FOOD ACQUISITION AND STORAGE METHODS AMONG AMERICAN INDIANS IN SOUTHEAST NORTH AMERICA

 

FOOD ACQUISITION AND STORAGE METHODS AMONG AMERICAN INDIANS IN  SOUTHEAST NORTH AMERICA

 

Charles A. Lott Jr.

Carrolton Georgia.

 

Abstract

When Asians migrated north, crossed the Bering Strait and made their way southward through North America thousands of years ago, a subsistence pattern began that lasted thousands of years with little change except those mitigated by climate changes. Those people were hunter-gatherers, a successful strategy that allowed mobility and populations to disperse around the continent. Two major developments brought change to these people’s lives and how they acquired foods: The development of maize into a product that could build food surpluses and the introduction of European foods, domestic animals, and tools beginning in the 15^th century.

This article focuses on those foods that were utilized by the Native Americans who were located in the southeastern part of North America during the historic period, primarily the Cherokee and Creek tribes. However to gain an understanding of the sustenance patterns during this time period, it is necessary to incorporate the processes which led to the determination of food choice and the acquisition methods that were utilized to acquire and store them for future use.

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Indians who lived in the southeastern part of North America initially depended upon hunter-gatherer methods to acquire food for themselves and their families. The locations in which they lived had great influences on how they went about their daily routines and what they consumed (Kavasch 1997, xxvi). Those residing close to waterways could rely heavily upon fishing and less upon hunting; those who lived inland could do the opposite. The southeastern region of North America provided abundant waterways and fertile soils, as well as a huge variety of native plants from which the Indians could choose (Hudson 1976: 15,16,18). These people developed a culture of knowledge of which plants were suitable for foods and medicines, where they could be located and when they would be available. They developed hunting strategies that utilized the weaponry that was available, and they embraced new technologies and methods that made that acquisition easier (Buchannan 1997:1).

Native Americans considered food more than nourishment for the body; it was also the backbone of their spirituality and ceremonial lives (Hudson 1976: 272,273). They knew, especially when they had no food surplus, that they were upon the mercy of the land, and that events such as severe drought or natural disasters could mean starvation (Buchannan 1997: 59-62). Indians gave thanks for every plant that they harvested and for every animal that they killed for food. In his book, Native Harvest author E. Barrie Kavasch describes the relationship thusly: “Native people knew the importance of making prayers and offerings to key plants before any of them could be harvested” . He also acknowledges that Indians depended upon these same plants for medicines. Kavasch comments, [for Indians], “Collecting plants in a sacred manner activates their therapeutic qualities to the highest levels” (Kavasch 1975: xii). Food was a key component in all Native American ceremonial functions, it was central to their creation myths, and became the marker of the seasons in these cultures (Buchannan 1997:65, 66).

Gender roles of Indians were also determined with the gathering and harvesting of foods. Men were hunters, women and children gathered (Buchannan 1997:16). Their diets consisted of nuts, berries, fruits, wild grasses, fish, and game (Kavasch 1997: xxvi-xxviii). The primary large meat animal in the southeast was the white tail deer; an animal that was plentiful in the region. Indian hunters developed techniques that allowed these animals to be harvested for fresh meat when needed (Hudson 1976: 274). Native Americans dietary habits and consumption patterns were different to that of Europeans at the time, who were accustomed to the three meals that are common in America today (Kavasch 1976:90).

 

“Most Indian tribes enjoyed only one full meal each day; a combination of breakfast and lunch, which they ate before noon. This was the time for hearty food, a robust rack of game or broiled fish, a crisp salad, baked pumpkin or squash, crunchy hazelnut cakes. The men ate first, usually from a wooden or earthenware bowls. Afterward, the women and children ate what was left” (Kavasch 1976:90).

 

The development of Maize into a staple crop changed the Indian’s lives in distinctive ways, however author Charles Hudson wrote in his book, The Southeastern Indians, “agriculture influenced rather than shaped the fundamental nature of their cultural and social organization”. While formerly living on the higher ridges and lands in the southeast, successful production of Maize required the fertile sandy loam soils of the river bottoms. Indians moved to the lowlands and established agriculture systems. This new subsistence strategy allowed more food to be grown than was needed in some years. Agriculture meant staying put while waiting for a crop to mature, a significant change from the hunter-gatherer system of constantly moving in search of the best and most plentiful food sources. Surplus food production also had other implications. It provided enough dependable food to support increased populations, the devolvement of political systems, and social support systems. Agriculture also brought changes to the land. Instead of the former methods in which Indians planted along trails in sunny spots and left the crops to be harvested later, in the riverine methods, land was cleared and community gardens planted. Men girdled trees and allowed them to die to be removed later, and then burned the underbrush (Foster 2007: 139, Hudson 1976:292, 295). Women were the primary gardeners (Foster 2007: 139, Hudson 1976:292, 295).

Surpluses of foods also required that methods to preserve the crops and prevent theft also had to be developed. Structures and methods, which were unfamiliar to Europeans, were developed and constructed and held community crops in most areas, which allowed for communal food sharing among the people (Buchannan 1997:46). In her book, Brother Crow, Sister Corn, author Carol Buchannan notes that,

“In 1700, a traveler described it this way: They [Indians] make for themselves cribs in very curious manner, where in they secure their corn from vermin, which are more frequent in these warm climates than in countries more distant from the sun. These retty fabrics are…well daubed within and without upon laths, which loam or clay, which makes them tight and fit to keep out the smallest insect, there being a small door at the gable end, which is made of the same composition and to be removed at pleasure, being no bigger than a slender man may creep in it, cementing the door up with the same earth when they take the corn out of the crib and are going home, always finding their granaries in the same posture they left them in –theft to each other being unpracticed” (Buchannan 1997:46).

 

Charles Hudson also details much of the techniques that were incorporated to dry foods for future use . The hot, dry summer days of the southeast were especially suited to the Indians methods of “drying some of their fruits and vegetables in the heat of the sun”. He continues that “a quicker way to dry food was to put it on hurdles over an open fire. A hurdle was simply a horizontal framework of woven saplings and canes resting on four posts . Indians also smoked meat for preservation using green hickory wood, “to give the meat a smoky flavor and aroma to the meat dried over it (Hudson 1976: 300).

Surpluses of food also allowed some people freedom from constantly looking for food as in the Hunter-Gatherer methods, and this made opportunities for these people to develop into community leaders such as chiefs or Mikos. These people gained prestige and power by having the ability to distribute the surplus food stores, which was to the most valuable commodity of the tribes (Wesson 1999:145). “The ability of elites to control surplus foods and communal storage facilities,” wrote author Cameron B. Wesson in the journal, World Archeology, “played a major role in the emergence of chiefdoms in southeastern north America”. He also notes that the development of individuals to store their own food surpluses “played an important part in their [Chiefdoms] collapse” in the historic periods [ad 1500-1750] (Wesson 1999:145).

Environmental factors, such as drought, overabundance of rainfall or other natural elements also had consequences for southeastern Indian political hierarchies (Anderson, Stahle, and Cleveland 1995:280). Writing in the journal American Antiquity, authors David G. Anderson, David. W. Stahle, and Malcolm K. Cleveland state that “Crop failures brought about by droughts, flooding, or other catastrophes would have threatened the stability of agricultural chiefdoms by reducing the production surpluses the elites needed to maintain their authority” (Anderson, Stahle, and Cleveland 1995:280).

The influence of Europeans contact in North America is well documented, with the majority of the emphasis on the introduction disease that natives had no immunity to combat. However Native Americans also had significant impact upon the culture and diet of Europeans, especially in the New World (Kavasch, 1975: xxvi). “Almost 75% of our present [North American] food plants were new to the Europeans five hundred years ago,” writes Barrie Kavasch, also noting that:

“Captain John Smith, writing in 1607, noted that the settlers of Jamestown Va. Would have starved if the Indians of the region had not brought Corn, Squash, and beans to them. The famous ‘three sisters’ soon became the most important foods in pioneer America. Their planting, harvesting, and preparation reflected the myriad native usages and customs” (Kavasch, 1975: xxvi).

 

The combination of the ‘Three Sisters,” Maize, beans and squash were the ideal combination of interdependent plants that aided the production of each individual species. Maize depleted the soil of nitrogen; beans returned the nutrient to the soil. The corn stalk provided a trellis on which the bean vines could wind their way up, and Squash provided the necessary ground cover to keep weeds and foreign plants at bay (Hudson 1976: 293).

Native Americans became dependent upon foreign trade items, such as cloth, tools, gunpowder, not the least, alcohol. Interacting with Europeans, trade for these foreign goods brought about, for some Native Americans, abandonment of their long held spiritual beliefs regarding harvesting animals, exemplified by the massive deer harvests of 1700-1750 in which Indians shipped approximately 53,000 skins from the Charleston port alone.

(Buchannan 1997: 7, 91, Hudson 1976: 316) Author E. Barrie Kavasch as describes that special traditional relationship between Native Americans and animals:

“American Indians living close to their traditional beliefs consider that all the life giving forces deserve respect. Some see this as a continual dance of reciprocity: if we take something, the life of a plant or animal, then something must be given in return. This is to gain their special nurturing blessings. People might offer a prayer, song, a pinch of pollen, cornmeal, bearberry, or tobacco to the particular plant or animal before its life is taken” (Kavasch 1975: 146).

 

The storage of fresh meats was problematic, however natives learned methods to dry meats for future use, especially in soups and stews (Hudson 1976:300). As agriculture developed and more sedentary households appeared, people became more dependent on domesticating and raising many of their vegetables and other plant foods . “In the southeastern woodlands, people living in the present states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi had extensive plots of vegetables” . When soils were depleted of vital nutrients necessary for dependable harvests, Women of the tribe, the principal gardeners, decided when and where to move for fresh soils for their crops (Buchanan 1997:33).

 

“The more settled people of the eastern woodlands, the Creeks, the Cherokee, or the Iroquois, who lived in the same towns year round for several years, moved the towns every six to twelve years. When William Bartram asked why the lower Creeks, who lived on the Chattahoochee river were moving, they told him that they needed fresh land for their plantations and a new and more extensive hunting ground” (Buchannan 1997:33).

 

Indian sustenance strategies during the historic period were the culmination of the Native’s collective experiences regarding selections of plant materials. Hunting and fishing methods were refined and improvements constantly developed which increased the efficiency of the Indian hunter’s endeavors (Hudson 1976: 272-284). New plant materials, however, were constantly found and made use of for food, medicinal, and ceremonial purposes (Moerman 2010: 10).

Perhaps the most valuable non-meat foods were root crops, nuts, seeds and berries. These were used for “flour, pastes, oil, butter, pottages and dyes” (Kavasch, 1977: 5, Moerman 2010: 303). Among the most common among the Cherokee and Creeks were Oak Acorns, Beechnuts, Hickory nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds as well as squash seeds (Moerman 2010: 303). Most certainly Indians made use of walnuts, and the nuts of non-domesticated pecan trees. “Nuts were an important item in the Indian’s diet and as winter progressed and the food supply became low, they depended more and more upon them for nourishment” (Kavasch, 1977:5). Nuts and seeds stored well, they had the ability to be eaten raw or cooked, and was a staple that could be easily packed and quickly consumed on hunting expeditions or as needed when working in gardens or performing other household tasks (Kavasch 1977: 7, Hudson 1976:286, 301). Author Kavasch also wrote that “Nuts were pounded into meal to be used in breads, soups, and for seasonings, they were also ground into a mortar with water to make a flavorful “nut milk to add to various dishes” (Kavasch 1977: 7). The resulting mixture was described to have a cream like texture that was used in many corn dishes (Kavasch 1977: 7). In his reference book, Native American Food Plants, author Daniel E. Moerman describes an important root crop that was vital to the southeastern Indians, the Hog peanut. The Hog peanut, according to the author, “is an underground fruit used to make bean bread. Underground fruit is cooked like pinto beans or added to cornmeal and hot water” (Moerman , 2010: 47)

Indians of the southeast were proficient makers of breads, and utilized a variety of flours for their loaves (Kavasch 2010: 121). Natives also developed chemical means to improve foodstuffs (Kavasch 2010: 121). Barrie Kavasch writes “Indians discovered the special properties of ashes mixed with foods or water. They saw that corn soaked in water with ashes became whiter and puffier and acquired a unique flavor” (Kavasch 2010: 121). Kavasch also adds that this lye soaked corn “became Hominy, which was fermented into sour soup, fried with meats or wild greens, or baked into custard like puddings” (Kavasch 2010: 121). Corn had many other uses as well. Dried kernels were pounded or ground, into varying degrees of coarseness. In the rougher, larger grinds, corn became Grits.   In the finer ground version, corn became cornmeal, which was used to make cornpones or cornbread. Another use of Hominy was to make Sofkee, which was an all-purpose food staple for the Southeastern Indians (Hudson 1976: 305). It served as a snack food, a quick meal or as part of ceremonial functions (Hudson 1976: 305). Indians, according to Charles Hudson, “often set it in a moderately warm place and allowed it to sour or ferment. They usually drank it cold” (Hudson 1976: 305). Hudson further describes the preparation of Sofkee as, “When the hominy was done they poured it into an earthen jar, taking out portions to eat when they wanted it” (Hudson 1976: 305).

One of the most useful food plants of which the Indians made use was the Cattail Tapha lafiolia (Moerman 2010: 260). This plant grew abundantly in marshes and along the edges of ponds and lakes (Moerman 2010: 260). Every part of this useful plant can be used in some fashion. The pollen, mixed with cornmeal, is used in a traditional recipe for Cattail Pollen Cakes (Moerman 2010: 260). Other wild plants were incorporated into bread recipes also, such as pumpkins and wild strawberries (Moerman 2010: 260). Acorns from White and Red Oak trees were processed into flours as well, and these are used today in making traditional Indian breads (Foster 2007:139).

Southeastern Indians followed strict social and religious regiments regarding which animals could or could not be taken for food, and how those animals would be prepared (Hudson, 1977: 318). Hudson details that, “birds that ate flesh-such as eagles, crows, buzzards, swallows, and owls- were abominations and could not ordinarily be used as human food”(Hudson, 1977: 318). He continued, “The same was true of animals that ate flesh, such as the cougar, wolf, and fox” (Hudson, 1977: 318).

The whitetail deer fit into categories that made it an ideal animal as a meat source for southeastern Indians (Hudson 1976:274-75). The consumption of its flesh was not hindered by taboo restrictions (Hudson 1976:274-75). Deer was plentiful in southern forests, and Indians employed sophisticated methods to harvest it. The natives made elaborate camouflage for themselves, using deerskins with attached heads and antlers (Hudson 1976:274-75). During the fall of the year, male deer go into the ‘rut’, a time in which females are receptive to breeding. The male deer are aggressive and less inclined to notice the Indian intruders wearing the elaborate costume (Hudson1976:274-75). The ploy was to get as close to the deer target as possible, thereby raising the likelihood of success of the hunter’s weapons (Hudson 1976: 274-75). There were elements of danger for the hunter, also. The rutting male deer could perceive the masqueraded hunter as a rival for breeding rights and attack, or in some cases, other Indians may mistake the disguised hunter as the whitetail prey (Hudson1976: 274-75). Natives also harvested rabbit, raccoon, quail, goose, and assorted waterfowl(Hudson 1976: 281). Of the smaller animals, according to Hudson, “ the raccoon and the opossum were the most important sources of meat,” adding that, “Small game animals were often trapped with snares or other devices” (Hudson 1976: 281). These animals were frequently included into stews that included both gathered as well as gardened ingredients (Kavasch 1977: 93).

Southeastern Indian diets also included seafood as staples when available (Hudson 1976: 282). Women were the predominant fishers, and used several methods to catch their prey (Hudson 1976: 282). Nets, weirs, as well as spearing fish were commonplace (Hudson 1976: 282). Fish trapped in oxbow lakes were easily harvested and natives used dugout canoes to access deeper waters where larger fish might be found (Hudson 1976: 282). Hudson also described Indians looking to harvest large catfish. He writes that it “was not uncommon for blue cats to weigh in excess of one hundred pounds, and catfish ranks with salmon in having the highest caloric content of any fish” (Hudson 1976: 282). When not consumed immediately, fish could be dried in the sun as a method to preserve its flesh for later use, predominately in soups and stews (Kavasch 1977:116). When cooking the fish, various methods were employed. One of which is described in that a whole freshly caught fish is buried in a “blanket of clay” and allowed to sit by the fire until the clay is hard, then the clay is buried in the ashes for one hour. When ready, the cook breaks the clay envelope open and removed the cooked fish (Kavasch 1977:116).

