Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist Defiance in the Ozarks by J. Blake Perkins (review)

In Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist Defiance in the Ozarks, historian and Ozarks native J. Blake Perkins directly challenges recent scholarship that emphasizes continuous antigovernment sentiment in rural places. He argues that while "[r]ural resistance to federal power" cuts through Ozarks history, "impetuses and dynamics of that defiance have changed remarkably" (p. 3). Through case studies, he reveals consistent tensions between "regional and local business elites" and "plain-folk Ozarkers" (p. 7). According to Perkins, federal officials often delegated responsibility to local elites who acted in their own best interests. Plain-folk resistance was not knee-jerk antiestablishmentarianism, Perkins argues. Rural smallholders wanted a government that acted in their best interests.

Perkins's analysis opens in the Gilded Age, when state and local politicians welcomed federal resources for rail construction, ushering in large-scale agriculture. Unable to compete, smallholders joined Populist organizations and pressured " theirgovernment" for "'Protection'" from "rich elites and corporations" (p. 19). Perkins extends this analysis through case studies. Using local newspapers, census and court records, and oral history interviews, he crafts engaging narratives of moonshining, World War I draft resistance, and noncompliance with tick eradication programs to show rural Ozarkers challenging broad economic and political forces. They were not resisting federal intrusion, according to Perkins; instead, they resented local elites' application of federal rules and programs.

Perkins traces intraregional conflict through two federal reform periods. In the 1930s and 1940s, federally funded dams brought in electricity and a leisure economy. On the shores of newly created lakes, businesses adapted, shifting the local economy to low-wage service jobs. Lakes attracted retirees "escap[ing] a 'liberalizing' America" in "the 'lily whiteness' of the Ozarks" (p. 220). Rural smallholders were left behind and left out. Into the 1960s two factors hindered the relief of War on Poverty programs, Perkins argues. Because programs required "maximum feasible participation," poor black residents sat at the table as partners. Coupled with civil rights legislation, this requirement threatened political and economic power relationships. In addition, federal officials dispatched "poverty warriors" who brought preconceived notions of backward "hill folks," leaving them "unable to connect with the rural dispossessed" (p. 204).

In the last chapter, Perkins returns to the issue of race, arguing that local elites reinforced perceptions that only poor black people accepted handouts from the government. As a result, poor white families rejected needed federal assistance and adopted a broader antigovernment position. The pervasiveness of racism deserves more attention throughout the study. In the first chapter, Perkins explains Arkansas governor Jeff Davis's "exploitation of . . . racial fears" that solidified a political coalition of poor whites and local elites in the late nineteenth century (p. 23). Similarly, Perkins argues that during the 1960s, "[white] Ozarkers . . . felt too threatened by the unknowns of . . . social and cultural change" to shift allegiance from local and regional elites (p. 193). In between these chapters, black people seem to disappear. Perkins adeptly explains how rural Ozarkers shifted from pro-government populism to anti-government conservatism. White Ozarkers also consistently defended a distinctly white identity. In the conclusion, Perkins acknowledges racism in New Right conservatism but places responsibility on conservative retirees and local elites. His active agents in early chapters become passive followers by the end, seemingly easily manipulated through racial fears. Overall, Perkins presents a nuanced examination of intraregional tensions that reshaped populist sentiment in the Ozarks. More consistent attention to deep-seated racism among white rural Ozarkers would help explain the dynamics described in the conclusion.