This book was published by West Virginia University Press in 2021, and I read it shortly after it was released since I had known the primary subject of the book, Tom Woodruff, who built and ran Appalachian Movement Press for its entire effective life before he left the publishing industry to become a union organizer for Local 1199 and to eventually rise to be its national leader. About a week ago, I had posted a blog post about John Hennen's excellent book, "A Union For Appalachian Healthcare Workers, The Radical Roots and Hard Fights of Local 1199". That review of Hennen's book is available at the link above.Tom Woodruff, the primary subject of this book founded Appalachian Movement Press in 1969 and ran it in Huntington, West Virginia, where he had attended Marshall University. During several years of the life of the press, Tom was also an adjunct professor at The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College, a branch campus of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which had been founded by Robert "Bob" Snyder. The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antoch College was initially founded in Huntington, West Virginia, and after a short time, was moved to Beckley, West Virginia, for the remainder of its existence. The press published a large number of excellent, small publications with political leanings to the political left by authors including Don West, Bob Snyder, P. J. Laska, Rod Harless, and Woodruff himself. Don West eventually bought the printing equipment of the press from Tom Woodruff and transported it to the Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem, West Virginia, where he managed to use the equipment to produce a few pamphlets primarily of his own political oriented writings. But the equipment was stored in the watery basement of a chapel at the Folklife Center and fell into disrepair due to the fact that West could not operate it himself and had no full time printer who knew the intricacies of operating and maintaining such equipment which Woodruff had actually bought used, and we might say "well used".
In 2016, Shaun Slifer and his wife paid a visit to the Folklife Center during which he discovered the press and a large amount of publications both from the time when Woodruff had operated it in Huntington and those few items which Don West has managed to publish after he bought the equipment. Slifer salvaged as much of the publications as he could and wrote this book about the press and Woodruff. He also implied in the book that there were other such Do It Yourself, radical leaning presses in the Appalachian Region at the time. But the book contains little or no actual information about any of those other presses. It is fortunate that Slifer managed to stray into the press and publications, salvage as much as he could, and took the initiative to write the book. It is, however, unfortunate that he did inadequate research and writing about the other implied presses of a similar nature. That work remains for some other interested researcher and writer, if one ever appears on the scene. I knew both Tom Woodruff and Don West, spent a period of time as a student at The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College, and lived for about a year at the Folklife Center. That entire series of experiences was one of the formative influences in my adult life as a writer and political activist. I am grateful that as much was salvaged as has been of the publications. They are a genuinely important piece of the history of the leftward leaning political actions which were taking place in West Virginia and Appalachia at that time. There are some excellent photographs of some of the publications in the book which can serve as clues for any future researchers and writers who may take on the task of completing the job which Slifer began. I am proud to say that I own a few of the publications from that period. This book was a beginning but nowhere near the work which deserves to be produced about the Appalachian Movement Press, the Appalachian South Folklife Center during the time Don West was operating it himself, and of the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College at which Bob Snyder assembled one of the finest collections of Appalachian educators, political activists, and writers which has ever been in one location in the region for any significant period of time. That assemblage of people included both the faculty and several of the students who have gone on to produce effective works about, for, and in defense of Appalachia. All three organizations deserve to have their history(ies) fully and adequately told and preserved for the future in a single work which would address the interconnections and influences which existed between them. Slifer's book did not even begin to scratch the surface of that collective history and the interconnections of the triumvirate. Due to the fact that both West and Woodruff taught at the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College and several students at Antioch worked with either Woodruff or West and, in some cases, lived at the Folklife Center, this complete story needs to be adequately addressed by another better researcher and writer. But Slifer's book is worth reading for the student of Appalachia and Appalachian History. The image below is of a literary journal which was produced by the students and faculty of The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College and produced at Appalachian Movement Press.
