Highland Heritage

Scottish Americans in the American South

"Not until the exhaustive research of the author has any serious attempt been made to explain the overzealous love of tartans and clans by Scottish Americans. Now, it has been done with skill and aplomb." —Donald F. McDonald

from the back cover:
Each year, tens of thousands of people flock to Grandfather Mountain, NC, and to more than two hundred other locations across the country to attend Scottish Highland Games and Gatherings. There, kilt-wearing participants compete in athletics, Highland dancing, and bagpiping, while others join clan societies in celebration of a Scottish heritage. As the author notes, however, the Scottish affiliation that Americans claim today is a Highland Gaelic identity that did not come to characterize that nation until long after the ancestors of many Scottish Americans had left Scotland. This book highlights how Scottish themes and lore merged with southern regional myths and identities to produce a unique style of commemoration and a complex sense of identity for Scottish Americans in the South. Blending the objectivity of an anthropologist with respect for the people she studies, the author asks how and why we use memories of our ancestral pasts to provide a sense of identity and community in the present. In doing so, she offers an original and insightful examination of what it means to be Scottish in America.

softcover, 256 pages
B&W photos, ©2001