Harrison County Research Articles

A Case Study Analysis of Library Services for Adults Experiencing Chronic Homelessness in Harrison County, Mississippi

ABSTRACT The author partnered with the Harrison County Library System (HCLS) to create a multilevel program plan for expanding library services to the growing number of homeless people who seek refuge in the library’s facilities. The research for this program plan involved evaluating existing library resources such as collections, programming, and available staff resources; identifying the best practices for providing services to people experiencing homelessness; identifying staff perceptions of working with the homeless; and identifying potential partners for expanded service offerings. The author used document analysis to research data on the library system (IMLS 2021 and reviewed library policy to identify barriers to providing service for the homeless. The author applied qualitative and humanistic research methods involving personal narratives (scenarios) provided through two separate one-on-one interviews with the library director to discuss the library system in general, and one one-on-one interview with six library staff working in the three libraries with the highest use by people experiencing homelessness. This paper discusses the findings from this mixed methods research project and their application to expanding services for chronically homeless patrons who use the HCLS.

Two Counties in Crisis: Measuring Political Change in Reconstruction Texas

Robert Dillard’s Two Counties in Crisis explores three decades of political culture in two divergent Texas counties. Collin County, a frontier county largely home to emigrants from other Southern states, is contrasted against Harrison County, a cotton growing county with 145 planters who each owned more than 20 enslaved peoples. Dillard claims that these counties, and Texas more broadly, did not neatly align with the political culture of the rest of the Confederacy. In a combination of political science and history, Dillard argues that a culture of backlash and resistance to federal authority defined Texas state politics in the Civil War era. While the author’s claims of exceptionalism are unconvincing and unsubstantiated, Two Counties in Crisis demonstrates the contentious state level politics of Reconstruction.

Confirmation of a four-way herbicide-resistant Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) population in Iowa

Abstract Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri S. Watson) was first reported in Iowa in 2013 and has continued to spread across the state over the last decade. Importantly, A. palmeri is widely recognized as one of the more economically important weeds in production agriculture. The presence of A. palmeri in Iowa is concerning as the species has evolved resistance to nine herbicide sites of action, however, no formal characterization has been conducted on Iowa populations. Therefore, herbicide assays were conducted on an A. palmeri population collected in Harrison County, Iowa in 2023 (Southwest Palmer Amaranth, SWPA) and a known herbicide-susceptible population collected from Nebraska in 2001 (Palmer Amaranth Susceptible, PAS). The two populations were treated with preemergence and postemergence herbicides commonly used in Iowa. The treatments included preemergence applications of atrazine, metribuzin, and mesotrione and postemergence applications of atrazine, imazethapyr, glyphosate, lactofen, mesotrione, glufosinate, 2,4-D and dicamba at 1x and 4x the labeled rates. Survival frequency of SWPA was >90% when treated postemergence with 1x rates of imazethapyr, atrazine, glyphosate, and mesotrione compared to ≤6% for PAS. Both SWPA and PAS had 0% survival when treated with lactofen, glufosinate, 2,4-D, and dicamba at the 1x or 4x rates. Plant population density reduction for SWPA was 53% and 40% in response to 1x rates of preemergence-applied mesotrione and atrazine, respectively. Metribuzin applied preemergence reduced SWPA plant population density by >90% at both rates. Dose-response experiments revealed the 50% effective doses (ED50) of mesotrione, glyphosate, imazethapyr, and atrazine for SWPA were 9.5-,8.5-, 71- and 40-fold greater than for PAS, respectively. The results confirm that SWPA is four-way multiple herbicide-resistant. Amaranthus palmeri infestations are likely to continue to spread within Iowa, therefore diversified weed management programs that include early detection, rapid response, and effective multi-tactic management strategies will be required for control.

