Cemeteries and the Life of a Smoky Mountain Community: Cades Cove Under Foot.

Gary S. Foster, William E Lovekamp

Research output: Book/ReportBook

Abstract

In one of the few studies to draw upon cemetery data to reconstruct the social organization, social change, and community composition of a specific area, this volume contributes to the growing body of sociohistorical examinations of Appalachia. The authors herein reconstruct the Cades Cove community in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, USA, a mountain community from circa 1818 to 1939, whose demise can be traced to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. By supplementing a statistical analysis of Cades Cove’s twenty-seven cemeteries, completed as a National Park Study (#GRSM-01120), with ethnographic examination, the authors reconstruct the community in detail to reveal previously overlooked social patterns and interactions, including insight into the death culture and death-lore of the Upland South. This work establishes cemeteries as window into (proxies of) communities, demonstrating  the relevance of socio-demographic data presented by statistical and other analyses of gravestones for Appalachian Studies, Regional Studies, Cemetery Studies, and Sociology and Anthropology.
Original languageAmerican English
DOIs
StatePublished - 2019

Keywords

  • cemetery
  • national park
  • cades cove
  • smoky mountains
  • sociology

Disciplines

  • Social and Behavioral Sciences
  • Anthropology
  • Social and Cultural Anthropology
  • Sociology
  • Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies

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