This week, The Extraordinary Times blog catches up with Dr. Casey A. Huegel, an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati and the author of Cleaning Up the Bomb Factory: Grassroots Activism and Nuclear Waste in the Midwest. His new book, published by University of Washington Press, explores the legacy of southwest Ohio’s Fernald Feed Materials Production Center. It recently won the Junior Scholar Publication Award from the Ohio Academy of History.  
​
* How did you first develop your interest in the Fernald nuclear facility?

I went for a hike! The Fernald nuclear facility, a uranium processing plant formally known as the Feed Materials Production Center during the Cold War, is now the Fernald Preserve, a Department of Energy (DOE)-owned park that opened to the public in 2007 after a ten-year, $4.4 billion Superfund cleanup. At the time of my first visit, I was a museum professional kicking around the idea of going back to school for a PhD in history, and I was captivated by Fernald because it was unlike any park I had ever been to. Along with its beautiful prairies, ponds, and woods, which make for excellent bird watching, Fernald is a storage facility for low-level radioactive waste—encapsulated in a giant earthen mound on the site’s eastern boundary—and the underlying Great Miami Aquifer is actively being pumped and treated for uranium. I found this juxtaposition of natural beauty and disastrous pollution, and ecological rebirth and menacing permanence fascinating and a story that needed to be told. I like to think that Cleaning Up the Bomb Factory started with a simple question that I imagine most visitors to the Fernald Preserve ask themselves: how did a highly contaminated nuclear weapons facility become a beautiful nature preserve? 

The answer, I found, was grassroots environmental activism. 

* How did the community group Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health (FRESH) come to play such a big role in this history?

It was personal. FRESH’s president and most vocal leader Lisa Crawford, for example, learned in January 1985 that her family’s well water was contaminated with the plant’s uranium. Even more infuriating than the contamination was the indifference of DOE and Fernald’s operating contractor National Lead of Ohio (NLO)’s leadership to their suffering, which was on full display in a public meeting held in the wake of Fernald’s 1984 “uranium leak.” FRESH was led by self-described housewives, including Crawford, Pam Dunn, and Edwa Yocum, to name a few, fighting to protect their homes and children’s health. Women were a powerful and democratizing force in environmental activism during this era, from Lois Gibbs at Love Canal to Erin Brockovich in California. By channeling their anger into a grassroots political movement, FRESH created a vehicle for political change and the community necessary to survive the stress and frustration that came with fighting an unchecked and polluting government agency across multiple decades.   

FRESH was also in tune with the local community and open to broad coalition building. The Fernald plant was an important regional employer, and the community and workforce felt strongly that its contribution to the nuclear deterrent helped protect the United States from Soviet aggression. When FRESH was founded by local nurse Kathy Meyer and her attorney husband Don, as a result, they did so with union workers at the table. This was a savvy decision, and throughout its history FRESH never wavered from its public position that the Fernald plant should be cleaned up but never closed. This created space for both jobs and environmental health and safety in its movement, which allowed them to build a cordial relationship with the Fernald Atomic Trades and Labor Council’s leadership and pro-union, Cold Warriors like Ohio Democratic Senator and former Project Mercury astronaut John Glenn. At the same time, FRESH courted progressive allies in the peace and environmental movements, which connected them to a national network of experienced activists and political insiders through an organization called the Military Production Network. It was a tradeoff that worked for everyone. Local groups received essential training and access to resources and the national groups harnessed the grassroots credibility of those living on the frontlines of nuclear contamination.     

This was a big-tent and blue-collar movement that fought for jobs, public and environmental health, and protecting American democracy and national security. In the context of late-Cold War politics, FRESH forged a powerful but not particularly controversial formula that was difficult to dismiss.

* What lessons can readers draw from the environmental history of Fernald to contemporary America?

There are many, and part of why I studied the 1980s and 1990s is to illuminate how environmental activists enacted change in a politically partisan era, which has obviously only worsened over time. 

FRESH thought carefully about class and leaned into anti-elitism. What FRESH did was say that we see you and we hear you to Fernald’s unions. We must also earn a living and understand your concerns, so how about you fight to clean up the inside of the plant and we will fight to clean up the outside of the plant. That’s a powerful common ground, but they also rallied around a common enemy: the bureaucratic elites in the Department of Energy who cared more about producing uranium metals than protecting workers, the community, or the environment. In this political battle, Ohioans represented your ordinary, hardworking Americans and DOE officials represented out of touch elites in Washington DC who preferred to work in the shadows without external oversight. That kind of messaging is more powerful than ever, but environmentalists aren’t leading the way.

When it came time to clean up Fernald’s unprecedented radioactive and toxic contamination, FRESH participated in a citizen advisory board and cooperated with DOE officials, corporate contractors, state and federal regulators, politicians in both political parties, and other local voices to accomplish their goals. Everyone had to recalibrate their expectations of what cleaning up Fernald meant in practice, but I do think that the big business of environmental remediation became a little more democratic because of this kind of grassroots oversight. The best evidence for this is the conversations surrounding environmental justice that emerged from these DOE citizens advisory boards. The local internment of Fernald’s low-level radioactive waste and offsite disposal of the plant’s high-level radioactive waste, as a result, at least partially satisfied goals of the DOE, FRESH, and progressive activists. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was an improvement, and I think these place-based conversations, or political tradeoffs surrounding work and environmental health and safety, will be essential to achieving environmentalists’ goals moving forward.

* How can the study of environmental history enrich our understanding of history in general?

Environmental history reminds us that humans are inseparable from the natural world. Everything around us, from cities to energy and transportation systems and the multitude of products available at the grocery store or the click of a button on Amazon come from the environment. By historicizing mines, forests, and fields, we unmask this process of commodification and develop a richer understanding of how things came to be and our interconnections with the rest of nature.

