Join us on Saturday, June 7 for coffee and conversation at our annual history lecture. This year's speaker is Katherine Calhoun Cutshall, who will be giving a talk on "Charlotte Kerr’s Grand Adventure: Kinship, Wealth, and Society in Victorian Southern Appalachia."
Southern Appalachia has traditionally been cast as a region isolated both socially and economically, especially in the early 19th century. However, many of the region’s wealthy families were well-connected in high society circles and benefitted economically from establishing kinship connections with other influential Southern families.
In the summer of 1837, Charlotte Kerr, a socialite and sister-in-law of Buncombe County’s James W. Patton, embarked on a grand tour of the eastern seaboard. Charlotte’s detailed diaries of her travels provide some insight into these social and economic networks, demonstrating how wealthy Appalachian families were not at all isolated from the rest of the nation—or the world.
Katherine Calhoun Cutshall is a self-described “aggressively enthusiastic” historian and archivist with deep roots in Western North Carolina. She is a proud alumnus of UNC Asheville where she earned degrees in History (B.A., 2015) and Liberal Studies (MLAS, 2019). Cutshall’s research primarily focuses on the WNC region before the Civil War.
Sponsored by the Mountain History and Culture Group, this annual lecture is given in honor of Walter and Carole Currie.