Appalachia

Appalachia
Region
Left–right from top: Pittsburgh skyline New River Gorge Bridge campus of Appalachian State University Smoky Mountains Roanoke skyline mountains of North Georgia view from the Appalachian Trail
United States of America, including Appalachia.
• Native Languages (Indigenous languages of the Americas)	This section requires further information.

Appalachia (locally

While endowed with abundant natural resources, Appalachia has long struggled economically and has been associated with poverty[8]. In the early 20th century, large-scale logging and coal mining firms brought jobs and modern amenities to Appalachia, but by the 1960s the region had failed to capitalize on any long-term benefits^[9] from these two industries. Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government sought to alleviate poverty in the Appalachian region with a series of New Deal initiatives, specifically the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The TVA was responsible for the construction of hydroelectric dams that provide a vast amount of electricity and that support programs for better farming practices, regional planning, and economic development.

In 1965, the Appalachian Regional Commission^[10] was created to further alleviate poverty in the region, mainly by diversifying the region's economy and helping to provide better health care and educational opportunities to the region's inhabitants. By 1990, Appalachia had largely joined the economic mainstream but still lagged behind the rest of the nation in most economic indicators.^[6]

Since Appalachia lacks definite physiographical or topographical boundaries, there has been some disagreement over what the region encompasses. The most commonly used modern definition of Appalachia is the one initially defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) in 1965 and expanded over subsequent decades.^[6] The region defined by the commission currently^{[as of?]} includes 420 counties and eight independent cities in 13 states, including all 55 counties in West Virginia, 14 counties in New York, 52 in Pennsylvania, 32 in Ohio, 3 in Maryland, 54 in Kentucky, 25 counties and 8 cities in Virginia,^[12] 29 in North Carolina, 52 in Tennessee, 6 in South Carolina, 37 in Georgia, 37 in Alabama, and 24 in Mississippi.^[5] When the commission was established, counties were added based on economic need, however, rather than any cultural parameters.^[6]

The first major attempt to map Appalachia as a distinctive cultural region came in the 1890s with the efforts of Berea College president William Goodell Frost, whose "Appalachian America" included 194 counties in 8 states.^{[13]: 11–14} In 1921, John C. Campbell published The Southern Highlander and His Homeland, in which he modified Frost's map to include 254 counties in 9 states. A landmark survey of the region in the following decade by the United States Department of Agriculture defined the region as consisting of 206 counties in 6 states. In 1984, Karl Raitz and Richard Ulack expanded the ARC's definition to include 445 counties in 13 states, although they removed all counties in Mississippi and added two in New Jersey. Historian John Alexander Williams, in his 2002 book Appalachia: A History, distinguished between a "core" Appalachian region consisting of 164 counties in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, and a greater region defined by the ARC.^[6]

In the Encyclopedia of Appalachia (2006),

While exploring inland along the northern coast of

The name was not commonly used for the whole mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing, and often more popular, name was the "Allegheny Mountains", "Alleghenies", and even "Alleghania".^[19]

In southern U.S. dialects, the mountains are called the /æpəˈlætʃənz/, and the cultural region of Appalachia is pronounced /ˈæpəˈlætʃ(i)ə/, both with a third syllable like the "la" in "latch".^[20][21] This pronunciation is favored in the "core" region in the central and southern parts of the Appalachian range. In northern U.S. dialects, the mountains are pronounced /æpəˈleɪtʃənz/ or /æpəˈleɪʃənz/. The cultural region of Appalachia is pronounced /æpəˈleɪtʃ(i)ə/, also /æpəˈleɪʃ(i)ə/, all with a third syllable like "lay". The use of northern pronunciations is controversial to some in the southern region.^[22] Despite not being in Appalachia, Appalachian Trail organizations in New England popularized the occasional use of the "sh" sound for the "ch" in northern dialects in the early 20th century.^{[13]: 11–14}

Native American hunter-gatherers first arrived in what is now Appalachia over 16,000 years ago. The earliest discovered site is the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Washington County, Pennsylvania, which some scientists claim is pre-Clovis culture. Several other Archaic period (8000–1000 BC) archaeological sites have been identified in the region, such as the St. Albans site in West Virginia and the Icehouse Bottom site in Tennessee. The presence of Africans in the Appalachian Mountains dates back to the 16th century with the arrival of European colonists. Enslaved Africans were first brought to America during the 16th-century Spanish expeditions to the mountainous regions of the South. In 1526 enslaved Africans were brought to the Pee Dee River region of western North Carolina by Spanish explorer Lucas Vazquez de Ayllõn. Enslaved Africans also accompanied the expeditions of Fernando de Soto in 1540 and Juan Pardo in 1566, who both traveled through Appalachia.^[23]