Assessing factors that increase dusky gopher frog larval performance in open‐canopy wetlands

AbstractAmphibians are declining worldwide, and research on their habitats and ecology is important for their conservation. The endangered dusky gopher frog (Rana sevosa) breeds exclusively in isolated, open canopy wetlands, usually with extensive herbaceous growth. Larvae of the dusky gopher frog have higher growth and survival under open canopy than under closed canopy conditions. The mechanisms whereby this occurs are poorly understood, however. In the summer of 2021 in Harrison County, Mississippi, USA, we conducted a complete factorial experiment in mesocosms to compare the relative influence of factors differing between open and closed canopy ponds on larvae. A heat and light treatment consisted of one third of tanks being exposed to full sunlight, one third of tanks being shaded with 70% shadecloth, and the final third being shaded with 70% shadecloth but heated to mimic the temperature of the full sun tanks. In addition, tanks received a closed canopy tree leaf litter mixture or an open canopy herbaceous vegetation mixture, and vertical vegetation‐like structure made of polypropylene rope or not. Cool shaded tanks and heated shaded tanks had identical survival to metamorphosis at 74.7% and produced frogs with an average mass of 2.21 g and 2.09 g, respectively, while tanks in full sunlight achieved significantly higher 93.4% survival to metamorphosis and an average mass of 2.64 g. The open canopy vegetation mixture yielded an average tank survival of 88.3% and mass of 2.94 g, compared to closed canopy vegetation tanks with a significantly lower survival of 73.5% and average mass of 1.61 g. Added structure had no effect on survival or mass. These results indicate that sunlight (not heat alone) and herbaceous plants are important in increasing dusky gopher frog survival and mass in open canopy conditions and suggest that management for these characteristics receive priority in captive‐rearing programs and habitat restoration.

Remembering Randolph B. “Mike” Campbell

Remembering Randolph B. “Mike” Campbell Andrew J. Torget (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Randolph B. Campbell pictured with the manuscript for Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State, which was published in three editions by Oxford University Press. Photo courtesy of the Campbell family. [End Page 290] Among Texas historians, there was no one quite like Randolph B. “Mike” Campbell, the first Chief Historian of the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), who died on August 13, 2022. Born on November 16, 1940, in Charlottesville, Virginia, Campbell grew up on a hardscrabble farm in Nelson County, Virginia, the only child of John Landon and Virginia Lyon Campbell. He attended the University of Virginia, where he earned his Ph.D. in history in 1966. In 1962, he married Diana Snow, and together they raised two sons, James Landon and Jonathan Clay. Mike and Diana moved to Denton, Texas, in 1966, when Mike took a position in the history department of North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas, usually shortened to UNT). During the fifty-three years that followed, Campbell became one of the most prominent faculty at UNT, where he held both the Regents Professorship and the Lone Star Chair in Texas History when he retired in August 2019. Campbell’s prominence centered on his pathbreaking work on the southern heritage of Texas and his focus on exploring the lives of everyday people living through momentous times, which transformed how modern historians understand the Texas past. His first single-authored book, A Southern Community in Crisis: Harrison County, Texas, 1850–1880 (Texas State Historical Association, 1983), became such an iconic work on the Civil War that it was reissued thirty years after its original publication. Even more influential was An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821–1865 (LSU Press, 1989), which traced the deep influence [End Page 291] of slavery in the development of nineteenth-century Texas and remains the most authoritative work on the subject. His numerous other scholarly works—including books on the era of Reconstruction and the life of Sam Houston, as well as dozens of scholarly articles—culminated in the publication of Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State, first issued by Oxford University Press in 2003, one of the most authoritative histories of the state, which is now in its third edition and serves as a standard in college classrooms. For his many achievements, he was honored by colleagues with numerous awards and a series of influential positions in historical associations and societies. He served as President and inaugural Chief Historian of the TSHA, as well as editor of the Association’s Southwestern Historical Quarterly. He was a Fellow of the TSHA, the Texas Philosophical Society, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the East Texas Historical Association, among others. The University of North Texas bestowed its Eminent Faculty Award on Campbell in 2012. Yet Campbell’s greatest legacy may have been his teaching and mentoring. Virtually no one could hold a lecture hall in rapt attention like Campbell, and his massive sections of U.S. history were frequently oversubscribed with eager students. His local history seminars and famous biography classes were must-take courses for graduate students. Throughout his career, moreover, he selflessly offered his time, insights, and support to students, colleagues, and friends, always working in tireless dedication toward helping others achieve their best. I recognize now how much I was a beneficiary of Mike’s deep knowledge and generous heart. When I arrived at UNT in 2009, I ended up with the office next to Mike’s, which turned out to be one of the most fortunate alignments of my professional life. Mike and I both liked to arrive at the office early, which meant that weekday mornings usually began with me sitting in his office asking Mike about teaching, departmental politics, and anything else bewildering me. Even more valuable was the reality that any time that I had a question while writing my first book, Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800–1850 (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), I only...

