Theories & Static Images of Appalachia
This paper analyzes theories that
have been used to understand and interpret Appalachia and its people, such as
“subculture of poverty”, “Internal Colonialism”, “Domestic colonialism”, and
“Predatory Capitalism” interpreted by Walls and Billings and Lohmann. In
addition, this paper describes the static image of Appalachians that later
reinforced and justified the exploitation of the mountaineers by the outside
capitalists interpreted from Banks et al.,
Lewis, and Eller.
Moreover, Billings and Walls’ “The Sociology of Southern Appalachia”
explores the first theory discussed in this paper— Subculture of poverty. The theory is but one broad approach that “identifies
the internal deficiencies of the lower class subculture as the source of the
problem” (pp. 132.) Four themes emerge of the subculture: individualism and
self-reliance, traditionalism, fatalism, and fundamentalism where individualism
refers to the personality, familism is the common social interaction, and
puritanism is their belief system (Billings & Walls, 1977.) Likewise, these
themes are seen as features that have created the barriers for Appalachian
people. However, the theory of Subculture of poverty is often criticized
(Billings & Walls, 1977), because of its use of stereotyping Appalachians
into a static image. The theory also has a limited understanding of economic
development. Often, the idea that poverty is a culture assumes that
Appalachians are weak to the pressures of a modern industrial age. The theory
also invokes the idea that all Appalachians were and/or are affected by
poverty—which will further be discussed in this paper on how the static image
and the subculture of poverty theory contributed to the overdevelopment of
Appalachian land by missionary and profit motives of the capitalist outsider
elites.
The second theory discussed by
Billings and Walls, Internal colonialism,
assists in the understanding of Appalachia by examining the process of dominant
outside interests establishing industrial control and continuing to subordinate
the internal colony (Billings & Walls, 1977.) The industrial control
included exploiting cheap labor through a process of establishing and
maintaining domination where raw materials were extracted from the region, local
people/colonized groups/indigenous people and sold to outsiders who could
afford the products (Billings & Walls, 1977; Lewis, 1999.) The internal
colonialism that brought commercial industry, created the labor force of the
miners and millhands out of those mountaineers (Billings & Walls, 1977.)
This theory was reflected through the examples of outsiders buying up land and
exploiting workers for their own profits (Billings & Walls, 1977.)
The third theory that assists in
the understanding of Appalachia is Domestic
colonialism as described by Lohmann (1990) in “Four Perspectives on Appalachian Culture and Poverty”. Domestic
colonialism raises the question: how is the experience of poor Appalachians
compare to poverty throughout America and the globe? For example, the theory
compares the underdeveloped regions of Appalachia to Africa and Asia due to the
colonization of land and resources (Lohmann, 1990.) Specifically, the theory
explains a regional history of exploitation especially environmental issues
(air, water, strip mining), housing, and land ownership (corporately or
absentee-owned) (Lohmann, 1990.) For instance, corporately owned land accounts
for half the land in coal counties, and land that is ‘absentee-owned’ accounts
for 72% occupied in coal counties (Lohmann, 1990.) What’s more, 11 corporations
own nearly all the land in Logan County, West Virginia (Lohmann, 1990.)
Furthermore, the declining
importance of mining and ownership of a large percentage of land by outside
interest, are two issues to understanding poverty in Appalachia (Lohmann,
1990.) Predatory capitalism
perspective, focuses on the alienation and sense of powerlessness of the
unemployed and working poor (Lohmann, 1990.) The powerlessness and alienation
felt by poverty is the precondition to socially controlling the functioning of
labor markets in capitalist economies (Lohmann, 1990.) Even public assistance
in a capitalist society is a form of social control because there are profits
in keeping people unemployed or underemployed (Lohmann, 1990.) But, the outside
corporations are still dependent upon a surplus population of workers, because
they become the “servants for the middle class retirees and vacationing
second-home owners” (Lohmann, 1990, pp. 221.)
Instead of suggesting there is a
culture of poverty—assuming that mountain people accept or chose to live this
way—the focus should be on how Internal colonialism is an agent of poverty. The theory
Internal colonialism mentioned by
Walls and Billings will be further examined here because it reflects the development
of Appalachia. Typically, Appalachia was seen as having a ‘backward’ economy
sustained by a subculture of poverty, according to Ronald Lewis (1999.) Often,
Appalachia’s traditional values, geographic location and cultural isolation are
said to be the barriers that explained a phenomenon of poverty then and now
(Lewis, 1999.) But this is not the reality of Appalachian history. The myths
about Appalachia was that it was a subculture of poverty, when in fact there
was concentrated wealth, and thus great social stratification (Lewis, 1999.)
For instance, Internal colonialism constructed the stratification between the
commercial elites and the working poor. The elite used their wealth to create
booming industries to profit off of people that depended on their labor and services.
