“A unique combination of entertainment history and Appalachian history…. Condee demonstrates that the region was not as isolated as often thought and that opera houses increased the region’s exposure to various cultural aspects.”
H-Appalachia
“One of the most valuable aspects of Condee’s book is the emphasis on the development of the coal industry in Appalachia, the growth in population and diversity, and especially how internal colonialism led to the development of the opera houses.”
The Journal of Cultural Economics
“What makes this study of value and also unique is Condee’s approach to the topic. It is a useful analysis of the opera house as a reflector and location of local culture in far more ways than traditional performance. A real attraction is the plentiful illustrations.”
Don B. Wilmeth, editor of Cambridge Studies in American Theatre & Drama and The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre (2nd ed.)
Opera houses were fixtures of Appalachian life from the end of the Civil War through the 1920s. Most towns and cities had at least one opera house during this golden age. Coal mining and railroads brought travelers, money, and change to the region. Many aspects of American life converged in the opera house.
Coal and Culture: Opera Houses in Appalachia is a critical appreciation of the opera house in the coal-mining region of Appalachia from the mid-1860s to the early 1930s. Author William Faricy Condee demonstrates that these were multipurpose facilities that were central to the life of their communities. In the era before radio, movies, television, and malls, these buildings were essential. They housed little, if any, opera, but were used for almost everything else, including traveling theater, concerts, religious events, lectures, commencements, boxing matches, benefits, union meetings, and—if the auditorium had a flat floor—skating and basketball.
The only book on opera houses that stresses their cultural context, Condee’s unique study will interest cultural geographers, scholars of Appalachian studies, and all those who appreciate the gaudy diversity of the American scene.
William Faricy Condee is a professor of theater and the director of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University. He is the author of Theatrical Space: A Guide for Directors and Designers. His articles about theater architecture have appeared in numerous journals in the United States and the United Kingdom. More info →
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Hardcover
978-0-8214-1588-7
Retail price: $44.95,
S.
Release date: December 2004
224 pages
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6 × 9 in.
Rights: World
Electronic
978-0-8214-4135-0
Release date: December 2004
224 pages
Rights: World
Red, White, Black, and Blue
A Dual Memoir of Race and Class in Appalachia
By William M. Drennen Jr. and Kojo (William T.) Jones Jr.
·
Edited by Dolores Johnson
A groundbreaking approach to studying not only cultural linguistics but also the cultural heritage of a historic time and place in America. It gives witness to the issues of race and class inherent in the way we write, speak, and think.
Memoir · African American Studies · Social Science | Regional Studies · Gender Studies · Appalachia · Ohio and Regional · Creative Nonfiction · Literature · Appalachia
Beyond Hill and Hollow
Original Readings in Appalachian Women’s Studies
Edited by Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt
Women’s studies unites with Appalachian studies in Beyond Hill and Hollow, the first book to focus exclusively on studies of Appalachia’s women. Featuring the work of historians, linguists, sociologists, performance artists, literary critics, theater scholars, and others, the collection portrays the diverse cultures of Appalachian women.The
Women’s Studies · Social Science | Regional Studies · Literary Criticism, Women · Women’s History · Appalachia · Literature · Ohio and Regional
Extracting Appalachia
Images of the Consolidation Coal Company, 1910–1945
By Geoffrey L. Buckley
As a function of its corporate duties, the Consolidation Coal Company, one of the largest coal-mining operations in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century, had photographers take hundreds of pictures of nearly every facet of its operations. Whether for publicity images, safety procedures, or archival information, these photographs create a record that goes far beyond the purpose the company intended.In
American History · Social Science | Regional Studies · History | Modern | 20th Century · Appalachia · Ohio and Regional
Stories from the Anne Grimes Collection of American Folk Music
By Anne Grimes
Stories from the Anne Grimes Collection of American Folk Music is a treasury of American traditional music and Ohio’s folklife heritage.Traveling along the highways and byways of Ohio in the 1950s as a folksinger and collector of traditional music, Anne Grimes encountered people from many different backgrounds who opened up their homes to her to share their most precious family heirlooms—their songs.
Music, History and Criticism · Social Science | Regional Studies · Ohio · Ohio and Regional
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