The Digital Commons EDIC was launched on 11 December 2025 in The Hague.

Closing reflections on the series and the world that birthed it

Appalachian Figures On an old Knoxville News Sentinel video, an eighty five year old man in overalls sits in his living room with a fiddle tucked under his chin. His bow arm moves with an easy swing that suggests a lifetime of tunes. The caption simply calls him an Appalachian fiddler, but old time musicians around the world know the name behind that bow: Clyde Davenport of Wayne County, Kentucky.

Appalachian Figures On a cold Saturday night in February 2014, worshipers gathered on a narrow Middlesboro side street and filed into a low white church that most people in town knew by sight even if they never stepped inside. The sign over the door read Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name.

William Manon Cornett’s name surfaces in Kentucky history at curious moments.

Appalachian Figures When the Jackson Times printed the obituary of Wilson Edgar “Willie Bill” Terry in February 1968, it introduced him as the oldest native-born Kentucky veteran and as a familiar figure to readers in Breathitt and Owsley counties.

Appalachian Figures On a winter night in Dayton, Ohio, the voice coming through the barroom speakers still sounded like Perry County. Harley “Red” Allen might have been standing under neon instead of a coal camp sky, but the high, fierce edge in his singing carried traces of the hollow where he grew up, Pigeon Roost in eastern Kentucky.

On Christmas day, we had a quiet time this year. One of the things I did was to read Moore, Samuel A., Publishing Beyond the Market: Open Access, Care, and the Commons (University of Michigan Press, 2025). This is a most enjoyable book that outlines a project and worldview that I know Sam has been cultivating and refining for many years. I should stress that I am not writing a “review” here.

Appalachian Figures In Burnside, along US 27 above the Cumberland River, a metal roadside marker carries a familiar name for Wayne and Pulaski County people: Harriette Simpson Arnow, 1908-1986.

Appalachian Figures On winter Sundays in mountain churches from North Carolina to eastern Kentucky, somebody still calls out a number for a Christmas carol that is not in the high-church hymnals. Voices rise on “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem,” stitched into four part harmony from memory and from a little red or maroon songbook that has seen more revivals than holidays.

Appalachian Figures On a summer stage at Newport in the 1960s, a slight woman in a simple dress sat behind two microphones with a long, heart-cut instrument across her lap. The photographs show her face intent and calm as her fingers moved over the fretboard of a mountain dulcimer. For many in that audience it was their first glimpse of the old Kentucky instrument. For Jean Ritchie it was simply home carried onto a festival stage.