The de Soto and Pardo expeditions explored the mountains of South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia, and encountered complex agrarian societies consisting of Muskogean-speaking inhabitants. De Soto indicated that much of the region west of the mountains was part of the domain of Coosa, a paramount chiefdom centered around a village complex in northern Georgia.^[24] By the time English explorers arrived in Appalachia in the late 17th century, the central part of the region was controlled by Algonquian tribes (namely the Shawnee), and the southern part of the region was controlled by the Cherokee. The French based in modern-day Quebec also made inroads into the northern areas of the region in modern-day New York state and Pennsylvania. By the mid-18th century the French had outposts such as Fort Duquesne and Fort Le Boeuf controlling the access points of the Allegheny River and upper Ohio River valleys after exploration by Celeron de Bienville.

European migration into Appalachia began in the 18th century. As lands in eastern Pennsylvania, the

Appalachian frontiersmen have long been romanticized for their ruggedness and self-sufficiency. A typical depiction of an Appalachian pioneer involves a hunter wearing a

In the early 19th century, the rift between the yeoman farmers of Appalachia and their wealthier lowland counterparts continued to grow, especially as the latter dominated most state legislatures. People in Appalachia began to feel slighted over what they considered unfair taxation methods and lack of state funding for improvements (especially for roads). In the northern half of the region, the lowland elites consisted largely of industrial and business interests, whereas in the parts of the region south of the Mason–Dixon line, the lowland elites consisted of large-scale land-owning planters.^{[32]: 59–69} The Whig Party, formed in the 1830s, drew widespread support from disaffected Appalachians.

Tensions between the mountain counties and state governments sometimes reached the point of mountain counties threatening to break off and form separate states. In 1832, bickering between western Virginia and eastern Virginia over the state's constitution led to calls on both sides for the state's separation into two states.^[13]: 141 In 1841, Tennessee state senator (and later U.S. president) Andrew Johnson introduced legislation in the Tennessee Senate calling for the creation of a separate state in East Tennessee. The proposed state would have been known as "Frankland" and would have invited like-minded mountain counties in Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama to join it.^[33]

In 1839 Washington Irving proposed to rename the United States "Alleghania" or "Appalachia" in place of "America", since the latter name belonged to Latin America too.^[13] Edgar Allan Poe later took up the idea and considered Appalachia a much better name than America or Alleghania; he thought it better defined the United States as a distinct geographical entity, separate from the rest of the Americas, and he also thought it did honor to both Irving and the natives after whom the Appalachian Mountains had been named.^[34] At the time, however, the United States had already reached far beyond the greater Appalachian region, but the "magnificence" of Appalachia Poe considered enough to rechristen the nation with a name that would be unique to its character. However, Poe's popular influence only grew decades after his death, and so the name was never seriously considered.

By 1860, the Whig Party had disintegrated. Sentiments in northern Appalachia had shifted to the pro-

Both central and southern Appalachia suffered tremendous violence and turmoil during the Civil War. While there were two major theaters of operation in the region—namely the Shenandoah Valley and the Chattanooga area—much of the violence was caused by bushwhackers and guerrilla warfare. The northernmost battles of the war were fought in Appalachia with the Battle of Buffington Island and the Battle of Salineville resulting from Morgan's Raid. Large numbers of livestock were killed (grazing was an important part of Appalachia's economy), and numerous farms were destroyed, pillaged, or neglected.^[35] The actions of both Union and Confederate armies left many inhabitants in the region resentful of government authority and suspicious of outsiders for decades after the war.^{[32]: 109–23 [31]: 39–45}

After the Civil War, northern Appalachia experienced an economic boom. At the same time, economies in the southern region stagnated, especially as Southern Democrats regained control of their respective state legislatures at the end of

The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw the development of various regional stereotypes. Attempts by President Rutherford B. Hayes to enforce the whiskey tax in the late 1870s led to an explosion in violence between Appalachian "moonshiners" and federal "revenuers" that lasted through the Prohibition period in the 1920s.^{[13]: 187–193} The breakdown of authority and law enforcement during the Civil War may have contributed to an increase in clan feuding, which by the 1880s was reported to be a problem across most of Kentucky's Cumberland region as well as Carter County, Tennessee; Carroll County, Virginia; and Mingo and Logan counties in West Virginia.^{[32]: 109–23 [13]: 187–93} Regional writers from this period such as Mary Noailles Murfree and Horace Kephart liked to focus on such sensational aspects of mountain culture, leading readers outside the region to believe they were more widespread than in reality. In an 1899 article in The Atlantic, Berea College president William G. Frost attempted to redefine the inhabitants of Appalachia as "noble mountaineers"—relics of the nation's pioneer period whose isolation had left them unaffected by modern times.^{[32]: 109–23}

