Winners Announced for Frances Ferris Hall & Sounds of the South Undergraduate Research Awards - The Center for the Study of the American South

Evangeline Mee will conduct oral histories with women activists in East Tennessee. These interviews will build on the current project of the Southern Oral History Program, “The Long Women’s Movement in the American South.” She will focus on the “Appalachian movement of the 1970s, in which civil rights activism,unionization drives, and the War on Poverty interacted to produce a class-inflected feminist movement.”

Stephen Bishop‘s reasearch intiative will look into human trafficking statistics between the readiness, preparation, and education on human trafficking of those hotel chains that elect to participate in the Code of Conduct initiated by the Swedish government and supported by the ECPAT International Network versus those that do not. The program provides volunteer training modules, as well as resources for hotel/motel chains across the globe, surrounding the topic of human trafficking. Through his work, he will exemplify the importance of these programs within the domestic hospitality industry, while connecting them to higher rates of knowledge on human trafficking (both sex and labor), lower rates of prevalence within these venues, and a more ethical, socially just industry for travel.

Kaitlyn Vogt will be recording the musicians who participate in the old time music jam at Haw River Ballroom in Saxapahaw, North Carolina. This jam takes place every first and fifth Sunday of the month from 6:30-9:30. There are a variety of instruments represented, the most common being the guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and banjo. The performers all sit in a circle and riff off of one another. Most of them are local and not professional musicians, although occasionally regionally known musicians will join in. Her project will record for posterity the local North Carolinians who have learned to play this style of music through jams similar to this one. Many of the musicians are in their forties and fifties, but there are several who are in their teens and twenties. The decision of younger musicians to perform and learn this type of music could perhaps be traced to the renaissance old time music is currently experiencing in popular music. Artists such as Mandolin Orange and Carolina Chocolate Drops are bringing this genre to a larger audience, but it is important to remember and document the roots of old time music as a community art form. They have developed an excellent musical rapport and understanding with many forming smaller subgroups within the jam. Although there are other jams in the area, they have a revolving cast of musicians and therefore do not have as strong a musical cohesion as these.