Reviewed by:

• Mountaineers Are Always Free: Heritage, Dissent, and a West Virginia Icon by Rosemary V. Hathaway
• Ian C. Hartman

Rosemary V. Hathaway has written an engagingly thoughtful analysis of West Virginia's arguably most iconic figure: the Mountaineer. Although much of the text maps a broader history of social and cultural transformations that occurred on the campus of West Virginia University (WVU) in Morgantown, this insightful book admirably traces the Mountaineer as an Appalachian symbol par excellence. By exploring the university's famous Mountaineer as a mutable yet enduring moniker, the author offers greater insights into how a potent symbol of independence and freedom has also been fraught with associations of impoverishment and unruliness.

Hathaway dates the earliest depiction of the Mountaineer to the colonial era, well before West Virginia statehood and its longtime use as the symbol for the university and its athletic teams. Many of the early white settlers who crossed the Appalachians into western Virginia were known as squatters and seen as troublemakers by Virginia's coastal elite. But these men and women of the backcountry had also cultivated an identity as hardscrabble and independent people who eked out a meager existence in a remote, rocky, and unforgiving part of the mountains. These two, seemingly contradictory, archetypes of the backwoods settler informed most depictions of the Mountaineer, according to Hathaway. Indeed, the Mountaineer has at once embodied both the "stalwart frontiersman and coarse hillbilly" in the public imagination (p. 7). Hathaway skillfully toggles between these identities and convincingly demonstrates that the Mountaineer deserves recognition beyond that of just another mascot and inhabits a status uniquely emblematic of the state's ethos.

Mountaineers Are Always Free: Heritage, Dissent, and a West Virginia Icon proceeds chronologically, beginning with a brisk analysis of the Mountaineer's origins as a troubled squatter, destabilizing the colonial backcountry. Hathaway then presents a comparison, staged as "the Hillbilly Mountaineer versus the Frontiersman" in the second chapter. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters are more granularly focused on the representation of the Mountaineer as the iconic symbol of WVU. These chapters explore the Mountaineer's relationship to the campus's social and cultural upheavals of the post–World War II decades, including the antiwar movement, the counterculture and its backlash, and more recent calls for greater diversity and inclusion. Hathaway locates the Mountaineer as a flashpoint in various cultural conflicts. As one example, the Mountaineer's decision to remain clean-shaven or grow out a beard amid the social tumult of the Vietnam War provided a not-so-subtle opportunity to comment on the era's defining issues.

At first blush, Hathaway's study may seem rather narrowly tailored to an audience with a personal connection to or special interest in the history of West Virginia and the well-known symbol of its university. And indeed, one learns about campus activism, the controversy surrounding the first female Mountaineers to don buckskins and grace the sidelines during football games, and the idiosyncratic WVU tradition of couch burning. At root, however, the book is [End Page 324] more properly understood as a history of Appalachian iconography, taking as its case study one particular figure that has endured through the generations as a treasured symbol of regional and state identity, despite its oftentimes fraught connotations and deep ambivalence.

审核人：

• 登山者永远都是自由的：遗产，异议和西弗吉尼亚州的偶像，罗斯玛丽·V·海瑟薇（Rosemary V. Hathaway）
• 伊恩·哈特曼（Ian C.Hartman）

罗斯玛丽·V·海瑟薇（Rosemary V. Hathaway）对西维吉尼亚州最具争议的标志性人物：登山家进行了认真而周到的分析。尽管本书的大部分内容描绘了发生在Morgantown的西弗吉尼亚大学（WVU）校园内的更广泛的社会和文化变革历史，但这本有见地的书令人钦佩地将登山者视为阿巴拉契亚人的杰出象征。通过将大学著名的登山家视为易变而持久的绰号，作者提供了更深刻的见识，使人们认识到独立和自由的强大象征如何也充斥着贫困和不守规矩的联想。

海瑟薇最早将登山者的描绘追溯到殖民时期，远早于西弗吉尼亚州的州立地位及其长期用作大学及其运动队的象征。许多将阿巴拉契亚山脉带入弗吉尼亚州西部的早期白人定居者被称为棚户区，并被弗吉尼亚州的沿海精英视为捣蛋鬼。但是，这些偏远地区的男人和女人也培养出一种刻苦的，独立的人的身份，他们渴望在偏远，多石和无情的山区中微薄的生存。根据海瑟薇的说法，这两个看似矛盾的偏远地区定居者的原型为大多数登山家提供了描写。的确，登山家在公众的想象中立刻体现了“坚定的边民和粗野的乡下人”（第7页）。

登山者永远都是自由的：遗产，异议和西弗吉尼亚州的标志按时间顺序进行，首先是对登山家起源于陷入困境的擅自占地者进行轻快的分析，从而破坏了殖民地偏远地区的稳定。然后，海瑟薇提出了一个比较，在第二章中作了“乡巴佬登山家与边防军”的比较。第三，第四和第五章更详细地介绍了登山家作为WVU的标志性符号的表示方式。这些章节探讨了登山家与第二次世界大战后几十年校园的社会和文化动荡的关系，包括反战运动，反文化及其反弹，以及最近要求更大的多样性和包容性的呼声。海瑟薇将登山者定位为各种文化冲突中的一个闪点。例如，登山家

乍一看，海瑟薇的研究似乎是针对与西弗吉尼亚州历史及其大学的著名标志有个人联系或特殊兴趣的听众而量身定制的。的确，人们学到了校园活动，围绕第一位登山运动的女登山家的美誉，以及足球比赛中的旁观者，以及沙发燃烧的特质WVU传统。然而，从根本上讲，[End Page 324]更恰当地理解为阿巴拉契亚肖像画的历史，以其特定案例作为案例研究，尽管它经常被作为世代相传的地区和州认同的珍贵象征而经受了几代人的折磨。充满内涵和深切的矛盾情绪。