Elites used immigrants, black slaves, and poor whites as their labor force to
expand profits (Lewis, 1999; McKinney, 2000.)
Additionally, those outside
corporations persuaded Appalachians to sell their land for resources (Eller,
1982; Lewis, 1999.) The selling of the mountains for coal mines, logging, and
railroads marked the first stages of the crippling blow to the region (Eller,
1982.) For instance, ex-military officers began to survey land for iron and
coal deposits, which led to purchasing land or mineral rights from the local
mountaineers. Another example: in 1889, when 2000 acres of land granted to its
original settlers in 1839 were bought for $200 at an auction by the American
Association, Ltd. company of London, England (Eller, 1982.)
Other examples of Internal
colonialism were the approximate 500 company towns in the southern Appalachian
coal fields and less than 100 independent incorporated towns (Eller, 1982.) To
put this into perspective, the United State Coal Commission found that 750,000
acres of Appalachian coal lands was controlled by the Morgan affiliate and it
auxiliary companies (Eller, 1982.) And this was common for coal companies to
own hundreds of thousands of acres, in another example where English investors
controlled 550,000 acres of land (Eller, 1982.) Another, where Hellier and May
controlled the mineral rights to land in Elkhorn that spanned 500,000 acres
(Eller, 1982.) Even though the Appalachian people despised the coal mining
development because of the noise, smoke, destruction of land, and disturbances,
the people adjusted and eventually became attracted to the lure of big money,
thus the landscape was transformed from a picturesque view, to a “discrete and
isolated self-contained social units” (Eller, 1992, pp. 165.)
Consequently, Internal colonialism
protects itself, by creating a false narrative of Appalachian people. For one, Lohmann
describes Appalachia as a culture of subsistence, where high levels of poverty
are normalized. Because poverty is accepted and/or normalized, and outside
culture has romanticized a simple, slow-paced life, there is a strong
fatalistic sense among some. Likewise, religion buffers poor Appalachians in
coping with poverty as fate, while heaven is used to romanticize salvation.
Helplessness is learned and passed down through families in addition to the
rhetoric, language, and religious ideologies of the community. Industrial
capitalism gave a voice to novelists, missionaries, reporters, educators, movie
producers that painted Appalachian people as ignorant, violent, uncouth,
outlaws, and uncivilized. This was a way to silence the working poor, and
separate the affluent, white (immigrants) class from the lower class; and it
was a way to preserve the classification of people and exploit this vulnerable
labor force to continue to be dependent.
Furthermore, this “static image” as
described in Eller’s Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers, invokes a
pioneer-like simple life of Appalachian peoples. It is a controlling force that
suggests that Appalachian people are isolated from the industrial age, haven’t
changed their way of life for generations which keeps Appalachians stifled from
the modern industrial world (Eller, 1982.) Consequently, outsiders typically
accuse Appalachians for creating their own poverty, lack of education, and poor
health, instead of acknowledging the outside forces that have caused these
issues. Then, the stereotype (‘static image’) is reinforced to believe that
mountain people are a ‘backward people’ (Eller, 1982.)
Additionally, the static image of
Appalachians applies to the region’s “progress” and the controlling images of
Appalachians still leads to the region’s “modernization.” For example, timber
and mining companies were buying up land as part of the industrial age (Eller,
1982.) In the industrial age, “progress” was made by ‘outside capitalists’ and
for those who controlled the political system to exploit, degrade, and diminish
the land’s natural resources for their own wealth. From here, a social gap
existed and a segregation between the working class and managers and highly
skilled professionals (Eller, 1982.) The shift from an agrarian mountain life
where one was impacted by the timber industry, led to people pushed off of the
land and into public work (Eller, 1982.) This progress meant that people left
the mountains for burgeoning cities and towns to work for companies that
profited off of the timber industry such as furniture plants (Eller, 1982.) As
coal and timber industries declined, cotton mills emerged and then Appalachian
people were then negatively affected by a new wage system (Eller, 1982.) In
fact, in most cotton mills, 80% of the workers were women and children, usually
working 65 to 72 hours a week (Eller, 1982.)
Subsequently,
when
you are a people that is viewed as ‘backward’ and ‘worthless,’ then you are
similarly viewed as ‘the other’ that needs to be saved. This
led to justification and incentive for the acquisition of mountain land and
resources by outsider capitalists (Eller, 1982.) Ironically, “profit motive and missionary motive have often
gone hand-in-hand in the development of ‘backward people’” (Eller, 1982, pp. 43.)
