Denison Baldwin and Thomas Felts were part of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, ca.1912.
This week on the show, we’ll hear an interview with historian Bob Hutton, who recently wrote an article about the Baldwin-Felts gunmen, who did the dirty work of Appalachia’s capitalists, even against their neighbors.
We’ll also meet instrument-makers who are determined to find a way, even if it’s using the remnants of a refrigerator box, and women who are using poetry to undercut the wrong ideas people have about mountaineers. And author Robert Gipe has just completed his trilogy, which concludes the turbulent story of several generations of an eastern Kentucky family. At the center of his first book “Trampoline” is Dawn Jewell, a spitfire whose mother struggled with addiction. Gipe’s new book “Pop” follows Nicolette, the daughter of Dawn Jewell. Nicolette struggles to cope with her environment, and her family, while working to make something for herself. In this case — an artisanal soda pop business.