The Cedar Choppers: Life on the Edge of Nothing (Sam Rayburn Series on Rural

Description: At the low-water bridge below Tom Miller Dam, west of downtown Austin, during the summer of his tenth or eleventh year, Ken Roberts had his first encounter with cedar choppers. On his way to the bridge for a leisurely afternoon of fishing, he suddenly found himself facing a group of boys who clearly came from a different place and culture than the middle-class, suburban community he was accustomed to. Rather, "...they looked hard--tanned, skinny, dirty. These were not kids you would see in Austin." When Roberts's fishing companion curtly refused the strangers' offer to sell them a stringer of bluegills, the three boys went away, only to reappear moments later, one of them carrying a club. Roberts and his friend made a hasty retreat. This encounter provoked in the author the question, "Who are these people?" The Cedar Choppers: Life on the Edge of Nothing is his thoughtful, entertaining, and informative answer. Based on oral history interviews with several generations of cedar choppers and those who knew them, this book weaves together the lively, gritty story of these largely Scots-Irish migrants with roots in Appalachia who settled on the west side of the Balcones Fault during the mid-nineteenth century, subsisting mainly on hunting, trapping, moonshining, and, by the early twentieth century, cutting, transporting, and selling cedar fence posts and charcoal. The emergence of Austin as a major metropolitan area, especially after the 1950s, soon brought the cedar choppers and their hillbilly lifestyle into direct confrontation with the gentrified urban population east of the Balcones Fault. This clash of cultures, which provided the setting for Roberts's encounter as a young boy, propels this first book-length treatment of the cedar choppers, their clans, their culture and mores, and their longing for a way of life that is rapidly disappearing.

Price: 21.84 USD

Location: East Hanover, New Jersey

End Time: 2025-02-04T09:47:01.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 USD

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Restocking Fee: No

Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer

All returns accepted: Returns Accepted

Item must be returned within: 60 Days

Refund will be given as: Money Back

EAN: 9781623498207

UPC: 9781623498207

ISBN: 9781623498207

MPN: N/A

Book Title: Cedar Choppers : Life on the Edge of Nothing

Number of Pages: 280 Pages

Language: English

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Publication Year: 2019

Item Height: 0.7 in

Topic: Sustainable Living, United States / State & Local / Southwest (Az, NM, Ok, Tx), Social History, Economic Conditions, General, Economics / General, Sociology / Rural

Genre: House & Home, Social Science, Biography & Autobiography, Business & Economics, History

Item Weight: 17 Oz

Item Length: 9.2 in

Author: Ken Roberts

Item Width: 6.1 in

Book Series: Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life, Sponsored by Texas A&M University-Commerce Ser.

Format: Trade Paperback