the upper south

characteristics of the Upper South

• they are southern states that are north of the Lower or Deep South

• has higher elevation than the Lower South

  • includes mountains and highlands:

    • (southern) Appalachian Mountains

    • Ozarks

    • Ouachita Mounatins

    • basins and plateus between them

• Uppland South may also include:

  • parts of the states not included in Upper South — southern parts of Ohio, Illionis, Indiana, parts of Georgia, Alabama, or South Carolina

• did not rely that much on plantation economy and enslaved labor (except for tobacco plantations in the Great Valley and Kentucky and cotton in Nashvine Basin)

Appalachian region:

• not one definition of the region

• BUT an official definition from the Appalachian Regional Commisions → 423 counties, from 13 states, population 26Mil

• Appalachian Mountains:

  • the oldest in North America, formed 1.2 billion to 300 million years ago

  • Mt. Mitchell is the highest peak (6,684 ft = 2,037 m)

Climate:

• mild with long growing season

• abundant precipitation

• temperature modified by elevation

Tourism

• Appalachian National scenic Trail is a popular hiking trail

• Asheville has been a popular winter tourism spot since 1880s

• tourism increased with improved road access

• recreation developments:

  • summer homes

  • retirement villages and resorts (e.g., Blue Ridge-Smoky Mountains ← mountain ranges, Land between the Lakes ← artificial lakes)

European settlement in the Upper South

• started before the US independence → around 1730s

• migrations from Pennsylvania and Virginia into the Great Valley and Piedmont

• increased in late 18th c. and early 19th c.

• primarily English, Scot-Irish, Scottish, and German

• settlement and transportation followed river valleys (and still does)

• early settlers largely self-sufficient, living on diverse small-scale farms, keeping livestock and hunting

• migration into Tennessee Valley after the removal of Cherokees (1838)

• interior lowlands (e.g., Bluegrass and Pennyroyal) popular migration destinations

• Cumberland Gap was an important migration path

• Louisville est. 1778

• Nashville est. 1779

Statehood and Civil War

• slave states (which remained in the Union — border states and seceded anti-slavery West Virginia)

• northern states and western free states loyal to the US

• southern slave states which seceded and formed the Confederacy

• Initially part od the colonies and early states of Vorginina and North Carolina

• Kentucky joined the Union in 1792

• Tennessee in 1796

• West Virginia separated from Virginia in 1862 and joined the Unio in 1863

• middle and west Tennessee supported the Confederacy

• East Tennessee supported the Union

• Kentucky remained in the Union despite being a slave state

Indigenous people today

• federal recognized tribes:

  • Eastern Band of Cherokee

  • Indians of North Carolina

• state recognized tribes:

  • Cherokee Tribe of Northeast Alabama

  • United Cherokee Ani-Yun-Wija Nation

  • Echota Cherokee

  • Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee

Appalachian cultural traits and stereotypes

• Hudson associates Appalachianfolk culture with:

  • valuing personal freedom, individualism, self-sufficiency, and frugality

  • distrust for central authority and public education

  • isolated groups based on kinship

other groups emphasize tightly knit communities, diversity, and resistance to social injustices

Hillbilly — a term for people who dwell in rural, mounatineous areas in the US proudly used by locals, sometimes used in a derogatory way by outsiders

Black Appalachians:

• historically were both enslaved and free

• comprised a considerable part of miners and other workers

• Affrilachia — term that refers to the cultural contributions of African-American artists, writers, and musicians in the Appalachian region (coined by Frank X Walker in the 1990s)

Back-to-the-land movements

• agrarian movements with waves in different periods (e.g., 1930s, 1960-70s)

• promoting rural life, homesteading, growing food from the land, emphasizing self-sufficiency, autonomy, and local community

• critical of the prevailing industrial or postindustrial way of life

Appalachian folk and old-timey music — English, Scottish, Irish combined ballads and dance songs with other influences including African-derived banjo and plucking styles

Bluegrass music — created 1940s by Bill monroe and others, based on old-time music, English, Scottish and Irish ballads, also influenced by jazz and blues → played on acoustic instruments, such as banjo, violin (fiddle), guitar, string bass, and mandolin

Bluegrass gospel

• rooted in mountain music

• features religious themes

• uses vocal harmonies

Industrial growth and poverty?

