High Mountains Rising

In a collection of original essays such as this, many individuals' efforts have combined to produce the finished project. Those people deserve recognition and thanks.

It is difficult for us to imagine an editor who could be any more cordial and professional than Judith McCulloh of the University of Illinois Press. We express our immense gratitude to her for her unflagging enthusiasm, support, and skill at helping us turn each seeming setback into an advance.

We owe our greatest debt of gratitude to the authors of these chapters. Each responded with excitement when we invited them to contribute an original essay to this collection. We thank them especially for their (mostly) cheerful acquiescence to tampering with their prose throughout the editing stages. They were responsive, punctual, professional, and a delight to work with.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the manuscript reviewers for their perceptive and insightful critiques of each chapter. Their enthusiasm and support of this collection are much appreciated, and we feel that their suggestions have improved the quality of the book. Richard Straw would like to thank Radford University History Department secretary Fay Dishon for her generous help photocopying and managing chapter files. The editors also thank their wives, Jeanie Straw and Deborah Blethen, for their encouragement, understanding, and advice.

Finally, the editors would like to acknowledge the entire community of Appalachian scholars and teachers whose collective work over the last thirty-five years made this book possible.

HIGH MOUNTAINS RISING

INTRODUCTION

Richard A. Straw

In 1970, late in my undergraduate career at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, I became involved with a group of students who were interested in learning more about the Appalachian region. Little did I know at that time that I was about to become part of an academic and cultural renaissance that would eventually result in my involvement in producing this introductory collection of essays on the history and culture of Appalachia. There is more than a little irony in how this came about.

One of our projects was an attempt to add courses on Appalachia to the curriculum because Ohio University was located in the part of southeastern Ohio that had recently been included in the federal government's new definition of Appalachia. I was a history major, so I volunteered to find a faculty member in the history department who might be interested in teaching such a class. I asked around, and it appeared that a good candidate might be the professor who taught courses on the American South. Like most undergraduates, I had not spoken often or at length with more than one or two of my teachers, and I did not know this man. I was somewhat intimidated, but I had volunteered and I believed in the idea we were pursuing, so I pressed on.

One afternoon I found him in his office and asked whether he had a few minutes to talk. I introduced myself and told him that I was interested in Appalachia and that I had been attending meetings of a student group that was trying to raise awareness on campus of Appalachian issues. Eventually I asked him whether he thought that a course on the history of Appalachia was a good idea and whether he thought it might be possible.

He listened politely but then said that what I proposed would be a problem because Appalachia has no history. I was stunned by his remarks; I left his office and did not recover for a long time from the embarrassment I felt from having asked his advice. At that time the only books about Appalachia I had read were Harry Caudill's
Night Comes to the Cumberlands
and Jack Weller's
Yesterday's People
, but I was convinced that Appalachia, like
every other region, people, or culture in the world, had a history. In one very real sense the book you now have in your hands is the culmination of that conversation more than thirty years ago. This is a book for anyone who is interested in learning more about the rich history and diverse cultures of Appalachia.

In the years since I had that unsettling conversation, an extensive body of regional literature has challenged Appalachian stereotypes, reexamined assumptions about Appalachian isolation, and demonstrated the region's ties to national and international economic markets from earliest European American settlement onward. This book is intended for those who are just beginning their journey into Appalachia's past, and although its chapters are more a synthesis of current research than new research, the authors represented here have been in the front lines of developing scholarship in their respective fields of expertise. This volume is an attempt to make Appalachia an understandable and accessible place historically and culturally for those who are largely unfamiliar with it.

Because this volume is interdisciplinary in its approach, it is organized both chronologically and topically. The book is divided roughly into two sections. Chapters 1 through 7 and chapter 14 are historical, and chapters 8 through 13 are cultural. Because of the nature of historical studies, there is significant attention to both history and culture throughout each chapter. This gives the reader access to a very wide range of subjects and themes on Appalachia. Although
High Mountains Rising
is certainly representative of the most recent and most important research on Appalachia, an introductory volume of this type cannot be exhaustive or comprehensive. The chapters included here are starting points. They are not exhaustive analyses of new interpretations; most of these authors have published this groundbreaking scholarship elsewhere. To assist you in further exploring the history and culture of Appalachia, a list of suggested readings is included. The value of this book is in its practical use as an introduction to the history and culture of the Appalachian region.

In an edited work such as this, many authors are represented. Writing styles vary, but the editors have attempted to keep the writing straightforward, simple, and free, as much as possible, from the jargon that sometimes clogs academic writing. The chapter authors have all attempted to develop clear and highly readable accounts of complex topics that range from an examination of Native American culture in the region to an analysis of the most recent political and historical trends at the end of the twentieth century. Many of these topics could have been addressed by the authors from a variety of viewpoints and from various perspectives that are not represented
in this book, but that limitation makes the need for the readers to pursue these topics on their own all the more vital.

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