Misplaced Pages

Appalachia

Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 204.108.8.5 (talk) at 22:28, 26 December 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 22:28, 26 December 2006 by 204.108.8.5 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
This article is about the modern area called Appalachia. For the Mesozoic island, see Appalachia (Mesozoic). For the town of the same name, see Appalachia, Virginia.
Areas included within the Appalachian Regional Commission's charter; other definitions of Appalachia often cover a much more restricted area.
Appalachian zones of the US - USGS

Appalachia is a term used to describe a region in the eastern United States that stretches from New York to Mississippi. Surrounding the Appalachian Mountains, it includes rural, urban, and industrialized regions. Although parts of the Appalachian Mountains extend through Maine into Canada, New England is usually excluded from the definition of Appalachia.

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, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, and the entire state of West Virginia.

Culture

See also: Appalachian folk music, Country music, Appalachian English, and Melungeon

Prior to the 20th century, the people of Appalachia were geographically isolated from the rest of the country. As a result, they preserved the culture of their ancestors (most of them English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and Irish) who settled the region in the 18th century. The region's culture includes a strong oral tradition (including music and song), self-sufficiency, and strong religious faith. Coal deposits in the region were tapped in the latter half of the 19th century and drew a new wave of immigrants from Ireland and Central Europe. With this industrialization came increased urbanization.

Long characterized as economically underdeveloped, Appalachia has received more sympathetic treatment by historians and anthropologists in recent decades. The Foxfire project, an anthology of writings that began in 1972, appealed to the counterculture and gave the region new visibility in academia. 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.

A long-running series of documentary films by Appalshop takes a historical and critical view of the region, especially the effects of coal mining, poverty, and other aspects of local life.

Appalachian Regional Commission

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) was created by the U.S. Congress in 1965 to bring the 13 Appalachian states 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 definded by the ARC includes 406 counties, including all of West Virginia and counties in 12 other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. 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 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 elsewhere in Appalachia. 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.

Economy

The economy of Appalachia traditionally rested on agriculture, mining, timber, and in the cities, manufacturing. In the late Twentieth 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 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 strip mining.

Etymology

The name is a back-formation of "Appalachian," created to provide a political designation for the territory in and around the mountain chain. The word "Appalachian" comes from the Apalachee tribe, historically located in northern Florida. After the de Soto expedition Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. 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 (Stewart 1967:173).

There are various ways of pronouncing the word "Appalachia." People from the Southern United States tend to say /æpə'lætʃʲə/ (appa-LATCH-a), while others, especially from the Northeast, often say /æpə'leɪʃʲə/ (appa-LAY-sha).

Popular culture

Other Appalachia-related articles

The six physiographic provinces of Appalachia:

See also:

References

Further reading

External links

Categories:
Appalachia Add topic