Native Americans also used the land as a bounty from which to make beverages (Kavasch 1977:130). Nearly all drinks were water based, and the inclusion of wild plants into these beverages added taste as well as key vitamins (Kavasch 1977:130). Indian knowledge of these drink recipes that were shared with early pioneers were key to the ability of the Europeans to ward off scurvy, since many of the natives drinks contained vitamin C (Kavasch 1977:130) Many of these flavorings caused the drink to be bitter, but “bitterness was considered beneficial, a cleansing strengthening tonic for the system”(Kavasch 1977:130).

The most common ingredients used to flavor water were Acorns, barberry, bearberry, beechnut, birch, clover, dandelion, dill, elderberry, grape, juniper, maple, persimmon, spicebush, sumac, sunflower, and wild sarsaparilla (Kavasch 1977:140, Moerman 2101: 303)

Wild plant tonics were also key components in rituals and ceremonies (Hudson 1976: 226). Charles Hudson describes one of the most important and widely used among the southeastern Indians, Black Drink (Hudson 1976: 226). “Black drink purified men of pollution, served as symbolic social cement, and it was an ultimate expression of hospitality” (Hudson 1976: 226). He continued, “It was made from the leaves of a variety of Holly ilex vomitora which grows along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and which the Indians of the interior sometimes transported so that it would be close at hand (Hudson 1976: 226). The botanical name vomitora can be misleading. It was not the components of the Holly’s tea that made the Indians vomit, it was the mass quantity of the drink that they consumed (Hudson 1976: 226). The purging of the stomach’s contents was the desired effect (Hudson 1976: 226). Projectile vomiting cleansed the participant internally in preparation for the ritual at hand (Hudson 1976: 226).

Acorn shells were roasted and steeped in boiling water to make a coffee type drink, which remained popular even into the nineteenth century as a substitute for coffee during the American civil war (Kavasch 1979:129). It was another application of Indian knowledge and adaptability that was transferred to the Europeans (Kavasch 1979:129).

 

 

Conclusion

For Native Americans, food was the essential element of life. Locating, securing, preparing and storing it were daily routines that were developed and passed down from one generation to the next. Food was also essential to their creation myths and key elements in their ritual and ceremonial lives. Europeans, without the native’s knowledge of these plants and animal uses would not have been successful in their colonization goals in the New World.

Certainly, Indians role in the Columbian exchange, those things that went from the new world to the old and vice versa after Europeans landed in North America, was that of one in which the Indians clearly contributed more than they received from their European neighbors.

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Anderson, David G., Stahle, David W., and Cleveland, Malcolm K.

1995     Pale climate and the Potential Food Reserves of Mississippian

Societies: A case Study from the Savannah River Valley. American  

               Antiquity. 60(2) 258-286.

 

Buchannan, Carol

1997     Brother Crow, Sister Corn, Traditional American Indian Gardening

Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA.

 

Crosby, Alfred W. Jr.

2003   The Columbian Exchange, Biological and Cultural Consequences of

1492. Pager Publishing, Westport, CT.

 

Foster, H. Thomas II

2007     Archeology of the Lower Muscogee Creek Indians.

University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Hudson, Charles M.

1976     The Southeastern Indians, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

 

Jackson, H. Edwin and Scott, Susan L.

2003    Patterns of Elite Faunal Utilization at Moundville, Alabama. American

              Antiquity 68(3): 552-572

 

Kavasch, E. Barrie

1977     Native Harvests, American Indian Wild Foods and Recipes.

Dover Publications, Inc. Dover, MD.

 

Moerman, Daniel E.

2010     Native American Food Plants, An Ethnobotanical dictionary

              Timber Press, Portland. London.

 

Reber, Eleanora A. and Evershed, Richard P.

2006   Ancient Vegetarians? Absorbed Pottery Residue Analysis of Diet in the

Late Woodland and Emergent Mississippian Periods of the

Mississippi Valley. Southeastern Archeology 25 (1) 100-120

 

Wesson, Cameron B.

1999   Chiefly Power and Food Storage in Southeastern North America

World Archeology 31(1): 145-164

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Animals and Culture:Does the choice of animal mascot affect the behavior of fans in general and at sporting events in particular?

Chuck Lott

March 9, 2012 

Does the choice of animal mascot affect the behavior of fans in general and at sporting events in particular?

In January 2011, the National Championship contest for college football was played in Tempe, Arizona in front of a crowd of 100,000 crazed spectators who came from all over the globe to witness the culmination of the NCAA season. Pitted against each other were the Auburn Tigers and their opponent, the Oregon Ducks. Both teams had similar records, outstanding players, and loyal fan bases. Other than the typical petty crimes and incidents that are associated with such major sporting events, there were no major incidents of unusual violence or incidents reported after the game’s conclusion. Fans dressed in typical costumes showing their support of their teams, in this case, of course, Tigers and Ducks. Many more wore body paint and held signs up to attract the attention of the television cameras. Unusual in this case was the huge difference in the animals that serve as the mascots of the respective teams. It begs a signification question: Would Auburn fans whose mascot is a tiger, an animal some may associate with aggressive and threating behavior, have more of an inclination to ‘act out’ the animal’s behavior than their opposition, the ducks, an animal who is seen as non-threatening and poses no danger? I argue that the choice of animal is inconsequential to the behavior of fans, and other factors such as artificial kinship, the need for a common enemy, and amplified group behaviors are more predominant in effecting behavior in the realm of sports fanatics.

Authors Andy Rudd and Brian S. Gordon, in their article in the December 2001 edition of The Journal of Sports Behavior, in discussing sports fans wrote, “ There is also a dark side to sports fandom/sport spectatorship that warrants attention. Sport spectators engage in a variety of aggressive behaviors including verbal assaults, throwing objects at opposing players, holding up distraction signs, chanting derogatory statements, vandalizing, fighting, and sometimes even rushing the field to hurt an opposing player or coach” (Rudd & Gordon 2001).

Sports fans in many ways form artificial kinships. Sports paraphernalia such as bumper stickers, tags, T-Shirts, and hats bearing team insignias and rally cries are a huge financial asset to universities. Many fans shout their teams rally cry to complete strangers whom they observe them wearing their team insignias. “War Eagle! Roll Tide! or, Go Dawgs! are commonly heard across the country, but perhaps more so in the South. Conversely, I state from my own experience that some fans see the insignia of their rivals and quickly make a determination of that person as ‘not one of us’, i.e., not in our ‘kinship’ group and attribute to that person less desirable personality characteristics, such as being un-friendly or rude, without basis, only on the perception taken from the symbol representing a rival.

Rivalries, or perceived enemies, are the fuel for sports fanaticism. This is easily observed in Spring practice football games across the country. I usually try to attend the spring game at the University of Alabama, the institution from which my wife was granted her degree in 1978. UA has one of the largest followings of any program in the country, and the team’s recent success (NCAA Division 1A champions 2009 and 2011) brings much enthusiasm to the already wildly devoted fan base. The “A-Day” or spring game, an inter-squad affair lacks the ‘enemy’ component of a regular season game. The stadium will be at capacity for the exhibition, but the ‘electricity’ in the air is noticeably missing in the contest. For one of ‘our’ players to excel, one of “our” players has to have failed. There is no ‘us against them’ element. The game is entertaining and a reunion of our ‘kin’ group, but it lacks the essential element of competition. It is interesting to examine the factors that contribute to that difference from a regular season game.

Sometimes, fans and boosters who associate themselves with particular teams far exceed the boundaries of what is acceptable behavior toward their rivals. January 27, 2011, Harvey Updike, 62, a self professed University of Alabama fan who resides in Dadeville Alabama, allegedly called a Birmingham sports radio station and using a fake name, claimed to have poisoned a pair of live oaks near the University of Alabama’s biggest rival, Auburn University. Updyke, told the radio station that he used the herbicide Spike D80F to contaminate the soil at the base of the trees. The 130-year-old trees are not expected to survive the attack. The “Toomer Oaks” have great symbolic value to fans and supporters of the southern Alabama school. Auburn fans have traditionally ‘rolled’ the pair of trees with toilet paper after Auburn football victories. Updike’s action was in reaction to Alabama’s last second loss to Auburn in the Iron Bowl, the traditional last Saturday in November in 2010. The loss was particularly painful to Alabama fans, in part, because the home team had blown a 24 point lead, and to further infuriate the Alabama fans, an (allegedly) Auburn supporter had spread winter rye grass seed in 30’ large numbers onto the sod at the Alabama field, reflecting the score, 28-27 (Boone 2011). There was a huge outcry and condemnation from not only Auburn supporters, but those of Alabama as well. University of Alabama fans created a facebook page, Tiders for Toomer’s which raised money for the either rehabilitation or replacement of the poisoned trees. Although the website does not currently list the amount of donations, it has far exceeded $50,000.00. If convicted, Updyke could face 10 years in prison if convicted of the felony, the article reports. According to an ESPN magazine article, Updyke said that “pranks” are common among fans, citing incidents in Texas regarding Bevo, the Texas Longhorns mascot. “I get it. I know why they are pissed” Updyke told the ESPN reporter referring to the Auburn fans. Updyke continued “You know, they (Auburn fans) have been shitting on (revered former UA coach) Bear Bryant’s grave for 30 years. That’s a felony, and they aren’t doing anything about that. They (Auburn fans) painted (current Alabama coach) Nick Saban’s lake house orange and blue (Auburn colors) (Thompson, ESPN 2011).

What surprised Updyke, who did not attend either university, is that his act became a felony when it became apparent that he could have poisoned the city’s water supply, increasing his consequence from a small fine to prison time, and that his perceived ‘kinship’ unit, the other Alabama fans, did not support his actions and urged his prosecution and ostracized him from the group. These sorts of activities are not unique to southern cultures. In Minnesota, a UM fan was “barred from the Sports Pavilion and Williams Arena for a year for punching the University mascot, Goldy Gopher” According to an Associated Press Article. It continues, “Douglas Dokken, 60, was given a citation for disorderly conduct and a trespass warning. The mascot was not hurt, but the mask was damaged” (Associated press 2011).

Vamik D. Volkan, President of the Society of Political Psychology, entitled his presidential address in 1985, “The Need to Have Enemies and Allies: A Developmental Approach.” Although Volkan was predominately addressing the relationships between U.S. and Soviet relationships, the underlying ideologies are applicable to sports fans and obsessive behavior. He begins his abstract: “This paper describes as an inescapable developmental phenomenon; man’s need to identify some people as allies and others as enemies. This need evolves from the individual’s efforts to protect his sense of self, which is intertwined with his experiences of ethnicity, nationality, and other circumstances” (Volkan 1985: 219).Once groups are formed and kinship bonds acquired, the behavior of the group takes a different mentality.

“Psychological forces operating within groups seem to take their own special direction once those groups are formed” (Volkan 1985: 219). Author W.R Bion in his book, Experience in Groups, make observations that are useful in considering the sports fan behavior, especially in the perception of enemies. Bion writes, “The group with the ‘fight-flight’ assumption perceives its leader (the team’s coach) as directing a fight against the teams (thusly including the enemy of the fans, which are the fans of the opposition’s team) external enemies, but it soon breaks down into sub-groups that fight each other” (Volkan 1985: 230, Bion, 1961). This statement illuminated many facets of fan behavior, such as body painting, costumes, organized cheers and taunts, and holding large signs oriented toward differentiating “us” from “them”. In these manners, fans symbolically ‘fight’ the enemy of their team and their kin group, not on the field, but in the stands. Volkan concludes with a statement that sums up fans involvement in sports, “After all, the main point of drawing lines between ‘them’ and ‘us’ however specious the justification for those lines may be, is to clarify and affirm the sense of ‘us’ in a way that strengthens positive self-representation. The self-portrait of any group is relative, depending in varying degrees on the kind of dark background that will bring its own light and strong qualities into relief” (Volkan 1985: 245)

In many ways, sports fan’s allegiance and devotion to their teams form a socio-religion. As far back as 1918, anthropologist A.A. Goldenweiser had identified the totemic relationships between humans and animals that are useful in understanding many of the modern sports fan obsessions and behavior regarding the sport. Goldenweiser makes the socio-religious connection thusly, “A religious society is a group of individuals who bear a common name, often derived from an animal, share a set of religious and mythological beliefs, and perform together certain ceremonies” (Goldenweiser 1961: 286) What makes these groups of people bond together is the allegiance to the sports teams of the respective universities, a majority of which did not attend the schools. These kinship bonds allow many of the team followers to assume a group identity that allows them social recognition in many ways; however, the kinship is reliant on the sport. Goldenweiser writes, “While religious societies, like clans are social units, they are constituted social units solely by the exercise of common functions. Take away the functions and nothing remains but an aggregate of wholly unrelated individuals” (Goldenweiser 1961:286).

Sports fans, and their behavior, is often highly influenced by the success of the team, and when the team is ultra-successful, an in the case of the Tigers and the Ducks, many people who would not have associated themselves with the team then become a part of the fan base. In their article, Social Identity Theory and the Organization, authors Blake E. Ashforth and Fred Mael explore the ways in which people associate themselves. This line of thought is useful in examining how fans, although many have never played the sport themselves, still consider themselves part of the team. “Social identification enables the individual to locate or define him –or herself, in the social environment” and that “To identify, an individual need not expend effort towards the group’s goals: rather, and individual need only perceive himself as psychologically intertwined with the fate of the group” (Ashforth & Mael, 1989: 21).

Louis A. Zurcher, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, used an opportunity as a ‘guest coach’ to gain a unique perspective of the organization of the sport of football on a collegiate level and participate in a game from the sideline and experience the contest from an emic participant’s viewpoint. He wrote his finding in “The Staging of Emotion: A Dramaturgical Analysis” in 1982. One of the most interesting aspects of the article deals with fans at the game, and how spectator’s behavior is often manipulated in ways they do not comprehend. “Dramaturgically considered, emotion, or more accurately the performance of emotion, is enacted by the individual in terms of his or her understanding of appropriate behavior in a particular situation” (Zurcher 1985:2). Zurcher makes mention of the purposes of the game: “to train athletes for professional sports, to encourage alumni donations, to attract students, and to enhance organizational status” (Zurcher 1985:2). Zurcher touches upon, but does not elaborate on the ways that fans are manipulated during the game. “The manipulations of emotions, resulting in people having a good time, serve the organization” (Zurcher 1985:3). Loud music pumps up the crowd, giant televisions show past victories, the school’s marching band performs patriotic selections, and at some venues, beer flows and further whips the excitable crowd into frenzy, and occasionally into undesirable behaviors.

Humans have long associated themselves with animals as symbols, not only in sporting events but in other ways as well. A definition of totemism that relates well to consideration in sports is found in authors S. Lee Seaton and Karen Watson’s journal article, “A Proto- Ethnosemantic Differential for American Cultural Insignia; Team Totems in Major League Sports”. The authors put forth Raymond Firths’s argument that, “totemism is a system of beliefs and practices embodying concepts of a mystical or ritual relationship between members of a social group and members of a class of objects, usually an animal or plant.” (Seaton & Watson 1970: 305). To apply Firths definition to sports cultures, Seaton and Watson write, “ One example of the traditional expression of attitudes toward sports is the selection of totemic names which are indicative of particular social values (Seaton & Watson 1970: 305).

College and Universities have long standing traditions regarding animals as symbols of their institutions. According to authors Joanne Sloane and Cheryl Watts’ book, “College Nicknames and Other Interesting Sports Traditions,” The most common athletic names are “Tigers, Bears, Panthers, Bulldogs, Wildcats, Eagles, Cougars, and Indians” (Sloane & Watts 1983:2). Most likely, Native Americans would no longer be included in this category. The authors also state the origins of many ‘nicknames’. “The most common source was newspaper sports reporters. Editors and reporters for college and local newspapers have had a habit of giving a school a nickname in an article or column, and many times the school followed suit and formally adopted the name” (Sloane & Watts 1983:4). Also included as the second most predominate method was through student body contests (Sloane & Watts 1983:2).