In environmental history, everyone (and everything) is welcome, including plants, animals, and pathogens, which have all in their own ways helped shape the world we live in. 

* Which other historians (environmental or otherwise) have most shaped your understanding of the past?

I am glad you asked this question because it’s awesome to honor the brilliant environmental historians who inspired me! 

I’ll start with my PhD advisor, mentor, and friend at the University of Cincinnati David Stradling. Along with being an incredible human being, David’s a prolific scholar, who encourages his students to think deeply about the urban environment. David’s book Where the River Burned: Carl Stokes and the Struggle to Save Cleveland was extremely influential for me because it was grounded in the Midwest and explored issues of environmental inequalities, social activism, and industrial pollution. That set the tone for the branch of environmental history I wanted to explore—the everyday struggles against “slow violence” in American life.

Chad Montrie’s To Save the Land and People: A History of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia sharpened my focus on class. For me, work and environmental issues are inseparable, and I am so grateful for that framework. I also owe a huge debt to Kate Brown’s Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters, Nancy Langston’s Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES, and the late Linda Nash’s Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge for my fascination with communities impacted by toxic and radioactive waste. These books are essential for anyone interested in understanding the poisoning of our environment and bodies. 

Last, I will mention William Cronon. It’s no secret that Cronon’s body of work was foundational for environmental history, but for me personally, it’s also his thoughtful articulation that historians are storytellers who operate within a particular set of disciplinary boundaries. Every time I sit at my computer to write I consider his question: why will the reader turn the page? I encourage anyone who wants to write a history book to watch Cronon’s numerous lectures floating around YouTube. You won’t be disappointed!

This week The Extraordinary Times returns for a Q&A with Tom Law. Tom is President of Voyageur Media Group Inc.—a nonprofit dedicated to the creation of public media about science, history, art, and culture—which he co-founded in 1998. Most recently, he served as Project Director for the documentary “Capturing Life (1839-1869),” which chronicles the rich history of photography in 19th century Cincinnati. This wonderful film recently aired on PBS, and can be viewed freely online courtesy of Voyageur Media. Tom has over forty years of experience as a director, producer, and writer in television, radio, and print, and graduated with a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Miami University in 1983.

* What factors made 19th century Cincinnati such a vital center for the development of American photography?

In 1850, Cincinnati became the sixth largest city on North America. Ohio River trade made the region not only the gateway to the west, but also a major commercial center for transportation, manufacturing, agriculture and finance in the heartland of America. The region’s prosperity attracted scholars, publishers, artists and early daguerreotypists who often collaborated on innovate ways to improve a revolutionary medium—photography.

* What makes the 1848 Porter and Fontayne daguerreotype of Cincinnati such a unique historical treasure?

Daguerreotype View of Cincinnati, 1848 is a technological marvel and historical treasure chest. The eight-plate panorama was taken at a time when few photographers dared take their heavy, fragile daguerreotype cameras into the field. Charles Fontayne and William S. Porter’s masterpiece is known as the “Mona Lisa” of daguerreotype. It is the oldest, comprehensive panorama of a city on North America. And its remarkable resolution provides historians with a wealth of data about life in Greater Cincinnati.

* What findings most surprised you in the research for "Capturing Life"?

The fact that Greater Cincinnati was a major center for the development of early American photography—on par with coastal cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. Voyageur’s production team was also astonished by the depth of knowledge of the subject by numerous scholars in our region. Their academic research made the program possible.

* Apart from the Cincinnati panorama, do you have a favorite photograph from early Cincinnati, and why?

My favorite photographs is the carte-de-visite of a young freedom seeker taken by James P. Ball in his Cincinnati studio in 1862. Photographs of a freedom seekers are rare because of the dangers faced by anyone trying to escape slavery or those who aid them along the Underground Railroad. What makes this 1862 photograph—preserved in the Library of Congress—especially important is the primary documents surrounding the event, including the autobiography of Levi Coffin and the records of the Wisconsin 22nd Infantry Regiment. Educators could build an entire curriculum based on this one, small photograph.

* What is your next project?

Voyageur is currently assessing community interest in “Capturing Life (1839-1869),” the first episode in a three-part series The Big Picture: A History of Photography in Greater Cincinnati. Pending funding, our hope is to produce “Developing Communities” (1870-1909), and “Expanding Views” (1910-1939). 

This month The Extraordinary Times caught up with historian Max Fraser, currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College. His recent book, Hillbilly Highway: The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of a White Working Class, received Honorable Mention for the 2024 Frederick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians, and was named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2024 by Choice and the American Library Association. A former journalist, his writing has also appeared in The Atlantic, Dissent, The Nation and elsewhere.

​* What drew you to the study of 20th century Appalachian migration in your recent book?
 
Well, I first became interested in the migration when I encountered it while working as a journalist. I was reporting an article that took me to Muncie, Indiana, in the summer of 2010. While there, I talked to a lot of people, especially on the white, working-class side of town, who had personal or familial connections to the Appalachian South. I got to asking questions, as reporters are wont to do, and although the article I was working on at the time was not in itself about the migration, I kept coming back to those questions, until eventually I found myself working on what became Hillbilly Highway.
 
So there was something purely serendipitous, I guess you could say, about how I ended up writing this book. At the same time, as a scholar of American labor history, my interests are focused on the historical foundations of various expressions of working-class conservatism in American politics. I kept returning to those questions because it was clear to me right away that there were important insights to be gleaned about the political attitudes and behaviors of white working-class communities across the Upper South and the industrial Midwest from a fuller accounting of the migration experience which had united and transformed those communities—and the wider region of which they are a part, which in the book I call Transappalachia—during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. This migration had been almost entirely overlooked in the scholarship on American labor, cultural, and political history of the period, and figured hardly at all in current-day conversations about working-class politics in the old industrial heartland. And so, with Hillbilly Highway I set out to address both of these oversights to the best of my abilities.
 
