Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Katrina Powell

     Katrina Powell is a Professor at Virginia Tech who has become extremely interested in eminent domain. She has written two books about the displacement of people in central Virginia during the depression while the Shenandoah National Park was being founded. She performed qualitative research from a history point of view. In her research, she looked up letters from people who were displaced. They were written to a variety of different people ranging from the man who was the head of the national park project, Mr. Lassiter to President Roosevelt.

     In regards to her research, which was very interesting, I would like to move past it and talk about her passion on the subject. Her research was initially about the Shenandoah Valley and the Shenandoah National Park, but she found herself becoming interested in Sri Lanka's displacement as well. Her passion on the subject has brought her all over the world and changed several people's lives. During her research she interviewed people who were displaced or their parents and grandparents were displaced. Their stories were so interesting and they were stories that she could tell they've been wanting to tell for a very long time.  One man talked about how he couldn't afford to purchase another wire for his garden and it was left in the national park and he was begging Mr. Lassiter to return it to him since they wouldn't need it. He kept repeating that he was cooperative. The idea of being cooperative was very important at the time and was repeated in many of the stories told. I think that this what drew me in initially. Another story told was about how a young woman loved her house. She talked about how it was not a big house or a magnificent house but it was her house and she was proud of her home. She also talked about how she had a little girl and she wasn't sure how she was going to raise her without their little home. She asked for materials to build a new house, soap, and food. Theses stories further drew me in. 

     The people sold their land and were paid only a dollar per acre, had it harder then I can imagine. 

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