Musical instrument makers in the state of West Virginia in the United States pursue “singing,” lively instruments that capture ideals of musical tone and “re-enchant” their work and lives through relationships with craft materials and the forest landscape. Suitable tonewoods that grow in the region, such as red spruce (Picea rubens), intersect with makers’ desires to craft instruments in the style of famed makers such as the C.F. Martin Company and the Gibson Company as well as provide instruments imbued with a sense of place. While the demand for and symbolic import of instruments made with local wood seems to grow, the availability of the requisite tree species is dominated by resource materialities and temporalities of large land-owners and timber producers that privilege timber harvest in short cycles that clash with the needs of musical instrument crafters. As a result, makers also look to other global forests, such as those of the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, as sources for tonewood capable of becoming a singing instrument. Employing a theoretical framework that emphasizes the relationality of human actors and nonhuman materials, I argue that the work of instrument makers is rendered meaningful in part by a co-constructive process of becoming both instrument and maker. I show how this relationship extends to the forest environment, spiritual and philosophical discourse, and transnational networks that continually re-enchant the work of musical instrument makers in a region questioning the future and sustainability of economic and environmental processes. I join efforts to explore and analyze the political ecology of musical instruments through the affective material relationships and global flows of craft materials placed in an environmental locus of local, regional, and national imaginaries and the futures and failures of capitalist modes of production. By presenting narratives collected through ethnographic apprenticeships, interviews, and archival research, I argue that these makers navigate unique approaches to the forest environment, the global exchange of sonic craft materials, and meaning of their work through the craft of musical instruments.

This is a study of the material culture of Surry County, Virginia for the years 1690 to 1715, based on an analysis of 221 probate inventories. The inventories were divided by decades and then ranked by total appraised value. The bottom 30%, lower middle 30, upper middle 30% and the top 10% are described and changes over time examined. The picture of Surry that emerges is that of a poor county which was, nevertheless, a place of opportunity for the poorer sections of society. The bottom 60% of Surry's residents profited from the brief boom in the tobacco market (1696- 1702) and were, as a group, wealthier by the middle of the second decade of the eighteenth century than they had been in the 1690s. The top 40%, on the other hand lost ground economically.

Abstract ALWAYS ALREADY IMPRISONED: THE PANOPTIC POWER OF CAPITALISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1900-1940 By Andrew Blair Spencer, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2019 Director: Dr. Richard Fine, Professor, Department of English By applying the theories of control that Michel Foucault outlines in Discipline and Punish to the capitalist system, I argue that capitalism functions in much the same was as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon in that it perpetually imprisons individuals who live under its purview. As I see it, capitalism works on two different tracks to exploit the human condition in order to keep those living under its purview perpetually trapped within an endless cycle of working to acquire commodities, both for our personal survival and our personal indulgence. Advertising assumes the role of Foucauldian discourse in this model. In the United States, advertising became a commercial force in the mid-nineteenth century; by the beginning of the twentieth century, it was a fully-fledged profession that worked to fuel the bourgeoning commercial culture that was beginning to manifest itself in all areas of American life. By creating needs and desires in the minds of consumers, advertisers were able to dictate consumer behavior, thereby further locking Americans into the capitalist Panopticon. This theoretical base becomes the foundation upon which I build my explication of fourteen representative American novels written during the period 1900-1940. I offer in-depth discussions of individual novels, paying particular attention to the ways in which authors interrogate the capitalist system in light of the image of the United States as a land of opportunity. The selection of works includes both male and female authors, as well as white and African-American writers. Characters range from very poor to exorbitantly wealthy, and include multiple examples of middle-class life, too; the collection of works I have chosen includes both native-born and immigrant populations, as well. This wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, races, and nationalities provides a comprehensive picture of how all-encompassing the capitalist Panopticon is in American society.

Containing portraiture and biography as well as protest text and affirmative text, African- American Illustrated biographical dictionaries made from 1876 to 1917 present Social Gospel ideology and are examples of Afro-Protestantism. They are similar to the first American illustrated biographical dictionaries of the 1810s in that they formed social identity after national conflict while contesting concepts of social inferiority. The production of these books occurred during the early years of Jim Crow, a period of momentous change to the legal and social fabric of the United States, and because of momentous changes in modern American print industries. While portraits within the books simultaneously form, blur, and stabilize identity, biographies convey themes of perseverance, social equity, and social struggle. More specifically, text formed an imagined community in the African-American middle class imaginary. It worked together with image to help create a proto-Civil Rights social movement identity during the beginning of racial apartheid.

Using a poststructural and reader-response theoretical framework, the author explores competing ideas of interpretation, epistemology, and the problematic nature of truth and meaning in Henry James’s novel, The Golden Bowl. The author analyzes the ways in which emergent nineteenth century communication technologies, specifically how telegraphy both mediates and facilitates intimacy in a modern landscape. James anticipates modern forms of social media by exploring the nuances and the potential erotic nature of mediated communication and knowledge.

