Contact: Sharon Fisher
June 12th, 2009

SW Museum exhibit “Pitchforks and Plowshares” at MECC

                The exhibit Pitchforks and Plowshares:  Early Farming in Southwest Virginia will be on display in the Slemp Gallery on the Mountain Empire Community College Campus from June 15 until September 4.

                As the westward expansion of the mid 18th Century brought settlers through the valleys of Southwest Virginia, some of the folk bound for the Cumberland Gap found the areas around the Clinch, Holston, and Powell Rivers to be very pleasant and ripe for cultivation. 

                They began to settle the region and soon farms began to dot the valleys and surrounding mountainsides.  These were not large plantations, the likes of which were found in the piedmont region to the east.  Most were small, family-run farms which provided the settlers with what they needed to survive. 

                Pitchforks and Plowshares: Early Farming in Southwest Virginia examines the tools used by these early farming families.  Through photographs and items from the collection of the Southwest Virginia Museum, the exhibit looks back at life in the region before the coming of the coal mines and railroads. 

                The farming tools and household implements on display help to give a greater insight into the daily lives of those first European settlers of the region.

                The Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park’s mission is to collect, preserve, protect, and interpret the cultural history of Southwest Virginia.  The museum was acquired in 1946 and opened in 1948 under the state park system.  The museum was recently named an Affiliated Partner of Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail, The Crooked Road.

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