Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Visitors
Roscoe Giffin, Berea College Professor, 1949-1962
Author of Pine Mountain Community Study
Roscoe Raymond “Rusty” Giffin Jr. (1914-1962)

ROSCOE GIFFIN Visitor

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TAGS: Roscoe Giffin, Jr., PMSS visitors, Berea College, sociologists, Community School, Harlan County Board of Education, Francis S. Hutchins, socio-economic studies, Mountain Life & Work, Birdena Bishop, community residents, Grace Rood, Roscoe Giffin Study of Pine Mountain, Fu Liang Chang, Whither Pine Mountain?, Alvin Boggs, American Friends Service Committee,  Giffin family

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Dr. Roscoe Giffin served as Chairman of the Department of Sociology at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, from 1949 until his death in 1962.

In general, Giffin’s studies and writings primarily focused on race relations, post WWII peace, and disarmament efforts. Notable among his writings were the 1951 study that featured PMSS and its community and the 1956 study of Appalachian migration, “From Cinder Hollow to Cincinnati.” 

The Roscoe Giffin Papers are currently gathered in the Berea College Special Collections and Archives Catalog, located in the Hutchins Library.

ROSCOE GIFFIN: Pine Mountain Visitor

When the Pine Mountain Settlement School’s boarding school ended in 1949, the School put together an education program known as the Community School. This cooperative program with the Harlan County Board of Education persisted in a variety of forms until 1972. Subsequently, the programs were moved from Pine Mountain to the new Green Hills School created by the Harlan County Board of Education to serve the valley’s student population.

Because several changes were expected with the county school consolidation, the then-president of Berea College and PMSS trustee, Francis S. Hutchins, felt that a socio-economic study of the area would be useful. The Berea professor and sociologist Roscoe Giffin was commissioned to conduct the study, which analyzed the effects of family size, income, mobility, social values, and educational attainment. A series of articles concerning the study appeared in Mountain Life & Work in the 1950s.

ROSCOE GIFFIN: Pine Mountain Community Study

In 1950, Birdena Bishop, a PMSS staff member, worked with Giffin on the Pine Mountain Community Study. The study included correspondence, survey questionnaires, data tabulations, a draft report, and published articles relating to the socio-economic study of the area by Dr. Roscoe Giffin. Tasked with documenting the location of households and lifestyles of the PMSS community, Birdena created a large map of the community and located family homes on the map for the study. She also contributed to the narrative and data assembled in the study. This important community study was fundamental to the understanding of the community surrounding Pine Mountain Settlement School and how it contributed to the work of the settlement institution.

In a June 1950 memo, then-Director, Burton Rogers, indicates that Grace Rood, a PMSS nurse, was also involved in this study. He shares his thoughts concerning the project:

I am very glad that you managed to meet with Professor [Roscoe] Giffin and Mrs. Bishop. I hope that this whole study will go forward as intended in July and that we will gain a great deal from it especially for your project. This is our opportunity. At the same time I think we need to recognize that the study itself is Berea’s project and that we will experience the greatest gain ourselves if it remains properly objective and scientific as their director is trying to make it.

The study, also known as the Roscoe Giffin Study of Pine Mountain, along with a 1951 in-depth study by Giffin’s colleague, Fu Liang Chang, titled “Whither Pine Mountain,” took issue with regional limitations and attempted to bring Pine Mountain Settlement forward with a new vision of the future. Also, both studies mark an important period of transition in the school, the years immediately following the closure of the boarding school and the succeeding program-focused trajectory. A comparison of the two studies is made on the page, “FU LIANG CHANG 1951 Whither Pine Mountain?,” which also displays images of the study’s document: 

In his brief but thorough survey, Chang evaluates not only the educational needs but also the medical and agricultural needs of the community served by Pine Mountain School. He builds on the more sociological, formal, and in-depth study of his colleague, Dr. Roscoe Giffin, and like Giffin, is quick to acknowledge the limiting aspects of the regional geography, particularly on the practices of subsistence farming.

In later years, according to a summary of PMSS history for 1966-1967, Alvin Boggs, a PMSS teacher and later Director of PMSS, ”worked on compiling an extension of the Giffin Study, partly to learn if there was any continuity of population.”

Final Years

During the last two years of his life, he was given permission to take time off from his work at the college, to join with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Philadelphia. As the Cold War escalated, the AFSC became involved in relief and service efforts for civilians during the various wars around the world, including the Korean War.

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Roscoe Raymond “Rusty” Giffin, Jr., was born on January 1, 1914, in Grand Junction, Colorado. His parents were Roscoe Raymond Giffin, Sr., a U.S. Postal Department employee, and Martha Matilda (Gigax) Giffin. They later had one other child, Gerald Ardell Giffin.

Giffin, Jr., married Florence Moore Littell (1914-2007) on August 27, 1938, and they had four children, Jeannine, Diane, Lawrence, and Brian.

Roscoe Giffin, Jr., died on September 24, 1962, at the age of 48 and was buried in Berea Cemetery, Berea, Kentucky.