Entering the 21st century, residents of Appalachia are viewed by many Americans as uneducated and unrefined, resulting in culture-based stereotyping and discrimination in many areas, including employment and housing. Such discrimination has prompted some to seek redress under prevailing federal and state

Appalachia, and especially Kentucky, became nationally known for its violent

By the 1950s, poor farming techniques and the loss of jobs to

Since the 1980s, population growth in southern Appalachia has brought about concerns of farmland loss and hazards to the local environment. Regarding housing development, exurban development, characterized by its low-density housing, has violated the habitats of native species and contributed significantly to the decline in agricultural land use in larger Appalachia.^[46]

There are growing IT sectors in many parts of the region.^[47][48] Frontier, the fastest supercomputer in the world, is housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.^[49] In the 21st century, Appalachia has swung heavily towards the Republican Party.^[50]

Due to topographic considerations, several major cities are located near but not included in Appalachia. These include Cincinnati, Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio, Nashville, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia. Pittsburgh is the largest city by population to be sometimes considered within the Appalachian region.

As defined by the 2020 census, the following metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) are sometimes included as part of Appalachia:^{[citation needed]}

An estimated 90%

Although Swedes and Finns formed only a tiny portion of the Appalachian settlers, it was Swedish and Finnish settlers of New Sweden who brought the northern European woodsman skills such as log cabin construction which formed the basis of backwoods Appalachian material culture.^[56]

Germans were a major pioneer group to migrate to Appalachia, settling mainly in western Pennsylvania and southwest Virginia. Smaller numbers of Germans were also among the initial wave of migrants to the southern mountains.^{[13]: 30–44} The initial wave of Appalachian ethnography and anthropology in the first half of the 20th century disregarded this German culture, instead choosing to focus almost solely on the Scots-Irish component of Appalachian culture. This was likely due to Germanophobia caused by the two World Wars, and has since begun to be corrected.^[57]

In the 19th century, Welsh immigrants were brought into the region for their mining and metallurgical expertise, and by 1900 over 100,000 Welsh immigrants were living in western Pennsylvania alone.^[58] Thousands of German-speaking Swiss migrated to Appalachia in the second half of the 19th century, and their descendants remain in places such as East Bernstadt, Kentucky, and Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee.^[59] The coal mining and manufacturing boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought large numbers of Italians and Eastern Europeans to Appalachia, although most of these families left the region when the Great Depression shattered the economy in the 1930s. African Americans have been present in the region since the 18th century, and currently make up 8% of the ARC-designated region, mostly concentrated in urban areas and former mining and manufacturing towns;^[60] The African-American component of Appalachia is sometimes termed Affrilachia.^[61]

Native Americans, the region's original inhabitants, are now only a small percentage of the region's present population, their most notable concentration being the reservation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. The Melungeons, a group of mixed African, European, and Native American ancestry, are scattered across northeastern Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, and southwestern Virginia.^[62]

According to the

Christianity is the main religion in Appalachia, which is characterized by a sense of independence and a distrust of religious

The Appalachian dialect is a dialect of

For much of the region's history, education in Appalachia has lagged behind the rest of the nation due in part to struggles with funding from respective state governments and an agrarian-oriented population that often did not see a practical need for formal education. Early education in the region evolved from teaching Christian morality and learning to read the Bible in small, one-room schoolhouses that convened in months when children were not needed to help with farm work. After the Civil War, mandatory education laws and state assistance helped larger communities begin to establish grade schools and high schools. During the same period, many of the region's institutions of higher education were established or greatly expanded.^[74] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, service organizations such as Pi Beta Phi and various religious organizations established settlement schools and mission schools in the region's more rural areas.^[75]

In the 20th century, national trends began to have more of an effect on education in Appalachia, sometimes clashing with the region's traditional values. The

Appalachian music is one of the best-known manifestations of Appalachian culture. Traditional Appalachian music (called old-time music) is derived primarily from the English, Irish, and Scottish ballad and fiddle traditions. African-American blues musicians played a significant role in developing the instrumental aspects of Appalachian music, most notably with the introduction of the five-stringed banjo—one of the region's iconic symbols—in the late 18th century. Another instrument known in Appalachian culture was the Appalachian dulcimer which, practically, is a guitar-shaped instrument laid on its side with a flat bottom and the strings plucked in a manner to make alternating notes.

