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Appalachia
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Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from southern New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.
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Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from southern New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. Although the Appalachian Mountains extend through New England and into Canada, this part is not considered part of the Appalachia cultural region. Used as a geologic term, "Appalachia" describes part or all of the Appalachian mountain range, particularly its central section.
Demographics
Over twenty million people live in Appalachia, an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom, covering mostly mountainous, often isolated areas from the border of Mississippi and Alabama in the south to Pennsylvania and New York in the north. Appalachia also includes parts of the states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, and the entire state of West Virginia. The region contains few intermediate-sized cities, and only two large metropolitan areas are located entirely within the region—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Knoxville, Tennessee. (However, the expansive region served by the Appalachian Regional Commission incorporates some additional urban areas, including Birmingham, Alabama, the central core of the Greenville-Spartanburg area, the northern part of the Atlanta metropolitan area, western fringes of the Charlotte area, western fringes of the Piedmont Triad, western fringes of the Washington metropolitan area and the eastern fringes of the Nashville metropolitan area.)
Culture
Appalachia has historically been the domain of numerous native communities, including the Cherokee and Shawnee.
Prior to the 20th century, some parts of Appalachia were geographically isolated from the rest of the country; much of the region, though, had been connected through the coming of the pioneering roads, early iron, timber and coal speculations and ventures, and the railroads. As a result, many pioneers stayed in the region and preserved the culture of their ancestors (most of them Scots-Irish, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, German, and English), who settled the region in the 18th century. The region's culture includes a strong oral tradition (including music and song), self-sufficiency, modesty, and strong religious faith. Coal deposits in the region were exploited in the latter half of the 19th century and drew a new wave of immigrants from Ireland, Italy, and Central Europe. With this industrialization came increased urbanization.
Long characterized as economically underdeveloped, Appalachia, in fact, was rich in minerals and saw a tremendous amount of wealth lifted from the region by outside corporations and business interests. A larger question over how Appalachians became impoverished through brutal land speculation and labor policies continues to be examined by historians.
Though the region is often characterized as educationally deficient, the inhabitants of the region established log cabin colleges as early as the 1790s and instilled a strong sense of education, literature, music and the arts. Appalachians have also preserved much historical lore today. For example, Appalachian people have preserved significant historical medical knowledge. People in the community know are skilled herbalists, able to find, identify, harvest, and prepare various plants of medicinal value. Ancient arts, such as beelining, would be more likely to be familiar to an Appalachian person than one from other areas.
In 1965, the United States Congress established an economic development agency called the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). In the terminology of this agency, "Appalachia" applies to the whole territory of its mandate, in recognition of similarities of lifestyle and culture throughout the region. This similarity may come from the great migration of people from the northern to the southern part of Appalachia in the 19th century.
In the 20th century, many from the area migrated to northern and midwestern cities such as Detroit, Cincinnati, and Chicago in search of jobs, and these cities still contain enclaves of Appalachian culture.
In the 1940s through the 60s, 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 eastern USA at night. Although stations such as Pittsburgh's KDKA and KQV were 50 kilowatt clear channels 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.
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.
Literature
Some of Appalachia's best known writers include:
James Agee (A Death in the Family),
Wendell Berry (Hannah Coulter, The Unforeseen Wilderness: An Essay on Kentucky's Red River Gorge, Selected Poems of Wendell Berry),
James Still (River of Earth, From the Mountain, From the Valley: New and Collected Poems),
Harriette Arnow (The Dollmaker, Hunter's Horn),
Jesse Stuart (Taps for Private Tussie, The Thread That Runs So True),
Denise Giardina (The Unquiet Earth, Storming Heaven),
Lee Smith (Fair and Tender Ladies, On Agate Hill),
Silas House (Clay's Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves),
Wilma Dykeman (The Far Family, The Tall Woman), Maurice Manning (Bucolics, A Companion for Owls), Anne Shelby (Appalachian Studies, We Keep a Store), George Ella Lyon (Borrowed Children, Don't You Remember?),
Pamela Duncan (Moon Women, The Big Beautiful),
Chris Offutt (No Heroes, The Good Brother),
Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain, Thirteen Moons),
Lisa Alther (Kinflicks),
Cormac McCarthy (The Orchard Keeper, Child of God),
Sharyn McCrumb (The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter), Robert Morgan (Gap Creek), Jim Wayne Miller (The Brier Poems),
Gurney Norman (Divine Right's Trip, Kinfolks),
Breece D'J Pancake (The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake; nominated for Pulitzer Prize),
Elizabeth Madox Roberts ("The Great Meadow, "The Time of Man"),
Thomas Wolfe (Look Homeward Angel, You Can't Go Home Again),
Rachel Carson (The Sea Around Us, Silent Spring; Presidential Medal of Freedom), and
Jeannette Walls (The Glass Castle).
