The Galax Gatherers: The Gospel Among the Highlanders by Edward O. Guerrant, Mark Andrew Huddle (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Edward 0. Guerrant, with an introduction by Mark Andrew Huddle. Tbe Galax Gatberers: Tbe Gospel Among tbe Higblanders. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press,2005. 264 pp. ISBN: 1572333634 ( paper), $ 19.95. travelertoBreathittCotn ty, Kentucky today can . . ..: , visit the deserted bu W ngs » » » that used to be Highla id College a 9.* · 4 3 school established 1 1907thiot»gh 1.etifi ·»:'. ,» the efforts ofgroups « iffil ated wth 1,%. mountains. Edward 0. Guerra it, c s ... 0 h · I. a Confederate Civil War vetet a 7, served as Presbyterian missionary to Appalachia for forty years. His writings were partially compiled in 1910 n a collection called Tbe Galax Gatberei s, wh ch 71$ now been reprinted by the University of Teli iessee Press. Guerrant's reflections might disappoint social historians looking for empirical insight into the lives of people in the Kentucky mountains. Tbe Galax Gatbeyers is not social analysis or even trave] or local color literature. Instead, it fits more firmly into a genre of religious and charitable fundraising literature. As such, Guerrant maximizes elements that would encourage donations while minimizing indepth description. Guerrant relies heavily on the isolation"motif of Appalachian society, noti17g repeatedly the remoteness of the hollows and the separation of the people from the ways of the rest of the country. Transportation difficulties provide grist for repeated humorous anecdotes; he states several times that Pike's Peak was an easier climb than some of the roads he encountered in eastern Kentucky (142).Guerrant also devotes considerable attention to the rough living circumstances of his 71 ss on workers, the " Soul Winners, who were ge iera y wellto do young women froin elsewhere in tie South. " Have you a part in this blessed work?" Guerrant asks his readers and potential donors at the end of o le such story and in many others M .5 = + SA ( 59).The monetary appeal had a t"«. - -' - ' c ear ·el gious end, as Guerrant repeatedly presses on his readers the trge icy of h s work. These are a 1„ {, f j " per £ 11 ng people," he says, living i 7 places w lere " there is neither X ' T - 1 church lor school house here,and s . 1 1 1-9'* 9 nevei was," a id who would be lost 4 n eternity f not for the efforts ot i '' 4 ./# the " SoL W nets" ( 77, 50). A D I The new ntrc, duction by histoFlf · · 4 i 'an Ma k Andrew Huddle ably places the book within a national h stotical context of latenine teenth century home missions, in whe i Protestant writers, fearing for the nation's Protestant identity in the face of massive Catholic a id Jewish immigration,urged the reevangelization of the United States. That agenda often had racial overtones, : is writers sought to reassert the special role of AngloSaxon civilization in the plans of divine providence. Guerrant,Huddle argues, shared those ideas, though he did not state them overtly with some exceptions; see xxx, 102, 161). That mountain people were primarily " white" certainly enabled Guerrant to speak highly of them, and to admire their eagerness,hospitality,and native intelligel »lee amidst their spiritual destitution. Huddle also connects the home mission movement with the concurirnt Sc, cia] Gospel movement. Guerrant, according to Huddle, expressed a version of the Social Gospel that equated aid for the needy with building the institutions of Protestant and AngloSaxon civilization. Certainly Guerrant 76 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY believed civilizing the Highlanders to be a crucial component of evangelization,and he considered the schools, orphans' homes, and hospitals he built to be his crowning achievements. The Galax Gatherers says nothing about social justice,however,nor about economic or social relationships. An intriguing exception comes in the book's opening vignette, which takes place in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. Here, Guerrant explains the meaning of the collection's title, referring to farmers and their families who spend their winters collecting galax,a wild plant whose golden foliage was in high demand for decorating the homes of the wealthy. " Probably none who enjoy their gorgeous foliage in stately mansions," Guerrant notes, " ever know what labor and sacrifice and suffering these leaves cc...