“Grow All You Can, and Save All You Grow”: Innovation and Tradition at The Prince Edward County Community Cannery

This thesis explores the role of innovation in the enactment of tradition through the flourishing of the Prince Edward County Community Cannery in Farmville, Virginia. By narrating one canning season in Prince Edward County, I tell a larger story about foodways in the American South. The Prince Edward County Community Cannery opened in 1975 after consolidation began of earlier facilities that opened in the area in 1943. In order to answer questions about the work that the cannery does in the community, I explore the cannery in its historical context, and as a constellation of objects, before entering into a creative nonfiction narrative about the people and relationships that enliven the space. Finally, I consider the ways that this cannery has continued to thrive despite the closures of dozens of Virginia canneries because of its evolving relationship with innovation as a support system for tradition through the symbiotic relationship of a home canning and commercial canning enterprise under one roof.Master of Art