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| Gwen McNeill Ashburn, Ph.D. | 
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Asheville, NC Gwen McNeill Ashburn is Associate Professor in the Literature and Language Department of UNC Asheville. A graduate of Queens College (A.B., English) and UNC Chapel Hill (Ph.D.,Linguistics), her research focused on the development of English and the usage of language according to audience. Dr. Ashburn has been published in reviews including The Thomas Wolfe Review and the Kentucky English Bulletin, and such journals as The Arts Journal and The International Journal of Psycholinguistics. She is a member of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Modern Language Association, the Appalachian Studies Association, and the Appalachian Consortium Committee. Her interests include Southern and Appalachian Literature, linguistics, travel writing, and women's history. |
Mountain Women in Fiction: Working Without Nets (new)
Eliza Gant is characterized in Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward,
Angel as a stingy, hard-nosed businesswoman with little time for
mothering the last of her nine children. Many mountain women like
Wolfe’s mother Julia, on whom Gant was modeled, worked because
they had to. Through feminism and fiction, readers can appreciate
the difficult lives led by mountain women in the early twentieth
century. Novels by Wilma Dykeman, John Ehle, Olive Tilford Dargon,
Robert Morgan, Lee Smith, Fred Chappell, Silas House, and Denise
Giardina, as well as Thomas Wolfe, portray women whose lives were
far different from the stereotype of a Southern lady. Their works
of fiction remind us of how mountain women worked and how work shaped
their lives. Though fictional, their stories are important because
they tell us of real mountain women who worked in mills and on farms,
raised children and gardens, and fed families and animals—often
alone and without any safety nets. Carolina Mountains: Writers and Travelers (revised) Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers and travelers such
as Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles Dudley Warner, Constance Fenimore
Woolson, Margaret Morley, and Christian Reid tell of the “Land
of the Sky,” a destination for those seeking the strange,
the sublime, and the soothing. These notable authors traveled in
the Carolina Highlands and entertained their readers with accounts
of beautiful, rugged mountains and sturdy, resourceful people. Though
lapsing into “local color” and establishing stereotypes
at times, their travel writing depicts an interesting, complex region,
full of compelling characters and stories. From the earliest settlers in Western North Carolina and founding of Asheville, women have been instrumental in this area's history, but there are few records of their achievements. Many women will remain anonymous with their stories known only to their families at best. There are, however, a group of women who converged in the 1920s and 1930s whose achievements should be marked. They helped form Asheville into a distinctive Southern highlands community by establishing medical clinics, caring for the poor, founding community centers, raising money for the churches and schools, marching for equal rights, and integrating schools and hospitals. What a shame that historical accounts of the region ignore their contributions as if they had never been part of the stream of settlers in Asheville, living, working, and through their efforts, building a community. This presentation will highlight the efforts and achievements of these women. Requirements for Programs: lecturn 
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