Economy
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.
Coal mining, the industry most frequently associated with Appalachia in outsiders' minds, remains important; however, its economic role should not be overstated. Coal is mined only in some portions of the area traditionally thought of as Appalachia . Coal mining employment across the country has generally dropped over the last several decades with increased mechanization, notwithstanding a spike in employment accompanying the coal industry boomlet that started in about 2004. 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. Restrictions on high-sulfur coal in the 1980s resulted in the closure of some mines. The high, continuing "legacy" costs associated with earlier mining activities — retiree health care, environmental reclamation, and coalworker's pneumoconiosis (black lung disease) compensation — impact Appalachian coal economics. The region still has very large coal reserves, however the least expensive, most accessible, thickest seams have largely been mined out, complicating the area's ability to compete with very low cost Colombian, Western U.S. and especially Powder River Basin strip mines. About two-thirds of Appalachia's coal is produced by underground mining, the rest by surface (strip) mining. Mountaintop removal, a form of surface mining, is a highly controversial mining practice in central Appalachia due to its negative impacts on the natural and human environment.
Poverty in Appalachia
Poverty in this region has been a problem for many years but was not brought to the attention of the rest of the United States until 1960, by US President John F. Kennedy, who proceeded to establish the the President's Appalachian Regional Commission in 1963. His successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, crystallized Kennedy's efforts in the form of the Appalachian Regional Commission, which passed into law in 1965.
In Appalachia, severe poverty and desolation is paired with the necessity for careful cultural sensitivity. Many Appalachian people fear that the birth of a new modernized Appalachia will lead to a death of their traditional values and heritage. Because of the isolation of the region, Appalachian people have been unable to catch up to the modernization that lowlanders have achieved. In the 1960s, many people in Appalachia had a standard of living comparable to third world countries. The film series "West Virginia", produced during the term of Governor Gaston Caperton, makes the point that at least on some level images of poverty were contrived. Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" while standing on the front porch of an Inez, Kentucky home whose residents had been suffering from a long ignored problem. The Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1964 stated:
- 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.
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 1960, 219 counties in the 13-state Appalachian Region were considered economically distressed. Now that list has been cut in half, to 81 counties, but these are "hard-core" pockets of poverty, seemingly impervious to all efforts at improving their lot.
Nevertheless, after 40 years poverty remains undefeated in Appalachia. Martin County, Kentucky, the site of Johnson’s 1964 speech, is currently ranked as "distressed" by the ARC. (Distressed is the worst ranking.) The per capita income in Martin County is $10,650, and 37% of its residents live below the poverty line.
On 5 July 1999, President Bill Clinton made a public statement concerning the situation in Tyner, Kentucky. "I'm here to make a simple point," Clinton told the enthusiastic crowd. "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." Like Johnson, Clinton also brought attention to the areas of poverty in Appalachia.
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.
Appalachian Regional Commission
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) was created by the U.S. Congress in 1965 to bring poor areas of the 13 U.S. states of the main (southern) range of the Appalachians into the mainstream of the American economy. The commission is a partnership of federal, state, and local governments, and was created to promote economic growth and improve the quality of life in the region. The region as defined by the ARC includes roughly 408 counties, including all of West Virginia; counties in 13 other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia; and also eight cities in Virginia, where state law makes cities administratively separate from counties. The ARC is a planning, research, advocacy and funding organization; it does not have any governing powers.
The ARC's geographic range of coverage was defined broadly so as 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 Northeastern states, which are never considered part of Appalachia culturally. The ARC's wide scope also grew out of the "pork barrel" phenomenon, as politicians from outside the traditional Appalachia area saw a new way to bring home federal money to their areas.
