A History of AppalachiaRichard Drake has skillfully woven together the various strands of the Appalachian experience into a sweeping whole. Touching upon folk traditions, health care, the environment, higher education, the role of blacks and women, and much more, Drake offers a compelling social history of a unique American region. The Appalachian region, extending from Alabama in the South up to the Allegheny highlands of Pennsylvania, has historically been characterized by its largely rural populations, rich natural resources that have fueled industry in other parts of the country, and the strong and wild, undeveloped land. The rugged geography of the region allowed Native American societies, especially the Cherokee, to flourish. Early white settlers tended to favor a self-sufficient approach to farming, contrary to the land grabbing and plantation building going on elsewhere in the South. The growth of a market economy and competition from other agricultural areas of the country sparked an economic decline of the region's rural population at least as early as 1830. The Civil War and the sometimes hostile legislation of Reconstruction made life even more difficult for rural Appalachians. Recent history of the region is marked by the corporate exploitation of resources. Regional oil, gas, and coal had attracted some industry even before the Civil War, but the postwar years saw an immense expansion of American industry, nearly all of which relied heavily on Appalachian fossil fuels, particularly coal. What was initially a boon to the region eventually brought financial disaster to many mountain people as unsafe working conditions and strip mining ravaged the land and its inhabitants. A History of Appalachia also examines pockets of urbanization in Appalachia. Chemical, textile, and other industries have encouraged the development of urban areas. At the same time, radio, television, and the internet provide residents direct links to cultures from all over the world. The author looks at the process of urbanization as it belies commonly held notions about the region's rural character. |
From inside the book
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... French Huguenot developer Charles Rochefort promoted a colony he called “Apalache” in the Georgia uplands, and even before, when the high country behind the Apalache Indians of northern Florida appeared on maps as the “Apalachean ...
... French and English from across the Atlantic Ocean, to establish settlement in the coastal areas, then to spread slowly into the Appalachian Mountains. Finally the European-derived United States, largely with English institutions ...
... French invasion, particularly during the reign of Louis XIV from 1689 to 1715. Though recovery came after 1715, Germany was still a much-wounded area. The second major difference with the English situation was the persistence of the ...
... French, Austrian, and English armies across his unprotected acres coincided with his desire for land, making the Rhinelander more than willing to migrate. But why to the English colonies in North America? In the eighteenth century there ...
... French, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. To this add Jews, French Huguenots, and Belgians, who migrated to the British Isles later, and we have a most complex cultural and racial mix, which was Great Britain even before a single ...