Mineralogy, microfabric and pore evolution in late-middle Ordovician mudstone of the Utica/Point Pleasant sub-basin of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania

The Utica/Point Pleasant Formations comprise a major unconventional gas resource in the Appalachian Basin. Core samples from several boreholes in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania were studied to determine mineralogy, microtexture/microfabric, accessible pore surface area, porosity and pore size distribution as a function of maturity in the Utica/Point Pleasant sub-basin. This effort compares shallower, generally more phyllosilicate-rich Utica intervals with deeper, more carbonate-rich Point Pleasant intervals, the latter representative of horizons currently targeted for gas recovery. The Point Pleasant Formation contains mostly calcite (in the form of fossil tests, grains, and cements), distributed within alternating carbonate- and phyllosilicate-rich matrix laminae, as well as coarse-grained fossil-rich laminae. In both Utica and Point Pleasant core samples, the greatest mercury-accessible connected porosity measurements are associated with the highest maturity samples, an observation that is particularly pronounced for the Point Pleasant. More detailed vertical sampling and analysis of core from a well in Harrison County, Ohio (a region that has experienced copious shale gas production) shows that surface area, pore volume and pore connectivity increase locally in target horizons identified for gas recovery. Observations suggest that optimal mixtures and arrangements of minerals and organic matter, as well as increasing maturity, contribute to forming this productive carbonate-rich unconventional resource. In particular, early diagenetic calcite and quartz cement and increasing quantities of silt-sized particles are associated with higher measured connected porosities, while later-stage matrix dolomitization and recrystallization of fossil laminae tend to occlude the pore network.

Migrating Silver-Haired Bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) in Mississippi

Lasionycteris noctivagans (Silver-haired Bat) is relatively uncommon in the southeastern United States and is thought to only occur in Mississippi during spring and fall migration and in winter. Prior to 2020, there was only 1 confirmed record of a Silver-haired Bat Mississippi. It was a solitary female found in Jackson, Hinds County, on 19 October 1986. Thirty-four years later, 2 Silver-haired Bats were observed during migration periods in 2020. A female was collected in Harrison County on 9 March 2020, adding to the few records of Silver-haired Bats migrating to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. On 5 October 2020, a young Silver-haired Bat was found on the ground at Mississippi State University, Oktibbeha County. This new record expands our current knowledge about this species in Mississippi and throughout the southeastern United States.

Mixed evidence for effects of stewardship on Least Tern reproductive success in coastal Mississippi

Abstract Disturbance from human activity can cause reduced productivity of coastal birds that nest on sandy beaches. A common method to protect coastal birds from human disturbance is the use of signs and fencing to close off a section of beach used for breeding. This management action requires public compliance and might require enforcement, such as in the use of volunteer stewards stationed at protected colonies that provide education and enforcement. I assessed the effectiveness of active stewardship as a conservation measure to protect nesting Least Terns (Sternula antillarum) in coastal Mississippi by determining if colony-level productivity (fledglings produced per nest) was correlated with stewardship effort (hours that stewards protected each colony), the rate of disturbance from human and natural sources, and additional factors. Observers surveyed 24 Least Tern colonies in Harrison County, Mississippi, twice weekly during the 2017–2019 breeding seasons to record the number of nests present, the fate of marked nests, predator tracks within the colony, and the number of fledglings produced per colony. Concurrently, during their work shifts, stewards recorded all sources and durations of disturbance events that caused the terns to flush or respond with defense. Least Tern daily nest survival increased with colony size and stewardship effort, and was lower during intervals that included weekends and evidence of owl presence. Total productivity was negatively associated with avian predator disturbance rate and the total time adults spent flushed, but was not associated with stewardship effort. The results of this study demonstrate that active stewardship can have a positive effect on Least Tern productivity by increasing nest success, whereas current stewardship practices were not sufficient to increase chick survival, even in a system with a paucity of ground predators.

