Filmmaker and former ETSU professor Thomas Burton first heard the unique sound of the gandy dancers in the late 1960s in downtown Johnson City.
“It was the most gosh-awful sound, clanging noises, metal against metal, and a kind of chanting,” Burton said, in a voice still awed by the din. “It sounded almost primitive; I couldn’t figure out what it was.”
Burton soon learned that the sound came from a crew of now-obsolete railroad workers called gandy dancers, who chanted in time as they lifted and aligned long tracks of rail. The workers, named for the Gandy Company tools and materials they used, were barely compensated for their back-breaking labor before they were replaced by automatic equipment.
The encounter resulted in the documentary, The Gandy Dancers, a film that chronicled the changes in railroad construction brought about by technology. Burton co-produced the documentary with the late Jack Schrader, also a former ETSU faculty member.
Though the art of the gandy dancers is long gone, thanks to Burton and Schrader the public can still see them during Thursday night’s showing of The Gandy Dancers in the Reece Museum.
The Gandy Dancers, along with two other Burton-Schrader films – A Film About Ray Hicks and They Shall Take Up Serpents – is part of a monthly film series presented by ETSU’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Services. CASS is a resource center promoting Southern Appalachian education, outreach, and services.
In They Shall Take Up Serpents, Burton and Schrader study a snake-handling church in Carson Springs, Tenn., while A Film About Ray Hicks profiles the late storyteller, craftsman and mountain philosopher.
The film series, called “Rediscovered Images of Appalachia,” will kick off the 20th anniversary celebration of the center by highlighting films from the Archives of Appalachia, CASS’s research library.
“This is not only a way to showcase the films in our archives; but it also offers a way to look at the many facets and sides of the region,” said CASS director Dr. Roberta Herrin.
Though the films in the archives are well known to documentary filmmakers, like those working for PBS and the British Broadcasting Company, Herrin said there have been few opportunities for public viewings.
“I’m excited about this series,” said Herrin, who hopes locals will seize the chance to learn more about Appalachian culture. “I think that when a person knows the region in all its diversity and all its aspects, then they are able to affirm his or her place in the region. Knowing the region is a way to know the self.”
The film series continues on Oct. 21 with “Treasures and Images from the Archives of Appalachia.”
The series will end on Nov. 18 with “Music Traditions of a Region: Unseen Musical Treasures from the Archives.”
All shows begin at 7 p.m. and are free and open to the public.

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