As for Auburn and Oregon? According to Sloane and Watts, “the Tigers of Auburn owe their name to the Oliver Goldsmith poem, “The Deserted Village” which begins with the line “the loveliest village on the plain” The daughter of John J. Harper, founder of the city of Auburn, named the town from this line in the poem.(although the poem was referring to the city of Auburn in England). The schools nickname is from a line in the poem, which describes Auburn as “where deadly Tigers await their unsuspecting prey” (Sloane & Watts 1983:26, Corrigan & Tighe, 2008:12 ).

Oregon, which according to the same source, “did not have a nickname until the 1920’s” when the local media coined the term ‘Webfoots’ which indicated the common problem of poorly drained turf fields”. The authors continue, “ the name ‘Ducks’ began creeping into the sports headlines. By the 1940’s, Webfoots were equally referred to as the ‘Ducks’, and by the 1950’s had become more popular (Sloane & Watts 1983:230).

The disparity between these two examples, although a microscopic sample, represents the two broad categories of animals used as mascots, those carnivores who could be feared, such as the Tiger and Bear, and the herbivores whose images are less likely to fear in the opponent, such as the Beaver and the Duck. The evidence put forth herein shows that at least in the sports world, the Duck and Beaver is as mighty as the Crocodile and Ram, and that fans who misbehave in the name of their obsession do so because of deep seated psychological reasons, not because of the animal who symbolically represents their team.

 

Bibliography

 

Ashforth, Blake E. and Mael, Fred. (1989) Social Identity Theory and the Organization The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Jan., 1989), pp. 20-39 http://www.jstor.org/stable/258189. accessed March 8, 2012.

Bion, W.R. (1961) Experience in Groups. Basic Books, New York, NY.

Boone, Christian. Accused Auburn Tree-Killing the Talk of Alabama. Georgia Sports, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. AJC.com. http: www.ajc.com/sports/auburn-tree-killing-the-841586.html. Accessed March 9, 2012

Commentary: Sports is Overrun with Mascots (2004). Washington D.C. United States, Washington D.C.: National Public Radio. Retrieved from: http://search.proquest.com/docview/189814218?accountid=15017. Feb 2, 2012

Corrigan, Delia and Tighe, Elizabeth. (2008) Go Team! Mascots of the SEC. Publisher: Go Team           Llc. (July 2008)

Dyreson, Mark. The Sporting World of the Modern South. The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 3/4 (FALL/WINTER 2003), pp. 467-470 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40584698 .

Egan.D. (2002, Mar 04) A Furry Flurry. Canadian Business. 75 (4), 106-111. retrieved from http://searchproquest.com/docview/221377746?accountid=15017

Erik, Brady. “Mascots Put on Short Leash” USA Today. EBSCO host.   http://ts.isil.westga.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=JOF135476385211&site=ehost-live accessed February 9, 2012

Gagne, Matt. “The Fur Flies at Michigan” Sports Illustrated 115, (accessed February 9, 2012)

Hopkins, E. Washburn. (1918) The Background of Totemism Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 38 (1918), pp. 145-159 URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/592599. Accessed Feb 2, 2012

King, C. Richard. (2004) Preoccupations and Prejudices: Reflections on the Study of Sports Imagery Anthropologica, Vol. 46, No. 1 (2004), pp. 29-36 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25606165 . Accessed February 12, 2012

Seaton, S. Lee and Watson, Karen Ann. (1970) A Proto-Ethnosemantic Differential for American Cultural Insignia: Team Totems in Major League Sports. Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 12. No. 8. pp. 304-318. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30029265. accessed February 5, 2012.

Sloan, Joanne and Watts, Cheryl. (1993) College Nicknames: And Other Interesting Sports Traditions .Vision Press, (January 1993)

The Associated Press. (2011) “Fan Barred for Punching Mascot” New York Times. March 10, 2011. 17. Accessed February 9, 2012. http://ts.isil.westga.edu.login?url=http://searchechohost.com

Thompson, Mark. (2011) The Life and Times of Harvey Updyke. ESPN.com. Accessed March 9, 2012 at http://sports.espn.com/ncf/colums/story?id=657499

Rudd, Andy and Gordon, Brian S. (2010) Sports Spectators Surveys. The Journal of Sports Behavior. http://www.biomedsearch.com/article/explotary-investuigation-sports. Accessed February 29, 2012.

Volkan, Vamik D. (1985) The Need to Have Enemies and Allies: A Developmental Approach Political Psychology, Vol. 6, No. 2, Special Issue: A Notebook on the Psychology of the U.S.-Soviet Relationship (Jun., 1985), pp. 219-247 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3790902 . Accessed March 9, 2012

Zurcher,Louis A. (1982) The Staging of Emotion: A Dramaturgical Analysis. Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring 1982), pp. 1-2http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/si.1982.5.1.accessed March 2, 2012

          

 

 

 

 

 

FOLK MEDICINE TRADITIONS How the sharing of folk medicine beliefs serves to build communities in Appalachia

FOLK MEDICINE TRADITIONS: How the sharing of folk medicine beliefs serves to build communities in Appalachia

 

Chuck Lott

November 26, 2012

 

Abstract

Folk Medicine is a topic that is frequently discussed among scholars and amateurs in the field of Folklife and Folklore. An integral aspect of community life is the sharing of this knowledge. Methods of treating common medical issues, such as were common in rural Carroll County, were passed down from one generation to the next, from neighbor to neighbor, and people constantly adapted these ideas to increase their effectiveness and to utilize the materials that were available. How were these folk medicine beliefs adapted and why do they continue to be used and shared? In this study, I will examine Folk Medicine customs and beliefs from the early nineteenth century to the present in the southern Appalachian region of North America. For the residents of that stretch of mountains and foothills that runs from West Virginia to Georgia, this system of beliefs evolved and continued because they help build and sustain communities.

_____________________________

This study of Folk Medicine utilizes published oral histories and journals as well as secondary sources to contextualize the information. A thorough search was made of period online newspaper archives for articles relating to folk medicine in the area with little success, however, this remains a worthwhile avenue for future research. In this study, the primary sources examined are three distinct medical practitioners: A professionally educated medical doctor, a folk healer, and a rural nurse who made house calls in the subject area.

• Dr. Abraham Jobe, a rural doctor who lived in North Carolina, Tennessee, and North Carolina from 1817-1906.
• Arie Cabe Carpenter lived her entire ninety-two years in Macon County, North Carolina. In the course of her ninety-two years, she was both a repository and practitioner of folk medicine. Carpenter nursed the sick and passed folk medicine traditions to others in her community.
• Peggy Fisher is a Home Health Care Nurse from Glasgow, West Virginia who makes visits to patients in their homes and shares the remedies, cures, and folk medicine beliefs that she has acquired from her patients.

Folk medicine beliefs were practical ways of assigning causation to illness, sickness, or death that could not be explained in rational terms. According to folklorist Mary Butler Stone, “folk medicine is a system of healing made up of beliefs and practices that are transferred by oral tradition through families and communities. It was developed in response to a lack of access to modern medical care and combines homemade remedies with superstition and religious beliefs.”[2] Indeed, it is one of the more fascinating aspects of the genre; and may of the ‘cures’ seem to be ill advised, dangerous or non plausible as effective treatments to the etic observer.[3]

Folk medicine provided a means for concerned family to do something, even if my etic perspectives, the methods seem odd. For example, Colic, a common disorder that affected infants could be treated by ‘magical cures’ according tor Anthony Cavender, author of Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia. “Passing an infant around a table leg from mother to father three times, were used to treat it.” Treatments seem odd as well. Cavender relates, one could “cut” (staunch) bleeding from a nosebleed by having a few drops of the blood fall on the blade of a knife.”[4]

Folk medicine beliefs crossed social boundaries in ways that many other specific beliefs and rituals did not. Native American and African American medicinal methods were incorporated into the white methodology and vice versa, but protestant whites cast a condemning eye on African and Native American religious practices that did not conform to the Christian norm. European immigrants learned from Native Americans which plants had medicinal value and how they could be applied to specific cases. All three of these groups held both similar and opposing views of the supernatural and how those unseen forces were both causers and cure for a variety of illness and maladies.

Southern Appalachia has been predominately inhabited by the decedents of the white Europeans who immigrated and settled in the region during the eighteenth century. Other minority racial groups make up the remainder. Pockets of African-Americans, Native-Americans, and Hispanics are scattered in the region. The study area experiences greater instances of unemployment and poverty for its citizens as compared to the nation at large, as recently as 1990, per capita income was no greater that 67 percent of the national average, and both poverty and unemployment levels at least 150 percent of United States levels.[5]

In spite of challenging living conditions where opportunities were sometimes scarce, Southern Appalachia has evolved a distinct character. John A. Burrison in his work, Roots of A Region, Southern Folk Culture, explains: “ The resulting limiting contact with neighbors and the outside world, fostered reliance on folklore as an inherited knowledge base for both livelihood and recreation, while heightening the importance of the family as the chief mechanism for passing on these traditions.”[6] Further examination of the culture of this region, however, reveals people who have a distinct character that places extraordinary value on God, their family, and their community.[7]

            Recent studies, such as Anthony Cavender’s Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia and Loch Haven University professor of history Sandra Lee Barney’s Authorized to Heal, Gender, Class, and the Transformation of Medicine in Appalachia 1880-1990, both examine the ways that folk medicine and modern medicine merged in the mountains and foothills of Appalachia. These comprehensive works define medicine beliefs in the region, but do not specifically focus on the subject of this paper; how these beliefs came to foster the sense of community in the area.

The classic Foxfire book series, a high school oral history project in rural north Georgia, brought new interest folk medicine. The class instructor and editor, Eliot Wiggington described the late 1960’s and early 1970’s project, “From the beginning, students have interviewed older community residents in an effort to document skills, traditions, experiences and the resulting perspectives” Wiggington adds, “ Through this, the students have presumably gained some appreciation for, and perspective on, the Appalachian experience they all share.” [8] Students interviewed residents of Raburn county and neighboring mountain comminutes. The interview subjects discussed nearly all aspects of rural mountain living, and through this process, many of the students gained new appreciations of the older generation of the community.

The Foxfire project, even if not intended, passed folk medicine to the next generation of their community, the students. It also generated an unprecedented interest in folklife among readers. The interaction of the older participants, some who considered themselves healers and some who did not, is folklife in action, the transfer of knowledge, orally transmitted or demonstrated to new participants and adherents in the belief system. These beliefs are passed down and endure because they are useful and because they are adapted when new methods and information are accumulated. Additionally, folk medicine offers hope in situations when modern ‘commercial’ was not available or could not offer ready or plausible explanations to the afflicted or their families. They reinforce the sense of community, bind the participants into a social group, and in the case of cross-cultural sharing of information, bind different ethnic groups together. Although these secondary sources each contain a component of how folk medicine beliefs were shared among people, this work differs in that it aims to add to the scholarship of folk medicine as a means of strengthen the community.

‘Aunt” Arie Carpenter, (1885-1978) a resident of Macon County North Carolina considered herself such a healer. The subject of extensive interviews in the Foxfire series and the Foxfire Intimate Portrait, Aunt Arie, the oral interviews conducted by Rabun County High School studentsdocuments the life and belief system of this remarkable woman. Carpenter incorporated the holistic aspect of Appalachian beliefs of religion, superstition, and accepted medical practices into her ideology and medical philosophy. “Aunt Arie,” as the students affectionately knew her, passed down all types of mountain life lore, and much of that lifetime of experience was her medical experience. Carpenter was taught ‘doctorin’ by her mother, but also had learned from members of her extended family and community. Carpenter felt that her service was her contribution to the community, and did not consider her contribution to the health of her neighbors to be a burden, nor did she particularly worry about her own exposure during her duties. She also helped with the preparation of the dead, as was the custom in her community. Carpenter described her medical ‘career’:

Waited on thirty-two sick people in my life, and dressed and laid out I don’t

know how many dead people. That’s th’kind a parties that I had. Enjoyed

th’last bit of it. I was a help t’somebody. I just enjoyed it. ‘Druther go into

sick rooms better than anything that I have ever done. Go and stay day and

night and never eat a bite and just keep a ‘goin on till I give plumb out.

Then of course I had to quit, but I’ve had to do it all my life. You do anything

for forty, fifty, you’re liable to keep on just because it’s a help to somebody.[9]

Carpenter had wanted to become a nurse. Apparently, her affinity to help the sick caught the attention of the local doctor, whom Carpenter references only as “Tom.” “He use t’be our doctor, and he wanted Mommy t’let me be a trained nurse. Why, she’d a went into a fit sure ‘nough if I did. She said that was disgraceful.” Carpenter does not explain why her mother was resistant to allowing Arie’s ambition. Perhaps the family considered it their duty to perform such functions for the community without charge, or it could be that Carpenter’s mother did not want to be without her personal caretaker. “Mommy” as Carpenter references her mother, was described by the daughter as having a continuous struggle with her health, and could not be “left alone by herself.” Although Carpenter had many suitors in the Macon County area, she did not marry until the death of her mother when Carpenter was thirty-eight years old.[10]

Carpenter was not the only member of her family that performed medical services- her medical knowledge came through both parents lineage. Her father, ‘Poppy’ as Carpenter references him during he interviews, brought knowledge of “bluestone”, a procedure passed down by his mother that Carpenter herself used to maintain her eyesight. When Carpenter tells the students about the ‘bluestone’ she cautions them about using the stone for medical purposes. “ I’m a goin to tell you’uns this now, too. I ain’t goin t’tell you’ uns to do it- you just do as you please about that.” Carpenter then described the procedure of how ‘Poppy’s” mother, (Carpenter’s grandmother) would make a tea with the stone and apply it to her eyes. Carpenter related that she “does her eyes that way now.” She credited the procedure to her life without glasses. Most likely, however, an eye care doctor probably never examined Carpenter, and her eyesight had declined with age, as is typical with most people.

Carpenter’s words of caution to the students, and thereby to others who may read the transcript of the interview, is insightful into how some folk remedies are perceived by their adherents. It was not necessary to understand how remedies ‘work’, but there have to be an understanding that just because a remedy is gathered from nature, does not imply that it was without risks.

In rural communities, folk medicine traditions were shared and performed at places other than in homes. Uncle Henson, one of Carpenter’s extended family, performed medical treatments for ‘thrash,’ a malady that Carpenter attributed to infants caused by breast-feeding. Thrash, “that’s blisters that get all round a nursing’ young’uns mouth.” Uncle Henson treated the affliction with mixed results with “so many leaves ‘a sage,” most likely rubbing the child’s affected area with the leaves of the herb that was common in gardens in the area. ‘Poppy,’ however had a different treatment that Carpenter described as always meeting with success. Poppy’s main qualification: He had never seen his father. His services were in high demand in the community. “I’ve seen him ‘hundreds of times” Carpenter relates. “He’d ‘rench out his mouth three or four times, take his two hands and open up the child’s mouth…hold it open and blow in. He’d blow three times and that’s all that was done.” Is particularly interesting that Carpenter did not consider the application of the herb leaves as viable as a cure as the method that ‘Poppy’ used, a treatment that was based on superstition and magic.[11] Conversely, Carpenter relates from first hand experience that the supernatural based remedy had a greater record of success.

