Transforming the Appalachain Countryside

by Lewis, Ronald L.

• ISBN13: 9780807847060
• ISBN10: 0807847062
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

In 1880, ancient-growth forest still covered two-thirds of West Virginia, but by the 1920s lumbermen had denuded the entire region. Ronald Lewis explores the transformation in these mountain counties precipitated by deforestation. As the only state that lies entirely within the Appalachian region, West Virginia provides an ideal site for studying the broader social impact of deforestation in Appalachia, the South, and the eastern United States. Most of West Virginia was still dominated by a backcountry economy when the industrial transition began. In short order, however, railroads linked remote mountain settlements directly to national markets, hauling away forest products and returning with manufactured goods and modern ideas. Workers from the countryside and abroad swelled new mill towns, and merchants ventured into the mountains to fulfill the needs of the growing population. To protect their massive investments, capitalists increasingly extended control over the state's legal and political systems. Eventually, though, even ardent supporters of industrialization had reason to contemplate the consequences of unregulated exploitation. Once the timber was gone, the mills closed and the railroads pulled up their tracks, leaving behind an environmental disaster and a new class of marginalized rural poor to confront the worst depression in American history.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
the Virgin Forest Andthe Backcounty Economy	p. 15
the Touch of Capital: Railroads, Tinder, and Economic Development of the Backcounties	p. 45
Land, Capital, and Timber Operations at the Periphery	p. 81
Making Capital Secure: Law and the Industrial Transformation of West Virginia	p. 103
Workers in the Woods	p. 131
Ethnicity, Exploitation, and Social Conflict	p. 165
Connecting the Periphery: Commercialization of the Countryside	p. 185
""""New Men"""" Versus """"Old Men"""": Political Economy and the County Seat Wars	p. 211
the Market Revolution and the Decline of Acriculture	p. 235
If Trees Could Cuss: Environmental Destruction and IV the Beginnings of Restoration	p. 263
Notes	p. 293
Bibliography	p. 317
Index	p. 339
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