* Why has the Appalachian Great Migration received less historical attention than other modern migrations, such as the Black Great Migration from the South or the Okie exodus from the Dust Bowl?
 
That's a really good question. As I note in the book, the Transappalachian migration, in absolute numbers, was as large or even larger than either of those other internal migrations of the twentieth century. In other words, scale alone does not explain it. Of course, the Black Great Migration is one the most significant demographic events in the country's history, completely and enduringly transforming the racial landscape of modern American society. The so-called Okie migration, for its part, was not nearly so broadly consequential in its effects. But, by virtue of its association with the twin calamities of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and because of the symbolic importance that was invested in the image of the suffering Okie migrant by influential contemporaries like Dorothea Lange, John Steinbeck, and the New Dealers at the Farm Security Administration and other federal agencies, that migration, too, has long occupied a prominent place in the national imagination.  
 
The Transappalachian migration did not have the same wide-ranging impact as the Black Great Migration. Nor did it emerge from universally recognized social catastrophes like those that precipitated the Okie migration. Both of those factors, I believe, contributed to the invisibility of the Transappalachian migration compared to these other two. But I think something more accounts for why it has received such scant attention from historians. The experiences of dispossession and displacement, of economic precariousness and social marginalization, which migrants along the hillbilly highway encountered during these decades do not conform well to the metanarratives of rising affluence, racial privilege, and what a certain influential school of postwar social scientists referred to as "embourgeoisement", which historians have relied upon more or less explicitly in their accounts of the white industrial working-class of the mid-twentieth century. As a result, the Transappalachian migrant occupies a large, persistent, and altogether troubling blind-spot in many accounts—one which, I hope, Hillbilly Highway can shed some long overdue light upon.
 
* Your book's title references Steve Earle's song "Hillbilly Highway." How big a role has music and other cultural expressions played in shaping America's working class?
 
The story of the hillbilly highway is inextricably tied up with the history of a song like "Hillbilly Highway"—or, really, the history of American country music writ large. Prior to the great migrations of poor and working-class white southerners to the industrial centers of the Midwest and the Pacific Coast, country music was a genre whose audience was largely confined to the mountains, meadows, and mill-towns of the rural South. In fact, for much of the first half of the twentieth century, record labels, trade publications, radio stations, and music stores typically categorized this kind of music not as country music—that term is really an invention of the 1950s—but as "hillbilly music". The name says it all, right? It was only after these southern "hillbillies" turned up in great numbers in northern and western cities, and the music industry saw a new opportunity to market these recordings to a wider national audience outside of the South and in rapidly growing urban markets, that the "hillbilly" label was dropped in favor of the more dignified—and less geographically and sociologically specific—"country" moniker.
 
In telling that story, Hillbilly Highway in a sense turns your question around. It asks instead: how has the American working class—or, in this specific instance, the segment of the American working class whose lives played out across the landscape of the Transappalachian migration—shaped American popular culture and country music in particular? My thinking about popular culture in general is deeply influenced by Marxist critical theorists like Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall, as well as scholars working in a similar tradition, like the historian George Lipsitz and the art historian T.J. Clark, all of whose work emphasizes how various forms of cultural expression articulate the social relations embedded in the dominant mode of production at particular moments in history. That influence is palpable in the way I discuss songs like Steve Earle's "Hillbilly Highway"; as well as musicians like Hank Willliams, who in addition to being arguably the most influential country singer of the twentieth century holds the dubious honor of being undoubtedly the most famous fatality in the history of the hillbilly highway.
 
At the same time, a challenge I encountered in writing the book was figuring out how best to assemble a base of sources with which I could recreate the historical episode I wanted to narrate and analyze. This is the historian's perennial challenge, of course, and a particularly vexing one for labor scholars to wrestle with when the working-class subjects they are writing about, like mine, did not leave behind a particularly extensive documentary record. And so I approached the musical material I write about in Hillbilly Highway this way as well: as an archival trace, which for a group of working people who did not spend a lot of time writing down their own accounts of the Transappalachian migration could be read as a window into their experiences living and working and moving back and forth across the landscape of mid-century America. In other words, insofar as this music offers a glimpse into the history of the hillbilly highway, it also offers a glimpse into the making--or the shaping, as you put it in your original question--of this particular portion of the modern American working class. 
 
* What popular misconceptions about Appalachian migrant culture does your book hopefully dispel?
 
Where to begin? Perhaps the most powerful such misconception, which somewhat ironically has been voiced over the years by both sympathetic and hostile parties, is that this thing that has been called an "Appalachian migrant culture" made rural Southern whites particularly ill-prepared for the circumstances they encountered when they migrated to the urban-industrial Midwest. Most recently, this argument has been given prominence by none other than J.D. Vance, of course. His best-selling memoir of his upbringing along the hillbilly highway, Hillbilly Elegy, boils down to this fundamental argument: families like his struggled in places like Middletown, Ohio after the onset of deindustrialization not primarily because of structural factors related to the collapse of the local economy but because of self-destructive cultural habits they brought from eastern Kentucky and other parts of the Appalachian South. Vance made his name and launched his political career on the appealing logic of that tendentious piece of fiction—but as Hillbilly Highway narrates in some detail, he was hardly the first to put forward such ideas. In fact, during a very critical period in the 1950s and 1960s, nearly identical arguments were championed by liberal social scientists and policymakers who became the architects of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. If you were to put Vance and these other advocates of what you might call the "Appalachian migrant culture"-theory of poverty on a political map, they would be arranged at far opposite poles. And yet when it came to the question of why this particular group of poor and working people has struggled with joblessness, with housing and food insecurity, with poor health and educational outcomes, their positions could not be said to overlap more closely.
 