In the years following World War I, British folklorist Cecil Sharp brought attention to Southern Appalachia when he noted that its inhabitants still sang hundreds of English and Scottish ballads that had been passed down to them from their ancestors. Commercial recordings of Appalachian musicians in the 1920s (such as the famous 1927 Bristol sessions) would have a significant impact on the development of country music and bluegrass. Traditional Appalachian music saw a resurgence in popularity across the country during the American folk music revival of the 1960s, when musicologists such as Mike Seeger, John Cohen, and Ralph Rinzler traveled to remote parts of the region in search of musicians who they thought were unaffected by modern music. Today, dozens of annual music festivals held throughout the region preserve the Appalachian music tradition.^[77]

Early Appalachian literature typically centered on the observations of people from outside the region, such as

Appalachian folklore has a strong mixture of European, Native American (especially

Several urban legends and horror stories have been rooted in the Appalachia region. Since the 1960s the

Urban Appalachians are people from Appalachia who are living in metropolitan areas outside the Appalachian region. In the decades following the Great Depression and World War II, many Appalachian residents moved to industrial cities in the north and west in a migration that became known as the "Hillbilly Highway". The mechanization of coal mining during the 1950s and 1960s was the major source of unemployment in central Appalachia. Many migration streams covered relatively short distances, with West Virginians moving to Cleveland and other cities in eastern and central Ohio, and eastern Kentuckians moving to Cincinnati and southwest Ohio in search of jobs. More distant cities like Detroit and Chicago attracted migrants from many states. Enclaves of Appalachian culture can still be found in some of these communities.^[87]

In the 1940s through the 1960s, Wheeling, West Virginia, became a cultural center of the region because it had a clear-channel AM radio station, WWVA, which could be heard throughout the entirety of the eastern United States at night. Although Pittsburgh's KDKA was a 50-kilowatt clear channel station that dated back to the early 1920s (as well as spanning all the East Coast in signal strength), WWVA prided itself on rural and farm programming that appealed to a wider audience in the rural region. Cincinnati's WLW also was relied on by many in the central and northern areas of Appalachia.

In the southern part of the region,

Appalachia as an academic interest was the product of a critical scholarship that emerged across the disciplines in the 1960s and 1970s. With a renewed interest in issues of power, scholars could not dismiss the social inequity, class conflict, and environmental destruction encountered by America's so-called "hillbillies". Appalachia's emergence in academia is a result of the intersection between social conditions and critical academic interests, and has resulted in the development of many Appalachian studies programs in colleges and universities across the region, as well as in the Appalachian Studies Association.

The economy of Appalachia traditionally rested on agriculture, mining, timber, and in the cities, manufacturing. Since the late 20th century, tourism and second-home developments have assumed an increasingly major role. Appalachia has many different economic sectors, from aerospace and defense industries in the

While the climate of the Appalachian region is suitable for agriculture, the region's hilly terrain greatly limits the size of the average farm, a problem exacerbated by population growth in the latter half of the 19th century. Subsistence farming was the backbone of the Appalachian economy throughout much of the 19th century, and while economies in places such as western Pennsylvania, the Great Valley of Virginia, and the upper Tennessee Valley in east Tennessee, transitioned to a large-scale farming or manufacturing base around the time of the Civil War, subsistence farming remained an important part of the region's economy until the 1950s. In the early 20th century, Appalachian farmers were struggling to mechanize, and abusive farming practices had over the years left much of the already-limited farmland badly eroded. Various federal entities intervened in the 1930s to restore damaged areas and introduce less harmful farming techniques. In recent decades, the concept of sustainable agriculture has been applied to the region's small farms, with some success. Nevertheless, the number of farms in the Appalachian region continues to dwindle, plunging from 354,748 farms on 47 million acres (190,000 km²) in 1969 to 230,050 farms on 35 million acres (140,000 km²) in 1997.^[88]

Early Appalachian farmers grew both crops introduced from their native Europe as well as crops native to North America (such as

The mountains and valleys of Appalachia once contained what seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of timber. The poor roads, lack of railroads, and general inaccessibility of the region, however, prevented large-scale logging in most of the region throughout much of the 19th century. While logging firms were established in the Carolinas and the Kentucky River valley before the Civil War, most major firms preferred to harvest the more accessible timber stands in the Midwestern and Northeastern parts of the country. By the 1880s, these stands had been exhausted, and a spike in the demand for lumber forced logging firms to seek out the virgin forests of Appalachia.^[89] The first major logging ventures in Appalachia transported logs using mule teams or rivers, the latter method sometimes employing splash dams.^[90] In the 1890s, innovations such as the Shay locomotive, the steam-powered loader, and the steam-powered skidder allowed massive harvesting of the most remote forest sections.^[89]

Logging in Appalachia reached its peak in the early 20th century, when firms such as the

Coal mining is the industry most frequently associated with the region in outsiders' minds,