Social welfare made the region dependent on the federal government while
federally owned land increased (Elle, 1982.) Internal
colonialism was reinforced by capitalists that worked under the guise that they
were helping to uplift the mountaineers by bringing resources to the land
(Eller, 1982.) Thus “missionary motive” and the
“profit motive” worked together because missionaries who enter the region
during industrialization, still profited from a ‘commercial spirit’ to uplift
mountaineers (Eller, 1982.) Politicians and newspapers advertised and
publicized the wealth of natural resources in Appalachia in an effort to
attract commercial investors and recruit foreign immigrants to the region for
labor and land development (Eller, 1982.)
According to Couto, the
Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) defines Appalachia as 410 counties across
13 states (66% are rural counties and the rest urban), and some eight percent
of all Americans lived in Appalachia in 2000. From 1880 to 1920, central
Appalachia grew from 200,000 to 1.2 million people (Lewis, 1999.) As the
population in Appalachia increased due to the expansion of commercial industry,
the population became diverse as the industry attracted immigrants as well. Within
Appalachia, European Americans as part of the textile manufacturing and mills,
while immigrants and African Americans worked in construction and extractive
industries; and African Americans predominately worked the cotton fields (Lewis,
1999.) Lewis (1999) also contends that the population in Appalachia looked like
a blend of Scottish, Irish, Asian, African Americans. Eller (1982) stated that
the largest ethnic group were the Italians that immigrated to the mountains, in
addition to Poles, Hungarians, and Slavs. With this in mind, Appalachians were
certainly not geographically isolated, and it is a myth that mountain folk were
isolated and homogeneous (Lewis, 1999.)
Banks
et al. (1993) writes that a postmodernism
approach is common sense reasoning as well as representation of how thoughts
are expressed. Postmodernism involves a
heightened and healthy skepticism, highlighting the diversity, multiplicity,
and fluidity (Banks et al., 1993.) Postmodernism
approach shifts the narrative from viewing people in a static image, and taking
a universal/essentialist view of Appalachia as fixed or absolute (Banks et al., 1993.) Ronald Lewis (1999) takes
a Postmodern approach in his article where he discounts the myths of Appalachia.
As mentioned previously, Lewis discounts the geographical isolation and
homogeneity of Appalachia. As previously mentioned, Appalachia was not a
population of only white, European Americans, and was not a population of
complete poverty; and instead was a heterogeneous population with great social
stratification, places even having concentrated wealth (Lewis, 1999.)
Once
again, there was a large fictional narrative of Appalachian culture and
identity as isolated, homogenous, backward folk that were less civilized (Banks
et al., 1993; Lewis, 1999; McKinney, 2000.) Appalachian identity has been
complexly constructed (Banks et al., 1993), due to the exploitation of the
region’s resources and labor force (Banks et al., 1993; Billings & Walls,
1977; Eller, 1982; Lewis, 1999; Lohmann, 1990; McKinney, 2000.)
Also,
Couto (1994), contends that Appalachian identity was social constructed much
like the identity of cowboys and Indians. Even though Appalachians were
portrayed by this static image, Appalachian studies have contributed to
postmodern approaches and see the region as diverse (Banks et al., 1993; Lewis,
1999; McKinney, 2000.) This fictional Appalachian identity created a phenomenon
that conjured public assistance, capitalist corporations, and missionaries to
uplift them (Eller, 1982.) Capitalists were attracted to the region because of
the picturesque view the landscape, a homestead, and a log cabin (Eller, 1982.)
But it didn’t lead to preservation and conservation of the land, and instead
led to capitalists buying out local people’s land, to create developments which
led to removing mountains, contributed to the logging timber industry, adding
railroads, and ascending into a culture of coal mining (Eller, 1982.) By the
1920s, coal-mining villages dotted the hollows along every creek and stream
(Eller, 1982.) Sadly, the people were left with diseases and malnutrition from
the coal mines (Eller, 1982.) Not only was the land scarred and barren from overdevelopment
but also left a lasting depression and decline in business took place when cheaper
fuels such as oil and gas, hydroelectric power and technological progress
stifled the coal industry (Eller, 1982.)
Whether
a predatory capitalist, Internal colonialist, or postmodern approach, Appalachia
tends to be viewed in terms of impoverished, needy, and uneducated which
attracts outside missionary and profit motives. The postmodern approach of
Appalachian studies tends to analyze the root oppression as a systematic
dominance of the region’s people. The examples described in the paper suggest
that Appalachia was an exploited region by outside capitalist elites and
humanitarians (missionary and profit motives). To analyze the exploitation of
Appalachia while reinforcing a false image is to analyze poor regions across
the nation and globe—it happens much the same way where capitalism and
colonialism go hand-in-hand. The implications from the readings and theories,
is a call for radical action, that may include a redistribution of land and
wealth, a balance between sustainable technology and energy, biodiverse farming
practices, as well as a consciousness shift towards the empowerment of the people.
References
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