Transforming the Appalachian Countryside

Transforming the Appalachian Countryside
Author: Ronald L. Lewis
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2000-11-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807862975

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In 1880, ancient-growth forest still covered two-thirds of West Virginia, but by the 1920s lumbermen had denuded the entire region. Ronald Lewis explores the transformation in these mountain counties precipitated by deforestation. As the only state that lies entirely within the Appalachian region, West Virginia provides an ideal site for studying the broader social impact of deforestation in Appalachia, the South, and the eastern United States. Most of West Virginia was still dominated by a backcountry economy when the industrial transition began. In short order, however, railroads linked remote mountain settlements directly to national markets, hauling away forest products and returning with manufactured goods and modern ideas. Workers from the countryside and abroad swelled new mill towns, and merchants ventured into the mountains to fulfill the needs of the growing population. To protect their massive investments, capitalists increasingly extended control over the state's legal and political systems. Eventually, though, even ardent supporters of industrialization had reason to contemplate the consequences of unregulated exploitation. Once the timber was gone, the mills closed and the railroads pulled up their tracks, leaving behind an environmental disaster and a new class of marginalized rural poor to confront the worst depression in American history.


Transforming the Appalachian Countryside
Language: en
Pages: 367
Authors: Ronald L. Lewis
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2000-11-09 - Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

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In 1880, ancient-growth forest still covered two-thirds of West Virginia, but by the 1920s lumbermen had denuded the entire region. Ronald Lewis explores the tr
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Authors: Stephen L. Fisher
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Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-03-15 - Publisher: University of Illinois Press

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In this era of globalization's ruthless deracination, place attachments have become increasingly salient in collective mobilizations across the spectrum of poli
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Authors: John D. Photiadis
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-11-11 - Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

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Appalachia is a region in trouble. Even in the more remote coves and hollows, major social and economic changes are disturbing the traditional ways of life. The
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Language: en
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Where There Are Mountains
Language: en
Pages: 353
Authors: Donald Edward Davis
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-03-15 - Publisher: University of Georgia Press

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A timely study of change in a complex environment, Where There Are Mountains explores the relationship between human inhabitants of the southern Appalachians an