Folklorist Emily Hilliard’s Work on American Rural Postal Workers Featured on Jacobin Magazine

Emily Hilliard is a folklorist, writer, and media producer based at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. Hilliard worked previously as the Program Director for Folk and Traditional Arts at Mid Atlantic Arts and from 2015–2021, she served as the West Virginia State Folklorist and Founding Director of the West Virginia Folklife Program at the West Virginia Humanities Council. She holds an M.A. in folklore from the University of North Carolina, and a B.A. in English and French from the University of Michigan. Her book, Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in November 2022, and was named a finalist for the 2022 nonfiction Weatherford Award for books “best illuminating the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.”

In 2021, Hilliard received an Archie Green Fellowship to document U.S. mail carriers in Central Appalachia as part of the American Folklife Center’s Occupational Folklife Project. Over the course of a year, she conducted in-depth interviews with 24 contemporary and recently-retired rural mail carriers and clerks (formerly known as postmasters) in the upper mountain South (VA, WV, KY, OH). Interviewees discuss their work-related activities and responsibilities; the function they serve as lifelines in their community; and how their place of work— rural post offices—are invaluable community hubs in remote rural areas.

With insights gained from this project, Hilliard published an article on the Jacobin magazine recently, arguing that “[r]ural postal workers don’t just deliver mail. They put out fires, help elderly people who’ve fallen, and ensure veterans receive medication during storms. Trump’s proposed USPS privatization threatens these care networks in areas already lacking services.”