History’s Lessons for the Future of Appalachia

On May 21–22, 2012, the Department of History at West Virginia University hosted the Third Annual Meeting of the Society of Appalachian Historians. The keynote address (which follows) was delivered by Ronald D Eller, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Kentucky.

My academic career has not followed a typical path. A child of the 1960s, I pursued the PhD partly as a result of a quest to find my own roots–to search for personal identity, and partly out of a commitment to serve my community, in my case to empower Appalachian people by utilizing the educational skills that had been granted to me as a representative of those people. I entered graduate study at UNC Chapel Hill not only because I wanted to teach, but also because I wanted to affect public policy toward Appalachia. Historical research, for me, has always had an application for the present, whether as a means for freeing young people to act creatively and critically beyond the burden of received assumptions, or as a guide for shaping public policy. I chose to study and teach Southern history, in part because of my heritage, but largely because Southern historians have constantly struggled with the burden of the past on the present. They have engaged in a continuing dialogue about contemporary issues of race, economy, democracy, gender, religion, and increasingly the environment. Although the professionalization of the academy in recent decades has often narrowed our conversations to like-minded colleagues and theoretical content, I have always considered myself to be a public intellectual, whose work was interdisciplinary, accessible, and applied. I have always understood the relationship between teaching, research, and service (the great triumvirate of the academy) to be seamless. I have tried to apply the knowledge that I have gained from my research to my interactions in the classroom and in the community–and vice versa.

My writing has examined the history of Appalachia from the late nineteenth century to the present, and my work with policymakers from the local, state, regional, and national levels has endeavored to apply that knowledge of the past to contemporary challenges. In that effort I have not always been successful, I might add! Now, after the publication of my most recent book (Uneven Ground: Appalachia since 1945 [2008]), and as I face retirement from teaching, I have begun to turn my attention to the future of the region, and to the “so what” questions that I have always challenged my graduate students to address in their own work. For me, the “so what” of Appalachian history involves addressing three questions that I am most often asked about the region: (1) Why should we care about Appalachia? (2) Why have most of our efforts to address the social and economic problems of Appalachia failed? (3) Is there any hope for the region’s future?

As a variety of evidence suggests, the social and economic ground continues to be uneven in Appalachia. Inequalities persist between central Appalachia and the rest of the nation in almost every category of quality of life (income, education, poverty, health, and happiness). Inequalities persist within the region between urban and rural places, between the races, between genders, and between classes, and, like the rest of America, income inequalities are getting greater. This persistent inequality has led to growing anxiety, growing animosity toward outsiders, growing fear among rural children for the lack of a future in their own communities, growing substance abuse, and open war over the future of coal in the coalfields. Throughout the region there is a growing cultural divide that is reflected in a rising sense of powerlessness, a lack of faith in government, and a lack of hope for the future.

Observers across Appalachia agree that we are at a point of transition. What we don’t agree upon is the direction of that transition and the best strategies for the future. This period of transition creates a critical opportunity for historians of the region to be engaged in the public conversation. This is not the first time we have witnessed transition in Appalachia. At least...