* What significance do you place on the fact that America's Vice President-Elect is a self-described Hillbilly from Middletown Ohio?
 
Well, I think it goes without saying that right-wing populists like J.D. Vance and President-Elect Donald Trump have been far more successful in recent years at mobilizing the political frustrations that have sown such deep roots across the landscape of Transappalachia than has the Democratic Party or any outgrowth on the political left. The conventional wisdom here has tended to be that such an outcome is inevitable; that working-class whites, especially those in the rural South and the Rust Belt, automatically incline towards a politics of conservatism because of innate and immutable attitudes and beliefs, whether around race, religion, gender, or what-have-you. One reason why I hope people will read my book—and not only other historians, but also people interested in understanding the origins of our present political situation—is that I think there's a more complex story here, one which a fuller and richer understanding of the historical experience of the Transappalachian migration helps bring into focus. For many of the people I write about in Hillbilly Highway, migration was a pathway towards greater economic opportunity, and yet at the same time also an unshakeable marker of their status as outsiders who stood perennially apart from the mainstream of midcentury American society. If the social and cultural geography of Transappalachia became such fertile soil today for the politics of alienation and resentment, it's in no small measure because of how the experiences of mobility and marginalization intertwined for this portion of the American working class. 
 
Vance and Trump understood this dynamic quite well—much better, I'd argue, than Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. And if the Democrats want to win back these voters in election cycles to come, they'll need to finally start looking beyond the political misconceptions that have been such enduring fixtures across the terrain of the hillbilly highway.

This week, The Extraordinary Times blog catches up with historian Michael D. Hattem, author of The Memory of '76: The Revolution in American History (Yale University Press, 2024). Drawing from his new research, Hattem will deliver this year's William V. Coombs American History Lecture at 2pm on Friday November 22, in Miami University's Harry T. Wilks Conference Center, 1601 University Blvd, Hamilton OH. This free public talks examines how successive generations of Americans have revisited and reshaped the memory of the American Revolution for diverse ends. Hattem received his PhD in History at Yale University and serves as Associate Director of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. In addition to his new book, he is the author of Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2020). His work has featured in the New York Times, TIME magazine, The Smithsonian Magazine, the Washington Post, and many other publications.

* How much did the coming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence draw you to the subject of your new book?

It was not a primary factor only because the idea began percolating around 2015 and the anniversary seemed so far off then. I was inspired to take up the topic in part by the Hamilton musical, which seemed to me to be much more a reflection of Obama-era politics than of the revolutionary era. And then when I went looking to see what scholarship had been on the topic, I was surprised to find there was very little. Because of the musical, I conceived the idea of teaching a course on the topic of the memory of the Revolution that would move chronologically through time, much like the book does. I taught that course at The New School in 2017 and again at Knox College in 2018. Once I began writing the book in 2020, I hoped I would have enough time to finish it in time for the anniversary, but having taught the topic twice and researching and thinking about it for nearly five years already, the writing went much faster than I anticipated. 

* Would you agree with the contention that the Founding Fathers belong "bones and all" to each successive generation of Americans?

Absolutely! It is a key point of my book that how Americans have defined and understood the Revolution and the "founding fathers" has changed significantly over time. Each generation has thought about the Revolution in new ways shaped by their own political context and this has led to the constant conflict over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution that is the core of my book. 

* What revelation most surprised you in researching your book?

Perhaps the most surprising thing I found in researching the book was just how relatively recent our modern memories of the Revolution are. The basic conservative memory of the Revolution, which defines the founding by the principles of individual liberty, limited government, and free trade, is really a product of the early Cold War and the 1950s. At the same time, the basic liberal memory of the Revolution, which prioritizes including a more diverse array of peoples into the public's historical consciousness, was a product of the long Bicentennial era. Even the conservative memory was expanded in the Bicentennial era to include new ideas about the 2nd amendment, originalism, and Christian nationalism. I went in thinking that the Bicentennial had been mostly a shallow celebration of patriotism and had not really had much of an impact on how the public understood the Revolution. But what I found was quite the opposite. In fact, I was quite surprised also by the tremendous impact that the Bicentennial had on public history, both in terms of the creation of new historical sites and institutions and in shifting how existing sites and institutions depicted the past to a rapidly changing audience.

* How can American historians better convey the relevancy of their work to a public audience?

This is the million dollar question for historians. I have spent much of my career involved in trying to translate new scholarship for a public audience, first through blogging and podcasting and in recent years through curating and consulting on museum exhibitions and a variety of other public-facing projects. It has been a shibboleth amongst academic historians that if we only paid more attention to being better writers that we could reach the kind of audiences that journalists untrained in history like David McCullough have. But I think that is a false notion. What my own work on historical memory has taught me is that people do not seek out histories because they are well written or because they want to learn the truth about the past. Most fundamentally, people want histories that tell the specific narratives that they want to read and that reinforce their own previously held beliefs. Historians have made great strides since the Bicentennial in affecting the nation's historical consciousness, particularly on issues regarding race and gender in American history, yet there is always a sense that their efforts have not been successful because the older, traditional, celebratory narratives of American history continue to persist. But, as my book shows, there is no one single correct meaning or interpretation of the Revolution and there have always been competing and conflicting memories, so I think historians have probably done a better job than they often give themselves credit for.

* What are your hopes for the forthcoming semiquincentennial of the United States in 2026?

My hopes are that the 250th anniversary of independence will provide Americans with the opportunity to reflect on what the Revolution means to them. I hope it will provide an impetus for Americans to learn more about the Revolution, the nation's history, and their own local histories. And I hope that historians and institutions will give more attention to the history of the memory of the Revolution. How we have understood and interpreted the Revolution at any given time has always revealed far more about us than about the Revolution and so learning about the memory of the Revolution—how we have remembered, defined, and commemorated it—is really a way to learn more about us as Americans and our history.