In the late 19th century, the post-Civil War Industrial Revolution and the expansion of the nation's railroads brought a soaring demand for coal, and mining operations expanded rapidly across Appalachia. Hundreds of thousands of workers poured into the region from across the United States and from overseas, essentially overhauling the cultural makeup of eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. Mining corporations gained considerable influence in state and municipal governments, especially as they often owned the entire towns in which the miners lived. The mining industry was vulnerable to economic downturns, however, and booms and busts were frequent, with major booms occurring during World War I and II, and the worst bust occurring during the Great Depression. The Appalachian mining industry also saw some of the nation's bloodiest labor strife between the 1890s and the 1930s. Mining-related injuries and deaths were not uncommon, and ailments such as black lung disease afflicted miners throughout the 20th century. After World War II, innovations in mechanization (such as longwall mining) and competition from oil and natural gas led to a decline in the region's mining operations.^[94] Environmental restrictions, such as those placed on high-sulfur coal in the 1980s, brought further mine closures. While with annual earnings of $55,000, Appalachian miners make more than most other local workers, Appalachian coal mining employed just under 50,000 in 2004.^[96][97]

Coal mining has made a comeback in some regions in the early 21st century because of the increased prominence of

The manufacturing industry in Appalachia is rooted primarily in the ironworks and steelworks of early

One of the region's oldest industries, tourism became a more important part of the Appalachian economy in the latter half of the 20th century as mining and manufacturing steadily declined.^[102] In 2000–2001, tourism in Appalachia accounted for nearly $30 billion and over 600,000 jobs.^[103] The mountain terrain—with its accompanying scenery and outdoor recreational opportunities—provides the region's primary attractions.^[102] The region is home to one of the world's most well-known hiking trails (the Appalachian Trail), the nation's most-visited national park (the Great Smoky Mountains National Park),^[104] and the nation's most visited national parkway (the Blue Ridge Parkway).^[105] The craft industry, including the teaching, selling, and display or demonstration of regional crafts, also accounts for an important part of the Appalachian economy, bringing (for example) over $100 million annually to the economy of western North Carolina and over $80 million to the economy of West Virginia.^[106] Important heritage tourism attractions in the region include the Biltmore Estate and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina, Cades Cove in Tennessee, and Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. Important theme parks include Dollywood and Ghost Town Village, both on the periphery of the Great Smoky Mountains.

The mineral-rich mountain springs of the Appalachians—which for many years were thought to have health-restoring qualities—were drawing visitors to the region as early as the 18th century with the establishment of resorts at Hot Springs, Virginia, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and what is now Hot Springs, North Carolina. Along with the mineral springs, the cool and clear air of the range's high elevations provided an escape for lowland elites, and elaborate hotels—such as The Greenbrier in West Virginia and the Balsam Mountain Inn in North Carolina—were built throughout the region's remote valleys and mountain slopes. The end of World War I (which opened up travel opportunities to Europe) and the arrival of the automobile (which changed the nation's vacation habits) led to the demise of all but a few of the region's spa resorts. The establishment of national parks in the 1930s brought an explosion of tourist traffic to the region but created problems with urban sprawl in the various host communities. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, states have placed greater focus on sustaining tourism while preserving host communities.^[102]

Poverty had plagued Appalachia for many years but was not brought to the attention of the rest of the United States until 1940, when James Agee and Walker Evans published Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a book that documented families in Appalachia during the Great Depression in words and photos. In 1963, John F. Kennedy established the President's Appalachian Regional Commission. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, crystallized Kennedy's efforts in the form of the Appalachian Regional Commission, which passed into law in 1965.^[107]

In Appalachia, severe poverty and desolation were paired with the necessity for careful cultural sensitivity. Many Appalachian people feared that the birth of a new modernized Appalachia would lead to the death of their traditional values and heritage. Because of the isolation of the region, Appalachian people had been unable to catch up to the modernization that lowlanders had achieved. In the 1960s, many people in Appalachia had a

The Appalachian region of the United States, while abundant in natural resources and rich in potential, lags behind the rest of the Nation... its people have not shared properly in the Nation's prosperity.[109]

Since the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) in 1965, the region has seen dramatic progress. New roads, schools, health care facilities, water and sewer systems, and other improvements have brought a better life to many Appalachian residents. In the 1960s, 219 counties in the 13-state Appalachian Region were considered economically distressed. Now that list has been cut by more than half, to 82 counties, but these are "hard-core" pockets of poverty, seemingly impervious to all efforts at improving their lot.^[110] Martin County, Kentucky, the site of Johnson's 1964 speech, is one such county still ranked as "distressed" by the ARC. As of 2000, the per capita income in Martin County was $10,650, and 37% of its residents lived below the poverty line.