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Title	Roscoe Giffin
Alt. Title	Dr. Roscoe Giffin ; Roscoe Raymond Giffin Jr. ; Professor Giffin ; Rusty Giffin ; Roscoe R. Giffin ; Roscoe Giffin Jr ;
Identifier	https://pinemountainsettlement.net/?page_id=40071
Creator	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY.
Alt. Creator	Ann Angel Eberhardt ; Helen Hayes Wykle ;
Subject Keyword	Roscoe Giffin, Jr., PMSS visitors, Berea College, sociologists, Community School, Harlan County Board of Education, Francis S. Hutchins, socio-economic studies, Mountain Life & Work, Birdena Bishop, community residents, Grace Rood, Roscoe Giffin Study of Pine Mountain, Fu Liang Chang, Whither Pine Mountain?, Alvin Boggs, American Friends Service Committee, the Giffin family
Subject LCSH	Giffin, Roscoe, — 1914 – 1962. Pine Mountain Settlement School (Pine Mountain, Ky.) — History. Harlan County (Ky.) — History. Education — Kentucky — Harlan County. Rural schools — Kentucky — History. Berea College. Schools — Appalachian Region, Southern. Appalachians (People) Migration, Internal Appalachian.
Date	2023-02-21 aae
Publisher	Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY.
Contributor	n/a
Type	Collections ; text ; image ;
Format	Original and copies of documents and correspondence in file folders in filing cabinet.
Source	Series 09: BIOGRAPHY
Language	English
Relation	Is related to: Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections, Series 09: BIOGRAPHY.
Coverage Temporal	1914 – 2007
Coverage Spatial	Pine Mountain, KY ; Harlan County, KY ;
Rights	Any display, publication, or public use must credit the Pine Mountain Settlement School. Copyright retained by the creators of certain items in the collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Donor	n/a
Description	Core documents, correspondence, writings, and administrative papers of Roscoe Raymond Giffin, Jr ; clippings, photographs, books by or about Roscoe Raymond Giffin, Jr ;
Acquisition	n/d
Citation	“[Identification of Item],” [Collection Name] [Series Number, if applicable]. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY.
Processed By	Helen Hayes Wykle ; Ann Angel Eberhardt ;
Last Updated	2023-03-21 aae
	Sources FAMILYSEARCH Family Tree. Internet resource, accessed 2023-02-21. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/LTGK-N9B Roscoe Giffin Papers, 1929-1963, RG 9/9.23: Roscoe Giffin Papers. Berea College Special Collections and Archives, Berea, KY. Internet resource, accessed 2023-02-20. “Roscoe Raymond ‘Rusty’ Griffin Jr.” FindaGrave.com. Internet resource, accessed 2023-02-21. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50892108/roscoe-raymond-giffin “STUDIES SURVEYS REPORTS Roscoe Giffin From Cinder Hollow to Cincinnati 1956.” Series 09: BIOGRAPHY. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. Internet resource, accessed 2023-02-21. “United States Census, 1920,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RX7-NYM?cc=1488411&wc=QZJ5-FK2%3A1036469801%2C1038216901%2C1038247601%2C1589332556 : accessed 2023-02-21), Colorado > Mesa > Grand Junction > ED 97 > image 10 of 34; citing NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.). Internet resource. Selected Bibliography B’nai B’rith, Roscoe Giffin, et al. [Field Reports on Desegregation in the South]. Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith 1956-57?. Print Book. Giffin Roscoe. Newcomers from the Southern Mountains. [Publisher Not Identified] 1957. Print Book. Giffin, Roscoe. Pine Mountain (Kentucky) Community Study Records 1948-1965. Location: Hutchins Library, Berea, Kentucky, 1948. Collection. These are records of a socio-economic study conducted by Berea College sociologist Roscoe Giffin in the Pine Mountain community of Harlan County, Kentucky, 1950-1952. The records are primarily correspondence, survey questionnaires, data tabulations, maps, a draft report, and published articles. Giffin Roscoe. Sturgis Kentucky : A Tentative Description and Analysis of the School Desegregation Crisis. Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, 1957. Print Book. Workshop on the Southern Mountaineer in Cincinnati, Roscoe Giffin, Cicinnati (Ohio), Social Service. Report of a Workshop on the Southern Mountaineer in Cincinnati : April 29 1954. 4th print. March 1960 ed. Publisher Not Identified 1960. Print Book.

See Also:

PUBLICATIONS RELATED 1950 Roscoe Giffin People of the Pine Mountain School District, Harlan County, Kentucky (in process)

PUBLICATIONS RELATED 1954 Roscoe Giffin The Southern Mountaineer in Cincinnati (Report – in process)

PUBLICATIONS RELATED 1956 Roscoe Giffin From Cinder Hollow to Cincinnati – Reprint of a Mountain Life & Work article (in process)

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BIOGRAPHY – A-Z

PUBLICATIONS RELATED

VISITORS GUIDE to Consultants, Guests, Related Friends of PMSS

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