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Confederate Pride and Prejudice

Some white Northerners see a flag rooted in racism as a symbol of patriotism.
by Frances Stead Sellers via Washington Post on October 22, 2018

Living with Dolly Parton

Asking difficult questions often comes at a cost.
by Jessica Wilkerson via Longreads on October 16, 2018

Sears’s ‘Radical’ Past

How mail-order catalogues subverted the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow.
by Antonia Noori Farzan via Washington Post on October 16, 2018

The Body in Poverty

The decline of America’s rural health system and its toll on my family.
by Sarah Smarsh via The Nation on September 26, 2018

The Value of Farmland: Rural Gentrification and the Movement to Stop Sprawl

Rapidly rising metropolitan land value can mean "striking gold" for some landowners while threatening the livelihood of others.
by Angela Hope Stiefbold via The Metropole on September 12, 2018
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The Legendary Language of the Appalachian "Holler"

Is the unique dialect a vestige of Elizabethan England? Left over from Scots-Irish immigrants? Or something else altogether?
by Chi Luu via JSTOR Daily on August 8, 2018
Drawing of two laborers in a vast agricultural field with a farmhouse in the background.

A Family From High Plains

Sappony tobacco farmers across generations, and across state borders, when North Carolina and Virginia law diverged on tribal recognition, education, and segregation.
by Nick Martin via Splinter on August 2, 2018
Photo of young woman looking at camera in blue-walled room. Above her an image of Jesus Christ is framed. Through the room's window a shirtless man can be seen on a porch, also facing the camera

Left Behind

J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" and Steven Stoll's "Ramp Hollow" both remind us that the history of poor and migratory people in Appalachia is a difficult story to tell.
by Nancy Isenberg via New York Review of Books on June 28, 2018
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Susan Fenimore Cooper, Forgotten Naturalist

Susan Fenimore Cooper is now being recognized as one of the nation's first environmentalists.
by Rochelle Johnson, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on May 31, 2018

William Ferris: The Man Who Shared Our Voices

An interview with the legendary folklorist, who fundamentally changed America’s understanding of the South.
by Chuck Reece via The Bitter Southerner on May 30, 2018

How Congress Used the Post Office to Unite the Nation

Trump says Amazon is scamming the USPS. But its low shipping rates were a game changer for rural America.
by Stephen Mihm via Bloomberg on April 4, 2018

Agriculture Wars

On country music as a lens through which to trace the corporatization of American farming.
by Nick Murray via Viewpoint Magazine on March 12, 2018

Carter G. Woodson’s West Virginia Wasn’t ‘Trump Country,’ It Was a Land of Opportunity

In his travelogues, Woodson rhapsodized over what he saw as a love of democracy among hard-scrabble mountain settlers of both races.
by Cynthia R. Greenlee via 100 Days in Appalachia on February 28, 2018

Mail-Order Magazines Did More Than Just Sell Things

The cheap monthly publications that flooded rural homes offered more than just advertising—they also provided companionship.
by Lorraine Boissoneault via Smithsonian on January 18, 2018

A Hillbilly Syllabus

“Some people call me Hillbilly, Some people call me Mountain Man; Well, you can call me Appalachia, ’Cause Appalachia is what I am.” —Del McCoury
by Eric Kerl via ChiTucky on December 10, 2017

Coal No Longer Fuels America. But the Legacy — and the Myth — Remain.

Coal country still clings to the industry that was long its chief source of revenue and a way of life.
by Karen Heller via Retropolis on July 9, 2017
Pete Seeger.

American Dreamers

Pete Seeger, William F. Buckley, Jr., and public history.
by William Hogeland via Boston Review on May 1, 2008
Food writer Edna Lewis.

What Is Southern?

A food writer's reminiscences of local cuisine in the springtime.
by Edna Lewis via Gourmet on January 1, 2008
Homesteader Jack Whinery and his family.

Savoring Pie Town

Sixty-five years after Russell Lee photographed New Mexico homesteaders coping with the Depression, a Lee admirer visits the town for a fresh slice of life
by Paul Hendrickson via Smithsonian on February 1, 2005
Harper Lee

Harper Lee's Only Recorded Interview About 'To Kill A Mockingbird' [AUDIO]

In 1964, Harper Lee talked with WQXR host Roy Newquist for an interview in New York.
via WQXR on January 1, 1964
An illustration of the citizens’ committee in Fort Worth, Texas arresting a striker during the Great Southwest Strike of 1886.

Populism Was Born From a Rural-Urban Alliance

In 1880s Texas, farmers and factory workers discovered they had the same enemy: corporate capitalists.
by David Griscom via Jacobin on July 5, 2025
Magazine ad of raccoons playing computer games.

The Raccoons Who Made Computer Magazine Ads Great

In the 1980s and 1990s, PC Connection built its brand on a campaign starring folksy small-town critters. They’ll still charm your socks off.
by Harry McCracken via Technologizer on April 22, 2025
Edgar Watson Howe

The Sins and Sayings of E.W. Howe

A deeply skeptical, deeply American mind and its trail of sharp, clean sentences.
by Steve Szilagyi via 3 Quarks Daily on April 11, 2025
Train emerging from the Hoosac Tunnel, 1911.

The Hoosac Tunnel

A history of the Bloody Pit.
by John Bulmer via Restoration Obscura on March 29, 2025
Overhead view of neighborhood in the Palisades destroyed by wildfires.
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The L.A. Fires Expose the Problem With Conservation Policy

For more than a century, conservation policy has focused on economic development and wisely using natural resources.
by Johnathan K. Williams via Made By History on January 30, 2025
Author Sanora Babb, with her husband James Wong Howe, in their library.

The Woman Who Defined the Great Depression

John Steinbeck based “The Grapes of Wrath” on Sanora Babb’s notes. But she was writing her own American epic.
by Scott Bradfield via The New Republic on November 12, 2024
Tourists on a ferry sailing along the coast of Maine.

A Picture-Book Guide to Maine

Children’s stories set on the coast suggest a wilder way of life.
by Anna E. Holmes via The New Yorker on September 8, 2024
A collage of newspaper articles discussing the possibility of Absaroka becoming the 49th state.

How the Depression Fueled a Movement to Create a New State Called Absaroka

In the 1930s, disillusioned farmers and ranchers fought to carve a 49th state out of northern Wyoming, southeastern Montana and western South Dakota.
by Eli Wizevich via Smithsonian on August 14, 2024
Poster for the WPA theatrical production of "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis

Stealing the Show

Why conservatives killed America’s federally funded theater.
by Charlie Tyson via The Yale Review on June 10, 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
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