Each month, The Extraordinary Times catches up with movers and shakers on the local historical and cultural scene. This week, we caught up with Dr. Ashley Hopkins. Dr. Hopkins serves as the Project Director for Miami University Regionals TRIO Upward Bound program where she also teaches an introductory course in Appalachian Studies. She joined Miami University in 2017 and originally served as the Senior Assistant Director for Student Success. She has over 20 years of experience as a higher education administrator, K-12 teacher and administrator, and college instructor. She holds a bachelor of arts in English from The Ohio State University, a master's of education in Cultural Studies, a graduate certificate in Women's & Gender Studies, and a doctorate of education in Educational Administration. Her teaching and research interests include Appalachian Studies, educational leadership, and critical pedagogy. She currently resides in Hamilton, Ohio, with her husband and three dogs. Outside of work, the classroom, and community volunteering, Dr. Hopkins enjoys reading, traveling, outdoor activities, and cooking.

* How have recent natural disasters (notably the 2022 Appalachian Floods and recently Hurricane Helene) brought the Appalachian Region into focus?

It's interesting to see how and where the flooding is covered by various media outlets. We are seeing tragic flooding far too often in central and southern Appalachia, but the coverage and concern is often short-lived. This flood seems to be a bit different in that regard. With trendy and well-loved Asheville at the center of much of the flooding coverage, it seems to be bringing new and increased attention to Appalachia. I hope that the focus will continue to build not just on temporary relief and clean-up but on larger conversations around land conservation and flood prevention.

* How are you and others in the Hamilton Community stepping up to help?

Along with working to raise awareness through my class and similar educational spaces, several of Hamilton's servant-leaders have come together to invite the broader Hamilton Community to give back to the Appalachian region that helped Hamilton become what it is today this Saturday at the Hamilton Hurricane Hoedown. The hoedown will include live musical performances and children's activities throughout the day. All funds raised will be donated to the Appalachian Hurricane Helene Relief Fund and the American Red Cross to help those affected by flooding throughout Appalachia.

This week The Extraordinary Times blog caught up with Vernon and Kitty McIntyre, the dynamic duo at the heart of southwest Ohio’s legendary band Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass. A driving, five piece bluegrass band established in Cincinnati during the 1960s, the Appalachian Grass has played concerts, festivals, fairs, colleges, radio, television, and exclusive nightclubs across the United States and Canada. The band’s exploits even include the grand opening dedication of an historic cemetery!
 
Don’t miss the Appalachian Grass Thursday, September 5 at 7 p.m., at Miami University Hamilton’s Harry T. Wilks Conference Center, 1601 University Blvd, Hamilton, Ohio. Free public concert, sponsored by Miami Appalachian Studies. Look forward to catching up there!

​* How has the Appalachian Grass evolved over the years since the band began?
 
VM. Appalachian Grass was originally formed in the 1960s as a partnership between Jim McCall and me, with Jim on guitar/ lead vocals. I was on banjo/ backup vocals. When Jim took a job playing at Disney World, I was left without a guitar player/ lead singer so decided to move from banjo to guitar/ singer and renamed the band Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass. This all happened in the late 1970s
 
The intervening years have produced a long line of previous Appalachian Grass members. Some have moved on to other careers, some are still active musically. Recent years has seen a stable lineup with current fiddler Kitty boasting 30 years with the band, banjo player Robert Campbell about 25 years, bass player Tammy Powers about 20, and mandolin player Susan Shook about 7.
 
Appalachian Grass show dates have included performances across the US and Canada at innumerable festivals, colleges, dive bars, fancy nightclubs, and any other concert opportunities you might want to consider. One of the high points in my career was a guest appearance on Bill Monroe’s Early Bird Opry.
 
Because of my commitment to my music store Famous Old Time Music Company, the Appalachian Grass concert schedule is not as far-ranging as it once was. But, I still dream about one more performance on the Opry.
 
KM. I think Vernon pretty much covered this. I have always been impressed (and considered myself lucky) that Vernon is so open to women in the band. A lot of guys aren’t.

* How did you both meet?
 
KM. My brother, Andy Schaeffer, got interested in banjo as a result of the original Beverly Hillbillies TV show. He bought the Earl Scruggs book and built a banjo from the plans in the book. He bugged me to play rhythm on piano for him to play the banjo tunes he was learning. He bugged me to learn to play bluegrass fiddle (I played only classical at the time) and recorded various tunes at half speed for me to try and learn. I guess he finally got fed up waiting for me and went in search of a banjo teacher. He found Vernon McIntyre and they became good friends and started hanging out together.
 
When I returned to Cinci from college in the early 1980s, Andy started taking me to Appalachian Grass shows. I got more actively interested at that point and started trying to learn some bluegrass. Vernon was very helpful on this front and over the years has been my main fiddle teacher even though he doesn’t really play fiddle. He also ended up as my husband!
 
* Which musicians do you most admire?
 
KM. On fiddle, my personal all-time favorite is Scot Stoneman; the man is a maniac. Kenny Baker and Stuart Duncan are also favorites. Recently, I have started being more serious about mandolin and really like Bobby Osborne, Ronnie McCoury, and Red Rector. 
 
VM. Hard to choose. Most admired bluegrass artists probably Earl Scruggs, Walt Hensley, Jimmy Martin, John Duffy, and both Bobby and Sunny Osborne.

* What have been your most memorable performances over the years?
 
VM. Hometown performer concert at Inner Harbor in Baltimore, MD (Vernon born and raised in Baltimore). Also, Geoff Berne’s Englishtown Music Hall.
 
KM. I don’t know that I have a most memorable performance. The most fun I ever had was being at Silver Dollar City in Branson for a month, playing every day and running our vending booth. That was a blast!

* What do you most enjoy about performing live events?
 