Geochemical Characterization of Base Metals in Stream Water and Sediments in the Caddo Lake Watershed, Cass, Harrison and Marion Counties, Texas

The Caddo Lake watershed is located in northeastern Texas and encompasses much of Cass, Harrison, and Marion counties. The watershed is drained by major streams and tributaries flowing in an easterly direction over Eocene-aged rocks and sediments of the Wilcox and Claiborne groups, and empty into the western arm of Caddo Lake. Since 1995, Caddo Lake and some of its tributaries have been included on the State of Texas Clean Water Act 303(d) list by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for impairment due to mercury content in edible tissue, depressed dissolved oxygen, base metal concentrations, and low pH values. The purpose of this multi-year study was to characterize base metal concentrations in stream water and sediments in the Caddo Lake watershed, and document the potential watershed transport and contribution to the impairment of Caddo Lake. Recent water (n = 58) and sediment (n = 116) sampling at 29 sites revealed copper, lead, and zinc concentrations within normal limits and below EPA actionable standards. Mercury concentrations were elevated at 21 of the 29 sampling sites, which could lead to methylation and bioavailability to organisms at all trophic level.

The Lynching of Mary Jackson in Harrison County, Texas, 1912

The Lynching of Mary Jackson in Harrison County, Texas, 1912

Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas by Stephen Harrigan

Reviewed by: Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas by Stephen Harrigan Randolph “Mike” Campbell Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas. By Stephen Harrigan. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019. Pp. 925. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) In 2015, the University of Texas Press announced an ambitious publishing project entitled the Texas Bookshelf, which would begin with a new overview of the Lone Star State’s history and continue with thirteen other volumes covering key subjects such as politics, business, music, and sports. Big Wonderful Thing, a title taken from artist Georgia O’Keeffe’s first reaction to seeing Texas, launches the series in the highly readable fashion that those familiar with Stephen Harrigan’s work as a journalist, essayist, and novelist would expect. The book is huge, but it deals with a huge subject—the story of Texas from its prehistory until the first decades of the twenty-first century. Harrigan intends to be inclusive of the great variety of people who built Texas and to tell their stories in ways that would interest and entertain readers today. Accordingly, he begins most of the book’s fifty-six chapters with a vignette describing an individual or a small group who played [End Page 82] notable roles in an important episode or development in Texas’s past. For example, from the Spanish colonial era, famous figures such as Cabeza de Vaca and LaSalle are featured, but so are persons such as María de Jesús de Agreda, “The Lady in Blue,” who likely are not so familiar to most readers. Perhaps the best chapter title of all is reserved for the one dealing with James E. Ferguson, the only Texas governor forced from office by impeachment. It is simply titled “Pa.” Harrigan tells stories of many famous adventures of Texas’s past, such as the revolt against Mexico, the nearly ten years as an independent republic, the cattle drives and great ranches of the late nineteenth century, and the oil booms of the early twentieth century. However, he does not shy away from the ugly aspects of Texas’s past. For example, the chapter on Reconstruction begins with the story of the murder of Lucy Grimes, a freedwoman, by two former Confederate soldiers in Harrison County, a murder that went unpunished in spite of the efforts of the local Freedman’s Bureau agent to bring the killers to trial. He also recounts the brutal treatment handed out by Texas Rangers on the border to sediciosos, people of Mexican descent who were accused of conspiracy and violence against the United States during the Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910. Virtually all of the biographical vignettes are informative and good reading. For example, sketches of Heman Sweatt and Emma Tenayuca offer fine introductions to minority leaders often unknown in Anglo Texas. Some, such as the one on Lyndon B. Johnson, use the extensive research of others to paint indelible pictures of their subjects. And finally, the notorious, such as Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the much-romanticized killers during the early 1930s, and Charles Whitman, the infamous shooter from the UT Campus Tower in 1966, have their places. Taken together, the biographical sketches create a great impression of Texas as a spectacular place populated over the years by people who in general never knew how to be dull. What Harrigan does not do (and, in fairness, never intended to do) is offer any general interpretation that provides Texans with what historians like to call a “usable past.” Such a history seeks to inform a people about where they have been with the intent of helping them understand where they are now as a guide to what they might try to do next. Big Wonderful Thing is a popular history that does exactly what the author intended: provide highly readable and entertaining coverage of the sweep of Texas history. By contrast, an academic history of the Lone Star State would offer an interpretive account that might ask, for example, if Texas’s heritage is essentially southern, western, or something of an amalgam of the two with a strong Hispanic influence, best called southwestern. Answers to this question differ, and all are hedged...