Like Johnson, President Bill Clinton brought attention to the remaining areas of poverty in Appalachia. On July 5, 1999, he made a public statement concerning the situation in Tyner, Kentucky. Clinton told the crowd:

I'm here to make a simple point. This is the time to bring more jobs and investment to parts of the country that have not participated in this time of prosperity. Any work that can be done by anybody in America can be done in Appalachia.^[110]

The region's poverty has been documented often since the early 1960s. John Cohen documents rural lifestyle and culture in The High Lonesome Sound, while photojournalist Earl Dotter has been visiting and documenting poverty, healthcare and mining in Appalachia for nearly forty years.^[111] Another photojournalist, Shelby Lee Adams, has been photographing Appalachian families and lifestyle for decades.

Poverty has caused health problems in the region. The

In its summary the report stated that "over 55,000 parcels of property in 80 counties were studied, representing some 20,000,000 acres of land and mineral rights..." It found that "41% of the 20 million acres of land and minerals...are held by only 50 private owners and 10 government agencies. The federal government is the single largest owner in Appalachia, holding over 2,000,000 acres." The study found that the extractive industries, i.e., timber, coal, etc., were "greatly under-assessed for property tax purposes. Over 75% of the mineral owners in this survey pay under 25 cents per acre in property taxes." In the major coal counties surveyed the average tax per ton of known coal reserves is only $.0002 (1/50th of a cent). The government-held lands are tax-exempt, but the government makes a payment in lieu of taxes, which is usually less than the normal tax rates.

"Taken together, the failure to tax minerals adequately, the underassessment of surface lands, and the revenue loss from concentrated federal holdings has a marked impact on local governments in Appalachia. The effect, essentially, is to produce a situation in which a) the small owners carry a disproportionate share of the tax burden; b) counties depend upon federal and state funds to provide revenues, while the large, corporate and absentee owners of the region's resources go relatively tax-free; and c) citizens face a poverty of needed services despite the presence in their counties of taxable property wealth, especially in the form of coal and other natural resources."^[112]

In 2013, a similar study that concentrated solely on West Virginia found that 25 private owners hold 17.6% of the state's private land of 13 million acres. The federal government owns 1,133,587 acres in West Virginia, 7.4% of the total state acreage of 15,410,560 acres.^[113] In 11 counties the top ten absentee landowners own 41% to almost 72% of the private land in each county.^[114]

The

The ARC's geographic range of coverage was defined broadly to cover as many economically underdeveloped areas as possible; it extends well beyond the area usually thought of as "Appalachia". For instance, parts of Alabama and Mississippi were included in the commission because of problems with unemployment and poverty similar to those in Appalachia proper, and the ARC region extends into the

Transportation has been the most challenging and expensive issue in Appalachia since the arrival of the first European settlers in the 18th century. Except the October 1, 1940, opening of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the region's mountainous terrain continuously thwarted major federal intervention attempts at major road construction until the 1970s. This left large parts of the region virtually isolated and slowing economic growth. Before the Civil War, major cities in the region were connected via wagon roads to lowland areas, and flatboats provided an important means for transporting goods out of the region. By 1900, railroads connected most of the region with the rest of the nation, although the poor roads made travel beyond railroad hubs difficult. When the Appalachian Regional Commission was created in 1965, road construction was considered its most important initiative, and in subsequent decades the commission spent more on road construction than all other projects combined.^[118]

The effort to connect Appalachia with the outside world has required numerous civil engineering feats. Millions of tons of rock were removed to build road segments such as

The six physiographic provinces that in whole or in part are commonly treated as components of Appalachia are:

1. Appalachian Plateau
2. Allegheny Mountains
3. Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians
4. Great Appalachian Valley
5. Blue Ridge Mountains
6. Piedmont

Depictions of Appalachia and its inhabitants in popular media are typically negative, making the region an object of humor, derision, and social concern.

