book also examines life in the model coal towns of Benham and Lynch in the context of Progressive Era policies, the practice of welfare capitalism, and the contemporary national trend of building corporate towns and planned communities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252092732
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	10/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Thomas E. Wagner is University Professor Emeritus of Planning and Urban Studies at the University of Cincinnati. He is coauthor (with Phillip J. Obermiller) of Valuing Our Past, Creating Our Future: The Founding of the Urban Appalachian Council and coeditor (with Obermiller and E. Bruce Tucker) of Appalachian Odyssey: Historical Perspectives on the Great Migration.Phillip J. Obermiller is a visiting scholar at the University of Cincinnati's School of Planning, and a Center Fellow at the University of Kentucky's Appalachian Center. In addition to his work with Wagner, he is coeditor (with Kathryn M. Borman) of From Mountain to Metropolis: Appalachian Migrants in American Cities and of the fourth edition of Appalachia: Social Context Past and Present (with Michael E. Maloney). William H. Turner is a member of the EKSC, president of Turner Associates in Winston-Salem, N.C., a freelance writer, and interim president of Kentucky State University. He holds Ph.D. in sociology and anthropology and was research associate to Alex Haley for ten years.
 

Table of Contents

Contents Preface Introduction 1. "Going up the rough side of the mountain": African-Americans and Coal Camps in Appalachia 2. "Life wasn't no crystal stair": African-Americans in Coal Towns 3. "I don't know where to, but we're moving": African-American Survival Strategies in Coal Towns 4. "Sing a song of 'welfare'": Corporate Communities and Welfare Capitalism in Southeastern Kentucky 5. "Living tolerably well together": Life in the Model Towns Along Looney Creek 6. "What kept you standing, why didn't you fall?": African- Americans in Benham and Lynch 7. "One Close Community": The Eastern Kentucky Social Club 8. "They love coming home": Appalachian Ties That Bind Afterword: Values, Spoken and Unspoken William H. Turner Notes Bibliography Index

Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Eastern Kentucky Social Club Biography, African Americans Societies, etc, African Americans Interviews, African American coal miners Kentucky Social life and customs, Mining camps Kentucky History, Rural-urban migration United States, Mountain life Kentucky, Benham (Ky, ) Biography, Lynch (Ky, ) Biography