The Daily Eats and Treats in 1930s Appalachia
- Categories
- Appalachian Collections > Appalachian Folklife Archive
- Subject
- Appalachia
- Oral histories--Appalachia
- Folklore--Appalachia
- Great Depression
- Farms.
- Cooking.
- Creator
- Huff, Kerri
- Quesenberry, Cova
- Kenley, Anna
- Type
- text and audio
- Coverage - Temporal
- 2002
- Date
- 2002-12-02
- 2020-08-12
- Identifier
- 202.446.13.pdf
- Language
- english
- Publisher
- Appalachian Regional and Rural Studies Center. Radford University
- Archives & Special Collections. McConnell Library. Radford University
- Description
- In this project, Kerri Huff interviewed her grandmother Cova Quesenberry of Buffalo Mountain in Floyd County Virginia, and Anna Kenley from McDowell County, West Virginia about food and cooking in the 1930s. Since the two interviewees were from different states, Ms. Huff assumed they would have different answers to the interview questions and would talk about different foods, but that did not end up being the case. Daily food staples such as beans, bacon and eggs, biscuits etc were described by both. During the interview, Ms. Quesenberry described growing up on a farm and how most all of the farm products they raised and produced were sold to provide the money they needed to survive. Ms. Kenley on the other hand, grew up in a coal mining camp and had a garden that supplied only their family with food. Another interesting similarity between the two women was their assertion that the Great Depression did not much affect them since they were already poor. These interviews are interesting because they provide a different perspective from many depression stories we have heard. This interview is among projects created by students enrolled in English 446 (initially English 452), “Appalachian Folklore,” 1981-2019, and in graduate level counterparts English 548 and 648 “Appalachian Folk Culture(s)” offered 17 fall semesters between 1987 and 2009. Minimally contain collector’s introduction and analysis, transcribed informant interviews, and excerpted and labeled examples of oral, customary, and/or material folklore/folklife collected primarily within the Appalachian region. Most include also tables of contents, informant information, indexes (outlines) of interviews, photographs, miscellaneous paper items, and indexes of informants, genres, and geographic locations. Accompanying audio recordings (several minutes to 2+ hours). Transferred to McConnell Library Archives & Special Collections from Appalachian Regional and Rural Studies Center, Fall 2013.
- Rights
- All rights are reserved by the original creators and their informants, excepting those expressly provided in a permission form on file in the Archives offices. Content is available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. McConnell Library Archives and Special Collections, Radford University, Radford, VA). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of Radford University, is strictly prohibited. Please refer to the McConnell Library Archives and Special Collections website for more information.
