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Part III Appalachia, East Tennessee, and Modern America, 1920–2006 By the time my parents were born in the twentieth century’s second decade, the term “southern Appalachia” had two distinct meanings. The map accompanying John C. Campbell’s The Southern Highlander in 1921 offered what became the widely accepted physical definition of the region. Spanning southward from West Virginia to Alabama’s northeast corner, “geographical Appalachia” includes all of East Tennessee. Indeed, Knoxville and Bristol, the two burgeoning urban centers where my father and mother were raised, are near the center of what Campbell called the “Southern Highland Region.” Perhaps Campbell chose that label because he deemed recently popular, more familiar depictions of “Appalachia ” hopelessly misleading. That other “Appalachia” was a uniform, static place, peopled by “strange and peculiar” folk whose lives contrasted starkly with modern standards in the rapidly changing United States. My forebears, and many of their East Tennessee neighbors, often distanced themselves from popular understandings of “Appalachia.” This dissociation was understandable, but its consequences for the likes of my forebears, their heirs, and our region have been mixed. Thirty years of Appalachian studies scholarship has deepened our understanding of the importance of both geographical and cultural Appalachia in the twentieth century. Regional coal, timber, and other raw materials contributed significantly to the nation’s great surge of industrialization and modernization. Meanwhile, images from cultural “Appalachia” served as a useful foil for Americans who were at once proud and bewildered by those same developments. Turn-of-the-twentieth-century Americans found escape from their anxieties and reassurance for their aspirations in nostalgic recollections of noble pioneers, frightening tales of feuding highlanders, and raucous accounts of hillbilly buffoons . Although actual conditions in geographical Appalachia differed greatly from popular perceptions of cultural “Appalachia,” the two were more intertwined than regional observers have recognized. Disentangling the two Appalachias lures one into an intellectually bewildering maze. Part III 162 The experiences of Appalachians on the greater American stage in the twentieth century were hardly unique. Like most peoples—particularly those we deem “minorities”—regional residents had more than one identity, and they shifted their primary allegiance from one to another as needed. During World War II, for example, Navajo “code talkers” and black “Tuskegee Airmen” placed loyalty to our nation above identification with their more immediate group, and temporarily set aside concerns about racism and injustice. Once the war was over, however, members of these groups returned home keenly aware of our national hypocrisy, and some of them became actively engaged in movements to gain civil rights for their respective peoples. The Appalachian experience was similar yet different. Compared to racial minorities (or even religious minorities, such as Jews), we Appalachians can more readily cross the line “into mainstream status,” and if we choose, can return to our roots (or some portion thereof) with less attention and controversy. As a wise African American colleague helped me realize, this unique status works two ways. It was an asset for the likes of my grandparents, because it enabled them to achieve many physical benefits and comforts (and pass them down to heirs including myself). But this was also a liability. Embracing progress and its powerful accompanying myths led regional residents of a century ago to sell their resources, labor, and identity perhaps too readily. However one views this transaction, it was only the beginning of a cycle that shaped our region in the twentieth century. Feeding outside needs for coal, timber, and other resources set a stage in the middle years of the last century (when my parents came of age) for an unsustainable economy and environmental havoc. And these two distinctive “Appalachian” hallmarks became proof of our region’s innate deficiencies, both imagined and real. The costs were most immediate for East Tennessee’s hinterland areas, but valley urban communities such as those where my parents were raised did not completely escape the effects of these developments and the images they fostered. Part III explores how twentieth-century East Tennesseans responded to the challenges of our times— not the least of which was dealing with elusive views of our past and ourselves that we inherited. A cursory glance at the era from around 1920 to 1960 (the timeframe for chapter six) reveals that many familiar patterns from the recent past continued. The two hinterland regions continued largely to serve outside needs at considerable cost and dubious benefit to many natives. Knoxville, of course, played its customary leading role. City residents, many of...

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