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 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).