Peace and Progress: The Life and Political Contributions of Senator Jennings Randolph

Peace and Progress: The Life and Political Contributions of Senator Jennings Randolph Christopher Price In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law the bill that led to the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a massive public works project that contributed to flood control and rural electrification. Fifty years after that historic event, a group of individuals met in the House Caucus room in the US Capitol to celebrate the achievements of the TVA. Among those in attendance was a long-time senator from West Virginia, Jennings Randolph. Senator Randolph held an important distinction as he neared the end of his career in the Senate. He was the last of the New Deal Democrats who had voted for the creation of the TVA to remain active in the halls of Congress. When he finally stepped away from public office in 1985, he was the last remaining legislator who had served during the First 100 Days of the FDR administration.1 Randolph was an influential legislator who left his mark on American history, yet the scholarly investigation of his life has been quite thin to this point. Outside of a short biographical sketch by Nicholas Kersten and an unpublished biography, there is little written regarding his achievements.2 Throughout his career in Congress, Randolph made visionary and progressive contributions to legislation that led to important and lasting change in American society. Randolph’s legislative efforts included support for disabled people and people who were disfranchised and discriminated against. Additionally, the senator was remarkably prescient in proposing efforts at creating a governmental department that might ensure a lasting peace after World War II. While Senator Randolph was legislatively innovative in many ways, his life in politics also tended to be representative of the period in which he served. The era between the New Deal and the period in which the New Right really began to gain traction was largely a period in which many Americans felt that government had the expertise, the ability, and even the responsibility to solve problems.3 Jennings Randolph fell within this milieu, and he did much to shape it. [End Page 1] Early Life Jennings Randolph, the son of Ernest Fitz and Idell Randolph, was born into an influential political family on March 8, 1902.4 The Randolph family had deep roots in Harrison County and had been prominent in the founding of New Salem, Virginia (now Salem, West Virginia). The congregation of the Seventh Day Baptist Church of Shrewsbury, New Jersey, moved to western Virginia as a group in 1789, and the Randolph family was among the prominent families who made the trek to the mountains.5 Jennings Randolph’s father and grandfather both served as mayors of Salem, West Virginia. Additionally, his grandfather, Jesse Fitz Randolph, won election as a state legislator and was known as a “natural leader” in both his church and political endeavors.6 Randolph’s father, Ernest, was a one-time candidate for Congress, and counted three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan as a friend. Indeed, he even asked the famous orator and Democratic presidential nominee to name his newborn son.7 The Randolphs were a deeply religious family and held leadership positions in Salem’s Seventh Day Baptist congregation. While agreeing with other Baptist groups on many major points of doctrine, the Seventh Day Baptists held to Saturday as the proper day for worship and rest from labor. The Baptist churches that follow Sabbatarian teachings had their origins in seventeenth-century England just after the rise of the more mainstream Baptist movement.8 Jennings Randolph was active in his Seventh Day Baptist church from an early age, and he drew heavily from the church’s theology in his political career. The future legislator appeared in his local church’s annual report for the Seventh Day Baptist denomination as early as 1919, serving as a chorister for the youth and as an usher.9 Throughout his career in Congress, the West Virginia politician published occasional articles in the Sabbath Recorder, and this organ of the denominational press published a lengthy eulogy of the former senator upon his death in 1998. This remembrance of Jennings Randolph’s life...

West Virginia facilities addressing patient stigmas

Mental health facilities throughout the state are continuously updating patient treatment options, and North Central West Virginia's two largest mental health facilities — Highland‐Clarksburg Hospital in Clarksburg and William R. Sharpe Jr. Hospital in Weston — are no different, WVNews.com reported April 6. Highland‐Clarksburg Chief Executive Officer Victoria Jones said the hospital works with local education institutions to offer training and career opportunities and has provided training to various groups: counselors and aides in Harrison County schools on behavior management in the classroom, Ritchie County High School students and other schools on mental health anxiety management, a White Oaks nursing home on mental health disorders, the state National Youth Advocate Program on mental health and a number of youth summer camps on issues such as anxiety and stress. Pat Ryan, CEO of William R. Sharpe Jr. Hospital, said the hospital redesigned its model for the delivery of psychiatric treatment in 2017–18. “The new structure for the delivery of patient care utilizes a combination of unit‐based services and a Therapy Mall concept,” Ryan said. Additionally, the hospital has created a mental health therapist position, where staff act as primary therapists delivering group and individual therapy within the scope of the patient's treatment plan.