Carpenter herself passed superstition based beliefs on to others as well. One of her medical success was her treatment that removed warts. “There was a whole crowd come Sunday last t’have me take off warts.” Her treatment: She bought them with cash. “We’ve got some warts we want you to buy.” Carpenter relates of her patients. “ I give ‘em a coin or two.” She then offered her services to the interviewers: “If any a’youn’s has any warts, I can take ‘m off for y.”[12]

Anthony Cavender writing in Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia, traditionally “Folk Medicine has been organized into two knowledge domains, Natural and Supernatural.” These two very different systems of beliefs regarding the causes of sickness sheds light onto why the people of Appalachia have adapted and kept these beliefs through many generations. While the supernatural causation of illness may subside, many hold to mystical treatments for relief.[13]

Although Carpenter felt herself competent to treat most afflictions, Carpenter held the local doctor, Doc Nevilles in high esteem. Her comments reflect her respect and admiration for the local physician as she described the death of her mother from a wave of influenza that swept their mountain community. “ Well we ever’ one got over it ‘cept for mommy. If it hadn’t been for doc Nevilles ‘doctorin me, though, I’d a not been here.” Carpenter goes on to describe a local woman who almost died of pneumonia despite “what all of us, doctors and all could do.”[14]

In some ways, Carpenter felt herself a partner to the local medical professionals. She realized that many afflictions were beyond her ability and knowledge, but in some instances, she felt her folk medicine methods as preferential treatments over ‘modern’ medicine. Her folk treatments continue even in the era when most people have access to professional medical care. She strengthened the community with her concern for her fellow citizens. In her Foxfire interviews, she not only passed down her knowledge of medicine to a new generation, she also forwarded the accumulated beliefs and methods of previous generations of which she had become the repository.

Aunt Arie Carpenter’s story provides interesting background references for the observations of Peggy S. Fisher, a registered nurse who made home visits to the people of the Appalachian region. She observed, “ As a whole, these were superstitious people who held great value in weather signs and natural lore, remedies, omens, and family lore.” Even today, Fisher relates, “many health care professionals have difficulty treating rural West Virginians due to the old beliefs that occasionally conflict with modern science.” [15] In reality, however, these people have struck a balance of medical treatment that reinforce their community beliefs and add to the support system that they provide for one another when professional medical treatment is not desired, unaffordable, or unavailable.

Folk Medicine transcended the social bounds of communities that did not ordinarily cross in Appalachia. Fisher related the influence of Native American medical theories and practice and how these were incorporated into the mainstream Appalachian medical ideology. In order to be useful, folk beliefs have to constantly adapt, and by bringing in other culture’s beliefs and practices, folk medicine both adapted and proved useful to both cultures. “The American experience is deeply rooted in the lore of Native Indians,” Fisher writes. “My mother remembers an old woman who lived way up in one of the hollows from her family’s farm. Prudy White was a full blooded Blackfoot Indian who ‘doctored’ the people who lived nearby.” Fisher’s grandmother passed down the story of the family sending to get the Blackfoot ‘doctor’. “My Grandmother sent my Grandfather to get old Purdy. My mother was scared to death of Old Purdy particularly since local legend had it she was a witch and could put a spell on you and make you die.” [16] In this case, the Indian healer made a tea that provided relief to the afflicted child and the child was healed.

Folk medicine beliefs were shared by the European and Native American community, primarily because the geographical closeness of the two cultures. Charles Hudson describes the effect of Native Americans upon the medicinal beliefs among white settlers in the Appalachian region.

The folk medicine used by Southerners was a mixture of Indian

herbalism along with elements of European and American Culture.

They got from the Indians the use of such herbs as ginseng, wild cherry bark,

poplar bark, lady’s slipper, poke leaves, poke root, pokeberries, sassafras,

yellow root, chestnut leaves, boneset, pine needles, ferns, horsemint,

peppermint, snakeroot, and pennyroyal. Other elements are clearly European

and American, such as using a magnet to draw out arthritis, a poultice of

turpentine and brown sugar to stop bleeding, raw honey and vinegar for a

cough, a Bible under the pillow for nightmares, and “moonshine” whisky

for practically everything.[17]

Not all beliefs migrated between these cultures, however. “As smallpox spread among the Cherokee Indians in the Carolinas, Thomas Dale, a Charlestown physician, was sent to inoculate the Indians” wrote David Dary in Frontier Medicine, “but many Cherokee suspicious of any offer of help from the whites refused inoculations. As a result, perhaps half of the Cherokee population in the Carolinas died from Smallpox.”[18]

Fisher’s experiences in the homes of her patients included the transfer of remedies both ways: her patients offered advice and treatment methods to her. As in the case of folk remedies that outsiders pass on, the most bizarre or implausible merits conversation. Some of the more noteworthy that Fisher has been told:

• An iron key pressed on the back of the neck will cure a nosebleed.[19]
• A dirty sock worn around the neck will cure a cold.
• To stop a toothache, tie a string around the little toe of the right foot.

What is important to realize is that the Fisher’s patients who passed this information to her was so that she could incorporate the methods in her practice. For Fisher, the transfer of her methods of healing and the recrpitication of her patients offering of their remedies, Fisher became part of their community, and the patient part of hers.[20]

For residents of Southern Appalachia, it was (and is) possible to have folk medicine beliefs along with reliance with trained medical professionals. These two genres of health care have coexisted in Appalachia since the advent of medical colleges in the nineteenth century when formal education for doctors began. Dr. Abraham Jobe, (1817-1906) details in his memoir, A Mountaineer in Motion, described lay medical practitioners in the North Carolina Mountains in the 19^th century. Dr. Jobe was skeptical of folk doctors and described one such individual of which he had firsthand knowledge of. “Dr. Lloyd lived with the family. He was called a self made doctor, that is a doctor without reading” Jobe continues, “He simply took up the practice without any preparation whatsoever.” Jobe described the incident where the lay doctor’s prescription, according to Jobe, caused the patients death. [21] Other professional medical personnel distrusted the folk doctor, and vice-versa. David Dary describes the lay medical person as a “Quack” and writes, “Quacks claim to have medical knowledge but usually peddle unproven and sometimes dangerous medicines, cures, or treatments.” Dary continues, “it was not, however, until the middle of the 19^th century that that they gradually became a problem in the eyes of physicians trying to make medicine a respectable profession whose practitioners were professionally trained, educated, and certified.”[22] It is unclear if the ‘quack’ healers were folk healers that had professional aspirations or were charlatans who preyed on the sick and their families.

As shown in Aunt Arie Carpenter’s interviews and Peggy Fisher’s experiences, not all mountain people felt that “trained” doctors held more of a chance to heal them than using their folk remedies that had been handed down through their community. Many would call the physician only in the case of immanent death or when the prospect for recovery had became all but lost. “Just as Typhoid Mary Mallon rejected physician’s claims that she was ill even though she felt well, some Appalachian people distrusted the unknowable, mysterious agents that doctors increasingly blames for illness” wrote Sandra Lee Barney in Authorized to Heal, Gender, Class, and the Transformation of Medicine in Appalachia, 1880-1930. “Unprepared by education or training to comprehend the principles on which the new remedies were based” Barney continues, “ resistant mountaineers took refuge in traditional cures.” Some rejected all treatments and fell back on a religious fatalism that fostered an overly simplistic stereotype of Appalachian as opponents to progress.”[23]

Dr. Abraham Jobe’s diary documents his sharing of knowledge in the community in which he lived, but he reserved medical advice to his trained peers. Jobe makes mention frequently of other doctors that he knew, and how his methods compared with others. Typhoid fever, as Carpenter documented, on several occasions made appearances through the Appalachian region. When Jobe became ill from the fever after treating many afflicted patients, Jobe only mentions in his diary of the colleague that provided his treatment and that the doctors collaborated on the treatment. Although Jobe did not solicit his neighbor’s advice in medical matters, his house calls certainly made his membership in the community valued. Jobe’s extensive journal entries does show that in most other matters, such as business and farming, Jobe valued the input and opinions of his fellow citizens. Since Jobe well documents his disdain for untrained or ‘folk’ healers, his contributions to the community were by passing his professional methods to the community.

In order for folk traditions to continue, they must be useful and constantly adapted. Different factors among community contribute to folk beliefs regarding medicine and healing, but as George Schoemaker explained in The Emergence of Folklore in Everyday Life, “The term ‘Folk’ can refer to any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor.” [24] In the case of the people of southern Appalachia, sickness, injury, death, and the prevention of these daily aspects of life were a constant among whites, Native Americans, as well as African Americans. “Social interactions among people with differing (and occasionally opposing) social identities and role relationships can actually provide situations where folklore is produced and disseminated.”[25] Shoemaker continues to describe interactions among differing social groups and makes the conclusion, “ folklore may be the only reason that people interact with each other.”[26]

When situations pass the realm of human control, supernatural cause and effects are frequently brought into play. When doctors were either not trusted or not available, superstition beliefs provided a way to explain what logic simply could not. Even when modern medical treatment was available, folk beliefs provided ways for people to deal with sickness and death. It was (and is) a mechanism to do something to alleviate pain and suffering. It also provided a way to ward off illness by following taboo restrictions of human behavior. These beliefs were passed down either orally, by demonstration, or by observation. In some cases, folk medicine beliefs were passed between cultures and the result, one of the keys of folk beliefs, adaptation, occurred and the ideology changed.

It would not be a gross overstatement to say that all people have folk medicine beliefs and rituals. Many beliefs regarding prevention of illness have adapted and still are popular; such as ‘bundling up so a person doesn’t catch a cold’ although modern medicine shows that exposure to cold weather is not a factor in these cases. These beliefs are passed down and endure because they are and because they offer hope in ways that modern medical practice and philosophy simply cannot provide. Participants reinforce the sense of community by sharing information that is considered valuable to the group; and by these contributions establish their worth as contributing to the community’s wellbeing and survival.

 

 

 

Primary Sources

Carpenter, Arie, Linda Garland Page, and Eliot Wigginton. “Mommy lernt me lots about ‘th doctorin’ business.” In Aunt Arie: a Foxfire portrait. New York: Dutton, 1983.

 

Jobe, Abraham, and David C. Hsiung. “Medicine in the Mountains.” In A mountaineer in motion: the memoir of Dr. Abraham Jobe, 1817-1906. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2009.

 

Fisher, Peggy S.. “Folk Medicine.” West Virginia Division of Culture and History. http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvhs1041.html (accessed October 30, 2012).

 

Secondary Sources

Barney, Sandra. “Introduction.” In Authorized to heal: gender, class, and the transformation of medicine in Appalachia, 1880-1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

 

Burrison, John A.. “The core of culture.” In Roots of a region Southern folk culture. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.

 

Butler-Stone, Mary . “Appalachian Folk Medicine.” Appalachian Folk Medicine. home.wlu.edu/~lubint/touchstone/AppalachianFolkMed-Stone.htm (accessed October 27, 2012).

 

Cavender, Anthony P. “The Folk Medical Belief System.” In Folk medicine in southern Appalachia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

 

Dary, David. “Quacks.” In Frontier medicine: from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 1492-1941. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

 

Hudson, Charles M. “A conquered people.” In The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976.

 

Pollard, Kelvin M. “A New Diversity: Race and Ethnicity in the Appalachian Region”

Population Reference Bureau. Atlanta Regional Commission. 2004 accessed

November 26, 2012 at http://www.prb.org/pdf04/anewdiversityappal.pdf

 

Richmond, Nancy, and Misty Murray Walkup. “Superstitions.” In Appalachian folklore: omens, signs and superstitions. S.l.: s.n., 2011.

 

Schoemaker, George H.. “Introduction.” In The Emergence of folklore in everyday life: a fieldguide and sourcebook. Bloomington, Ind.: Trickster Press, 1990.

 

Wigginton, Eliot. “Introduction.” In Foxfire: 25 years. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.

[2] Mary Butler Stone. “Appalachian Folk Medicine.” West Virginia Historical Society Quarterly. Vol X No.4.http://home.wlu.edu/lubint/touchstone/ApplalachainFolkMed-Stone.htm (accessed October 29, 2012)

[3] Opinion of the author

[4] Cavender 37

[5] Kelvin M. Pollard. A “New Diversity: Race and Ethnicity in the Appalachian Region” Population Reference Bureau. Atlanta Regional Commission. 2004 accessed November 26, 2012 at http://www.prb.org/pdf04/anewdiversityappal.pdf

[6] John A. Burrison, Roots of a Region, Southern Folk Culture. (JacksonUniversity of Mississippi press 2007),29

[7] Personal opinion of the Author

[8] Eliot Wiggington and his Students, Ed, Foxfire 25 Years. (New York: Doubleday, 1991), X

[9] Arie Carpenter, Aunt Arie, A Foxfire Portrait. Linda Garland Price and Eliot Wiggington, Eds. (New York: .P. Dutton, Inc.1983), 143.

[10] Carpenter. 9

[11] Carpenter 132

[12] ibid, 133

[13] Carpenter, 36

[14] Carpenter, 135.

[15] Peggy S. Fisher. “Folk Medicine” The West Virginia Historical Society Quarterly. Volume X, No. 4. and Volume XI, No.1. January 1997.

[16] Fisher, 2

[17] Charles Hudson. The Southeastern Indians. 1976. The University of Tennessee Press. Knoxville. 499

[18] Dary, 26

[19] This is similar to Anthony Cavender’s description of stopping a nosebleed by placing a knife blade on the back of the neck and probably is a regional variation of the same practice.

[20] Fisher. 3

[21] David C. Huiung, A Mountaineer in Motion, The Memoir of Dr. Abraham Jobe 1807-1906. 2009. (Knoxville. The University of Tennessee press), 47

[22] Dary, 273

[23] Sandra Lee Barney, Authorized to Heal, Gender, Class, and the Transformation of Medicine in Appalachia, 1880-1930. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 2000), 8

[24] George H. Schoemaker, The Emergence of Folklore in Everyday Life. 1990 Trickster Press. Bloomington, IN. 4

[25] ibid 4

[26] Schoemaker 4

 

THE BURDEN ENDURED: Death, Pain, and Suffering for the Living and the Dead of the American Civil War of 1861-65

 

THE BURDEN ENDURED: Death, Pain, and Suffering for the Living and the Dead of the American Civil War of 1861-65

Chuck Lott

November 20, 2012

 

It is the dead who make the longest demands on the living.

-Sophocles, Antigone

_______________________________________________

              Collegiate Civil War classes frequently begin with the question, “After all these years, why do people still care so passionately about the Civil War?” To historians and scholars, the war produced its share of great soldiers and battles. There were great moral implications, such as the emancipation for African slaves and social issues such as women’s involvement in politics and government affairs. Women became prominent abolitionists before the Civil War and entered what had been the sphere of men only since the founding of the country. For Southerners, it may be that their homeland was laid waste by an invading army that enacted the policy of “total war,” a war philosophy in which their farms, buildings, and livestock were destroyed in the struggle and which brought about decades of struggle and bitter memories. For Unionists, the struggle was memorable for the sacrifices of men and resources to preserve and strengthen a fragile republic that had experienced severe growing pains over the first century of its existence and resulted in the liberation of millions of enslaved people of African descent.

The cause of such long-term fascination, if it could be called that, is that the war brought about unparalleled human suffering not only for the combatants, but also for those left at home as well. The scope of national tragedy is staggering. Drew Gilpin Faust in her acclaimed 2008 work, This Republic of Suffering, Death and the American Civil War puts the numbers in perspective for modern readers. “The Civil War’s rate of death, its incidence in comparison with the size of the American Population, was six times that of World War II.” Faust continues, “ A similar rate, about 2 percent, in the United States today, would mean six million fatalities.”[1]

Although the sheer impact of the loss of so many men would be reason enough for descendants to answer the original question of why Americans continue to hold such strong feelings about the Civil War, I will argue and provide evidence that the 1861-65 conflict fundamentally changed the ways that human death and suffering is perceived in the United States, and the evolution of American rationalization of death and the final disposition of earthly remains challenged deeply ingrained Protestant religious beliefs, for the North and South as well.

The topic of death in the Civil War has been the subject of detailed works of scholarship and research. Even so, the digital age continues to usher in new primary sources for consideration and analysis. Period newspapers, with their obituaries, editorials, and battlefield reports continue to be digitized and made available through the Internet. Death records and personal narratives, such as journals and diaries also continue to come to light. Additionally, opportunities exist to examine sources that may have been overlooked. This essay will present some of these primary documents to make conclusions that will provide evidence that chronicles the evolution of how death was perceived, particularly through religious thought and practice. Additionally, valuable secondary sources which make up the historiography of the topic will be incorporated to provide perspectives regarding the ways that these soldier and citizen’s experiences changed as a result of the difficulties that the Civil War made upon pre-existing ideologies concerning death.

Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering, Death and the American Civil War, 2008, was the subject of PBS’s documentary program, “American Experience.” Faust, president of Harvard University, provides perspectives on how death and sacrifice had consequences in the evolution of religious thought for those who fought and died in the Civil War, and for those left behind as well. The author also explores the complex feelings of men who had to come to grips with taking human life, and how these same men were hardened to the reality of death, suffering, and sacrifices.

