![]() | Do, Die, or Get Along: A Tale of Two Appalachian Towns Subjects: Saint Paul (Va.) -- Biography; Dante (Va.) -- Biography; Oral history; Community life -- Virginia -- Saint Paul; Community life -- Virginia -- Dante; Saint Paul (Va.) -- Social conditions; Dante (Va.) -- Social conditions; Coal mines and mining -- Virgini; Do, Die, or Get Along weaves together voices of twenty-six people who have intimate connections to two neighboring towns in the southwestern Virginia coal country. Filled with evidence of a new kind of local outlook on the widespread challenge of small community survival, the book tells how a confrontational "do-or-die" past has given way to a "get-along" present built on coalition and guarded hope. St. Paul and Dante are six miles apart; measured in other ways, the distance can be greater. Dante, for decades a company town controlled at all levels by the mine owners, has only a recent history of civic initiative. In St. Paul, which arose at a railroad junction, public debate, entrepreneurship, and education found a more receptive home. PETER CROW is a professor of English and Williams Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Ferrum College. |
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