What is Appalachian Literature?
The easy answer: literature written for, about, or by people from the Appalachian Mountain region of the Eastern
United States. Materials must be chosen with care, for just as with any ethnic or regional genre, the potential pitfalls of stereotypes, racism,
and ignorance are a constant danger.
The Appalachian Mountains run from northern Georgia through the Carolinas,
the Virginias, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. The
people
settling Appalachia were predominately of English, Scotch-Irish, and
German descent. The harsh topography with its lack of passable roads isolated
some areas for generations. The result was a culture that harkened back decades for traditions and customs and led its people to be called
"our contemporary ancestors."(1)
The resource-rich region suffered from exploitation by coal and timber barons. The purchase
and subsequent absentee ownership of mineral rights in the region are one of this century's great social injustices.
The country side has been used and abused by outsiders, its people left
with little to show for it.
Appalachia's people have been alternately ignored and rescued by government, private, and public social institutions
since the early part of this century. The coal miners, for instance, were fertile recruiting ground for the early union organizers. Later
LBJ's War on Poverty swooped down on the area with all the conviction and conscience a bureaucrat can muster. For the most part, the people of Appalachia have suffered and acknowledged all this with quiet bemusement. The best Appalachian humor deals with
outsiders and their attempts to save us.
1Attributed to Berea College President William Frost
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