The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture, and Enlightenment to America

by Jeff Biggers

Overview

Few places in the United States confound and fascinate Americans like Appalachia, yet no other area has been so markedly mischaracterized by the mass media. Stereotypes of hillbillies and rednecks repeatedly appear in representations of the region, but few, if any, of its many heroes, visionaries, or innovators are ever referenced.

Make no mistake, they are legion: from Anne Royall, America's first female muckraker, to Sequoyah, a Cherokee mountaineer who invented the first syllabary in modern times, and international divas Nina Simone and Bessie Smith, as well as writers Cormac McCarthy, Edward Abbey, and Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck, Appalachia has contributed mightily to American culture — and politics. Not only did eastern Tennessee boast the country's first antislavery newspaper, Appalachians also established the first District of Washington as a bold counterpoint to British rule. With humor, intelligence, and clarity, Jeff Biggers reminds us how Appalachians have defined and shaped the United States we know today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781593761516
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	03/01/2007
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	1,086,189
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jeff Biggers has worked as a writer, radio correspondent, and educator across the United States, Europe, India, and Mexico. His award–winning stories and programs have aired on NPR and PRI and have appeared in various magazines and newspapers. Author of In the Sierra Madre, he also coedited No Lonesome Road: Selected Prose and Poems of Don West, which won an American Book Award.

Table of Contents

Preface     xi
Prologue: Rank Strangers     1
The Trail of Words     25
The First Washington, D.C.     45
Down from the Mountain     67
The Emancipators     81
All the News That's Fit to Print     103
The Great American Industrial Saga     135
We Shall Overcome     169
Epilogue: We Are All Appalachians     195
Acknowledgments     213
Bibliographic Notes     215
Index     227

Editorial Reviews

In this pleasing if imperfect study, Biggers (editor of No Lonesome Road) argues that the roots of American politics and culture are found not in Philadelphia or New York, but in Appalachia. The North Carolina Patriots, who declared themselves free of British rule long before Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, anticipated America's revolutionary, republican spirit. And if you thought the antislavery movement was born in Boston, think again. In the early 19th century, Appalachians John Rankin and Benjamin Lundy advocated emancipation; indeed, Lundy was largely responsible for winning William Lloyd Garrison to the cause. Finally, noting the importance of the Highlander Folk School in training civil rights activists, Biggers credits Appalachia with significantly advancing the cause of school desegregation. Biggers has a tendency to overwrite (Nina Simone "celebrated a Cherokee great-great-grandmother, a Scotch-Irish elation torn into her maternal past..."). Still, this attempt to rescue Appalachia from its reputation as a backwater is likely to be a hit in the region it lauds. Map. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly