Welsh in Coal Creek

In the last half of the 1800s, Welsh communities in America published books in their native language at a time when doing so was illegal in Great Britain. In Coal Creek, miners Rees R. Thomas and his son David R. Thomas donated a rare collection of those books to Harvard University. The Welsh of Tennessee (2012) by Dr. Eirug Davies of Harvard University tells how Welsh miners and iron workers helped East Tennessee rebuild after the American Civil War while preserving their native language and culture, and it recognizes research by Briceville students as part of an unbroken circle of learning in Coal Creek.

Briceville, Tennessee · United States