Mark E. Neely, Jr., McCabe-Greer professor of the History of the Civil War Era, Pennsylvania State University offers challenges to the scope of the tragedy that many historians have embraces since the end of the war. The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction, 2007, offers new and controversial ways to evaluate the numbers of casualties during the conflict. Neely offers comparisons to other conflicts of the 19^th century and compares the American Civil war numbers and makes conclusions that are useful in examining how the concept of death changed as a result of the 1861-65 conflict.

Other works that are not specific to the Civil War era are useful references to understand and place into context how the concept of death evolved as a result of the struggle. Gary Laderman, assistant professor of American religion and culture at Emory University, in 1996, published The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-188, a work that prominently features death in the Civil War. Laderman, an assistant professor of History at Emory University, begins with George Washington’s death and funerary arrangements and then shows progressions in how people come to deal with the psychological and physical results of death. Drew Gilpin-Faust and Gary Laderman reinforce each other’s conclusions as their thoughts run parallel frequently in their works regarding death in the war.

Digging Up the Dead, A History of Notable American Reburials, is a 2010 offering by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Kammen, Newton C. Farr Professor of American History and Culture (emeritus) at Cornell University. Kammen describes one of the most important aspects of looking at how attitudes toward death changed in the 19^th century with “A short history of reburial: Patterns of Change over time.” Kammen also details the complex case of abolitionists John Brown and the circumstances surrounding his execution and how Northern and Southern people viewed these funeral rites very differently.

Soldier Dead, How We Recover, Identify, Bury, & Honor Our Military Fallen, published in 2005 by Michael Sledge, investigates the reasons that Americans have gone to great lengths to identify and recover our deceased soldier’s remains. He further investigates the methods that the United States government has taken to return those who have perished in other countries to native soil. Sledge provides context regarding issues that are paramount to soldiers and their families beginning with his initial chapter’s title “Why it matters.” The author also looks to complex situations regarding soldier’s deaths, such as combat recoveries and an issue that was at the forefront of 19^th century Americans, Identification of the decease soldier’s remains. Although Sledge includes Civil War soldiers, he also provides a broader look with the inclusion of most other American conflicts.

Penny Coleman’s work, Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History of Burial, 1997, examines the practical side of death, from the realm of the biological to the funerary practices as they have evolved over the past two centuries. Coleman describes the methods that human remains were preserved before the practice of embalming became common during the Civil War. Colman offers a much broader view of the issues than does other works in this bibliography that focuses specifically on the Civil War or soldier deaths in general.

Religion and the American Civil War, Edited by Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson is a collection of essays that deals with one of the fundamental aspects of the war, how God fit into the ideologies of the people of both North and South.

It is nearly impossible to consider the death without reflecting on the ways that religion colored people’s views and perspectives on the subject. Protestant ideology dictates that immediately upon death, the spirit either ascended into Heaven or an eternity of damnation awaited. Obituaries published in newspapers during the 19^th century frequently mention the concept of the deceased’s belief in some type of deity or religious philosophy. However, the physical remains were another topic. Puritanism beliefs of the early American settlers had considerable influence on how death and the dead body were perceived. “In the Puritan view, the corpse was a horrible sight that signified both human sin and the flight of the soul,” writes Gary Laderman in The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883. Laderman continues, “In a culture that was moving away from the stern, dogmatic, and oppressive sensibilities of the Puritan past and towards the romantic, sentimental, and domestic characteristics of the nineteenth century, evangelicals reappraised how to make sense of death and the dead body.” [2] The evolution from the revulsion of Puritan views regarding the body of the deceased to the acceptance of physical remains as having a prominent part the death ritual created new ways that people experienced the event, and new challenges for the families of soldiers who perished during the war.

Protestant families took comfort in personally hearing the final words of their dying love one making pronouncements of faith in Jesus Christ and renouncement of sin, and for the families of young men who had not made public pre war professions of faith, it was especially relevant. According to Drew Foust in This republic of Suffering, “Family was central to the ars moriendi (good death) tradition, for kin performed its essential rituals. The dying were not losing their essential selves, but rather defining them for eternity.” Families could take comfort that their loves one, although dead physically, was present with God and that they would be reunited sometime in the future. Without the deathbed confessional, families were without closure when a loved one passed. The Civil War, with its horrific loss of life and great geographical distances from soldiers home and loved ones, made dying the ‘good death’ a source of anguish for soldiers as well as for grieving families.[3]

As the 19^th century progressed, the concept of the ‘good death’ provided comfort to the family and friends of the deceased, as well as detailed a script to follow when the end of life became inevitable. In the newspaper obituaries of the Boston Recorder, dated December 09, 1847, lists the victims of a Typhoid outbreak and how the victims was depicted at the time of death by their families. Juliette Rawson, aged 17 years and the daughter of the local minister, lie on her deathbed, a victim of the outbreak. The writer of the obituary described the scene as family gathered around witnessed the perhaps idealized event: “But parental love could neither arrest the ravages of the disease, nor stay the hand of death; yet it could direct her thoughts to him who brings salvation.” After prayers were said on her behalf, the dying woman “often groaned, being burdened with guilt, but at length was enabled to roll her burden upon him who promised to sustain, to cast herself into his arms.”[4] Either Miss Rawson conformed to the notion of the ‘good death’ or her family embellished the event for their sake or for the published obituary.

The desire of Americans was to spend their final moments at home with their family and friends gathered around the deathbed. As men from the North died on Southern battlefields, the notion of the ‘good death’ brought anguish to families of the men who perished far from home. Additionally, the concepts of sacrifice of life for national sin came to the forefront, and for the first time, the nation’s morality became the focus of the death of soldiers. Daniel M. Scott, M.D., a physician whose war time diary and journal contains letters home that reveals his feelings that the war was God’s punishment for the institution of slavery. Holt was a physician assigned to the 121^st N.Y. Volunteers, and he wrote from camp, near White Oak Church, in Virginia, in 1863. In describing the nation’s sin, Holt wrote, “We had forgotten God and set up false idols instead. As prosperity increased, so increased we in disobedience to the divine will, until at last, the wail of the oppressed reached the eternal throne and the avenging angel swept over the land destroying our fields lying was the heritage and killing our sons.” [5] Gary Laderman writes of how this type ideology impacted the nation. “The symbolism of death, its connation and meanings, were conceptualized according to a series of ideological and social imperatives necessary to achieve victory.” Men had to be sacrificed, according to those who felt that the nation was paying for the sin of slavery, as a punitive action before the healing process could begin. [6]

The concept of the good death extended to more than families, in some instances, it could be instrumental in how citizens dealt with the loss of political and military leaders. The death of Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson was documented in newspaper columns all across the country, and sources from the far south, Maine, as well as California all carried the story of one of the major events of the war. The San Francisco Bulletin, June 9, 1863, had a novel presentation of the story: it published a column with a Northern perspective and a separate one with the Southern view. Both Northern and Southern versions referenced Jackson’ effectiveness as a commander as well as his piety, and described his good death. “He never, in all the occupations of the camp, or temptations of his campaigns, lost the fervor of his piety, or remitted his Christian duties.” Other articles described Jackson’s deathbed with his wife present and his words recorded as he made the transition to death provided solace to the citizens who would mourn Jackson’s death. [7]

The prospect of sudden death on the battlefield or a slow painful death by disease reinforced the importance of religion to believers and introduced the faith to thousands of converts through extensive revivals during the war. The Augusta Chronicle, a Georgia newspaper, in its June 27, 1863 ran a column that described the immediacy that evangelicals felt in making sure that southern soldiers were exposed to the Word, and served as a reassurance to families at home as well. “It is a source of rejoicing and unspeakable joy, to know that a general religious revival has for some time prevailed in General Bragg’s army. Thousands have been converted.” The article emphasizes the newfound need for religion among the soldiery. “ A great anxiety and interest exists among the troops for reading religious works which they seem to hunger for.” An additional benefit of faith in the camp: “Gambling and profanity are now almost unheard of.” [8]

In the antebellum period, many believed that men who embraced Christianity made poor soldiers. Historian Kurt O. Berends in his essay, Wholesome Reading Purifies and Elevates the Man, writes, “This belief found its roots in southern notions of honor and manliness” and Berends then touches the other important stigma of pre-war Christian faith, as “ the perception of Christianity as feminine, gentle, and pure.” There had to be a resolution of how men could embrace the hope of heaven and the afterlife, the only mechanism available to prepare these men in case of death during the war. Idealized soldier leaders such as Lee and Jackson publicly embraced Christianity and made acceptance of religious made the common soldier more likely to embrace the faith. “Before the war, books on heaven were few in number and not concrete in meaning and description” writes Philip Shaw Paludan in Religion and the Civil War, and that“Ideas of heaven were changed by this war, from a rather distant and strange place to a home which the boys could return.”[9] This change was an evolution of thought of how religion influenced how dying was perceived: If the common soldier could be assured that upon his death he would be immediately in heaven and at peace, it made him more likely to challenge the enemy on the battlefield. Additionally, it brought peace to families at home when loves ones were lost in battle.[10]

Public support of the war was a concern for both Union and Confederate governments. The era of photography that began just as the war brought new awareness of the harsh realities of death and suffering on the battlefield. Although most newspapers did not include photographs, they were widely distributed on broadside publications. The Library of Congress website contains digitized images that would have been seen by both northerners and southerners. The Library of Congress’s web site described the process:

“During the Civil War, the process of taking photographs was complex and time-consuming. Two photographers would arrive at a location. One would mix chemicals and pour them on a clean glass plate. After the chemicals were given time to evaporate, the glass plate would be sensitized by being immersed — in darkness — in a bath solution. Placed in a holder, the plate would then be inserted in the camera, which had been positioned and focused by the other photographer. Exposure of the plate and development of the photograph had to be completed within minutes; then the exposed plate was rushed to the darkroom wagon for developing. Each fragile glass plate had to be treated with great care after development — a difficult task on a battlefield.” [11]

Photographs also had profound impacts on public support of the war efforts and sparked new entrepreneurial efforts among photographers. Photographers ventured to the battlefields days after the conflict and made images of dead soldiers, sometimes manipulating the position of bodies for ‘artistic’ effect, such as the infamous Devil’s Den photograph.[12] Images of the dead covering battlefields changed the nature of warfare and public perception of the suffering and consequences of war, which before the civil War, was regulated to the sketchpad or paintbrush.

At the outset of the Civil War, America had no formal method to notify the family of a soldier’s death, no mechanism for bringing home soldiers remains or National Cemeteries to bury them.[13] The return of remains to Northern soil became one of the biggest concerns when families dealt with a family members death. Rumors persisted in the North throughout the war that Southern troops abused Union soldiers remains, or left them on the field to rot. “One Northern minister angrily insisted, ‘Not satisfied with the victory won, to add ignominy to defeat, the rebels buried our men with their faces downward, and took their bones for drumsticks and finger-rings, and their skulls for goblets and punchbowls.”[14] Whether these rumors proved true or not, they greatly aggravated the anxiety that soldier’s family felt if the body could not be located, or transported home. It was important for other reasons to return soldiers remains home: “Soldiers do not want their dead comrades to fall into the hands of the enemy. Nor does the government, although for different reasons” writes Michael Sledge, “ A country may win a battle or even a war, but if the adversary possesses its soldiers remains, it is a constant reminder and certain acknowledgement, the enemy controlled not only the field of battle but also some of the victors might.”[15]

In normal circumstances, “Even when death or a life threatening injury occurred as a result of an accident or while traveling, an effort was made to bring the victim home” writes Gary Laderman. The long distances from home where battles occurred caused the traditional death scene impossibility for most soldiers during the war, especially those who fought for the Union. At the beginning of the war, many religious followers considered the practice of embalming a sacrilege. However, the desire of the families to bring home the remains of sons and husbands necessitated a relaxation of the reluctance to use the method to preserve the body. Newspaper advertisements of the period make claims that history has proved false, however, entrepreneurs relied on the emotions of bereaved family members who placed their hope in the new preservation technologies. Appearing November 1861 in the Daily National Intelligencer, a newspaper solicitation in Washington D.C., an advertisement by Drs. Charles D. Brown and Joseph R. Alexander offered an alternative to embalming. “Petrifying,” the ad describes the effect of the unusual treatment. “The process renders the body in a short time hard and firm like marble, without distortion or discoloring, which shall be preserved for all time.” An additional benefit, the ad reads, “even the grave clothes are preserved from mildew and decay.”[16] Bizarre concoctions such as these soon gave way to more conventional preservation techniques as the war wore on and the death numbers increased.

There were differences in funerals of soldiers of rank and the common foot soldier. The Salem Register newspaper, dated April 4, 1862 described the funeral of Young Brooks of Co. F. 23^rd Regiment, who died as a result of a wound sustained in battle. “There is something very solemn and impressive in the burial ceremony of a private soldier,” wrote the author, “more so than in the pomp and pageantry of attending the sepulture of an officer of rank.” [17] The community embraced the funeral of the fallen hero, and the sense of sacrifice for the Union of the soldier and his family was paramount in the article. Similar obituaries appeared in Southern newspapers, and in areas of mixed loyalties, violent outbursts sometimes occurred. 28 days after the Salem Register story ran, The Augusta Chronicle, May 5, 1862 edition described the funeral of a Confederate soldier that was disrupted by Unionists. Tragically, later that same day as a result an argument regarding the incident ensued and left a prominent citizen dead of a gunshot wound. [18]

Perhaps the greatest testament of change in public perception of death in the Civil War can be directly related to the actions that President Abraham Lincoln set in motion to honor the sacrifice of soldiers. Addressing the gathered citizen at Gettysburg Pennsylvania, Lincoln “succeeded in incorporating the Union dead in the shared history, destiny, and physical landscape of the nation;” writes Gary Laderman, “ He also found a practical use for their remains inspiration for the living to continue fighting and dying.” [19] Lincoln found a way, in simple terms to consecrate the sacred ground to become the first national cemetery, a place where the soldier’s remains are placed in perpetual care of the government, who takes possession and responsibility for the soldier’s remains as a symbolic payment for their sacrifice.

In death, Lincoln perhaps had as much influence over the way that American saw death and sacrifice as he did while living. Assassinated when the war was essentially over, Lincoln’s death magnified the sense of sacrifice and loss that most Americans felt. In Philadelphia, as in most cities, grief and disbelief were common emotions. The newspaper City Intelligence, April 17, 1865, contained the similar emotional sentiments that ran in other announcements of the President’s death, however, the article also documents the reactions of the various faiths in the region. Lutheran, Jewish, Baptist, Dutch and Catholic churches each lamented the death of the president in sub columns in the article. The nation was left to justify the death of the cherished president in the same way that they had to come to grips with loss of husbands, sons, and brothers. The notion of the punishment of the nation for the sin of slavery, as it had become a prominent theme among religious citizens earlier in the war, was applied to the loss of Lincoln. “It becomes us to recognize God’s hand in judgment, “ the article reads, “ and each one should humble themselves before God and cry aloud for deep contrition, that he would turn from us all those evils which have called down our punishment, and in the midst of deserved wrath to remember mercy and take this orphaned country into His holy care and keeping.” [20]

The Civil War changed the way that Americans relate to death and dying of its citizens. At the onset of the war, death was a private matter that was based on strict beliefs of ritual and symbolism. The ‘good death’ required that a person die at hoe, in his or her own bed, with their family present. It was important that the dying person make a deathbed confessional of sin and a statement of belief in Jesus Christ. After death occurred, family members enacted prescribed rituals of preparation of the deceased, which included cleansing and dressing the body. Preparation complete, the body was made available for viewing in order for the living to gain a sense of closure and finality of the loss of the loved one. Burial would occur in the prescribed place and according to the ritual of the religion and family. It was considered sacrilege for other than family members to care for the deceased or to leave the responsibility for burial to other than family members.

The Civil War made the concept of the ‘good death’ an unattainable goal in most cases. Men died in far away locales in horrific numbers that made quick interment into shallow graves a necessity. Some families attempted to recover remains of loved ones, and new technologies such as embalming appeared to facilitate the preservation of bodies for the trip home. The federal government began National cemeteries to honor the men who died in service to the country.

