Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia

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Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia

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Item Title

Bernice Springston, of B&T Logging Contractors, and Danny Williams, of Clay's Branch, cutting Yellow Poplar in Canterbury Hollow on Rock Creek. [Photo]

Author/Creator

Photographer: Eiler, Lyntha Scott

Created/Published

September 27, 1995

Notes

The extraction of coal and timber has for the past century formed a "boom and bust" economy for people living in the mountains. Conversations with residents and foresters reveal a contrast between two modes of forest management, one market-based, the other community-based. A community-based mode of forestry, rooted in a historical system of forest-farming with Cherokee and Celtic antecedents (cite source), nurtures a sense of reciprocity among humans, animals, and the land. A number of project participants expressed misgivings about destroying "den trees," "bee trees," and nut trees, for example. "I worked with a man in Hazy who would not cut a hickory," said Danny Williams. "He would not cut a hickory. The boss had to go along behind him and cut all the hickories." Depicted in these photos is a "selective cut," which means that the property owner identified the species and size of timber that could be harvested.
Event: Logging.

Subjects

Fall
September
Year-round work
Logging
Yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera)
Tulip tree
Photo
Ethnography
Photographs
Canterbury Hollow
Rock Creek

Object Type

still image

Related Names

Depicted: Williams, Danny
Depicted: Springston, Bernice

Medium

35 mm Color Slide

Language

English

Call Number

CRF-LE-C006-01

Part of

The Coal River Folklife Collection (AFC 1999/008)

Repository

Library of Congress, Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Digital ID

afccmns lec00601
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afccmns.lec00601