By CD Eskilson / Current photos by Whit Pruitt,
Historical photos courtesy of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
“Is it correct to put sugar in cornbread?”
Jared Phillips, a teaching associate professor of history, asked the students gathered around the conference table in Gearhart 243. The class burst with energy as nearly everyone responded with an opinion backed up by family recipes laying out how much sugar was acceptable for the dish. As the excitement died down, Phillips pointed out that their responses were the result of traditions learned and rooted in distinct communities. As the class discussed the day’s readings, this was revealed to be the definition of “folklore.”
Image, top left: A musician and folklorist perform at the Ozark Folk Festival in 1958
Image, bottom right: Guitarists and fiddle players pose for a band photo outdoors in 1921.
Phillips, along with Virginia Siegel, a professor of practice, oral historian and director of Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts, and Joshua Youngblood, head of the Instruction and Outreach Unit for the University Libraries Special Collections, led Ozarks Culture, a multidisciplinary Honors Signature Seminar diving into the history, literature, music and folklore found in the Ozark Mountains.
Through a survey of these diverse sources, many of which are archived exclusively at the University of Arkansas Special Collections, the class challenged outsider stereotypes about the region being one full of hillbillies and moonshiners. Rather, students analyzed and discussed writing on the rich customs of Ozarkers living within a 55,000-square-mile area spanning across Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas.
One of the readings included work by George Pool Ballard (1882-1951), a poet who lived in Fayetteville’s Spout Spring neighborhood and a key figure in Arkansas literature. Though Ballard is less well-known to contemporary audiences, his work from the 1920s touches on themes of race and police violence still relevant to readers today.
Along with examining important past stories from the region, Ozarks Culture also urged students to consider their positions as residents today and take an active role in shaping the stories that are told.
“How do we as citizens take an active role in the creation of the narrative and put forth a new vision?” Phillips noted.
In doing so, Ozarks Culture highlighted the process behind conducting the scholarly fieldwork being studied. Guided by Siegel, students reviewed key concepts for conducting oral histories like how to engage with interview subjects and audio recording best practices.
The lessons prepared the class to conduct research on contemporary Ozarks culture. To Siegel, applying these skills will help the class better understand how their own scholarship, as current residents, might actively create a more representative account of the Ozarks’ vibrancy moving forward.
“Ozark culture is so very alive, and there’s a whole world of people who are creating and doing neat things,” she noted.
Through the fieldwork assignments, students acted as ethnographers studying Ozarks culture. Maggie Anderson, an honors pure mathematics major and STEM education minor from Cord, Arkansas, investigated a return to homeschooling trend in the Ozarks. She interviewed several families to learn about the impact their environment had on the decision. Emaline Pendleton, an honors biological engineering major from Fort Smith, Arkansas, attended a folk music jam held by the Arkansas State Old Time Fiddlers Association in Springdale.
Studying these traditions allowed her to learn more about her own passion for music.
“I am a fiddle player myself, and I thought this would be a great way to get an inside scoop on Ozark roots music culture,” Pendleton noted. “So many of the old-time tunes that were played in the 1800s are still played today at jams. … [It was] super cool to see how these old traditions have manifested in current jam circles.”
Ozarks Culture also examined how archives construct narratives out of collected fieldwork that directly impacts future scholarship. The class frequently visited the University Libraries Special Collections and learned how to navigate its resources. During one session, Youngblood led students in exploring the Ozark Folksong Collection, the largest collection of Ozark folksongs in the world hosted at the University of Arkansas. As the class encountered an incomplete transcript to a song one researcher from the 1960s determined was not good enough to record, it became clear how personal bias and prioritizing certain narratives can find its way into the archive.
“What makes a folk song?” Youngblood posed to the class. “Who decides?”
The course’s final project had students put all these folklore research skills to use. They each prepared museum exhibits investigating a unique aspect of contemporary life in the Ozarks based on collected fieldwork and contextualized with archival texts. The range of topics underscored the breadth of folkways and richness of Ozark life today.
Elizabeth Gunderman, an honors African and African American studies and political science major from Fayetteville, Arkansas, presented on Ozark water witching, also known as dowsing, the practice of finding underground water using a stick or Witch Hazel branch. Gunderman learned more about the practice from her grandmother and highlighted the practice’s historical and ongoing importance to farmers in local Ozark communities.
Thomas Medford, an honors history major from Conway, Arkansas, constructed a personal history of Bonnie Villines, whose homestead in Boxley Valley was ceded to the Park Service for the creation of the Buffalo National River. Focusing in on Villines’ love of quilting and new life away from the river, Medford hopes to exemplify an Ozarker in time and the people behind a changing landscape.
A group of Arkansans pose by a river. A man in the back holds dowsing rods, used in a practice called water witching to find water sources.
A photograph of a stream in Boxley Valley taken by the National Park Service in the early 1980s.
An exterior photograph of the Villines Mill in Boxley Valley taken in the mid-1900s.
Musicians, circa 1928
Elizabeth Gunderman presents on water witching, a practice she learned from her grandmother.
Thomas Medford reconstructs the personal history of Bonnie Villines, whose homestead in Boxley Valley was ceded to the National Park Service for the creation of the Buffalo National River.