An astute collection of inquiries into the rich history and impact of the National Barn Dance

Much criticism has been directed at negative stereotypes of Appalachia perpetuated by movies, television shows, and news media. Books, on the other hand, often draw enthusiastic praise for their celebration of the simplicity and authenticity of the Appalachian region. Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878 employs the innovative new strategy of examining fan mail, reviews, and readers’ geographic affiliations to understand how readers have imagined the region and what purposes these imagined geographies have served for them. As Emily Satterwhite traces the changing visions of Appalachia across the decades, from the Gilded Age (1865–1895) to the present, she finds that every generation has produced an audience hungry for a romantic version of Appalachia. According to Satterwhite, best-selling fiction has portrayed Appalachia as a distinctive place apart from the mainstream United States, has offered cosmopolitan white readers a sense of identity and community, and has engendered feelings of national and cultural pride. Thanks in part to readers’ faith in authors as authentic representatives of the regions they write about, Satterwhite argues, regional fiction often plays a role in creating and affirming regional identity. By mapping the geographic locations of fans, Dear Appalachia demonstrates that mobile white readers in particular, including regional elites, have idealized Appalachia as rooted, static, and protected from commercial society in order to reassure themselves that there remains an “authentic” America untouched by global currents. Investigating texts such as John Fox Jr.’s The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908), Harriette Arnow’s The Dollmaker (1954), James Dickey’s Deliverance (1970), and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain (1997), Dear Appalachia moves beyond traditional studies of regional fiction to document the functions of these narratives in the lives of readers, revealing not only what people have thought about Appalachia, but why.

"Listening to the Beat of the Bomb" UPK author Charles Wolfe discusses his work and his new book Country Music Goes to War in the NEW YORK TIMES. While Toby Keith suggests that Americans should unite in support of the president, the Dixie Chicks assert their right to criticize the current administration and its military pursuits. Country songs about war are nearly as old as the genre itself, and the first gold record in country music went to the 1942 war song "There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere" by Elton Britt. The essays in Country Music Goes to War demonstrate that country musicians' engagement with significant political and military issues is not strictly a twenty-first-century phenomenon. The contributors examine the output of country musicians responding to America's large-scale confrontation in recent history: World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the cold war, September 11, and both conflicts in the Persian Gulf. They address the ways in which country songs and artists have energized public discourse, captured hearts, and inspired millions of minds. Charles K. Wolfe, professor of English and folklore at Middle Tennessee State University, is the author of numerous books and articles on music. James E. Akenson, professor of curriculum and instruction at Tennessee Technological University, is the founder of the International Country Music Conference. Together they have edited the collections The Women of Country Music, Country Music Annual 2000, Country Music Annual 2001, and Country Music Annual 2002.

In The Country Music Reader Travis D. Stimeling provides an anthology of primary source readings from newspapers, magazines, and fan ephemera encompassing the history of country music from circa 1900 to the present. Presenting conversations that have shaped historical understandings of country music, it brings the voices of country artists and songwriters, music industry insiders, critics, and fans together in a vibrant conversation about a widely loved yet seldom studied genre of American popular music. Situating each source chronologically within its specific musical or cultural context, Stimeling traces the history of country music from the fiddle contests and ballad collections of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the most recent developments in contemporary country music. Drawing from a vast array of sources including popular magazines, fan newsletters, trade publications, and artist biographies, The Country Music Reader offers firsthand insight into the changing role of country music within both the music industry and American musical culture, and presents a rich resource for university students, popular music scholars, and country music fans alike.

A framework for understanding the totality of costs and benefits of universal access that will foster honest appraisal and guide the development of good policies. Universal access—the idea that certain technologies and services should be extended to all regardless of geography or ability to pay—evokes ideals of democracy and equality that must be reconciled with the realities on the ground. The COVID-19 pandemic raised awareness of the need for access to high-speed internet service in the United States, but this is just the latest in a long history of debates about what should be made available and to whom. Rural mail delivery, electrification, telephone service, public schooling, and library access each raised the same questions as today’s debates about health care and broadband. What types of services should be universally available? Who benefits from extending these services? And who bears the cost? Stepping beyond humanitarian arguments to conduct a clear-eyed, diagnostic analysis, this book offers some surprising conclusions. While the conventional approach to universal access looks primarily at the costs to the system and the benefits to individuals, Harmeet Sawhney and Hamid Ekbia provide a holistic perspective that also accounts for costs to individuals and benefits for systems. With a comparative approach across multiple cases, Universal Access and Its Asymmetries is an essential exploration of the history, costs, and benefits of providing universal access to technologies and services. With a fresh perspective, it overturns common assumptions and offers a foundation for making decisions about how to extend service—and how to pay for it.

"Chicago is recognized around the world for its place in the history of jazz, gospel, and the blues. Far less known is the surprisingly important role Chicago played in country music and the folk revival. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and deep archival research, Mark Guarino tells a forgotten story of music in Chicago and reveals how the city's institutions and personalities influenced sounds we today associate with regions further south. It is a story of migration and of the ways that rural communities became tied to growing urban centers through radio, the automobile, and the railroad. As the biggest city in the agricultural Midwest, Chicago became a place where rural folk could reinvent themselves and shape their music for the new commercial possibilities the city offered. Years before Nashville emerged as the commercial and spiritual center of country music, Chicago was the most active city for the genre's musicians and record labels. In the mid-1920s, the stars of WLS radio's Barn Dance modernized the sounds of country fiddlers and polished the mountain tunes of Appalachia for contemporary ears. By the 1940s, Chicago had the greatest concentration of country musicians in the US. Bill Monroe, The Carter Family, and Gene Autry all recorded some of their most legendary music in Chicago. When the larger recording industry drifted to the coasts after World War II, Chicago became known for working folk musicians who could freely experiment, collaborate, and perform at a distance from the sometimes stifling star structure of Nashville's Music Row. Guarino tells the stories of the Chicago hustlers who evolved new strains of country music in the city's bars, punk clubs, classrooms, and auditoriums. The College of Complexes, The Gate of Horn, the Earl of Old Town, the Old Town School of Folk Music, Club Lower Links, and Lounge Ax served as creative incubators for different generations of music. Country and Midwestern is a story as vital as the city itself, a celebration of the colorful characters who kept country and folk moving forward, and of the music itself, which even today is still kicking down doors"--

A collective biography of the women who shaped early country and western music