• English composer
  theme and variations entitled Appalachia; he first composed this music, subtitled "Variations on an Old Slave Song with final chorus", in 1896.^[123]
• The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1903), The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908), and other early 20th-century novels of John Fox Jr., set in the Appalachian town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and surrounding areas, gave readers an image of frontier life in Appalachia and were made into popular films. Fox himself graduated from Harvard and was a bon vivant newspaperman in New York City. He returned home to the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee to write his stories because of poor health.^[124]
• Some comic strips often featured Appalachia, especially "Li'l Abner" by Al Capp. Inge notes that this comic strip, which ran 1934–77, largely ignored religion, politics, blacks and the Civil War, but instead focused its humor on the morality of Dogpatch, examining its memorable and often eccentric people who typically relied on violence to control the social order, and held deep to their faith in land, home, self-sufficiency, and antipathy to outsiders.^[125] Arnold finds that starting with World War II Capp increasingly emphasized sex and violence.^[126]
• Appalachian Spring (1944) is the name of a musical composition by Aaron Copland and a ballet of the same name by Martha Graham. Copland did not intend for his music, which he composed for Graham and which incorporates Shaker melodies, to have an Appalachian theme. Graham gave the work its name; her ballet told the story of a young couple living on the frontier in western Pennsylvania.^[127]
• Author Catherine Marshall wrote Christy (1967), loosely based on her mother's years as a teacher in the Appalachian region. The novel was highly popular and became the basis of a short-lived television series of the same name in 1994.^[128]
• The 1972 film Deliverance takes place in southern Appalachia. The film perpetuated extremely negative stereotypes.^[129]
• The Waltons was a 1972–1981 television show that depicted a rural Virginia family during the Great Depression through World War II.^[130]
• "Face of Appalachia" is a song that appeared first on the album Tarzana Kid by John Sebastian in 1974. The song, co-written by Sebastian and Lowell George, was described by Joel Canfield as follows: "Sebastian's lyrics weave a heart-rending picture of an old man's struggle to impart his childhood memories to his grandson; memories of places and people who no longer exist; of an era long gone."^[131] Cover versions of the song have been recorded by Valerie Carter (1977), Wendy Matthews (1992) and Julie Miller (1997).^[132]
• The motion pictures Where the Lilies Bloom (1974) and Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) attempt an accurate portrayal of life in Appalachia which stresses the tensions between Appalachian traditions and the values of urbanized America.^[133]
• tone poem named To the Appalachian Mountains (Symphony no. 60).^[134]
• Large-format photographer Shelby Lee Adams, himself a son of Appalachian emigrants, has portrayed the Appalachian family life sympathetically in several books (1993–2003).^[135]
• The 1999 drama film October Sky focuses on the true story of NASA engineer Homer Hickam and his peers known as the Rocket Boys, who constructed a jet-propulsed rocket in the declining Appalachian coal town of Coalwood, West Virginia as a result of the Space Race.^[136]
• The novel Prodigal Summer (2000) by Barbara Kingsolver explores the ecology of the region and how the removal of the predators, wolves and coyotes, affected the environment.^[137]
• Songcatcher (2000) takes place in rural Appalachia in 1907 and features the "lost" ballads of the Scots-Irish brought over in the 19th century and a musicologist's quest to preserve them.^[138]
• Stranger with a Camera (2000) is a documentary film from Appalshop about the representation of Appalachian communities by outsiders in film and video.^[139]
• Much of the popular book series The Hunger Games (2008) is set in "an area that used to be called Appalachia" which is referred to in the book as District 12. Much of the surroundings and culture reflect present-day Appalachia, such as reliance on coal mining as an industry.^[140]
• The 2013 film Out of the Furnace is the story of two brothers living in a dying Appalachian Pennsylvania town, struggling for jobs, who get wrapped up in the world of meth-dealing in the mountains.^[141]
• Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a 2016 memoir by JD Vance that opines on the Appalachian region and people, drawing from the Ohio-born author's view of his extended family in Kentucky. While the book's portrayal of Appalachia was met with controversy and derision from many Appalachians,^[142] it was made into a 2020 film directed by Ron Howard.^[143]
• Fallout 76 (2018) is set in a retrofuturistic, post-nuclear Appalachia, with some of its story arcs exploring the social and economic impact of widespread automation, labor struggles, and anti-government activism, drawing on the region's real history, such as the Battle of Blair Mountain.^[144]
• Author Barbara Kingsolver seeks to redress Appalachian stereotypes in her novel Demon Copperhead (2022), a retelling of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield that explores the opioid crisis in the region.^[145]

• Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine
• Appalachian Ohio
• Childbirth in rural Appalachia
• Environmental justice and coal mining in Appalachia
• Museum of Appalachia
• Ozark culture
• Subranges of the Appalachian Mountains
• Upland South

