Appalachian Travels: The Diary of Olive Dame Campbell ed. by Elizabeth McCutchen Williams (review)

In 1908 and 1909, social reformers John C. Campbell and his wife, Olive Dame Campbell—two Northerners—thoroughly traversed Southern Appalachia in an effort to document information about, and their observations of, this region's social and economic conditions. Mrs. Campbell, in particular, took the responsibility for recording the couple's findings, experiences, and reflections. Now, thanks to Elizabeth McCutchen Williams, a research librarian and assistant professor at Appalachian State University, scholars and general readers alike may easily access Olive Dame Campbell's engaging account of turn-of-the-century Southern Appalachian culture and society. In Williams's words, Campbell's diary is "a valuable primary account of conditions in the Appalachian region during the Progressive Era, when major changes—social, educational, religious, and economic—were taking place" (xiii). States covered include Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. A helpful glossary of terms related to Appalachian culture is attached to this volume.

Olive Dame Campbell's diary in particular documents information about, and her impressions of, vernacular architecture, family life and social interactions, food and diet, infrastructure and transportation, and cultural traditions, including religion. In so doing, the reader gains not only a keen sense of Appalachian culture but also of the mountain people themselves. Campbell conveys their hopes, dreams, fears, opinions, struggles, feuds, interests, and even rare victories. During much of the trip, John Campbell was occupied speaking to community leaders and interviewing principals, superintendents, teachers, and other miscellaneous townspeople; meanwhile, Olive Campbell was carefully observing, and conversing with, the region's female inhabitants in more informal, personal environments. Therefore, for the individual particularly interested in the lives and experiences of mountain women, this volume will not disappoint. Finally, while Mrs. Campbell's New England sense of propriety was occasionally challenged by mountain dwellers such as these, the general tone of her diary is sympathetic and relatively nonjudgmental.

Williams furnishes her readers with a competent introduction in which she provides much-needed context to Olive Dame Campbell's diary, revealing biographical information about Campbell and her husband; discussing the mythical images of Appalachia as represented in early twentieth century fiction and nonfiction; and exploring some of those reasons why social reformers like the Campbells were compelled to try to ameliorate conditions in Appalachia during the Progressive Era. In addition, Williams exposes the serious problems—including the lack of communication, money, and schools—that afflicted the region; offers information concerning the Campbells's altruistic goals as well as their sponsor, the Russell Sage Foundation; and sheds light on Mrs. Campbell's life and charitable projects after her 1908-1909 adventure throughout Appalachia. Readers will particularly appreciate Williams's description of the Campbells's, particularly Olive's, commitment to the preservation of Appalachian culture during the 1910s and 1920s. Even after her husband's death in 1919, Olive Campbell helped to establish the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, as well as to publish—under John Campbell's name—The Southern Highlanders and Their Homeland. Thus, via Williams's contextualization, one begins to understand the mindset of one of this region's most influential Progressive reformers.

However, while the introduction may be thorough enough for the general reader, the specialist will likely find it to be too cursory and ultimately unsatisfying. There are several topics that Williams could have explored in greater detail as well as secondary literatures to which she could have related Olive Dame Campbell's diary. In particular, this volume would benefit from an introduction that more fully addressed outsiders' preconceived notions and impressions of the southern mountain folk; more fully assessed industrialization's impact on Appalachian society; and more fully explored those reasons why northern Protestant reformers believed it their mission to uplift the region's inhabitants. Finally, to what extent had scholars previously consulted this source—before it was made so accessible by Williams—and to what extent will its publication alter, or refine, our collective...