 | This article reads like a press release or a news article and may be largely based on routine coverage .(June 2014) |
Appalshop is a media, arts, and education center located in Whitesburg, Kentucky, in the heart of the southern Appalachian region of the United States.
Appalshop was founded in 1969 as the Appalachian Film Workshop, a project of the United States government's War on Poverty. [1] The organization was one of ten Community Film Workshops started by a partnership between the federal Office of Economic Opportunity and the American Film Institute. [2] In 1974 they incorporated into a nonprofit company called Appalshop and established itself as a hub of filmmaking in Appalachia, and since that time has produced more than one hundred films, covering such subjects as coal mining, the environment, traditional culture, and the economy. The name was officially changed to reflect changing business structure and goals.
Appalshop also produces theater, music, bluegrass recordings (released on its June Appal Recordings label), as well as photography, multimedia, and books.
Since 1985, Appalshop has also operated WMMT-FM (Mountain Community Radio), a radio station located in Whitesburg, Kentucky which serves much of central Appalachia (including portions of eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia, and western West Virginia) with music and programming relevant to the region and its culture. WMMT also broadcasts live on the web.
During the 2022 floods in Eastern Kentucky, Appalshop and the archives that it stored were heavily damaged. The center has since been working to recover its archives. [3]
As stated on its website, [4] Appalshop's goals are:
Appalshop relies on multiple funding sources, including endowments, individual donors, and public and private grants. [5] In 2017 Appalshop reported that its funding comprised 10% from endowment, 5% from individual donors, 32% from public grants, 45% from private grants and 8% from other sources. [5]
National Endowment for Humanities Grants have awarded multiple grants to Appalshop. [6] These include $100,000 to improve the public programming initiatives and access to their collections. [7] The National Endowment of the Humanities stated that the grant would be an ideal for this region because of thousands coal related layoffs in the region. [6]
In July 2015 Appalshop was awarded $450,000 by ArtPlace America, [8] which provided funding for increasing arts and technology training. The money also helped to diversify Letcher County's economy. [9]
These grants were awarded to the Southeast Kentucky High Tech Workforce Project that was started by Appalshop. [10] The totaled amount of money awarded was $275,000. Economic Development Administration awarded $200,000 and Appalachian Regional Commission awarded $75,000. [10] The grants will help develop a certificate program at Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College campuses in Letcher that will focuses on information technology and media production. [10]
In 1990 Appalshop documentary producer Anne Lewis won the Alfred I. du Pont Award for Broadcast Journalism (Columbia University)
Letcher County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,548. Its county seat is Whitesburg. It was created in 1842 from Harlan and Perry counties, and named for Robert P. Letcher, Governor of Kentucky from 1840 to 1844.
Blackey is an unincorporated community in Letcher County, Kentucky, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 120. It is located near the early settlement of Indian Bottom. Blackey is thought to have been named after Blackey Brown, one of its citizens.
Whitesburg is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Letcher County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,139 at the 2010 census and an estimated 1,875 in 2018. It was named for John D. White, a state politician.
Appalachia is a socio-economic region located in the central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United States. It stretches from the western Catskill Mountains in the east end of the Southern Tier of New York state west and south into Pennsylvania, continuing on through the Blue Ridge Mountains into northern Georgia, and through the Great Smoky Mountains from North Carolina into Tennessee and northern Alabama. In 2020, the region was home to an estimated 26.1 million people, of whom roughly 80% were white.
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a United States federal–state partnership that works with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life. Congress established ARC to bring the region into socioeconomic parity with the rest of the nation.
Appalachian music is the music of the region of Appalachia in the Eastern United States. Traditional Appalachian music is derived from various influences, including the ballads, hymns and fiddle music of the British Isles, the African music and blues of early African Americans, and to a lesser extent the music of Continental Europe.
Harry Monroe Caudill was an American author, historian, lawyer, legislator, and environmentalist from Letcher County, in the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky.
Nimrod Workman was an American folk singer, coal miner and trade unionist. His musical repertoire included traditional English and Scottish ballads passed down through his family, Appalachian folk songs and original compositions.
James Watson Webb, was an Appalachian poet, playwright, and essayist. He was a founding member of the Appalachian Writers Cooperative and program manager of Appalshop's radio station, WMMT. Webb died on October 22, 2018. WMMT and Appalshop celebrated his life and legacy over the winter of 2018–2019.
Addie Prater Graham was born in 1890 at Gilmore in Wolfe County in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. She was a masterful traditional singer whose life and repertoire reflect both deep tradition and an era of social change in the Appalachian Mountains. She sang ballads which trace back to the British Isles, others composed in America, frolic songs and ditties, and religious songs in the Primitive Baptist tradition. While the Old Baptist belief of her parents forbade the use of musical instruments, she became an accomplished unaccompanied singer in the complex, highly ornamented style of Kentucky's oral tradition.
The Mountain Eagle is a local weekly newspaper published in Whitesburg, Kentucky. It is the main newspaper of Letcher County, Kentucky and one of the primary newspapers of Eastern Kentucky.
Wendy Ewald is an American photographer and educator.
Stranger with a Camera is a 2000 documentary film by director Elizabeth Barret, investigating the circumstances surrounding the 1967 death of filmmaker Hugh O'Connor. Barret was born and raised in the region, and the film explores questions about public image and the individual's lack of power to define oneself within the American media landscape.
Eula Hall was an Appalachian activist and healthcare pioneer who founded the Mud Creek Clinic in Grethel in Floyd County, Kentucky.
The Appalachian region and its people have historically been stereotyped by observers, with the basic perceptions of Appalachians painting them as backwards, rural, and anti-progressive. These widespread, limiting views of Appalachia and its people began to develop in the post-Civil War; Those who "discovered" Appalachia found it to be a very strange environment, and depicted its "otherness" in their writing. These depictions have persisted and are still present in common understandings of Appalachia today, with a particular increase of stereotypical imagery during the late 1950s and early 1960s in sitcoms. Common Appalachian stereotypes include those concerning economics, appearance, and the caricature of the "hillbilly."
Pat Gish was an American journalist, publisher and co-editor of the Whitesburg, Kentucky newspaper The Mountain Eagle, along with her husband, Tom Gish. The Gishes led The Mountain Eagle in covering controversial topics such as the effects of strip mining on the Appalachian environment and political corruption. Under the Gishes' guidance, The Mountain Eagle became a prominent rural newspaper, and the pair won many awards for their journalism. Gish also founded the Eastern Kentucky Housing Development Corporation and worked to improve living conditions in Eastern Kentucky.
The Coal Employment Project (CEP) was a non-profit women's organization in the United States from 1977–1996 with the goal of women gaining employment as miners. With local support groups in both the eastern and western coalfields, CEP also advocated for women on issues such as sexual harassment, mine safety, equal access to training and promotions, parental leave, and wages.
The Archives of Appalachia are located on the campus of East Tennessee State University (ETSU) in Johnson City, Tennessee. Containing books, rare manuscripts, photographs, and audio and moving-image recordings, the archives serve as a resource for scholarly and creative projects dealing with life in southern Appalachia.
John Rosenberg, is a Holocaust survivor, longtime civil and human rights activist, former attorney in the Civil Rights Division and founder of the Appalachian Research and Defense fund in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.
Belinda Ann Mason was an American AIDS activist, policy advisor, and writer based in rural Kentucky. She was the first person with AIDS appointed to the U.S. National Commission on AIDS.
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