notably absent fro any checklist of Appalachian traits before 20th century is poverty. Self-sufficiency and frugality were long standing habits, but poverty was uncommon before the arrival of coal mining, a development that radically transformed the Appalachian Plateau

Cola mining

• high-energy bituminous coal → appropriate for making coke used in smelting

• increased after 1870, used for industrial transportation and heating needs

• the Appalachian coal field — produces about 50% of the bituminous coal and about 25% of the total coal mined in the US

• eastern interior coal field — produces 12-15% of US coal, has high sulfur content

• reduced production in recent decades

• rich entrepreneurs were able to assemble large tracts of coal-rich land due to West Virginia’s fragile institutional framework and unclear land titles → the the wealthy had a loophole in which they could worm themselves into

• railroads — used to haul coal away from theregion (e.g., Virginian Railway, Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and others)

• Industrial growth — in the Lower Great Lakes regions after 1910 increased demand for coal

Company towns ^

• used by companies to concentrate labor in an otherwise dispersed region

• rented houses to the miners

• had company stores that used local tokens bought with salaries

• used credit

• had poor roads and transportation

Labor unions

• the conflict between labor and capital

• miners, textile wokrers and others who worked at profitable industries had low wages and poor working and living conditions

• child labor common in late 18th c. and early 19th c.

• unions were weakers, wages were lower, and profits higher in Southern states, which attracted capital

• United mine Workers Union — started organizing coal miners in the 1900s

• Mother Jones — a prominent labor union organizator

Labor uprisings

• strikes often led to violent battles, jointly called the Coal Wars or Mine Wars (1890-1930)

• companies hired thugs (or vigilantes) who stopped or killed workers and ther family members

• US Army intervened in the Blair Mountain Labor uprising in 1921 — killed up to 100 workers

• red bandanas — became a physical symbol of workers solidarity in this time (THE ORIGIN OF “REDNECKS”)

Industrial decline and poverty

Regional developments policies

• originated in 1930s with Franklin D. Roosevelt policieies of the New Deal after the Great Depression

• meant to improve living conditions , stimulate economic development, and provide jobs

• first examples of regional stimulation include Tennessee Valley Authority → created hydoelectric dams that provided electrici†y for homes and stimulated industry in the area

Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC)

• initiated by John F. Kennedy — created the President’s Appalachian Regional Commission (PARC) in 1963

• continued by Lyndon B. Johnson as part of the War on Poverty

• ARC was established by the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965

• identifies regions that are economically distressed or at-risk based on income, poverty rate, unemployment etc.

• initiates projects related to infrastructure, education, economic opportunities

Appalachian Development Highway System

• a system of highways developed by the ARC since 1965 to improve accessibility and stimulate growth

• some attribute the outmigration of highly-skilled people (so-called “brain drain”) to the improvement of infrastructure

Mountaintop removal

• a type of strip mining or surface coal mining

• occurs most commonly in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, since the 1970s

• the forests are clear-cut and mountains are blown up with explosives

• it destroys the landscape, landmarks, and ecosystems

• coal companies dispose of the material by building valley fills

• requires few jobs

Prisons on extraction sites

• several of the mountaintop removal sites have been used to locate new prisons

• the prisons are created with a prmise of stable jobs with economic growth

• the projects raise concerns for prison inmates’ and workers’ health and the economic consequences

Fracking

• shale gas and oil extraction

• promised many jobs but delivered relatively few

Environment justice issues

• mountaintop removal pollutes the land, water and air, and destroys the surroundings

• Black Lungs disease among underground miners

• coal sludge from coal processing plants pollutes water

• air pollution from coal power plants

• coal ash heaps contain toxic heavy metals

• effects on cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, birth defects

Fossil politics

• Donald Trump with J.D. Vance promised to cut back subsidies for renewable energy and electric vehicles, and icnrease fossil fuel extraction

• Joe Manchin from the Democratic Party (until 2024), the governor of West Virginia (2005-2010) and US Senator (since 2010) who long blocked climate and energy reforms during Joe Biden’s trm

Interior Low Plateaus

• stretch from Tennesse Valley in the south to the limit of Pleistocene glaciation in the Ohio Valley

• Temperate forests, woodlands, and prairies are a natural vegetation

• grassy or savannah-like and grazed by bisons when Euro-Americans reached them

• limestone karst with sinkholes

• lowlands surrounded by rugged topography

• agriculture: corn, soybeans, cattle, tobacco, poultry

Urban and industrial growth

• Nashville, Lexington, Louisville — important banking and trade centers since late 19th c.

