West Virginia History: A Journal of Regional Studies

For roughly three decades, historians have been studying the public memory of historical events, analyzing how public narratives of the past were constructed, which aspects were emphasized, and which topics were omitted. Public memory is the product of a discourse that includes monuments and commemorations; the products of historians, curators, and archivists; and novels, poems, paintings, and movies. In his 1992 study Remaking America, John Bodnar argues that public memory has generally been the product of contests between official versions of the past and vernacular or grassroots cultures. Of the episodes he included in his study, he writes, “Public memory was never clearly or permanently defined but, rather, it was continually constructed in a realm where the small-and large-scale structures of society intersected.”¹

In this issue of West Virginia History, two scholars examine the public memory of two very different chapters of West Virginia history. Through her research, Kate Kramer has discovered that the majority of the victims of the Everettville mine disaster were African American, an important fact that has been ignored in most accounts of the disaster. Kramer finds that this omission is consistent with the social construction of Appalachia as a place populated by white, mostly Scots Irish, people with a homogenous culture and history. Kramer’s efforts are part of a burgeoning movement of historians, poets, artists, and others to recover and make visible the contributions of Black Appalachians to the region’s history. Additionally, her article notes that the 1927 strike of the Everettville miners has also been largely forgotten, despite being a violent, bitter, and costly struggle of the United Mine Workers of America. Its inclusion in this history adds complexity to the events surrounding the disaster.

Edward Adams examines the works of Pocahontas County novelist W. E. Blackhurst. The author of such classics as the 1954 historical novel Riders of the Flood, Blackhurst was captivated by the boom years of the Greenbrier Valley timber industry just as he was living through its years of decline. Adams has done extensive research to reconstruct Blackhurst’s world from the 1950s on, considering how residents of the timber counties understood their own history and what may have influenced Blackhurst’s thinking. By the time he was writing his final novel, Blackhurst— through his characters— was reckoning with the end of the timber boom and the limits [End Page v] that placed on his community’s economic growth. Adams finds in Black-hurst an individual grappling with the grandeur of his place’s past while living through an era of decline, an experience of countless Appalachians as companies extracted the last natural resources around their communities.

This issue concludes with reviews of recent books about Civil War hostages, a leftist newspaper publisher of the 1920s and 1930s, musical instrument makers, and Welsh iron and steel workers, as well as a recent exhibit at Arthurdale. [End Page vi]