Course meets Mondays and Tuesdays:
Session 1: Monday, March 26
Session 2: Tuesday, March 27
Session 3: Monday, April 2
Session 4: Tuesday, April 3
Session 5: Monday, April 9
Session 6: Tuesday, April 10

J.D. Vance, the author of the bestseller, Hillbilly Elegy, tells his story of a family from Eastern Kentucky that tried (with modest success) to improve their lot by moving to a small industrial city in Southern Ohio. But his family was hindered by the Scotch-Irish Borderlands culture that they brought with them, a culture that has also had a major impact throughout the United States.

The Borderlands of Great Britain emphasized the personal honor of men, clan loyalty to a leader and a radical libertarian view of freedom from any outside restraint. This culture resulted in bloody battles between clans, against the English and Scottish aristocrats, and against the Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland.

The main flood of these people came to America in the 18th Century, after most of the seacoast had been settled, so they were strongly encouraged to go the then-frontier of western Pennsylvania, and later to Kentucky. They practiced a self-sufficient agriculture in a very rural area with few other groups near them, but this life was not easy to translate to an urban area.

We will see how the tenets of personal honor, family and clan loyalty, and radical libertarian freedom affected the Blanton/Vance families and note both their successes and failures. We will also explore the lives of Borderlanders such as Andrew Jackson and General George Patton, as well as this culture’s representation in Country and Western Music.