Setting the Record Straight: Anne W. Armstrong, Regionalism, and the Social Efficacy of Fiction

314 Pages·2016·1.21 MB·English

by  Katherine Hoffman Doman

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Katherine Hoffman Doman
University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss
Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons
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Doman, Katherine Hoffman, "Setting the Record Straight: Anne W. Armstrong, Regionalism, and the Social
Efficacy of Fiction. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2008.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/428
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To the Graduate Council:
I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Katherine Hoffman Doman entitled "Setting
the Record Straight: Anne W. Armstrong, Regionalism, and the Social Efficacy of Fiction." I have
examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend
that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, with a major in English.
Allison R. Ensor, Major Professor
We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance:
Mary E. Papke, Thomas F. Haddox, Benita J. Howell
Accepted for the Council:
Carolyn R. Hodges
Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
(Original signatures are on file with official student records.)
To the Graduate Council:

We are submitting herewith a dissertation written by Katherine Hoffman Doman entitled,
―Setting the Record Straight: Anne W. Armstrong, Regionalism, and the Social Efficacy
of Fiction.‖ We have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and
content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English.

Allison R. Ensor ________________
Major Professor

We have read this dissertation
and recommend its acceptance:

Mary E. Papke_____________________

Thomas F. Haddox__ _______________

Benita J. Howell __________________

Accepted for the Council:

Carolyn R. Hodges___________________
Vice Provost and Dean of the
Graduate School

(Original signatures are on file with official student records.)
Setting the Record Straight:
Anne W. Armstrong, Regionalism, and the
Social Efficacy of Fiction

A Dissertation
Presented for the
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Katherine Hoffman Doman
August 2008
Copyright © 2008 by Katherine Hoffman Doman.
All rights reserved.
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Dedication

To my parents, Laing and Weedie Hoffman, for the love, support, and confidence to
make it through this process.

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Acknowledgments

I am a most fortunate person, having benefited from the assistance and
encouragement offered by many generous people in the completion of this project.
Central to my effort has been Mark Doman, who spent long years listening to my ideas
and helping me earn this degree. I remain very grateful for his support.
I owe a great debt of gratitude, of course, to the members of my committee. I am
honored to have had the assistance of such a diverse, generous, and talented group of
scholars as I worked on this dissertation. Dr. Allison Ensor, my committee chair, has
been a constant source of encouragement and wisdom. His enthusiasm for my project
never seemed to wane, and I relied heavily on both his encyclopedic knowledge of
Appalachian literature and his eye for editing, not to mention his calmness and good
humor. Dr. Mary Papke added to the project her remarkable editing skills, finding just the
right phrase or word when I could not, curbing my fondness for extraneous commas, and
suggesting content and structural changes that made great improvements in the text.
When personal matters threatened to interfere with my professional work, both Dr. Ensor
and Dr. Papke were sources of sound advice. I will always be grateful for the way they
helped me stay on track, offering compassion and understanding while continuing to
demand my best efforts.
Dr. Tom Haddox could always be counted on for comments that pushed me to dig
for deeper theoretical and personal insights into the material. His detailed narrative
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comments showed how much he cared about contributing to this effort, and his searching
questions were invaluable in helping me focus and streamline my project. Dr. Benita
Howell‘s background in anthropology and her vast knowledge of Appalachian history
and culture were most useful to me during this effort. I appreciate her early interest in my
topic, and I am grateful for the careful feedback and attention to detail that she showed
throughout the process.
A number of academic friends from other institutions helped sustain this effort as
well. Dr. Cynthia Burnley took me under her wing years ago and explained the reasons
why I should earn a Ph.D. I heard you, Cynthia. Dr. Linda Dietz, my neighbor and friend,
spent hours listening to me and helping me think about how to take the next step when I
was lost or confused. I will always be indebted to Dr. Jean Haskell, my longtime mentor
and friend, gave me excellent advice and many opportunities to explore my interests in
Appalachian Studies. Dr. Jack Higgs shared his personal archives with me, offering me a
number of primary documents that have proved invaluable to this dissertation. Finally,
my friend Dr. Anne Snellen, a newly-minted Ph.D. herself, read and commented on this
dissertation and also provided comic relief. She kept me from taking myself too seriously
and sent chocolate when times were desperate.
I also wish to acknowledge my best sister-friends: Catherine Vodrey, Judy Strang,
Mary Boyes, Viki Rouse, Wanda Buda, and Connie Pepper. To the sole other member of
the ―Hundred Dollar Club,‖ a secret society of two, thank you for betting on me when
others wouldn‘t. To Raymond and Diane, thanks for the music and the peacefulness of
your presence. And to Jan and Al Orgain, cousins extraordinaire, thanks for the prayers
and the dinners and the phone calls. You have all, in your different ways, made this
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process easier by serving as my sounding boards and offering both material and moral
support. I am truly grateful.

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Abstract
Categorized by the few critics who know her work as a ―minor‖ Appalachian
writer, Anne Wetzell Armstrong has never enjoyed the recognition she deserves. But she
produced an important body of work, including fiction, non-fiction and drama. In the
1970‘s, critic Elaine Showalter led the gynocritical effort to recover women writers and
inspired the reintroduction of a number of overlooked authors. This national impulse and
the positive reception of its results has driven, in turn, an interest in similar regional
efforts—hence my own interest in recovering the work of Armstrong, whose work has
value in both national and regional contexts.
This study applies a regionalist lens to Armstrong‘s fiction, including an early
short story entitled ―Half-Wit Mary‘s Lover‖ (1912), and her two novels: The Seas of
God (1915) and This Day and Time (1930). The project begins with Armstrong‘s
biography, outlining the elements of her long and unusual life that influenced her writing.
The three regionalist close readings point out the ways in which her fiction resisted
hegemonic culture and offered a new perspective to early twentieth-century American
readers. This project explores the ways in which Armstrong used her fiction to resist
dominant culture‘s view of marginal populations, with a particular emphasis on the
stereotyping of women and Southern mountaineers.
Because Armstrong‘s considerable body of work focuses frequently on marginal
women, the temptation exists to adhere strictly to a feminist lens in reading her work.
Such an approach proves valid; however, the lens of literary regionalism—especially as
defined by critics like Judith Fetterley and Marjorie Pryse and differentiated from local
color by its counterhegemonic agenda—offers a broader consideration of Armstrong‘s
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