Table Of ContentAppalachia
and America
Autonomy and
Regional Dependence
ALLEN BATTEAU, editor
The protest by West Virginia parents
against the textbooks selected for use
in their children's schools was a na
tional news event. But that protest is
only a single dramatic example of the
countless ways in which residents of
~ Appalachia are confronted each day by
assaults upon their traditional values.
In this collection of fourteen essays,
nearly all published here for the first
time, scholars of Appalachian culture
and society examine how the people
contend with and adapt to the pres
sures of change thrust upon them.
The focus of these essays is not on
the economic exploitation of Jhe region
by outside interests eager to take what
they can get. Instead, it is on the work
of newer institutions-the all-encom
passing bureaucracies that control
health, education, and human services:
Although their ostensible purpose is to
serve and to help people, these agen
cies through their impersonal regula
tions and guidelines seek, in ~ffect, to
shape Appalachian society in their own
image. Even the definition of Appala
chia as a "poverty" area is a critical
perception that calls into question the
capabilities and aspirations of the re
gion and its people.
The studies in this volume are all
based upon original research, much of
it carried out in the field by anthropol
ogists with extensive backgrounds in
the area. They show the Appalachian
people's differences and adaptations in
such areas as the family, religion,
health, education, and land use.
Appalachia and America will appeal
to a broad range of persons interested
in the southern mountains or in the
policy issues of social welfare. It deals
cogently with the newest form of con
flict affecting not only communities in
Appalachia, but urban and rural com
munities in America at large-the
struggle for local values and ways of
life in the face of distant and powerful
bureaucracies.
Allen Batteau is a member of the social
science faculty at Michigan State Uni
versity.
APPALACHIA
AND
AMERICA
AUTONOMY AND
REGIONAL DEPENDENCE
ALLEN BA TIEAU, EDITOR
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY
Copyright© 1983 by The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth
serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Oub, Georgetown College, Kentucky
Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0024
Ubrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Appalachia and America.
1. Appalachian Region-Social conditions-Addresses,
essays, lectures. I. Batteau, Allen, 1946--
HN79.A13A75 1983 306' .0974 82-40462
ISBN 0-8131-1480-2
CoNTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii
INTRODUCTION: lHE lRANSFORMATION OF DEPENDENCY Allen Batteau
with Phillip Obenniller 1
DECORATING THE APPALACHIAN HOUSE Charles E. Martin 14
FAMILY GROUP ORGANIZATION IN A CUMBERLAND MOUNTAIN
NEIGHBORHOOD F. Carlene Bryant 28
STUDYING RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEMS IN lHEIR SOCIAL HISTORICAL
CONTEXT Melanie L. Sovine 48
RELIGION AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS IN lHE KANAWHA COUNTY
SCHOOL TEXTBOOK CONTROVERSY Dwight B. Billings & Robert Goldman 68
THE IMAGE OF APPALACHIAN POVER'IY Walter Precourt 86
lHE PLACE OF CULTURE AND lHE PROBLEM OF IDENTITY
Henry D. Shapiro 111
RITUALS OF DEPENDENCE IN APPALACHIAN KENTUCKY Allen Batteau 142
APPALACHIAN INNOVATION IN HEALTH CARE Richard A. Couto 168
HEALlH CARE: lHE CITY VERSUS lHE MIGRANT John Friedl 189
LOWER PRICE HILL'S CHILDREN: FAMILY, SCHOOL, AND NEIGHBORHOOD
Kathryn M. Borman with Elaine Mueninghoff 210
EXPERIENCES OF IN-MIGRANfS IN APPALACHIA Mary Anglin 227
FRONTIER CULTURE, GOVERNMENT AGENTS, AND CITY FOLKS
James William Jordan 239
PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH ON LAND OWNERSHIP IN RURAL
APPALACHIA Patricia D. Beaver 252
CONFLICT, CONFRONTATION, AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN lHE REGIONAL
SETTING Thomas Plaut 267
CONTRIBUTORS 285
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TI-lls book originated in a symposium on Appalachian Studies that was
held at the annual meeting of the Southern Anthropological Associa
tion in February 1979 in Memphis, Tennessee. At the conclusion of the
symposium the participants decided to seek publication of the papers.
Over the next two years several of the papers were substantially
revised, and several new papers were added to complete the volume. I
would like to express my appreciation to my fellow contributors for
their patience in seeing the project through to completion.
ALLEN BATTEAU
INTRODUCTION: THE
TRANSFORMATION OF DEPENDENCY
ALLEN BA TTEAU WITH PHILLIP OBERMILLER
IN the hundred years since Appalachia was discovered by the Amer
ican public as a distinctive entity, the question that has recurrently
presented itself is that of the identity of Appalachia and the explana
tion of a regional culture that was "in but not of" America. In every
discovery and rediscovery of Appalachia, the currently fashionable
social theories are invoked for the purpose of explaining this identity:
Theories of degeneration, "retarded frontiers," racial devolution, en
vironmental determinism, exploitation, cultures of poverty, and inter
nal colonialism have all been used as the "basic" cause of Appalachian
"otherness." In some publications one finds an insistence on identify
ing authors as "100 percent Appalachian," even as other articles ac
knowledge the difficulty of deciding just what the boundaries of Appa
lachia are. Seminars and workshops discuss what it "means" to be
Appalachian, and controversies in scholarly circles continue over
which factions more authentically "speak for Appalachia."
Behind these questions of the identity of Appalachia one hears
questions of the identity of America. The paradox of Appalachia is that
it has always combined opposed images of America's self-definition:
The Appalachia of William G. Frost combined Anglo-Saxon pioneer
ancestry with devolution and degradation; the Appalachia of the
poverty warriors in the 1960s combined the romantic appeal of bucolic
self-sufficiency with the indignity of welfare dependence. Every suc
ceeding statement of the identity of Appalachia has posed a challenge
for the identity of America: A land of progress containing an entire
region of backwardness and poverty, a metropolitan society of rapid
mobility and footloose individualism, accommodating a subculture
that insists on maintaining strong family ties and a sense of com
munity.
The fourteen articles gathered together in this volume examine the
latest transformation of this paradox, in the creation of an Appalachia