VM. Meeting and greeting new folks at Appalachian Grass shows and the diehard loyalty of longtime fans who often drive long distances to see the band.
 
KM. I get a bang out of meeting folks. They each have their own story.

This week The Extraordinary Times caught up with Steven L. Tuck, Professor of History at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Professor Tuck’s groundbreaking research on Pompeii, the ancient Roman city destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, is reaching new audiences thanks to his appearance on the new PBS documentary, Pompeii: The New Dig. In addition, a new interactive exhibition at Cincinnati Museum Center, Pompeii: The Exhibition, runs through June 28, featuring a wealth of original artifacts from the doomed city.
 
Tuck has been recognized eight times for his undergraduate teaching. His PhD in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan was followed by a term as the Gordon Fellow in Latin Epigraphy at the Center for Epigraphical and Paleographical Studies at The Ohio State University. He is the author of A History of Roman Art (Wiley 2021); he has also published extensively on disasters and disaster response in the Roman world, including his forthcoming book Escape from Pompeii: the eruption of Vesuvius and the search for survivors (Oxford 2025).  

​* What first inspired you towards a career in Roman history and Classics?

I wish I could say it was Indiana Jones, but I'm too old for that! In my case I was fascinated by the character of Professor Wutheridge (played by Monty Woolley) in The Bishop's Wife, a 1947 movie. The professor was writing a Roman history book and telling a story that wasn't otherwise known. That idea was pretty thrilling to me! It didn't hurt that my undergraduate advisor looked very much like a younger version of the character. Fortunately my high school taught Latin and I was able to start learning that at 14. The rest is history, so to speak!
 
* What is the enduring fascination of Pompeii?

First, I think the irony that the eruption of Vesuvius destroyed the city but also preserved it for our study is intriguing. The enduring fascination of Pompeii I think is its ordinariness. That is, it's not the great capital, Rome, or a palace where emperors lived. But it reveals to us regular houses, shops, workshops, cleaners, wine bars, and places where ordinary Romans lived and worked. Some of these are familiar to us such as the sidewalks that flank the roads, the bakeries, and corner shops. Others are exotic but also not entirely unknown such as the theater and amphitheater at Pompeii, which hosted public entertainments that we have analogies for in our world. We can forge a connection to the ordinary Romans through seeing their bedrooms and reading the graffiti they scratched on the walls. 
 
* How has your own research shed light on the fate of ancient Pompeiians?

On the 24th of August in the year 79 the volcano Mt. Vesuvius erupted burying the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. According to modern accounts the story ends at that point only picking up with the rediscovery of the cities and the excavations that started in earnest in the 1740s. But my research has shifted the story from one only about tragic death and complete destruction to one that includes the stories of those who survived the eruption to rebuild lives in other communities. I have demonstrated that we can trace some survivors and their families as they settled in new cities, restarted businesses, named their children after the new communities, ran for and won election to public office, and generally started over. And I can say that survivors included rich and poor, families and individuals, and men and women. I can also prove the important role of Roman government at all levels in this process. The emperors in Rome, for example, invested heavily in the region rebuilding properties damaged by the eruption and building new infrastructure for displaced populations including roads, water systems, amphitheaters, temples, and other public buildings. The recovery after disaster is a model for today where communities welcomed in new residents, survivors supported each other, and government responded by ensuring that the new populations and their communities had the infrastructure to succeed.
 
* How can readers discover more about this fascinating history?

My work on survivors will be out most fully in Escape from Pompeii: the eruption of Vesuvius and the search for survivors (Oxford 2025). A small part of it can be seen in the second episode of the documentary Pompeii: The New Dig available on the BBC and PBS apps. 

* From our modern perspective, why should readers study ancient societies like classical Rome?

Well, for Americans like me I think we have a particular need to study Rome because so much of our society was self-consciously and deliberately based on Rome. It's hard to ignore that influence as one walks around Washington D.C. for example. More broadly, the saying "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1.9) sums up the reason. Humans haven't changed much in 2000 years. And the problems and solutions that the Romans faced can provide us with both role models and cautionary tales. In the case of Pompeii, the response to a natural disaster by individuals and all levels of government falls in the role model category. Displaced people were welcomed into their new communities, they took in orphans, they gave back to the cities that sheltered them. And government responded immediately and efficiently to the crisis. 

​The Extraordinary Times returns this summer, introducing a new season of Q&As with movers and shakers on the cultural scene. First, an interview with a remarkable young entrepreneur and Miami University student. Originally from Uzbekistan, Muhammad Ali is the Founder and CEO of Cognilabs.org, Friendspace.org, Sellbaza.com, Extra-GPT, HurryTutor, and Co-Founder of ErixConsulting. Currently, he is studying Computer Science and Aerospace Engineering at Miami. He has been involved in IT and startups since the age of 12 and speaks multiple languages: Russian, English, Uzbek, German, and some Arabic. His interests include space, consciousness, AI, cybersecurity, and understanding the deeper aspects of life and the universe.
 
Recently Muhammad Ali began a new podcast series, interviewing professors at Miami University and beyond, with the goal of bringing their knowledge and expertise to a wider global audience. Having sat down for an interview on Muhammad Ali’s podcast, I enjoyed sharing the following questions for this blog:
 
 
* How did you end up choosing to study at Miami University?
 
After attending five universities, I needed a place that aligned with my diverse interests in both computer science and aerospace engineering. Miami University stood out to me because it is one of the best public universities in the US, offering strong programs in both fields. The vibrant campus life and supportive community also encouraged innovation and exploration, which were essential for my growth.
 
 
* What are the biggest differences between life in America and life in Uzbekistan?
 