One of the greatest changes that the war brought to the perception of death was the relaxation of religious ritual concerning the ‘good death’ and the evolution of thought that previously held that men of faith could not be efficient and effective soldiers. Additionally, the rise of the funeral industry and implementation of standardized preservation methods came as a result of government programs. No less important or impactful was the replacement of the deceased family’s role in preparation of the dead for preservation, viewing, and burial to that of paid professionals, a practice that has since become the standard in much of North America.

Of most importance however, is that during the Civil War, the federal government acknowledged the sacrifices of its soldiers and their families and made attempts to become the caretaker of those who died and their families in the service to their country.

 

Bibliography

American Experience, “Death in the Civil War” Produced by Robin Espionla, Bonnie Lafave, and Ric Burns. (2012 WGBH Educational Foundation, Steeplechase Films) 2012. Chapter 1.

 

Augusta Chronicle (Lexington), “Brutal Outrage in Lexington, KY,” May 7, 1862, sec.

1. Accessed November 20, 2012 at http://infoweb.newsbank.com.

Augusta Chronicle. “The State of [illegible] in Bragg’s Army” June 27, 1863. Vol:

XXVII, Issue 154. Augusta GA. Accessed November 20, 2012 at

http://infoweb.newsbank.com.

Berends, Kurt O. “Wholesome Reading Purifies and Elevates the Man. The religious

Military Press in the Confederacy”. In Religion and the American Civil War, edited by Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Regan Wilson. Oxford University Press 1998.

Boston Recorder, “Death Notice”, December 09, 1857, Volume XXXII, Issue 49, Page

195, Boston Massachusetts. Accessed November 20, 2012 at

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Colman, Penny. Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History of Burial. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.

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<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/c

Daily National Intelligencer, November 30, 1861. Vol: XLIX, Issue 15383, Washington

D.C.Accessed November 20, 2012 at http://infoweb.newsbank.com.

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New York: Vintage Books, 2009.

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Library of Congress – Home Page.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwpcam/cwcam3a.html (accessed

November 25, 2012).

Holt, Daniel M. M.D. A Surgeon’s Civil War: The letters and Diary of Daniel M. Holt, M.D. Edited by James S. Greiner, Janet L. Coryell, and James R. Smither. 2000. Kent State University Press. (ebook Collection) Accessed November 19, 2012.

Kammen, Michael G. Digging up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Laderman, Gary. The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883.. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Neff, John. Honoring the Civil War Dead. Lawrence Kansas. University Press of

Kansas. 2004.

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Press. 2008.

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Accessed November 20, 2012 at http://infoweb.newsbank.com.

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Accessed November 20, 2012 at http://infoweb.newsbank.com.

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November 20, 2012 at http://infoweb.newsbank.com.

[1]Drew Gilpin Faust. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. (New York: Vintage Books, 2009) Preface

[2] Gary Laderman. The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-

3. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) 52

[3] Faust, 163

[4] “Death Notice,” Boston Recorder, 12-09-1857, Volume XXXII, Issue 49, Boston Massachusetts.

[5] Daniel M. Holt, M.D. A Surgeon’s Civil War: The letters and Diary of Daniel M. Holt, M.D. Eds. James S. Greiner, Janet L. Coryell, and James R. Smither. 2000. Kent State University Press. (ebook Collection, (EBSCO host) Accessed November 19, 2012.

[6] Laderman, 98

[7] “Facts and Incidents Connected with the Death Stonewall Jackson”.San Francisco Bulletin, published as Evening Bulletin; Date: 06-09-1863; Volume: XVI; Issue: 54.

[8] “The State of [illegible] in Bragg’s Army” Augusta Chronicle. June 27, 1863. Vol: XXVII, Issue 154, Page 4.

[9] Phillip Shaw Paludan, Religion and the American Civil War. (Oxford University Press. Oxford. 2008). 30

[10] Kurt O. Berends. “Wholesome Reading Purifies and Elevates the Man. The Religious Military Press in the Confederacy.” In Religion and the American Civil War. Edited by Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Regan Wilson. (Oxford University Press 1998). 136

[11] “Civil War Photographs: Taking Photographs at the Time of the Civil War.” American Memory from the Library of Congress – Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml

[12] Alexander Gardner. “The Case of The Moved Body.” American Memory from the Library of Congress – Home Page. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwpcam/cwcam3a.html (accessed November 25, 2012).

[13] American Experience, “Death in the Civil War” Produced by Robin Espionla,

Bonnie Lafave, and Ric Burns. (2012 WGBH Educational Foundation, Steeplechase

Films). 2012. Chapter 1.

[14] Michael Kammen, Digging Up the Dead, A History of Notable American Reburials. (The University of Chicago Press. 2010).104

Kammen cites John Neff, Honoring the Civil War Dead. (University Press of Kansas. 2004). 56-57, 116-17

[15]     Michael Sledge. Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Identify, Bury, and Honor Our

Military Fallen. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). 2

[16] “Advertisement”, Daily National Intelligencer, November 30, 1861. Vol: XLIX, Issue 15383, Washington D.C.

[17] “A Soldier’s Funeral,” Salem Register, April 10, 1862. Salem, Mass.

[18] “Brutal Outrage in Lexington, KY,” Augusta Chronicle (Lexington), May 7, 1862.

[19] Laderman,125

[20] “President Lincoln’s Death. Reception of the News in This City.” City Intelligence. Philadelphia Inquirer. 04-17-1865. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

RAILS TO PROGRESS: How the arrival of the Georgia Pacific Railroad influenced the development of cities and towns in West Georgia 1870-1900

RAILS TO PROGRESS       click this link for the original document with photographs

 

RAILS TO PROGRESS: HOW THE ARRIVAL OF THE GEORGIA PACIFIC RAILROAD INFLUENCED THE DEVELOPMENT OF CITIES AND TOWNS IN WEST GEORGIA 1870-1900.

 

CHARLES A. LOTT JR

Douglasville GA

2012

INTRODUCTION

Before the railroad came to western Georgia, freight and passengers could only be transported by the labors of man or animal. Rough roads proved damaging to cargo and uncomfortable for travelers on wooden wheeled stagecoaches or horseback. Moving raw materials proved cumbersome, slow, and expensive. The steam engine proved to be one of the most prominent influences in the development of the area. The steel rails made it possible for passengers to travel in comfort, to move freight economically, and provided the necessary impetus to bring industry, development and manufacturing jobs to areas in which gold prospecting had played out and agriculture was the primary means of employment for most area citizens. The rails also brought opportunities for savvy investors and town boosters who used the railroads as devices of speculation to increase property values in relatively isolated regions along the tracks. The following case study of six towns in North Georgia between Atlanta and the Alabama state line will show that local entrepreneurs and “boosters” also played significant roles in the effect of the Georgia Pacific Railway on local communities along its right-of-way.

In his book, The Transportation Revolution, author and historian George W. Taylor contrasted the expense of transatlantic shipping costs versus transportation costs after the cargo was offloaded in America. “In 1816, the Senate reported that one ton of goods from Europe, traveling 3,000 miles, could be shipped for $9; the same shipment could be carried only 30 miles overland in the United States for the same price.” [1] The establishment of American railroads significantly changed that equation. The steam engine and steel rail made astounding contributions to the economy and industrial development of the nation’s economy, and specifically to that of the West Georgia region after 1881. Western Georgia was typical of most rural areas prior to the railroad in terms of movement of freight and passengers. Pack animals, ox and mules teams and wagons were the primary carrier of freight and many times, damaging to cargo over the rough primitive roads. Many people rode on horseback or in cramped stagecoaches, which were slow and uncomfortable for travelers.

The war of 1861-1865 had been devastating to Georgia and the city of Atlanta, which was one of the key cities and last strongholds of the Confederate States of America. Much of Atlanta was destroyed by Union troops in 1865. After 1865, prewar infrastructure of the south, especially that of the railroads, lay in ruins. According to author Maury Kline, “During the period of 1865-1877, known as ‘Reconstruction,’ most of the rail lines were rebuilt or repaired, although the system was not greatly expanded into new areas or were efforts made to consolidate existing roads”.[2] Prior to the rail, local towns and comminutes were located near old trails or roads which were mostly through fertile agricultural areas or near available water routes. According to Fannie Mae Davis (p. 153), the Georgia Western and bought and surveyed a right-of-way from Atlanta to Birmingham that was halted by the outbreak of war and what roadbed had been completed was used to drive cattle to market in Atlanta. Davis does not give a date and states that that this information is hearsay. Symbolically rising from the ashes, the rebuilding Atlanta needed steel from Birmingham, Alabama for its new buildings and bridges. There was a need to construct a rail line to transport the bulky and heavy materials and this presented an economic opportunity for savvy investors of the time. [3] Today, there is a renewed interest in local histories. According to the State of Georgia Heritage Tourism Handbook, “Tourism, the world’s largest industry, is essential to a Community’s economic vitality, sustainability, and profit-ability.”[4] The Douglas County Comprehensive Plan, October 2004 specifically documents the time period of the inception of an east-west rail corridor. “The idea for a railroad from Atlanta to Birmingham was conceived well before the civil war, yet it was many years before it became a reality. Work was begun on the railroad as track lying commenced in November 1881, and the track was laid to the city of Douglasville by April 1882. Villa Rica was reached in July 1882, and the line was completed between Atlanta and Birmingham by November of 1883.”[5] The rail route closely followed the “Old Federal Road” as it passed through western Georgia. “It (the Federal Road) crossed the Chattahoochee at Buzzard Roost, on to Lick Skillet, Deer Lick (Lithia Springs), Vansant Place, Skinned Chestnut (Douglasville), Hix Town (Villa Rica), Hart Town, Buckhorn, Wolf Pen (Bremen), Possum Snout (Tallapoosa) and on to Jacksonville, Alabama.”[6]

Many counties and towns have published books or pamphlets that detail how communities were formed and the stories of the first citizens and their roles in these endeavors. Common to most of these is the documentation of how the railroads were instrumental in the development of these areas. As the reconstruction era (1865-1877) ended, the period of the “New South” brought a sense of expansion and industrialization to the south.

The Route of the Georgia Pacific Railway from the 1883 Cram Map of Georgia.

 

Expansion of the railroads enticed northern investors as well as northern immigrants to the south looking for new opportunities to make money as well as a place to settle to enjoy the warm climate of the region.[7] Writers and historians have examined the roles of railroads and the money brokers who were behind these organizations during the formative years of 1850-1910.[8] How did the building of the Georgia Pacific railroad influence the development of these cities and towns during the 1870-1900 era?

According to the Railroad History website, the Georgia Pacific Railway Company was chartered on December 31, 1881, and took advantage of the economic opportunity that a rail line along the Old Federal Road connecting Atlanta, Georgia with Birmingham, Alabama presented. “Constructed between 1882 and 1889, The G.P.R.R. connected Atlanta and Greenville Mississippi.”[9] This paper focuses on the towns that sprang up between Atlanta and the Georgia-Alabama boundary on the rail line, specifically between Lithia Springs, and Tallapoosa, the westernmost Georgia town on the G.P.R.R. line.

For those people wishing to relocate to the Southern states, the new railroads made long distance travel affordable, comfortable, and economical. Writing in The Georgia Historical Quarterly of March 1942, Author C. B. Tebeau examined the state of the Southern region of the United States during and immediately after the Civil War. According to the author, “The number of railways projected in Georgia is so great as to remind one of the periods of railway mania elsewhere of unfortunate memory.”[10] The railroads made manufacturing and industries more viable, and these sprang up readily in cities that were served by the rail. Immigrants found employment in job in the South that would have been available on in more developed Northern cites prior to the railroad’s arrival in small Southern towns that bordered the rail.

The railroad’s influence was felt in every aspect of Southern life, so much so that its development through west Georgia came to be known as a ‘boom time’ of economic development.[11] In the 1870’s, just the mention of new railroad surveys caused flurry of activity that was in many ways, similar to that of gold rush fever. Speculators themselves fueled these rumors, primarily in newspaper articles and editorials to increase the value of their investment lands, as well as schemes to raise capital for future rail endeavors. [12] The history of rail development in western Georgia was not all favorable, however. The failed enterprises led to many local residents feeling swindled out of life savings as well as deflated hopes for local prosperity. In June 1871, with the rail line ending at Carrollton, the residents of Bowdon collectively “borrowed twenty thousand dollars and paid it over to the company” to have the rail continued to their community. “Bowdon property immediately arose in the estimation of everybody.” The rail was not built, and the repayment of the loan proved disastrous for many citizens and led many to bankruptcy. [13]

The major schools of thought regarding the railroads influence in the development of West Georgia cities and towns are reflected in the historiography relating to these events. John F. Stover argued in 1955, that the Northern railroad investors during the reconstruction period (1865-1877) were detrimental to the South’s economic recovery. Stover wrote, “The late 1860’s and early 1870’s were also years of intense and profitable railroad activity by carpetbaggers and their white and colored collaborators.”[14] The author indicates that the influence of these investors into the railroads and manufacturing in the South was ended by the third quarter of the 19^th century, “ By the early 1870’spractically all the political railroad spoilsmen had left theSouth. They left behind a heritage of poorly constructed, financially weak railroads not prepared for the financial problems of the time.”[15] These ‘financial problems’ referred to by Stover was a decimated infrastructure and manufacturing capacity as a result of the drawn out wartime activity in the region. However, other historians have written differing points of view regarding the role of outside investment into the rail and manufacturing recovery in the south and how these relate to town development.

         Historian and Professor Maury Klein described the immediate post-bellum southern railroad situations in his article, “The Strategy of Southern Railroads”, published in 1968. After the war, Southern infrastructure mostly lay in ruins and most manufacturing capability of the region was severely crippled. Klein wrote of the power brokers regarding not only railroad development, but also the location and development of towns and cities along the tracks as well. “The men who dominated southern railroads immediately after the war were for the most part, the group that had controlled them before the war,”[16] Before the war, the railroads were local ventures that were keenly competitive and resistant to linking to other lines. These were predominately isolated enterprises backed by local citizens. Southern investors rebuilt rail lines; however, northern investors who invested huge sums of capital into the rail system soon bought out these roads. The newly joined lines created a network of rails and connected the South to other regions of the country.[17] As these rail lines were built and allowed economical transportation of raw materials, manufacturing plants were constructed and small towns flourished in the wake of these enterprises. These manufacturing operations brought jobs for workers in those industries, but also economic opportunity for the agricultural communities as well.

Other publications focused on Northern money and expertise with hastening the development of cities and towns in the western Georgia region after the Civil War. Author Wilber W. Caldwell discussed many facets of railroad expansion and how the rail lines’ influence was felt in western Georgia during this period. In his book, The Courthouse and the Depot, a Narrative Guide to Railroad Expansion and its impact on Public Architecture in Georgia 1833-1910, Caldwell states “Beginning with the Panic of 1873, a series of bankruptcies had cleared this feast from the table set by local governments, leaving a tempting array of leftovers to be gobbled up by hungry Northern Capitalists who saw sweeping opportunities for what was amount to a second conquest of the American South.”[18] Quite the opposite John Stover argues that, “By the early 1870’s practically all the political railroad spoilsmen had left the South.” According to Caldwell, Northern investors took advantage of a struggling Southern rail enterprise and infused money and expertise to influence the development of towns and cities along the railroad’s path. [19] When the railroad was completed, these towns began to update many of the buildings along the rail that were visible to passengers on the train. Speaking of Douglasville in particular, Caldwell writes, “The arrival of the Georgia Pacific in 1882 brought the usual clamor regarding a new courthouse. In 1884, the grand jury suggested that the old courthouse, which was only a few years old, ‘was in bad shape and perhaps dangerous’ and recommend that the building be ‘bolted and banded without delay.”[20] The railroad’s influence in local politics and the ways that communities perceived themselves changed when the railroad arrived. Gone were the days of wooden storefronts. Impressive brick structures soon dominated the facades of the buildings facing the newly constructed railroads.