Transportation
Appalachia's geography presents special challenges to transportation. In Europe, while mountain ranges presented challenges to transport, they could mostly be avoided. In North America, however, the Appalachian Mountains presented a barrier that could not be easily out-flanked. Initially, European settlers found gaps in the mountains; among them the Cumberland Gap and the Wilderness Road.
Early Roads
Native American trails were the first in Appalachia. One of the earliest used by Europeans was Nemacolin's path, a trail between the Potomac and the Monongahela river, going from Cumberland, Maryland, to the mouth of Redstone Creek, where Brownsville, Pennsylvania is situated.
The French and Indian War created a need for roads through Appalachia. In 1755, General Edward Braddock of the Coldstream Guards was sent to rout the French from Fort Duquesne along the Nemacolin's path. From Fort Cumberland, Braddock's army cut a military trail through the wilderness. This would become known as Braddock's Road. Another was a British military trail built in 1758 by General John Forbes of England from Chambersburg to Pittsburgh during the French and Indian War, later known as the Pittsburgh Road and the Conestoga Road.
The first modern road to be built through Appalachia was the National Road starting at Cumberland, an early hub of Appalachia, generally following Braddock's Road heading west first to Wheeling, VA. Other roads soon followed such as the Northwestern Turnpike and James River and Kanawha Turnpike.
The creation in 1936 of the Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine, also helped open the area to hikers and outdoor enthusiasts from all over the world.
Water
By 1772, George Washington had identified the Potomac and James rivers as the most promising locations for canals to be built to join with the western rivers. Washington proposed a canal to connect the Potomac River and the Ohio River and founded the Potowmack Company. In 1824, the holdings of the Potowmac Company were ceded to the Chesapeake and Ohio Company. Construction began with a groundbreaking ceremony on July 4, 1828 by President John Quincy Adams. It followed the course of the Potomac River to Cumberland, MD. Had it been completed it would have continued west from Cumberland along the Potomac River and then followed the Savage River crossing the eastern continental divide near present day Deep Creek Lake, and eventually following the Youghiogheny River to navigable waters.
The James River and Kanawha Canal was a project first proposed by Washington when he was a young man surveying the mountains of western Virginia. In 1785, the James River Company was formed, with George Washington as honorary president, to build locks around the falls at Richmond. By then, Washington was quite busy since he was elected president in 1789. The goal was to reach the Kanawha River at its head of navigation about 30 miles east of what is today Charleston, West Virginia. The canal eventually extended 196.5 miles west of Richmond, Virginia, to Buchanan, Virginia. By 1851 westward progress had stopped due to increasing competition from the railroads.
Even today river systems provide transport through barge traffic on the Ohio River system. The Monongahela River is navigable its entire length, deep into the interior of West Virginia, with a series of lock/dams ensuring a 9' depth.
Rail
The next major transportation leap for Appalachia was the railroad. The Baltimore and Ohio was the first to cross. It was finished to Piedmont, Virginia on July 21, 1851, Fairmont, Virginia on June 22, 1852, and its terminus at Wheeling, Virginia on January 1, 1853.
In 1855 the Norfolk and Western Railway, under the direction of Frederick J. Kimball, began to push across Appalachia. Starting from Big Lick the lines extended to the Pocahontas coalfields in western Virginia and West Virginia and on north to Columbus, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio.
Southern Railway linked Charleston, South Carolina and Memphis, Tennessee, crossing Appalachia in 1857 in the Asheville, North Carolina area, although rail expansion halted with the start of the Civil War.
By 1867 the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway had reached the eastern edge of the mountains and was also reaching for the Ohio valley via the New River and Kanawha Valleys of West Virginia. The West Virginia stretch of the C & O was the site of the legendary competition between John Henry and a steam-powered machine; the competition is said to have taken place in a tunnel south of Talcott, West Virginia near the Greenbrier River. In 1888, the C&O built the Cincinnati Division, from Huntington, West Virginia down the south bank of the Ohio River in Kentucky and across the river at Cincinnati, connecting with the "Big Four" and other Midwestern Railroads.
