In The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey, published by the
University Press of Kentucky in 1962, Rupert Vance suggested a
decennial review of the region's progress. No systematic study
comparable to that made at the beginning of the decade is available
to answer the question of how far Appalachia has come since then,
but David S. Walls and John B. Stephenson have assembled a broad
range of firsthand reports which together convey the story of
Appalachia in the sixties. These observations of journalists, field
workers, local residents, and social scientists have been gathered
from a variety of sources ranging from national magazines to county
weeklies.
Focusing mainly on the coalfields of West Virginia, eastern
Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, and north-central Tennessee, the
editors first present selections that reflect the "rediscovery" of
the region as a problem area in the early sixties and describe the
federal programs designed to rehabilitate it and their results.
Other sections focus on the politics of the coal industry, the
extent and impact of the continued migration from the region, and
the persistence of human suffering and environmental devastation. A
final section moves into the 1970s with proposals for the future.
Although they conclude that there is little ground for claiming
success in solving the region's problems, the editors find signs of
hope in the scattered movements toward grass-roots organization
described by some of the contributors, and in the new tendency to
define solutions in terms of reconstruction rather than
amelioration.
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