Stephanie Aylworth also wrote of the railroad’s effects on local town development along the tracks and how these influenced the local economies. “The rise of Southern railroad towns and the shift to cash-crop agriculture were mutually reinforcing trends that fostered a spirit of boosterisim among local businessmen and professionals.”[21] Aylworth agrees with that of Caldwell in that both show the connection between the railroad’s arrival and the cities and towns replacing older wooden structures with new brick storefronts along the tracks.

Mississippi State University Professor Roy. V. Scott, in his article “American Railroads and Agricultural Extension, 1900-1914, A Study in Railway Developmental Techniques,” wrote about the benefits that the rail provided for the towns where the rails were laid and would seem to support both Aylworth’s and Caldwell’s appraisals of the impact of railroads on local town development. Additionally, Scott included the impact on agriculture that the railroad affected. “Railroads were far, the most important business group involved in the (agricultural) movement” Scott wrote. [22] Railroads meant inexpensive shipping of crops to market, as well as reducing the cost of equipment purchased by the farmers who had access to the depots. These developments allowed farmers to plant larger plots and raise more commodities that were direct results of railroad’s locations in these small towns.

The predominant factor in the location and development of towns and cities along the east-west corridor from Atlanta to the Georgia-Alabama state line was the influence of the railroad’s location through the region. However, local citizens also played instrumental roles that have been overlooked in many instances. Every town had local advocates of the rail who were known as ‘boosters’ who used the railroad to further expansion of their communities and business ventures. Many of these men were politically connected on the state level and used their considerable influence to further their entrepreneurial strategies. [23] In order of westward expansion from Atlanta, the rail route went through the areas that are now Lithia Springs, Douglasville, Villa Rica, Temple, Bremen, and Tallapoosa. Each town has similarities and differences worth examining, both before the railroad and how the constructed railroad affected the community. This article contributes to understanding of the development of these cities and towns by examining and comparing the particular circumstances of each. The case study of six west Georgia towns will provide insights regarding how the railroad’s location influenced each of them. There are recognizable patterns in the development of these towns that can be brought to light. Evidence from period newspaper articles, maps that depict rail lines, both antebellum and postbellum, photographs, local histories, books, and journal articles will be utilized as primary and secondary sources to show that the involvement of local citizens has been underestimated in the previous historiography concerning the development of towns and cities along the Georgia Pacific Rail Road after its completion to Birmingham, Alabama.

LITHIA SPRINGS

The first city this study will examine is Lithia Springs. In her book, Douglas County Georgia, from Indian Trail to I-20, local historian Fannie Mae Davis, presents many factors that were key to the development in the cities in Douglas County along the rail line. Located thirty miles west of Atlanta, Lithia Springs in the 1880’s became one of the most popular and influential young cities in West Georgia.

Lithia Springs as a community predated the arrival of the rail. Both Indians and early white settlers used the springs, according to Davis, for its medicinal qualities. The early settlement grew up around the home of prominent early businessman John C. Bowden who, Davis wrote, “became owner of the springs and much of the surrounding land. Bowden built a comfortable home and around 1850 the post office, designated the ‘Salt Springs Post Office’ was located in his home.”[24] The commercial potential for the springs began in earnest when Atlanta businessman James Watson identified their medicinal potential. Davis describes the significant trip in 1881 when Watson made a stagecoach trip from Atlanta to Douglasville to visit his mother. On his return trip to Atlanta, Watson became too ill to proceed and took refuge at the home of Bowden and remained there several days to recuperate before proceeding home. “During his stay, he drank the salty spring water and became convinced that the water was more than incidental to his recovery.”[25] Watson carried a container of the water to Atlanta and had its content chemically analyzed, which proved to be “rich in sodium bi-carbonate and many other ‘healthful minerals’.[26] Watson was already an established entrepreneur with large developments in Atlanta and saw the potential for a resort and hotel near the springs as a commercial venture.

Bowden was fortunate that while he began plans for his venture, principals of the Georgia Pacific railroad was making plans as well and surveying the right of way for tracks near the newly planned resort. Watson, according to Davis, “readily saw the commercial and recreational possibilities that would be opened by the railroad.”[27] Through an act of the Georgia legislature, Salt Springs became an incorporated city in 1882. Although Bowden did not influence the G.P.R.R. surveyors, he was indeed fortunate in that the railroads location was relatively close to the salt springs.

Lithia Springs Rail Depot circa 1888. Photo: Collection of Earl Albertson

John. C. Bowden sold 700 acres of land to a new development company led by Watson, E.W. Marsh, and Hugh Inman, but retained the water and mineral rights. Bowden began the Bowden Lithia Bottling Company, and in 1884, began the first commercial sales of the mineral rich water. [28] The subsequent development of the Sweetwater Park Hotel, one of the largest in the eastern United States, met the need for more visitor access to the area, and the Salt Springs and Bowden Lithia Shortline Railroad was built to carry passengers and freight from the G.P.R.R. Lithia Springs Depot to the Sweetwater Park Hotel.

The Sweetwater Park Hotel c.1900

Photo: Douglas County Bank Federal Slide Collection

 

The Weekly Star newspaper, printed in nearby Douglasville, included in a story about the hotel, that the company will “have a new engine and cars on the narrow gauge to the Springs just as soon as the money and energy can get them there.”[29] The narrow gauge rail connected Salt Springs and the recently completed Georgia Pacific track. The train, according to Davis, “pulled a car over a ‘dummy’ line carrying passengers (from the Lithia railroad station to the new hotel) for five cents.”[30] The train carried cargoes of bottled and packaged Bowden Mineral Water to ship on the new rails as well as passengers arriving and departing to the resort. Wilber W. Caldwell, writing of the connector railroad between the G.P.R.R. and the Sweetwater Park Hotel, carried “a host of the nation’s wealthiest families including Vanderbilts, Astors, and four U.S. presidents” from the depot in Lithia Springs to the Sweetwater hotel. [31]

Steam engine and passenger cars en route from Lithia Springs Depot to the Sweetwater Park Hotel c.1895. Photo: Douglas County Federal Bank slide collection

 

The town along the G.P.R.R., originally Salt Springs, became known as Bowden Lithia Springs and in the late 1880’s the name was shortened to ‘Lithia Springs’. The city of Lithia Springs grew as a direct consequence of the influx of passengers and cargo to the rail depot on the G.P.R.R. in the center of the new city. Town boosters, such as John C. Bowden were instrumental in crafting a city on the new rail line when the opportunity was presented to develop the area for commercial purposes.

DOUGLASVILLE

Douglasville, the county seat of Douglas County, owes its existence to the railroad and local businessmen who used the rails to gain a foothold in the west Georgia economy.

First Train to Douglasville 1882. From the collection of Earl Albertson

Local historian Stephanie Aylworth, in Setting the stage: The Development of Douglasville Georgia’s Historic Commercial District from 1875-1915 notes that the location of the city itself was not without controversy among the local business leaders. “Farm owners desired a central location (for the county seat) that was the small village of Chapel Hill, but the town boosters favored the area known as Skint-Chesnut, which was located next to the surveyed railroad right of way.”[32] Chapel Hill was an agricultural community located about five miles south of the current downtown Douglasville business district and current railroad line. Aylworth also spells out the town booster’s motivations, “Town boosters believed that having the county seat next to the anticipated railroad was imperative to actualize their New South vision of the town and industry building.”[33] Wilber Caldwell also wrote of the same situation, “The dispute raged between those who advocated a central location, and those who sought a location on the proposed line of the railroad.”[34] The locals voted Chapel Hill as the county seat in a general election that was contested by the town boosters and eventually wound its way through the state court system. The fact that town boosters could win a state court challenge indicated that the

Douglas County Map Depicting the Relative Locations of Chapel Hill and Douglasville

in a1919 Douglas County Sentinel newspaper article. Courtesy: Douglas County Sentinel.

 

dispute was more than neighbor against neighbor; it was also men with political influence versus farmers. Joseph S. James, who according to Aylworth was, “A lawyer, a devout democrat, and a Henry Grady supporter; James dedication to Douglasville’s success was strong and his list of accomplishments were long.”[35] Included in this list, was the successful overriding of the citizen’s vote on the location of the new county seat. In 1875, the new city of Douglasville was incorporated by an act of the Georgia general assembly.[36] Allworth concludes, “The creation and development of the town, and particularly the central business district, was the first of the town booster’s accomplishments in supporting and capitalizing on the area’s existing agricultural commerce and the anticipated railroad line.”[37] In Douglasville, typical of these New South railroad towns, building facades were arranged parallel to the railroad tracks so that passengers on the trains could view the buildings through car windows as they passed through the city aboard the new steam trains.[38]

In the late 19^th century as new towns developed along the new rail lines, newspaper editorials were one of the prominent means of attracting visitors and investors to the areas. The Atlanta Constitution ran an article, “Douglasville’s Situation,” submitted as a “special guest submittal,” undoubtedly by a Douglasville town booster trying to lure outsiders to the rail side community. The article soundly expounds the virtues of the land and citizens, “Very pleasant is its location, on the crest of a ridge, the county sloping away on either hand” and “Beyond, as far as the eye can reach the landscape, is highly diversified, hill and valley, forest and cultivated field constantly present new and ever changing attractions.”[39] The enticement to relocate to the new town listed in the article included a section on the local government and its facilities, guest lodging, along with agricultural and mineral potentials. The article’s emphasizes the new railroad as of the young town’s most important features to those who would settle in the area to raise crops or begin manufacturing industries. “The rapidly growing towns but short distance away will absorb a large proportion of these products while numerous railroads will convey the surpluses in from twenty to forty hours to the largest and best markets in the wide world.”[40] Shipping by rail opened the markets of Atlanta and other points on the line to market locally grown produce that was time sensitive due to spoilage, and greatly improved the prospects of farmers who had access to the freight depot in Douglasville.

Although only 12 miles apart on the rail line, Lithia Springs and Douglasville had similar results from the railroads constructed through their areas. Douglasville lacked the tourist destination that Lithia Springs had in the Sweetwater Hotel complex; Douglasville’s residents grew much more cotton and other agricultural products. Both however, quickly took advantage of the new railroad’s capability to move passengers and freight quickly and for reasonable costs to greatly expand its manufacturing capabilities and entice new settlers into the areas.

VILLA RICA

The “City of Gold” as the city’s name translated into the Spanish language, did not exist prior to the railroads arrival in 1882. Approximately one mile north of the present day city was the town known as “Cheeves,” which sprang up as a result of the gold discoveries in the area around 1824 to support and supply the prospectors in search of mineral wealth in the newly acquired Indian lands. [41]

The G.P.R.R. reached Villa Rica and the first train arrived to much fanfare in June 1882. Local historian Mary T. Anderson documents the holiday type atmosphere surrounding the event, and concluded, “So, with the arrival of that first train, Villa Rica reached a new milestone in her history. It was evident that very soon a new and greater Villa Rica was to spring up around the railroad.”[42] As in the case of Douglasville, town boosters submitted “specials” to the Atlanta Constitution promoting the virtues of their city, and clearly promoted their entrepreneurial endeavors in the process. TheAtlanta Constitution contained the article, “Old and New Villa Rica: A New Life Given to a Flourishing and Important Section of the State.” The submitted article praises the effects of the new rail line to the area. “To those who believe that railroads do nothing toward developing the natural resources of a country, building up the towns along its line and acting as important feeders to the cities, we would respectfully invite them to a short trip out on the Georgia Pacific, when they will be convinced that one of the most important and flourishing sections of the state have remained longer without railroad facilities than they deserve.” The author continues, “In a few short months, where once stood immense forests the lots have been surveyed, sold into town property, businesses houses are erected, filed with goods, and each station is now doing a thriving business.”[43]

As a result of the Frierson & Leak Auction of town lots on August 15^th 1882, the new city of Villa Rica became the latest new town on the Georgia Pacific Railroad. Just as in the case of Douglasville, the railroad also brought controversy and conflict among local citizens. “The new town has sprung up within the past seven months, and now numbers three or four hundred people with twelve to fifteen business houses” wrote the author of an Atlanta Constitution article “Old and New Villa Rica,” and that “considerable rivalry exists between the two places, each one struggling for their respective town. Efforts are being made to remove the post office, but with what success is yet unknown.”[44] Many residents resisted the lure of the railroad and fought to keep their town intact. Hixtown and Cheeves residents were unsuccessful. One by one businesses moved to the new city of Villa Rica. The remnants of the old towns are visible only to those who recognize the former businesses that were converted to private homes and still dot the landscape of the west Georgia community.

Flyer for Villa Rica Land Auction 1882.

Mary T. Anderson “History of Villa Rica” (City of Gold) 1976,” Map of the “Big sale and Excursion” to Villa Rica Georgia on the Georgia Pacific Railroad. (Inside front cover).

 

TEMPLE

10 miles west from Villa Rica, The GPRR line entered the city of Temple. Author Burell Williams Holder, in his book, A History of Temple, Georgia, describes the agricultural community’s situation prior to the construction of the G.P.R.R. line, “after the cotton was ginned, the farmers turned their wagons southward and traveled to Carrollton, the nearest railroad town. The cotton was sold and supplies bought from the Carrollton merchants whose stores were nestled around the square of the county seat.”[45] The economy of Temple was significantly impacted by the lack of the rails. The citizens of Temple had also realized that there was money to be made if the rail line could be extended to the town. “For months, the farm families of the area had been hearing rumors that a railroad would be built from Atlanta to Birmingham.”[46] However, the most likely scenario was that the line would pass through Carrollton rather than the northern part of the county. “Then toward the end of 1881, the railroad rumor took on new life and quite a stir was evidence in the crossroads.” Burrell wrote “The Georgia Pacific Railroad was to be built from Atlanta through Ringer’s crossroad (Temple) and onwards to the coal fields and iron beds of Alabama.”[47]

Town boosters of Temple, just as those in Douglasville and Villa Rica, looked to the coming of the rail as opportunities to gain wealth. “A new, bustling railroad town was envisioned by business men of Carroll and surrounding counties.” [48] Auction companies surveyed the land for the city into lots and distributed plats that allowed prospective business owners to visualize the coming city. Burrell wrote, and that, “The crossroads soon became quite a lively spot as prospective merchants, millers, ginners, sawmillers, and carpenters arrived to look over the land which would be suitable for their enterprises.”[49]

Following a pattern that was seen in Villa Rica, the first engine steamed into Temple in 1882 and the town development soon began in earnest. “Out of sparsely settled northwestern Carroll County this place was surveyed and platted. On October 12, 1882, a big auction was held to sell the town lots. A special train brought perspective buyers from Atlanta.”[50] According to Holder, The city of Temple was incorporated by an act of the Georgia state legislature on August 28, 1883.[51] The town continued to rapidly develop and services such as schools and churches promptly sprang up in the new town. It seems that in the late nineteenth century along the G.P.R.R., the local populations can support one town per every ten miles of track. As in the case of Douglasville and Villa Rica not all residents were enamored with the railroad’s effects. “Farmers were happy over the price of land” Burrell wrote but, “Farmers found it difficult to hire farm laborers since most of them had gone to work with the railroad. They were making more money than they had on the farms.”[52] The railroad brought to Temple, just as it had to Lithia Springs, Douglasville, and Villa Rica, a boom time of building, development and prosperity for many of the towns citizens.

 

,

Railroad Crews lying track near Tallapoosa. Photo: Vanishing Georgia.

 

BREMEN

Bremen, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, “took its name from the nearby railroad station and the German seaport town of the same name.”[53] Bremen became a railroad town with a distinction that the other west Georgia rail towns did not have; two railroads intersected in the city. The railroad lines were surveyed and laid through the countryside into Haralson County in 1882. Prior to the railroad, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia: Haralson County, the area economy revolved around gold prospecting and mining ventures, which soon played out and forced the inhabitants to become farmers and timber managers.[54] Dr. Carole E. Scott, writing in the online publication Roadside Georgia also documents the area’s early mineral holdings as magnets to settlers who, following the gold finds at nearby Villa Rica, flocked to the area in search of quick wealth.[55] “When the Chattanooga, Rome and Columbus railroad was built, it crossed the Georgia Pacific at Bremen and gave the town a real boost.”[56] Others make this same observation. “Bremen’s location at the intersection of the Chattanooga, Rome, and Columbus Railroad and the Georgia Pacific Railroad appealed to manufacturing interests,” author Elizabeth Cooksey wrote in her work, Cities and Counties: Haralson County. [57] Places where the railroads intersected quickly became hubs where freight and passengers connected to trains going elsewhere. These rail hubs had significant impact upon the community, bringing jobs and industries to the rail towns.