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels from Sites in Harrison and Titus Counties, Texas

This article puts on record the documentation of 17 ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels from five sites in Harrison and Titus counties in East Texas in the collections of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. This documentation is part of the overall and larger effort to develop an ancestral Caddo ceramic vessel database as well as build online ceramic vessel galleries on the Index of Texas Archeology website by Dr. Robert Z. Selden, Jr.

Titus Phase Ancestral Caddo Vessels from Sites in the Big Cypress Creek and White Oak Bayou Basins in East Texas

This article is a summary of the findings from the documentation of 889 ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels from 20 sites in the Sulphur River and Big Cypress Creek basins in Camp, Franklin, Harrison, Marion, Morris, Titus, and Upshur counties in East Texas. Four vessels are from an Early Caddo period burial at the J. E. Galt site (41FK2), but the remainder are from Late Caddo period Titus phase (ca. A.D. 1430-1680) burial features. In the comparisons of Titus phase vessel assemblages that follow, the focus will be strictly on the larger Titus phase vessel assemblages in the documentation study, namely those from sites with more than 23 vessels, thus including the vessels from the P. S. Cash (41CP2), Jonah C. Atkinson Farm (41FK1), J. E. Galt, Mattie Gandy (41FK4), R. L. Cason (41MX1), Joe Justiss (41MX2), Hooper Glover (41MX4), Russell Bros. (41TT7), W. O. Reed (41UR1), and J. M. Riley (41UR2) sites.

Caddo Ceramic Vessel Sherd Assemblages from Sites in the Sabine River Basin, Harrison County, Texas

Ancestral Caddo ceramic vessel sherd assemblages from three sites in the Sabine River basin in Harrison County, Texas, are documented in this article. The sherds from the three sites (n=272 total sherds) are held in the collections of the Gregg County Historical Museum in Longview, Texas.

The Ancestral Caddo Cemetery at the H. R. Taylor (41HS3) Site, Harrison County, Texas

The H. R. Taylor site (41HS3) is an ancestral Caddo community cemetery in the lower reaches of the Big Cypress Creek basin in East Texas. The cemetery was used by Caddo peoples affiliated with the Late Caddo period Titus phase (ca. A.D. 1430-1680), probably between ca. A.D. 1600-1680, an archaeological construct. Its affiliation with a specific named Caddo group or tribe is not known, and by the early 18th century much of the Big Cypress Creek basin was not inhabited by Caddo peoples, or peoples of any other American Indian group. The H. R. Taylor site is one of more than 146 Titus phase cemeteries, both family and community in organization and scope, identified from archaeological investigations over the last 100 years of the region’s archaeological record and Titus phase mortuary practices.

Unintended costs and consequences of school closures implemented in preparation for Hurricane Isaac in Harrison County School District, Mississippi, August-September 2012.

IntroductionSchool closures, while an effective measure against the spread of disease during a pandemic, may carry unintended social and economic consequences for students and families. We evaluated these costs and consequences following a 4-day school closure in Mississippi’s Harrison County School District (HCSD).MethodsIn a survey of all households with students enrolled in HCSD, we collected information on difficulties related to the school closure, including interruption of employment and pay, loss of access to subsidized school meals, and arrangement of alternative childcare. We analyzed this information in the context of certain demographic characteristics of the survey respondents and households, such as race, level of education, and income. We also estimated the average number of lost work days and documented the childcare alternatives chosen by households affected by the school closure.ResultsWe received 2,229 (28.4%) completed surveys from an estimated 7,851 households eligible to participate. About half (1,082 [48.5%]) of the households experienced at least some difficulty during the closure, primarily in three areas: uncertainty about duration of the closure, lost income, and the effort of arranging alternate childcare. Adults working outside the home, particularly the major wage earner in the household, were more likely to suffer lost income while schools were closed, an effect mitigated by paid leave benefits. Difficulty arranging childcare was reported most frequently by respondents with lower levels of education and households with younger children. Beyond the top three concerns expressed by households in HCSD, the survey also shed light on the issue of food insecurity when subsidized school meals are not available. Reported by 17.9% of households participating in the subsidized school lunch program, difficulty providing meals during the closure was associated with higher numbers of dependent children, selection of “other” as the race of the household respondent, and lower levels of education.ConclusionTo help prevent undue financial hardship in families of school children, public health authorities and school administrators should provide recommendations for childcare alternatives and paid leave or remote work options during prolonged school closures, particularly to households in which all adults work outside of the home.