Life in America is marked by a culture of individualism, where innovation and personal initiative are highly valued. In contrast, life in Uzbekistan is more community-oriented, with a strong emphasis on family and collective effort. The pace of technological advancement and startup culture in the US provides more opportunities for someone in my field to grow and make an impact.
 
 
* What do you hope to achieve with your new podcast?
 
I aim to bridge the gap between complex scientific and cultural concepts and the general public. By engaging in conversations with world-class professors and experts, I hope to inspire curiosity, foster a deeper understanding of our world and the universe, and encourage listeners to explore new ideas and perspectives.
 
 
* What plans do you have after you graduate from Miami?
 
I plan to continue expanding my startups and delve deeper into research in AI and aerospace engineering. My long-term goal is to contribute to humanity's understanding of the universe and explore innovative solutions that can benefit society on a global scale.

​This month, The Extraordinary Times caught up with Bob Viney, a former US Navy officer and Procter & Gamble Marketing Director with a passion for civic engagement. For the past 10 years, he has worked alongside others in the Submarine Cincinnati Memorial Association to identify a site for the Cold War Memorial and Peace Pavilion, commemorating the USS Cincinnati and its unique place in America’s history. Construction of the memorial begins this Spring on the grounds of the National Voice of America Broadcast Museum in West Chester.

Viney graduated “With Merit” from the US Naval Academy in 1970. Following graduation, he completed 15 months of nuclear power training and submarine school, and served on the USS Tautog (SSN 639), a fast attack nuclear submarine out of Pearl Harbor (1972-74). He then served as Division Director for the Chemistry, Materials, and Radiological Health Physics subjects at the Nuclear Power School in Mare Island (1974-1976).  

Viney left the Navy in 1976 and came to Cincinnati to work in Brand Management with Procter & Gamble. He turned around several declining businesses, and started the P&G business in Taiwan as Marketing Director. After 15 years, he took a position as Chief Marketing Officer for Arm & Hammer. Over his career, he spent 30 years managing major businesses for multi-national Fortune 500 companies and working in database, digital, interactive and internet portal marketing agencies.  

Viney also serves on the Leadership Council of a company in Dayton that builds hydrogen refueling stations for Fuel Cell Vehicles. He has written a book, American Turning Point, proposing solutions to the division and dysfunction that challenges our Constitutional Republic, and has taught the solutions to over 300 adult students in the Lifelong Learning programs at the Universities of Cincinnati and Dayton and Miami University. 

​* What was the significance of the USS Cincinnati in American naval history?
 
The Navy’s nuclear powered submarines are the primary elements in protecting our country’s peace and security; our primary defense against a nuclear attack. The submarines carrying intercontinental nuclear missiles, or SSBNs (SS – submarine; B – Ballistic; N – nuclear powered), can shower missiles on any country in the world without much warning. Land based missiles and bombers are in known locations, and their weapons have to travel very long distances, giving a lot of warning. But submarines can be as close as 20 miles off an enemy coast, so the missile travel time and the warning to an enemy, can be incredibly short. Submarines are nearly impossible to detect, so they can’t be targeted in a first strike. 
 
The other submarines in our fleet do not carry intercontinental missiles. They are called “Fast Attack” submarines, or SSNs. Their weapons are mostly anti-ship, traditional torpedoes and newer anti-ship missiles. But the newest submarines carry over 100 cruise missiles which can target ships or land based targets. These submarines also provide important intelligence about the naval capabilities of our enemies—their ships, submarines and the electronic monitoring capabilities around their coasts.
 
In World War II, the submarine force carried the war to our enemies after Pearl Harbor, especially to Japan. They sank more total enemy tonnage in the war than surface ships or airplanes combined. And they lost a higher percentage of the fleet and men than any other part of our armed forces. Their bravery and cunning in pursuing the destruction of as much enemy shipping as possible, to deny the enemy free use of the sea lanes near their own countries, has been celebrated in many books and movies.
 
In the Cold War, SSNs were the primary source of intelligence about Soviet naval capabilities. They protected our surface ships during confrontations like the Cuban Missile Crisis. And they trained to be capable of sinking the nuclear ballistic missile submarines of the Soviet Union “on station” near our coasts, and the anti-ship attack submarines near our surface fleets. Today our newest SSNs bring an arsenal of undetected cruise missiles to conflicts in countries that border the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea in the Middle East, and protect the freedom of the seas missions by our surface fleets in the Pacific where China is seeking to expand its control over international waters.
 
Viney served on a fast attack submarine in the Pacific, and made 3 special operations patrols in Cold War and Vietnam War regions in 1972. The USS Cincinnati (SSN 693) served in many parts of the world’s oceans from commissioning in 1978 to decommissioning in 1996. These included special operations patrols in the Mediterranean Sea, and a 60,000 mile submerged transit of the globe.

​* How much of the original submarine will be preserved in this memorial? 
 
The original elements of the USS Cincinnati that will be incorporated into the full scale replica of the submarine, the major iconic element of the Memorial, are the superstructure above the hull, called the Sail or Conning Tower; the forward horizontal control planes mounted on the conning tower, called the Fairwater Planes; the upper section of the Rudder; and the emergency back up power supply for the submarine if the reactor shuts down, a diesel generator called the “Big Red Machine”. The submarine was built during the years that the Cincinnati Reds teams were winning back-to-back World Series Championships, and were called “The Big Red Machine”. So the diesel generator was painted red in construction and was always referred to as the “Big Red Machine” by the crew.
 
* What is the mission of this memorial in promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education?
 
Our purpose is to teach young students the elements of  the operations of a nuclear powered submarine that relate to STEM topics, with the goal of getting students interested in taking more science, engineering and math subjects in school, and developing an interest in science, technology and engineering careers. We have started connecting with school districts in our area to pull together teachers to help us develop the STEM elements to include in our educational curriculum, and to help us present the information in age-relevant ways to students from elementary school to high school.
 
