Whisnant, Anne Mitchell. Super Scenic Motorway: a Blue Ridge Parkway History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Accessed September 13, 2017. http://site.ebrary.com.proxy177.nclive.org/lib/asheville/reader.action?docID=10425420.
Super Scenic Motorway may be one of the main secondary sources we can refer to throughout our project. A fairly new addition to Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) scholarship, Super Scenic Motorway is a thorough examination of the BRP from multiple facets: the conception of the project, how locals reacted, the goal of bringing tourism in, how the Parkway was for public good, additions to the Parkway and more. It is a sizeable book so I am not sure whether or not I will have time to read it from cover to cover, but I will be “mining” it. As it was written by a trained historian, it contains a nice bibliography where we can go to get ideas for additional places to look for primary sources. (It even listed a collection from UNC-Asheville’s very own Special Collections! I guess this means Liz and I will be paying Gene and Colin a visit soon!) I found that, with the exception of a few books, a lot of the literature on the history of the BRP is rather old and not necessarily scholarly. At least, many of the books do not have bibliographies or even indexes. Although I still need to use some of these sources I am a little more reluctant. However, Super Scenic Highway is just about everything a historian could ask for in a secondary source. It is current, well-laid out and informative, and—most importantly—all of the sources used are documented in the book so we can track them down!
This book is also important because of its author. Anne Whisnant is the authority on the BRP. She is well-respected in the history community and her book is absolutely necessary to add to our secondary sources. She also works for the University of North Carolina system and is quite active on Twitter. Perhaps it may even be prudent to reach out to her at some point about our project, either for advice or mere self-promotion!
Nice review Kristen. You note some of the great things about this resource — it is current and written by a historian who is an authority and the bibliography is so thorough — it even leads back to the UNCA Special Collections. This book should prove a key reference for moving forward.
Kristen,
Most scholars are flattered when you reach out to them as an expert in their specialty. So, do not hesitate to reach out and make certain that you emphasize the significance (Mellon foundation support) and relevance (the digital age is upon us and generally more accessible) of your work. You outward facing work is accessible and give her more citations.
Also, in regards to those undocumented works – we often use travel literature when writing tourism history. Moreover, you may be able to use many of the old documents as primary sources if they reflect attitudes, expectations, and boosterism related to the parkway. So, I think you can use them but if you have questions – shoot the docs to Dr. Dunn or myself and we can talk more about how to use such.