Sources

• Abramson, Rudy, and Haskell, Jean, editors (2006).
  ISBN 1-57233-456-8
• Becker, Jane S. Inventing Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930–1940 (1998).
• Biggers, Jeff (2006). The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture and Enlightenment to America (New ed.). Shoemaker and Hoard.
  ISBN 1-59376-031-0
  .
• ISBN 0-316-13212-8
  .
• Davis, Donald Edward. Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians, 2000.
• Dawley, Thomas R. Jr. (March 1910). "Our Southern Mountaineers: Removal the Remedy for the Evils That Isolation and Poverty Have Brought".
  The World's Work: A History of Our Time
  . XIX: 12704–14. Retrieved July 10, 2009.
• Dotter, Earl. "Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining and the Environment" Southern Spaces, July 16, 2008.
• Drake, Richard B. A History of Appalachia (2001)
• Eller, Ronald D. (2008). Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945. The University Press of Kentucky.
  ISBN 978-0-8131-2523-7
  .
• Eller, Ronald D. Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880–1930 1982.
• Ford, Thomas R. ed. The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey. (1967), includes highly detailed statistics.
• Kephart, Horace (1922). Our Southern Highlanders (New and revised ed.). Macmillan.
  ISBN 0-87049-203-9. text online
• Inscoe, John C. Movie-Made Appalachia: History, Hollywood, and the Highland South (U of North Carolina Press, 2020) online review
• Lee, Tom, "Southern Appalachia's Nineteenth-Century Bright Tobacco Boom: Industrialization, Urbanization, and the Culture of Tobacco", Agricultural History 88 (Spring 2014), 175–206. online
• Lewis, Ronald L. Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads, Deforestation, and Social Change in West Virginia, 1880–1920 (1998) online edition
• Light, Melanie and Ken Light (2006). Coal Hollow. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  ISBN 978-0-520-24654-6
• Noe, Kenneth W. and Shannon H. Wilson, Civil War in Appalachia (1997)
• Obermiller, Phillip J., Thomas E. Wagner, and E. Bruce Tucker, editors (2000). Appalachian Odyssey: Historical Perspectives on the Great Migration. Westport, CT: Praeger.
  ISBN 0-275-96851-0
• Olson, Ted (1998). Blue Ridge Folklife. University Press of Mississippi.
  ISBN 1-57806-023-0
• Pudup, Mary Beth, Dwight B. Billings, and Altina L. Waller, eds. Appalachia in the Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century. (1995).
• Sarnoff, Susan; Yoon, Hong-Sik (2003). "Central Appalachia – Still the Other America". Journal of Poverty. 7 (1 & 2). The Haworth Press: 123–39.
  S2CID 145175350. Archived from the original
  on February 22, 2007.
• Slap, Andrew L., (ed.) (2010). Reconstructing Appalachia: The Civil War's Aftermath Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
• Stewart, Bruce E. (ed.) (2012). Blood in the Hills: A History of Violence in Appalachia. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
• Walls, David (1977). "On the Naming of Appalachia" Archived May 28, 2010, at the Wayback Machine An Appalachian Symposium. Edited by J. W. Williamson. Boone, NC: Appalachian State University Press.
• Williams, John Alexander. Appalachia: A History (2002) online edition
• American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
  (2011)

Notes

1. ^ Counties were compared across ten maps of cultural Appalachia. If a county appears in all ten definitions, it is marked "Always included", if it appears in at least six, it is marked "Usually included", if it appears in at least two, it is marked "Sometimes included", and if it appears in only one, it is marked "Rarely included". The ten maps used are cultural definitions from the Mapping Appalachia interactive map viewer:^[2]
   • 1896 Berea by William G. Frost and C. Willard Hayes
   • 1918 Berea Catalog
   • 1921 Campbell Region
   • 1935 USDA Small Region
   • 1935 USDA Full Region
   • 1962 Ford Region
   • 1994 Salstrom
   • 1996 Consensus Appalachia from Williams
   • 1996 Loose Appalachia from Williams
   • 2002 Core Appalachia from Williams

Further reading

• Dispatch Staff Reporters (September 26–30, 1999). "Appalachia: Hollow Promises". The Columbus Dispatch. Archived from the original on February 3, 2006. A comprehensive series of articles on the region and the ARC.
• Obermiller, Phillip J.; Maloney, Michael E. (May 2011). "The Uses and Misuses of Appalachian Culture" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 4, 2012.
• Palumbo, Jacqui (January 20, 2021). "Challenging reductive stereotypes of rural Appalachian life – in photos". CNN. Retrieved December 4, 2022.
• West Virginia University Libraries. "Appalachian Studies Bibliography". Archived from the original on September 6, 2015.
• Whisnant, D. E. (1980). "Developments in the Appalachian Identity Movement: All Is Process". Appalachian Journal. 8 (1): 41–47.
  JSTOR 40932361
  .

Journals

• Appalachian Journal Scholarly articles from 1972–present.
• Space, Place, and Appalachia. A series about real and imagined spaces and places of Appalachia and their global connections in Southern Spaces.

External links

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Appalachia.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Appalachia.

Wikisource has the text of a 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article about Appalachia.

• 1965 Original Congressional definition
• Appalachian Center for Civic Life at
  Emory and Henry College
• Appalachian Center for Craft at Tennessee Tech
• Appalachian Center for the Arts
• Appalachian Studies at the University of North Carolina
• Digital Library of Appalachia
• Loyal Jones Appalachian Center at Berea College
• University of Kentucky Appalachian Center