Henry G. Davis started the West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway in 1880 in the ensuing years it opened a huge swathe of timber and coal territory in northern West Virginia to use. It started in Piedmont, West Virginia and pushed west creating such towns as Elkins, Davis and Thomas. It pushed east to Cumberland, Maryland where it connected with traffic from the C&0 Canal and National Road. West from Elkins, West Virginia Davis created the Coal & Coke Railway to Charleston completing another crossing. These eventually formed the core of the Western Maryland Railway. The Western Maryland's Connellsville Extension was built west from Cumberland, Maryland, to Connellsville, Pennsylvania, beginning around 1906 and was completed in 1912.
Today the crossing of the Eastern Continental Divide by the West Virginia Central and Pittsburg Railway is now abandoned and is used as a Rails to Trails area. The other crossings are either part of CSX or Norfolk Southern Railway and remain the only rail crossings of Appalachia. Cumberland, Maryland still serves as a major rail hub for Appalachia where two main lines head west.
Highways
In 1880 the Good Roads Movement was formed. They knew outside of cities, roads were dirt or gravel, mud in the winter and dust in the summer. In its early years, the main goal of the movement was education for road building in rural areas between cities, such as Appalachia, to help rural populations gain the social and economic benefits enjoyed by cities where citizens benefitted from railroads, trolleys and paved streets. This eventually led to the auto trail system of highways. The first crossing Appalachia was the Lincoln Highway which would later become US 30. This was closely followed by the Dixie Highway first planned in 1914, to connect the US Midwest with the Southern United States crossing Appalachia following what is now US 25. Other auto trails crossing Appalachia include Jefferson Davis Highway, Lakes-to-Sea Highway, Lee Highway, and National Old Trails Highway.
The next great leap in transportation was the creation of the U.S. Highway system in 1926, replacing the auto trails. The longest primary US highway contained in Appalachia is US 11 traversing the eastern side. US 21 was another primary US highway, but much of its route has been decommissioned and replaced with Interstate 77, these make/made up the North-South routes. East-West Routes include US 30, US 33, US 40, US 50, US 60, and US 70. Many spur routes such as US 220 and US 119 service various parts of Appalachia.
, 1940. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott.]]
The Pennsylvania Turnpike was the first long-distance rural controlled access highway in the United States and also the first one to cross Appalachia. It was known as the "tunnel highway" because of the seven mountain tunnels along its Appalachian route. In October 1, 1940 the first section of Turnpike opened, running from US 11 near Carlisle (southwest of Harrisburg) west to US 30 at Irwin (east of Pittsburgh). Crossing was completed with the Western Extension, from Irwin to US 22 east of Pittsburgh, opened August 7, 1951. The remainder opened to traffic on December 26, 1951, taking the highway west almost to the Ohio state line.
The Turnpike remained the only superhighway crossing Appalachia until the interstate system that was authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Today 7 Interstates cross Appalachia east to west starting with Interstate 86, Interstate 80, Interstate 70, Interstate 64, Interstate 26, and Interstate 40. There are 3 interstates crossing North to South. These include Interstate 75, Interstate 77 and Interstate 81.
However, despite the fact that the region is crisscrossed by many U.S. and Interstate highways, those routes primarily serve cross-country traffic rather than the locals themselves. Towns closer to the major highways and nearer to the many larger cities fringing the region (Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Columbus, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., etc.) are disproportionately better-off than rural regions in the mountainous interior. Instead of being tied to the land, jobs in the towns tend to emphasize industry and services—important signs of a more diversified economy. Nonetheless, aside from the major urban centers along its perimeter, the entire Appalachian region still suffers from population decline and the loss of younger residents to the cities.
To reverse decline and spur economic growth, Appalachian governors have prioritized the creation of a modern highway system accessible to local residents as the key to economic development. As a result, in 1965, the Appalachian Regional Commission created the Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS) which was the first highway system designed specifically to service Appalachia. The ADHS was designed to generate economic development in previously isolated areas, supplement the interstate system, connect Appalachia to the interstate system, and provide access to areas within the Region as well as to markets in the rest of the nation. The ADHS is currently authorized at 3,090 miles, including 65 miles added in January 2004.
These routes are known as corridors. They are build to a higher standard than US Highways, but less than Interstate standard, although some such as Corridor E were built to be interstates.