We’ve also met with the staff and a few teachers at Butler Tech about the opportunity to not only interest students in college-based STEM careers, but also developing interest in the technical skills related to STEM topics. As a nation, we are falling short in the skilled trade areas we need to not only keep our economy growing but also competitive in the world, which is a critical element of maintaining our national security.
 
Our vision is to use fixed displays and interactive digital content, eventually transmitted via QR codes on individual phones, as students explore the equipment and operations in each compartment area of the Memorial’s full scale submarine replica. We plan to develop day-long programs focused on teaching specific STEM related topics by docents who have served in different roles on submarines, many with hands on experiences. These will be conducted in an Educational Center on the grounds next to the replica of the submarine itself.
 
We will also include STEM topics related to the VOA’s broadcast technology in sending radio program signals around the world from the transmitting station that existed on the grounds of the National VOA Broadcasting Museum, and the area which now encompasses the shopping center to the west of the Museum, Miami University’s VOA campus, the VOA MetroPark of Butler County, and the MetroPark Athletic Fields.
 
* What parallels do you see between the 20th century Cold War and the global challenges faced by the United States today?
 
The parallels are disturbingly similar.  The 20th century Cold War sprung from the conflict between the countries that were based on authoritarian governments and those based on free democratic republican governments.  A simple way of defining the difference would be the conflict between governments where citizens are ruled by leaders and governments where citizens choose their leaders. And a conflict between authoritarian governments seeking to expand their areas of geographic dominance, and democratic governments seeking to respect the sovereignty of independent nations; of governments seeking to install and expand their own laws in all territories, and governments seeking global peace and security through the acceptance of common laws.
 
During the Cold War, it was difficult for authoritarian governments to spread the falsehoods and disinformation used to control their populations outside of their own borders. The United States had a technological advantage that enabled VOA to broadcast truthful messages into those areas controlled by authoritarian leaders, under the mission of “Tell the Truth and let the World Decide”. That was one factor that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union from within, not from a military attack from the United States and our Allies.
 
The global challenges facing the  United States today are similar. A major difference today is the ability of authoritarian leaders to spread disinformation to distort truth and replace it with falsehoods outside of their borders, and to target those false messages to maximize the divisions in our country that undermines our national unity, our economic prosperity, our national security, and our ability to exert positive global leadership. 
 
Another difference is the willingness of authoritarian leaders to use military force to achieve territorial expansion. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is an attempt to rebuild the former Soviet Union’s empire in Europe. Putin views the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the world’s greatest geopolitical catastrophe, and is focused on regaining control over as much of the former Soviet Union’s control of other nations in Europe as possible. This conflict will remain a “Cold War” only with the support of Ukraine by the free democratic governments in the world with financial support for their military defensive operations.
 
I hope that the United Nations might take a stronger role in requiring Russia to abide by the UN Charter they have committed to support in joining the UN and being offered the esteemed position as a permanent member of the Security Council. Russia’s actions in Ukraine are entirely at odds with that commitment, and put the  UN at risk of becoming ineffective in accomplishing their purpose in founding after World War II – the protection of the sovereignty of independent nations from the aggression of its neighbors.
 
*  How will this memorial complement the nearby National VOA Museum of Broadcasting?
 
In our education program, we will also include topics related to the history of the Cold War, and the roles played in winning  the Cold War by the Voice of America broadcasts and fast attack nuclear submarines such as the USS Cincinnati.  We will also include the highlights of the technology involved in the broadcast of messages from the Broadcast center in West Chester around the world, sending VOA program content to all parts of Europe behind German lines in World War II and the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
 
We plan to have joint merchandise for the Submarine memorial and the VOA Broadcast Museum. The extra visitors we attract to the Memorial may be interested in visiting the VOA Museum as well, increasing the visitor traffic for the Museum.

​The Extraordinary Times caught up this week with Nate Lampley, Jr. Nate is a trial lawyer and the Cincinnati managing partner of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, a full service law company with over 400 lawyers, and offices in eight US cities, as well as in London, England. Nate graduated from Hamilton High School in the top 1% of the class of 1981. He graduated with honors both from the University of Dayton (1985) and University of Cincinnati College of Law (1988).
 
Among his civic activities, he has served on the Boards of the Cincinnati Black Ambassadors, the Black Lawyers Association of Cincinnati, the Christ Hospital Sports Medicine Institute, Downtown Cincinnati, Inc., Volunteer Lawyers for the Poor, the University of Cincinnati College of Law Board of Visitors, The Salvation Army and the University of Cincinnati Alumni Association. He has participated in Leadership Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Academy of Leadership for Lawyers (CALL) and the United Way Volunteer Leaders Development Program. He delivered the Commencement Address for Hamilton High School in 2002 and 2013.
 
On Thursday, February 22 at 7 p.m. Nate Lampley will deliver the Black History Month keynote address “The Dignity of Unity” at Miami University Hamilton’s Harry T. Wilks Conference Center. This program is free and open to the public, but rsvp is encouraged: miamioh.edu/regionals/rsvp
 
* What message do you want folks to take away from your keynote talk "The Dignity of Unity"? 
 
Our history has shown us over and over again that our nation is strongest when we work together towards common goals.

* Which individuals do you most admire in American history, and why? 
 
Abe Lincoln, because he understood that extreme politics on either side would never lead to a unified nation.  [Writer] James Baldwin because his profound thoughts and insights about America are still relevant today.

* What does Black History Month mean to you? 
 
The mere fact that we have a Black History Month allows us to hopefully never forget who we are, and who we have been as a Nation.

* How did your education at Hamilton High School and upbringing in the city lend itself to success in life? 
 
I left Hamilton High School with the confidence to do anything.  Despite my humble beginnings, my upbringing in Hamilton inspired me to think big, and taught me that I needed to work hard to achieve great things.