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A Cursed Appalachian Mining Town

An intimate portrait of a once-prosperous town in a forgotten corner of America.
by Emily Buder, Ivete Lucas, Patrick Bresnan via The Atlantic on March 13, 2018

The Mythical Whiteness of Trump Country

"Hillbilly Elegy" has been used to explain the 2016 election, but its logic is rooted in a dangerous myth about race in Appalachia.
by Elizabeth Catte via Boston Review on November 7, 2017
Debris from hurricane Helene.
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America Forgot a Crucial Lesson From Hurricanes of the Past

History reveals that even weakening storms do catastrophic damage when they hit mountainous regions.
by Justin McBrien via Made By History on October 9, 2024
A drilling crew in the Hawk's Nest Tunnel.

On Raymond Thompson’s “Appalachian Ghost”

Black miners were intentionally erased from the record of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster. A new book reinserts them into the narrative.
by Jody DiPerna via Belt Magazine on June 20, 2024
The album cover of "Cowboy Carter" released by Beyonce in 2024

Cowboy Carter and the Black Roots of Country Music

Beyoncé is following in the footsteps of many Black musicians before her.
by The Birthplace of Country Music Museum via Teen Vogue on March 29, 2024
Couriers’ duties included fetching patients from cabins, weighing babies, delivering medicine, cleaning saddles and bridles, and escorting any guests who rode the routes between FNS outposts.

Why Debutantes Volunteered to Be Horse-Riding Couriers in Rural Kentucky

Between the 1920s and 1940s, wealthy young women signed up to run errands and carry messages for the Frontier Nursing Service.
by Eliza McGraw via Smithsonian on March 28, 2024
Sunrise over the Appalachian Mountains

Thicker Than Water: A Brief History of Family Violence in Appalachian Kentucky

Knowing I come from people who lived hard lives and endured terrible things is difficult. Knowing that I come from someone who ruined lives haunts me.
by Angie Romines via New England Review on January 10, 2024
Girl holding a pile of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls

The Droll Capitalist Parable of Cabbage Patch Kids

A new documentary, “Billion Dollar Babies,” shows how a product of Appalachian folk art drew the blueprint for all holiday toy crazes to come.
by Jessica Winter via The New Yorker on November 20, 2023
Grant Wood’s sister, Nan Wood Graham, and his dentist, Byron McKeeby, stand by the painting for which they had posed, “American Gothic.”

Beyond the Myth of Rural America

Its inhabitants are as much creatures of state power and industrial capitalism as their city-dwelling counterparts.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on October 16, 2023
Map of the United States South from 1857

Imani Perry’s Capacious History of the South

Contrary to popular belief, the South has always been the key to defining the promise and limits of American democracy.
by Robert Greene II via The Nation on September 17, 2022
Photo of Ella May Wiggins' five children.

The 1929 Loray Mill Strike Was a Landmark Working-Class Struggle in the US South

Murdered during the 1929 Loray Mill strike, Ella May Wiggins became a working-class martyr—and a symbol of labor’s fight to democratize the anti-union South.
by Karen Sieber via Jacobin on September 14, 2022
Phil Wiggins performs at the Blair Mountain Centennial. | Rafael Barker, collection of the WV Mine Wars Museum.

The Singing Left

At a recent commemoration of the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia, songs of struggle took center stage.
by Kim Kelly via The Baffler on September 21, 2021
Cherokee leader and Louisiana governor shaking hands

The Cherokee-American War from the Cherokee Perspective

Conflict between American settlers/revolutionaries and the Cherokee nation erupted in the early years of the Revolution.
by Jordan Baker via Journal of the American Revolution on July 29, 2021
A Blair Mountain coal miner with his rifle slung over his shoulder, 1921.

A Century Ago, West Virginia Miners Took Up Arms Against King Coal

In 1921, twenty thousand armed miners in West Virginia marched on the coal bosses and were met with bombs and submachine guns.
by Arvind Dilawar, Chuck Keeney via Jacobin on June 23, 2021
Collage of maps representative of the project
partner

Southern Journey: The Migrations of the American South 1790-2020

The maps embrace everyone —free and enslaved, from the first national census of the late 18th century to the sophisticated surveys of the early 21st century.
by Ed Ayers, Justin Madron, Nathaniel Ayers via American Panorama on January 1, 2021

A History of the Jerks: Bodily Exercises and the Great Revival

A digital archive of first-person accounts from the turn of the 19th century chronicling an unusual display of religious ecstasy.
by Douglas Winiarski via University of Richmond on April 9, 2018
Confederate Commander Col. Lawrence Allen and his wife.

The Massacre Men

The Confederacy often used brutal tactics against Union sympathizers, even in Southern towns.
by David Forbes via Scalawag on July 27, 2017

Chronicling “America’s African Instrument”

The banjo's history and its symbolism of community, slavery, resistance, and ultimately America itself.
by Laurent Dubois, Stephanie Kingsley via Perspectives on History on June 19, 2017
Dam from a distance

The Book of the Dead

In Fayette County, West Virginia, expanding the document of disaster.
by Catherine Venable Moore via Oxford American on December 6, 2016
A map of the United States divided into regions.

A Balkanized Federation

Without a shared civic narrative – the pursuit of liberal democratic self-government – the rival regional cultures of the United States agree on very little.
via Nationhood Lab

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