How did Appalachia become so poor?

The sources of chronic poverty, the ways in which it is perpetuated, and what you see today in Appalachia are characteristic of other chronically poor places ... read more

The history of Appalachia in the early United States is the history of a region that rebelled against state and federal control a total of 4 times. During the civil war, Appalachia as abolitionist in the North, and Unionist (albeit not assertively so) in the South. read more

Even so, more than a third of the residents here are poor. But poverty is also in the eye of the beholder. For some, it's just the way life is, like for Normie Slone, who's 79 years old. read more

The sweeping farmlands of the Midwest and picturesque hamlets of New England had a poor-cousin counterpart in Appalachia, where"rural" meant bad drinking water or decent system of waste disposal, no firehouse, no police, no hospital, no sidewalks, no entertainment. read more