Material culture is an understudied aspect of social life in Appalachian Studies, the multi- disciplinary investigation of social life in the Appalachian region. Historically, material culture in the region has been largely studied for its semiotic properties, decoded as a tangible symbol of “a region apart,” lagging behind the rest of America in terms of moral, mental, economic, and social development. Critical material studies from archaeology and other disciplines paint a different picture, however, and construct a region as American as any other. This study utilizes discourse analysis of material rhetoric about Appalachia and archaeological and oral historical data from two twentieth-century company- owned coal mining towns in Letcher County, Kentucky. It argues that contrary to persistent stereotypes about Appalachia as a backwards place, residents were firmly embedded in the market economy and enacted modern identities through their engagement with fellow citizens and material objects. This intersectional study uses theories of practice to explore how entanglement with mass-produced goods, notably home furnishing and wellness products, constituted residents’ identities as modern consumers along with the rest of the nation during the golden age of Appalachia’s industrialism. Appalachian women and their families embraced consumer goods, whose influx intensified during the Industrial Age, entangling their constitution as modern householders with these everyday goods through daily practice. Contrary to stereotypes about Appalachian atavism and isolation, Appalachian consumers eagerly engaged with mass-produced goods and new ideals about scientific health and house-holding along with their counterparts across the progressive United States.

‘Celebrity’ has become a growing field of critical inquiry and cultural interest in twenty-first century society. Celebrities embody a host of meanings and engender larger ideological and discursive practices, in which they articulate expressions of social, cultural and political power that attach meaning to public individuals. Beginning with the late-twentieth century, celebrities have come to occupy spaces that exist beyond popular culture platforms, most notably in politics and international diplomacy. In spite of its typical association with superficial discussions of gossip and cheap entertainment, celebrities have become the site of anxiety in a capitalist society. To come to terms with these growing anxieties concerning celebrity and its accoutrements, this thesis explores the embedded complexities and consequences of the celebrity system within the framework of what has dubiously been called ‘celebrity politics.’ Through a detailed examination of this phenomenon, this thesis explores the coalescing spheres of Hollywood and the White House, where ‘celebrity’ and ‘politician’ have become interchangeable monikers. In addition to examining the historical conditions that have given rise to the phenomenon, this study examines contemporary articulations of the ‘celebrity politician,’ focusing on Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn and President Barack Obama. Discussion of these figures is framed by critical theory and media studies to better understand their location within the contemporary Western landscape.

This thesis explores the Churchill Weavers stereocards housed at the Kentucky Historical Society and Berea College based on visual analysis. By examining the stereocards as advertisements and comparing them to a series of short films created by the company, I will discuss how the Churchill Weavers created a brand that emphasized both an image of traditional American rural production and modern urban consumption. I will further discuss how the marketing strategies used by the Churchill Weavers exemplify a larger trend in American advertising in the years following World War Two.

This thesis illustrates the accomplishments and challenges of enhancing accessibility across the national parks, at the same time that great need to diversify the parks and their interpretation of American disability history remains. Chapters describe the administrative history of the NPS Accessibility Program (1979-present), exploring the decisions from both within and outside the federal agency, to break physical and programmatic barriers to make parks more inclusive for people with sensory, physical, and cognitive disabilities; and provide a case study of the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site (HOFR) in New York. The case study describes the creation of HOFR as a house museum and national historic site, with a particular focus on the history of the site’s accessibility features; considers existing barriers; and makes recommendations for programmatic changes to improve the experience for disabled and nondisabled visitors. By collaborating with and learning from nearby organizations by and for people with disabilities, HOFR can serve as a model for other historic house museums in how to effectively interpret “disability stories.” Contemplating how the National Park Service has interpreted the histories and heritage of other historically marginalized communities through theme studies, on-site interpretation, and public history scholarship yields lessons for how best to interpret disability history and depict nuanced representations of the varied disability communities living in the U.S. The inclusion of “disability stories” and representation of people with disabilities in the past will help foster deeper connections with and welcome diverse visitors to the parks.

Through their editorial arrangements of African-American, Euro-American and European poetry, fiction and news, Frederick Douglass’s anti-slavery periodicals (The North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper) imagine a cosmopolitan discourse that predates the segregated realities of the antebellum United States. In spite of Southern blockades against the infiltration of Northern texts, Douglass’s material space uniquely capitalized on the limited restrictions of his reprinting culture to relocate the voice of the ‘outraged slave’ onto a global stage. From the poems of Phillis Wheatley and William Cowper to Charles Dickens’s Bleak House and Douglass’s own novella “The Heroic Slave,” this project considers how Douglass’s literary inclusions—and exclusions—complicate our static considerations of the historicized Douglass and exhibit his savvy insertions of black print into an exclusive, transatlantic nineteenth-century print culture.