Emily Hilliard’s touching and insightful book, Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore & Everyday Culture in Appalachia, draws from her experiences as the state folklorist of West Virginia to show how the folklore of this region is not lost in a dead past, but rather is constantly being created, reevaluated, and challenged through expressive forms. The title of her book reflects this ethos of creating a future out of the past, and that sense is found in a variety of sources documented in Hilliard’s fieldwork: through songwriters, foodways, creative writers, occupational folklore, and retrofuture visions of Appalachia in video games such as Fallout 76. One of Hilliard’s collaborators, Elaine Purkey, echoed this sentiment in her song “One Day More,” saying “we’re fighting for our future, don’t you understand?” Hilliard routinely focuses on how West Virginia has been a locus of extraction and an “isolated cultural anachronism” (13) that has been exploited by industries. The focus of her work, then, is to show the creative ways that folklore is used to fight these narratives and imagine a new future. Throughout the book, Hilliard cites Henry Glassie’s definition of tradition as “the creation of the future out of the past,” noting that these traditions are “a moving target constantly churning” (209).

One of Hilliard’s main goals in writing this book is to employ a collaborative ethnographic methodology in her fieldwork. This methodology is defined, Hilliard tells us, by conducting open-ended interviews, through mutual dialogue throughout the fieldwork process, and by sharing drafts of her work throughout the writing process (xii). By incorporating collaborative ethnography, Hilliard was able to receive an expanded perspective on what she, or her collaborators, may be taking for granted. Hilliard reiterates that her role as a non-native West Virginian meant that she would ask questions or make observations about details that her collaborators might see as self-evident. This mix of emic and etic perspectives allowed for a richer fieldwork experience. At one point, Hilliard was referred to as a “flatland foreigner.” She notes, though, that it was not always her outsider status that created reluctance, but rather her role as an institutional representative in an area with a history of exploitation. This reasoning is why her collaborative approach was so important, and in the end, fruitful, because it worked to erase the hierarchical dichotomy between folklorist/participant and create a shared sense of importance in the fieldwork. She concludes that “the folklorist asks not to direct or control the conversation but to be invited into conversations that are already happening” (9).

Hilliard’s journey through the Mountain State begins in Scotts Run, a small town in Monongalia County. This town is home to Scotts Run Museum and History Trail, which hosts a collection of regular guests at its coffee shop on Saturdays. She argues that these regulars use the museum and their interactions as vernacular counternarratives about the town. Scotts Run is intertwined with the legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt, who visited the town several times between 1933 and 1943. The impetus for Roosevelt’s visits to Scotts Run came from an Associated Press article saying the town was the worst place they’d ever seen. The coffee shop regulars, however, have created a network and a physical place where they are able to combat historical narratives and imagine new collective horizons through maintenance of the museum and shop, of their own relationships, and through creative forms such as a Scotts Run CD.

The songwriting of several individuals, Shirley Campbell, Ella Hanshaw, Cora Hairston, and Elaine Purkey, forms a powerful example of how Hilliard’s fieldwork documents the songs that folk musicians create to define and assert personal identity. During the course of her writing the book, Hanshaw, Purkey, and Campbell passed away, and their songs remain as a material remembrance of their lives. Campbell’s songs, written earlier in her life, document her observations on life in West Virginia, while also providing a creative outlet to deal with her interpersonal relationships. Hanshaw, a devout Pentacostal, used her songs as an expression of her faith. Hairston, an African American woman, writes songs in order to conceptualize her relationships and role in the world. Purkey crafted songs to be performed, as she did at the American Folklife Festival.

By documenting foodways in the Swiss community of Helvetia, Hilliard shows how the culture of West Virginia is not monolithic and immutable, but rather pluralistic and dynamic. She details how the rosette, a crispy fried dough, exemplifies the complex cultural influences in the town at the yearly pre-Lenten festival of Fasnacht. This festival is itself an amalgamation of multiple Swiss festivities, which points to the celebration as an identity-building experience. Hilliard discovered that rosettes have a complex foodway lineage, reflecting the multifarious emigrations to central Appalachia.

The chapter on Breece D’J Pancake shows how his creative writing and ghost stories integrated folklore and folkways from his hometown of Milton, West Virginia. The town has creatively incorporated his legacy into the physical explorations of the town, ranging from his gravesite to his childhood home. By analyzing Pancake’s documentation of the town, a sense emerges of the changes the area has undergone.

Most people would probably not think about teachers’ strikes as emblematic of folk culture, but Hilliard shrewdly notes that their expressive culture took important creative form during the 2018-19 strike. This took many forms, such as memetic signs, references to popular culture, and creative chants. These teachers used their artistic communication to combat their marginalization.

Continuing the theme of foodways, Hilliard shows how the West Virginia hot dog is intertwined with the history of labor and issues across the spectrum of race, gender, and class. In this provocative chapter, the ways in which hot dogs vary throughout West Virginia’s geography reveal intricate insights into the state’s cultural heritage. By showing how this seemingly insignificant form takes on extremely important meanings, Hilliard draws scholars’ critical attention to that which we consider trivial.

Hilliard’s search for expressive culture in West Virginia continues in a chapter about independent professional wrestling. The history of the sport is contextualized within previous vernacular traditions in the region and has become a popular enterprise that has gained interest in recent years. Through her ethnography of the sport, Hilliard shows the complex roles that both the performers and the audience play.

Perhaps the most interesting chapter in the book is her discussion of the popular game Fallout 76 and its portrayal of the West Virginia landscape in its postapocalyptic rendering of the state. She shows how physical locales, such as Helvetia and the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, create a unique sense of West Virginian identity in the game. Hilliard argues that the expansion game, Wastelanders: Fallout 76, failed to achieve the same popularity in part because of its lack of distinct West Virginia-ness. The game itself was another way for a new future to be created, and to articulate a concrete narrative about the local culture and folklore.

Making Our Future is an overwhelming success as a book about public folklore and the documentation of expressive culture. The depth of Hilliard’s fieldwork demonstrates the level of immersion that she was able to achieve in her role as state folklorist. Beyond that, the book’s prose strikes the rare balance between academic and poetic. What results is an engaging read with valuable insights for both the public and academic sectors of folklore scholarship. Of course, editorial choices must be made when compiling a book-length project, and one wonders what rich details from the author’s fieldwork were necessarily excluded. I hope that more projects such as this one emerge not just from Hilliard, but from other public folklorists as well.

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[Review length: 1271 words • Review posted on December 11, 2023]