Day 2 of Travel

Before visiting the museum, I knew that the Appalachian people were a close-knit community that are very secluded. I learned that when they first settled in the area, they had prided themselves on their ruggedness and their self-sufficiency. I also knew that this was a rural mountain area. I also did not realize how large this area is, covering over several states. While going through this museum, I did not realize that I did not know much about this population. I thought it was interesting to see all the buildings that they lived in, went to school in, and had stores in were log cabins. I learned that they made a lot of things themselves and were able to be self-sufficient even though they lived in such a rural area. Something that stuck out to me was how these large families would live in two-bedroom houses. On the tour, I read the history of a family who had twelve people living in one cabin that was only two-bedrooms. This is something that I personally cannot imagine. They were able to take something small and make it a live-able space and not a lot of people can do that. Something else that I can take away from this experience is the way that they got their medicine. When we were in the Appalachian hall of fame, I saw a cart that advertised on the side that said Doc Randall’s ole medicine show: pills, tonic, and music. This could be misleading, as it lead people to believe this was where they could potentially get medicines. The side of the cart also stated that the pills, tonic, or music were going to help them get better and that was not necessarily the case. Nowadays, this is something that is more regulated. I do believe that we have a more modern-day twist on this in that we now sell items like diet pills with the promise of rapid weight loss.