• Cotton mills and other textile factories boomed in the mountains in late 18th c.

• railroads played an important role in stimulating industry, mining and migration

• iron and steel in Birmingham, Chattanooga and some other cities

• Alumminum in Alcoa, TN; Muscle Shoals, AL and other locations with electricity from hydroelectric dams

• Oak Ridge, TN aka Atomic Bomb City

• Vehicle manufacturing in Kentucky

Main urban areas

Nashville, Tennessee

• aka Music City

• state capital

• 689k in city, 2M in metro area

Louisville, Kentucky

• on Indiana border

• 633k in city

• 1.4 in metro area

Huntsville, AL: 215K

Birmingham, AL: 200k

Knoxville, TN: 190k in city, 879k in metro area

Chattanooga, TN 181k

Country music

• regarded as “hillbilly” music

• recorded since 1920s

• derived from old-time music, influenced by blues and other genres

• lyrics focus on the life of working-class, blue-collar people

• Nashville Sound — developed since 1950s, smoother and slower than earlier types

The Ozarks

• Highlands:

  • deep river valleys that cut into bedrock

  • oak woodlands and mixed hardwood-coniferous forests

  • sparse settlement and few cities

  • culturally associated with siilar traits as Appalachia although locals might disagree

  • Springfield, MO — main city

• Salem Plateu part of the Ozarks unsuitable for agriculture

• Springfield plateu — better conditions ofr corn and lvestock agriculture

Reservoir development:

• Bagnell Dam on the Osage River (1931)

• other reservoirs on White River built in 1951-1966 (Bull Shoals, Table Rock, Beaver Lake)

• created for electricity generation, provided recreation opportunities as by-product

Lead and zinc mining:

• the tri-State mining district

• primarily during World Wars 1 and 2

• some located on tribal alloted land

• several of the sites are designated as Superfund sites:

  • a federal environmental remediation program established

  • designed to investigate and clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances

  • oreviouly paid from excise tax on petroleum and chemical manufacturers, currently general tax money

  • superfund sites are cleanup sites designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (there are 1178 sites)

• mining activities since 1850s, boosted by railroads

• ceased in the 1970s

• lead was used for plumbing pies, for linings in airtight containers, in paint, and as bullets

• zinc was used for galvanizing wire and sheet iron, for roofing and stove boards, dyeing and fireworks

Mining in Picher from 1912 to 1967

• mining waste resulting from dry processes called chat

• was located very near neighbourhoods

• tailings — the result of wet processes containing heavy metals

• tosic waste caused damage to air, land, and water quality, and the area was deemed uninhabitable

• town was disincorporated in 2013

Ouachita Mountains

• similar age and geological history as Ridge and the Valley in the Appalachian Mountains

• Geothermal activity (Hot Springs, AR)

• main cities include Fort Smith and Little Rock

National forest — a type of protected an managed federal lands that are largely forest and woodland areas. Owned collectively by the American people through the federal government and managed by the US Forest Service

National Wilderness area — protected areas enabled by the Wilderness Act of 1964. Characterized by minimal human imprint, recreation opportunities; educational, scientific, scenic or historical value, NO commercial enterprises, and no motorized travel

Tribal lands

• some of the reservations formed in Oklahoma (formerly Indian Territory) after the Removal and Trail of Tears are located in the Ozarks and the Ouachita Mountains

• a cluster of smaller tribal lands near the tri-state border

• Choctaw Nation in Ouachita Mountains

• Cherokee Nation on the fringe od the Ozarks

Choctaw Nation

• second largest reservation after the Navajo Nation

• the tribe has over 220k members, of which 20% live in the Choctaw Nation jurisdiction

• reinstated as a reservation and tribal jurisdiction area in the 2020 McGirt v. Oklahoma case

Sardis Lake, Oklahoma

• built between the US Ary Corps of Engineers (1977-1983) as a freshwater reservoir

• its construction destroyed best Choctaw agricultural lands and forced many families to relocate

• the lake now provides hunting and fishing grounds and recreational opportunities

• it is a source of fresh water for many communities

• there was a conflict between State of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, and the Choctaw and Chicksaw Nations over water rights