Etymology and pronunciation
While exploring inland along the northern coast of Florida in 1528, the members of the Narváez expedition, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, found a Native American village near present-day Tallahassee, Florida whose name they transcribed as Apalchen or Apalachen . The name was soon altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north. Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15, 1528 and applied the name. Now spelled "Appalachian", it is the fourth oldest surviving European place-name in the U.S. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutierrez' map of 1562; the first use for the mountain range is the map of Jacques le Moyne de Morgues in 1565.
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." In the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania.
In northern U.S. dialects, the mountains are or . The cultural region of Appalachia is pronounced , also , all with a third syllable like "lay".
In southern U.S. dialects, the mountains are called the , and the cultural region of Appalachia is . The third syllable is like the "la" in "latch".
Popular culture
- The motion pictures Coal Miner's Daughter (based on the life of noted country singer Loretta Lynn), Where the Lilies Bloom and Songcatcher (see also "Songcatcher" below) attempt an accurate portrayal of life in Appalachia.
- Songcatcher (2000) - written and directed by Maggie Greenwald, starring Aiden Quinn and Emmy Rossum. The film takes place in rural Appalachia in 1907 and features the "lost" ballads of the Scots-Irish brought over in the 1800s and a musicolgists' quest to preserve them.
- Rock band Rage Against the Machine made reference to the poverty of Appalachia in the song "Ashes in the Fall" on the album The Battle of Los Angeles.
- The Waltons, a long-running family TV serial, based on Earl Hamner's youth, was set in the mountains of Virginia.
- The Appalachian town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia has been the setting of several best-selling novels, including The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox, Jr. and the Big Stone Gap series by Adriana Trigiani.
- Stranger with a Camera is a documentary film from Appalshop about the representation of Appalachian communities by outsiders in film and video.
- Country Boys is a documentary film by David Sutherland showing three years in the lives of two teenagers growing up in eastern Kentucky.
- Homer Hickam's book Rocket Boys and its movie adaptation October Sky are slightly fictionalized versions of his childhood and teenage years in Coalwood, a coal camp in Southern West Virginia.
- The 1972 film Deliverance takes place in southern Appalachia. The film is often held responsible for perpetuating negative stereotypes of the region.
- The 1987 film Matewan fictionalizes a real-life clash between West Virginia coal miners, supported by union organizers, and coal companies in the 1920s. Scenes depicting the town were actually shot in Thurmond, West Virginia.
- The 1632 series, an alternate history book series created by Eric Flint, features the fictional town of Grantville, West Virginia (based upon the real-life town of Mannington, West Virginia) transported to Germany in the time of the Thirty Years' War.
- Large-format photographer Shelby Lee Adams, himself a son of Appalachian out-migrants, has portrayed the Appalachian family life sympathetically in several books.
- Composer Aaron Copland composed music for a ballet called Appalachian Spring.
- Composer Frederick Delius wrote a tone poem entitled Appalachia, and Alan Hovhaness wrote another named To the Appalachian Mountains (Symphony no. 60).*Author Catherine Marshall wrote Christy, loosely based on her mother's years as a teacher in the Appalachian region. This became the basis of a short-lived television series of the same name in 1994.
- In the popular arcade racing game Cruis'n USA, Appalachia appears as one of the courses.
- Since the 2004 season, Saturday Night Live has shown an occasional sketch called "Appalachian Emergency Room" about the hijinks at an anonymous rural hospital.
- In the 2005 film adaptation of The Dukes Of Hazzard, the Dukes stop at a red light in Atlanta in which they are approached by a group of African Americans who call them hillbillies. Luke Duke (Johnny Knoxville) responds under his breath "Appalachian Americans".
- The book Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver explores the ecology of the region and how the removal of the predators, wolves and coyotes, has affected the environment.
- The book "Rough Lumber: Stories from Spurlock Creek," by Justine Felix Rutherford, describes growing up in rural West Virginia during the Great Depression.
- Heavy Metal band Baroness has a song entitled "O'Appalachia" on their first full length album Red Album
See also
The six physiographic provinces of Appalachia:
Other Appalachia-related topics:
External links
- , a comprehensive 1999 series of articles on the region and the ARC published in the Columbus Dispatch
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