Kentucky Rebel Town: The Civil War Battles of Cynthiana and Harrison County

Kentucky Rebel Town: The Civil War Battles of Cynthiana and Harrison County

Kentucky Rebel Town: The Civil War Battles of Cynthiana and Harrison County by William A. Penn

Reviewed by: Kentucky Rebel Town: The Civil War Battles of Cynthiana and Harrison County by William A. Penn Mark A. Furnish Kentucky Rebel Town: The Civil War Battles of Cynthiana and Harrison County. By William A. Penn. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2016. Pp. [viii], 374. $45.00, ISBN 978-0-8131-6771-8.) For decades, local historian William A. Penn has written articles in regional publications unfolding the peculiar nature of the Civil War in northern Kentucky, particularly Harrison County and its seat of government at Cynthiana, which contemporaries considered a thoroughly "Rebel town" (p. 5). In a book-length study, Rattling Spurs and Broad-Brimmed Hats: The Civil War in Cynthiana and Harrison County, Kentucky (Midway, Ky., 1995), Penn deftly details the military operations encompassing the two battles of Cynthiana, which occurred during Confederate cavalryman John Hunt Morgan's raids of Kentucky in July 1862 and June 1864. Penn, eager to find the depths of Harrison County's reputed Confederate sympathies, has expanded his inquiry to produce a new book that successfully integrates elements of social, political, and military history and is a serious contribution to the growing genre of border South community studies. Kentucky Rebel Town: The Civil War Battles of Cynthiana and Harrison County places Cynthiana's dramatic but brief military encounters with Morgan in the context of a four-year crescendo of social conflicts between frightened Unionists, disgruntled secessionists, heavy-handed Federal soldiers, and autonomy-seeking African Americans. Penn eschews classic geographic, economic, and ethnocultural arguments for Harrison County's pro-South proclivities and instead emphasizes the outsized influence of a cadre of popular states'-rights politicians and eminent local men. Prominent secessionists led seven companies of Harrison men to volunteer for the Confederacy at the outbreak of war, supported rebel families who endured arrests, imprisonment, and confiscation of property by Union officials, and spearheaded efforts to erect Kentucky's first Confederate memorial at Cynthiana after the war. Penn acknowledges that 22 percent of Harrison County's potential voters were slave owners and that most of them aligned with the Confederate cause. Nevertheless, he denies that slavery was a central factor in determining loyalty in Harrison County, as most of its power-wielding Union men owned slaves as well. Penn's study clearly reveals the county's residents' strong Confederate sympathies but offers no direct answer to explain it; then again, he is hardly the first historian to be flummoxed by loyalty in Civil War Kentucky. The strength of Kentucky Rebel Town lies in its meticulous research, careful analysis, and evenhanded judgments. Penn has been researching Harrison County for decades, and the rich array of primary sources he cites—including letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, government documents of all levels, military railroad maps, archaeological studies, first-person interviews, and more—shows it. With these sources, Penn prudently examines issues commonly discussed in recent border South community studies: political [End Page 982] partisanship, enlistment and conscription of troops, the challenge of suppressing guerrillas and safeguarding Union supply lines, martial law, the suppression of civil liberties, the destruction of slavery, the enlistment of exslaves into the Union army, and the postwar ascendency of the Lost Cause. Penn also demonstrates a broad knowledge of current and relevant academic works, but he largely draws on their factual content and ignores historiographical debates. In truth, perhaps the most distinctive feature of this book is its journalistic "just the facts" style, which emphasizes detailed description and clear explanation instead of authorial interpretation. Some readers may be put off by Penn's mindful factuality and dispassionate tone. In fact, the challenge to distinguish truth from the romantic myths and self-serving lies propagated during the Lost Cause era dictates this approach, which actually enhances his credibility. Kentucky Rebel Town is a worthy contribution to the study of the border South. Mark A. Furnish Frederick Douglass Papers Project Copyright © 2017 The Southern Historical Association