The 1948-1951 post-WW2 Long Trips to Tennessee were led by Eleanor Hogan, assisted by Sheila Salder (1950-1951). Participants visited the Highlander Folk School, African American Farming Community of Bakewell, Tennessee Valley Authority, and Ducktown. Along the way they stopped at the Amish market at Lancaster, Gettysberg, and Harpers Ferry. They focused on civil rights, labor/unionization, government efforts on behalf of the people, and the use and abuse of natural resources.

Dr. Salvatore Vascellaro's dissertation describes the shift from the pre- to post-war trips. He writes:

"In stark contrast to the earlier trips, the postwar trips were taken during a period of unprecedented economic growth, in which divisions between rich and poor were lessening. Migrations to the cities in search of defense jobs had changed the demography of the nation. The resulting concentration of African Americans in urban areas fueled the fight for civil rights. The rhetoric that supported the war also supported this fight and helped stimulate in education an 'intercultural' movement to 'bring behaviors in line with democratic ideals.' Mitchell was a proponent. She now emphasized how a teacher's knowledge of racial and ethnic differences (among students) was critical to planning curriculum...The ten-day trips were to areas of the South that were changing rapidly or held the promise of future change. The students traveled, over the course of ten days, a total distance of one-thousand miles each way--stopping at sites Hogan considered socially important" (p. 173-174-176).

Dr. Salvatore Vascellaro's dissertation also includes interviews with participants from the 1951 Long Trip. He writes: "They traveled from Fontana Dam, North Carolina to Ducktown, Tennessee. Many retained vivid images of the drive into Ducktown...'It looked like a raw wound' (Verna Rudd Kevin 1951 I)...When Wilbur Rippy (1951 I) saw Ducktown as a child in the 1930s, the already denuded land was an interesting phenomenon. Seeing it as an adult, while on the trip, he realized that 'this was the opposite of taking care. This was an exemplar of a way of doing business. Grab what you can. Eat up the land. Don't regulate'" (p. 183-184).