TALLAPOOSA

Tallapoosa is one of the oldest settlements in western Georgia. Dr. Carole Scott wrote, “Although other names were used to refer to it during the early years, (Pine Grove, Pineville, Possum Snout), a Tallapoosa post office was established in 1839.”[58] Just as the case with its neighbor, Bremen, early settlers came to the area in search of gold.

The publication of the Haralson County Historical Society, Haralson County History Book, 1983, documents the impact of the railroad in the late nineteenth century, “In 1884 a dream came true. The railroad came within a mile of the city, to the south, but for several years went no farther. It was the terminus for some time. Some of the prominent families, living in and around Tallapoosa, are here merely because the railroad went no further west.”[59] Tallapoosa became the furthest west that people could travel and move freight by rail, and being at the end of the line, a destination settlement soon came into existence.

The new city of Tallapoosa, that settlement along the railroad tracks, is a direct impact of the railroad on the region.Excursion trains that carried passengers along the rails to auctions of lots in new rail towns became commonplace in the late nineteenth century. “Starting a Town, An Important Sale of Lots in One of the New Towns on the Georgia Pacific” an article in The Atlanta Constitution , advertised the upcoming auction and excursion. “ On Tuesday, the 28^th, a special train on the Georgia Pacific railroad will carry a number of excursionists from Atlanta to Tallapoosa sixty three miles from Atlanta, to attend the sale of lots by T.A. Frierson.”[60] Similar excursions were documented in Villa Rica, as well as Douglasville as the railroad provided new opportunities for land speculators to gain quick fortunes in the booming 1880’s real estate market.

The Georgia Pacific Railroad brought a wave of immigration to both Bremen and to Tallapoosa that other towns along the west Georgia section of the railroad did not attract. Ralph A. Spencer, a northern investor envisioned a planned community “for the purpose of wine making” in the area. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, Spencer purchased two thousand acres of land and invited Hungarian immigrants from Pennsylvania to relocate to the region and begin a winemaking operation in the fertile west Georgia soils. The winemakers “led by a Father Francis Janishek, according to Scott, included two hundred families who accepted Spencer’s invitation.” [61] These families caused an increase, not only in the population numbers of the citizens, but to their diversity as well. The area became a haven for northern European immigrants, the descendants of whom still live in the area today. “The county’s population became quite diverse as immigrants from other European regions joined the first groups.” [62] However, as fate would have it, “Prohibition passed the Georgia (laws) in 1907 effectively ruined the industry, and causing many of those in the new communities to leave.”[63] The railroad brought tourists that were target markets of the wine producers as well as transportation of the finished products to outside destinations. The railroad’s ability to move passengers and material quickly produced dividends for Tallapoosa. Tourism became a major industry and the Lithia Springs Hotel was built in 1881. It is recorded as the “largest wooden building in the South.”[64] It had, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, 175 rooms, a large ballroom, banquet room, billiard and pool rooms, and an elevator.” The building was razed in 1943.

Different patterns emerged in these western Georgia cities. Lithia Springs and Tallapoosa embraced the railroad and began efforts to draw tourists with lavish resorts and large hotels with viable, although short-term results. Douglasville, Villa Rica, and Temple each experienced conflict among the citizenry relating locations of settlements and cities. In these cases where

Lithia Springs Hotel. Tallapoosa GA. Photo: Vanishing Georgia

 

towns were relocated, citizens who remained faced diminished services and property values. Although the trains could transport locally produced products inexpensively and quickly, railroad construction teams took away valuable farm labor sources limiting the production of the western Georgia farms. Common to Villa Rica, Temple, and Tallapoosa, speculators bought large parcels of land and employed auction companies to sell the lots with successful results. These auctioneers placed ads in The Atlanta Constitution offering excursions to the new towns for the auction dates. Town boosters and investors, in each of these towns submitted editorials expounding and exaggerating the potential of these perspective cities along the track.

CONCLUSION

Although it could be argued that the influence of the railroads themselves were the primary determinant of town locations and industries, it is apparent from the case study of six west Georgia towns that the local citizens and outsiders who were involved in the late nineteenth century boom years also played important roles in the development of the towns that grew there. Investors came from all over the country, as did speculators, immigrants, and settlers to these new railroad towns to seek fortunes or fresh starts in new areas. Of one thing there is no doubt: after the first train steamed into these towns, life there was never the same.

Works Cited

 

Primary Sources

 

Newspaper Articles

Atlanta Constitution (1869-1875), accessed 12 January, 2012.

Douglasville, Georgia, Sentinel, 1919.

Douglasville, Georgia, Weekly Star, 25 May 1886.

 

 

Maps

Alabama Department of Archives and History, “Map of the Western and Atlantic Railroad, c.1870,” University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Anderson, Mary Talley. “History of Villa Rica” (City of Gold.) Villa Rica

Bicentennial Commission. 1976.

 

Douglas County Sentinel. “Map of Douglas County.” 18 Jul., 1919.

“Georgia Pacific Railway 1883 Map”.

website, accessed Feb 7, 2012, http://railga.com/gpacific.html.

Georgia Digital Map Collection “Railroad map of Georgia 1887,”accessed 1 Jan., 2012. http://usgwarchives.org/maps/georgia/railroad/ga-1887.gif.

 

History of Georgia Pacific Railway. “Georgia Pacific Railway 1873 Map”.

website, accessed 7 Feb, 2012. http://railga.com/gpacific.html.

 

Norris, George E., “Historic Map – Tallapoosa GA-1892” Burleigh Lithography Company

(1892), accessed 1 Jan., 2012 at: http://worldmapsonline.com/historicalmaps/1W-GA-TA-1892.htm.

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs

 

Albertson, Earl. M. Portraits of History, Train “The Accommodation” published by author, Douglasville GA. c 2000. Reprints available from author only.

“First Train in Douglasville, 1882, known as the Southern Pacific.

Lithia Springs Depot 1890.

 

Douglas County Federal Bank, Historic Photograph Collection. Douglasville GA.

 

Haralson County Historical Society, Haralson County History Book. Taylor

Publishing Company, Dallas, TX, 1983.

 

Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia Collection. Bremen Railroad Depot circa 1925,

Accessed 8 Feb, 2012 at http://www.georgiaarchives.org.

 

Lithia Springs Hotel, accessed 6 Apr., 2012. http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/cgibin/vanga.cgi?query=id:hrl039-84.

Railroad Workers In Tallapoosa GA, 1913. Accessed 6 April, 2012 at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/cgi- bin/vanga.cgi?query=id:hrl006.

 

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Anderson, Mary Talley. History of Villa Rica (City of Gold). Carrollton, Georgia: Villa Rica

Bicentennial Commission, 1976.

 

Aylworth, Stephanie Sage. Setting the Stage, The Development of Douglasville    

         Georgia’s Historic Commercial District from 1875-1915. (MA Thesis, University of West

Georgia), 2010.

 

Caldwell, Wilber W. The Courthouse and the Depot, A Narrative Guide to Railroad    

       Expansion and its impact on Public Architecture in Georgia 1833-1910. Macon, Georgia:

Mercer University Press, 2001.

 

Carroll Historical Quarterly, Vol. 1. 1968. Winter Issue. Collection located at the

University of West Georgia Library, reference collection. Accessed Feb. 4, 2012.

 

Cooksey, Elizabeth B.  “Cities and Counties: Haralson County,” The New Georgia

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http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2344.

 

Davis, Fannie M. Douglas County Georgia: From Indian Trail to Interstate 20. Fernandina Beach, Florida: Wolfe Publishing, 1997.

 

Douglas County Planning Commission, Douglas County Comprehensive Plan, October 2004.

Douglasville, Georgia.

 

Georgia Pacific Railway, “Railroad History,” Accessed 21 Jan., 2012. http://www.railga.com/hpacific.html.

 

Greene, Frances. The First One Hundred Years, Haralson County, Georgia. Dallas

Texas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1983.

 

Griffith, Ben. At Home in Carrollton, 1827-1994, A History Illustrated. Carroll

County Historical Society. Roswell, Georgia: Wolfe Publishing, 1994.

 

Haralson County History Book . Dallas, Texas: Haralson County Historical Society, Taylor  Publishing, 1983.

Holder, Burell Williams. A Historical Sketch of Temple Georgia. Centennial Edition.

Carrollton Georgia: Thomasson Printing Company, 1976.

 

A History of Temple Georgia. Centennial Edition.

Carrollton Georgia: Thomasson Printing Company, 1982.

 

Klien, Maury. “The Strategy of Southern Railroads”. The American Historical Review,

Vol 73. No. 4. (Apr.,1968), 1052-1068. Accessed 21 January, 2012.

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Scott, Carole E. “Tallapoosa, Georgia, USA”. Roadside Georgia. Accessed 21 January, 2012.

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Speno, Lynn ed. “Heritage Tourism Handbook: A How-to-Guide for Georgia,” Accessed 12 January, 2012. http://www.georgia.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/Industries/Tourism/Product%20Development/GA%20Heritage%20Tourism%20Handbook.pdf.

 

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[1] George Roberts Taylor. The Transportation Revolution 1815-1860, 2nd ed.

(Harper Torchbooks, 1968). 132-152.

[2] Maury Klein, “The Strategy of Southern Railroads,” The American Historical Review

Vol. 73, No. 4. (Apr. 1968): 1052-1068, accessed 12 Jan., 2012.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1847388.

[3]L. Blalock, “Railway Notes,” Atlanta Constitution, March 2, 1905, 5.

[4] Lynn Speno, ed. “Heritage Tourism Handbook: A How-to-Guide for Georgia,” accessed January 12, 2012,

http://www.georgia.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/Industries/Tourism/Product%20Development/GA%20Heritage%20Tourism%20Handbook.pdf.

 

⁵Douglas County Planning Commission, “Douglas County Comprehensive Plan,” October 2004.

 

[6] Mary Talley Anderson, History of Villa Rica, (City of Gold) (Villa Rica Bi-Centennial Commission, 1976), 80. Anderson also mentions that the Federal Road originated near Augusta GA.

[7] C.W. Tebeau, “Visitor’s Views of Georgia Politics and Life, 1865-1880,” The Georgia  

Historical Quarterly Vol. XXVI, No. 1 (March 1942): 1-15, accessed 21 Jan., 2012,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/405768818.

 

[8] Several authors have established the relationship of power brokers, town boosters, and

Northern investors in Southern railroad expansion schemes. C.B. Tebeau’s article, “Visitors Views of Georgia Politics and Life, 1865-1880”, in the 1942 edition of The Georgia Historical Quarterly,as well asJohn F. Stover’s article, “Northern Financial Interest in Southern Railroads, 1854-1900, also in the Georgia Historical Quarterly, in the September 1955 issue both wrote extensively of the influence of Northern investors in the southern regions’ railroad expansions and consolidations.

[9] Georgia Pacific Railway, “Railroad History,” Accessed 21 Jan., 2012. http://www.railga.com/hpacific.html. The Georgia Pacific website also has maps of 1873 and 1883 that show the rail lines in western Georgia.

 

[10]Ibid., 7.

 

[11]Ibid., iii

 

[12] “New Line To Douglasville, An Electric Railway Soon to Connect it with Atlanta,” Atlanta Constitution, June 4, 1897, 6, http://search.proquest.com/docview/495369858?accountid=15017.

 

[13] Carroll Historical Quarterly Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter Issue, 1968): 17.

 

[14] John F. Stover, “Northern Interest in Southern Railroads, 1865-1900,” The Georgia

   Historical Quarterly Vol. 39, No. 3 (September, 1955): 205-220, accessed 12 Jan.,

2012. http//www.jstor.org/stable/40577595.

 

Although Stover was an Assistant Professor of History at Purdue University in Illinois, this article shows

a significant Southern bias, with frequent references to “Carpetbaggers.”

 

¹⁷Ibid., 1052.

 

[14]Wilber W. Caldwell, The Courthouse and the Depot, a Narrative Guide to Railroad  

   Expansion and its impact on Public Architecture in Georgia 1833-1910,

 

[15] Ibid., 210.

 

[16] Ibid., 1064.

 

¹⁷Ibid., 1052.

 

 

[18]Wilber W. Caldwell, The Courthouse and the Depot, a Narrative Guide to Railroad  

Expansion and its impact on Public Architecture in Georgia 1833-1910, (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2001). One aspect of Caldwell’s work shows how county courthouses were updated with brick facades and elaborate architecture in response to being seen from the rail cars passing by.

 

[19] Ibid., 342.

 

[20] Ibid.

 

[21]In her thesis, Setting the Stage, The Development of Douglasville Georgia’s Historic Commercial District from 1875-1915. (MA Thesis, University of West Georgia, 2010)., 8, Stephanie Sage Aylworth cites Douglas Flaming’s, “Creating the Modern South, Millhands and managers in Dalton” in support of this line of thought.

 

[22] Roy V. Scott, “American Railroads and Agricultural Extension, 1900-1914, A Study in

Railway Developmental Techniques” The Business History Review Vol. 39, No. 1 (1965): 74-98. Scott also cites Frank Andrews, “Railroads and Farming,” United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Statistics, Bulletin 100 (1912), accessed 12 Jan., 2012, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3112466.

[23] Stephanie Aylworth, “Setting the Stage: The Development of Douglasville, Georgia’s

Historic Commercial District from 1875-1915” (MA Thesis, University of West Georgia, 2010); Douglas County Planning Commission, 2004.

[24] Fannie Mae Davis, Douglas County Georgia, From Indian Trail to I-20 (Fernandina Beach,

Florida: Wolfe Publishing, 1997), 120.

 

[25] Ibid.,110

 

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid.

 

[28] Ibid.,111.

[29] Ibid. The Weekly Star was the Douglasville newspaper and published by one of the town’s major backers of the rail line. The article ran in the May 25, 1886 edition.

 

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid., 343.

[32] Aylworth, 4; Davis, 67.

[33] Aylworth 4.

 

[34] Ibid., 4.

 

[35] Ibid., 16.

[36] Ibid., 4.

 

[37] Ibid.

 

[38] Ibid.,16.

 

[39] “Douglasville’s Situation. Its People, Its Businesses, and its Future Prospects.” Atlanta Constitution, May 5, 1888, 8.

[40] Ibid., “Douglasville’s Situation.”

 

[41] Anderson, 80. “Hixtown”, an alternative name for Cheeves is found Anderson’s book.

 

[42] Ibid., 30.

[43] “Old and New Villa Rica: A New Life Given to a Flourishing and Important Section of the

State.” Atlanta Constitution, December 24, 1882, 6.

 

[44] Ibid.

[45] Burrell W. Holder, A History of Temple Georgia (Carrollton, Georgia: Thomasson Printing Company, 1982), 24. Holder also wrote A Historical Sketch of Temple in 1976, which contains much of the same material as his 1982 offering, A History of Temple Georgia.

[46] Ibid., 25.

 

[47] Ibid., 25-26.

 

[48] Ibid., 25.

 

[49] Ibid., 26.

 

[50]Ibid., pp.27.

[51] Ibid.

 

[52] Ibid., 27.

[53] Elizabeth B. Cooksey, “Cities and Counties: Haralson County,” The New Georgia Encyclopedia, 24, accessed 6 Mar., 2012, http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2344.

 

[54]Ibid.

[55] Carole E. Scott, “Tallapoosa Georgia,” Roadside Georgia, accessed 31Jan., 2012,

http:www.roadsidegeorgia.com/city/Tallapoosa.html.

 

[56] Haralson County History Book . Dallas, Texas: Haralson County Historical Society, Taylor Publishing, 1983.

 

[57] Cooksey, 1.

[58] Scott , 1.

 

[59] Haralson County History Book, .9.

 

[60] “Starting a Town, An Important Sale of Lots in One of the New Towns on the Georgia

Pacific,” Atlanta Constitution, November 26, 1882.

[61] Ibid., 2.

 

[62] Ibid.,1.

 

[63] Cooksey, 2.

 

[64] Ibid.