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110-693: Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize 's Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award 2011 and the National Humanities Medal . After winning for The Lacuna in 2010 and Demon Copperhead in 2023, Kingsolver became the first author to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice. Since 1993, each one of her book titles have been on the New York Times Best Seller list . Kingsolver

220-430: A long hunter and surveyor instrumental in the early settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee. Like Boone, Appalachian pioneers moved into areas largely separated from "civilization" by high mountain ridges and had to fend for themselves against the elements. As many of these early settlers were living on Native American lands, attacks from Native American tribes were a continuous threat until the 19th century. As early as

330-558: A paramount chiefdom centered around a village complex in northern Georgia. By the time English explorers arrived in Appalachia in the late 17th century, the central part of the region was controlled by Algonquian tribes (namely the Shawnee ), and the southern part of the region was controlled by the Cherokee . The French based in modern-day Quebec also made inroads into the northern areas of

440-592: A "core" Appalachian region consisting of 164 counties in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, and a greater region defined by the ARC. In the Encyclopedia of Appalachia (2006), Appalachian State University historian Howard Dorgan suggests the term " Old Appalachia " for the region's cultural boundaries, noting an academic tendency to ignore the southwestern and northeastern extremes of

550-625: A 2010 interview with The Guardian , Kingsolver said, "I never wanted to be famous, and still don't… the universe rewarded me with what I dreaded most". She said she created her own website just to compete with a plethora of fake ones "as a defense to protect my family from misinformation". Kingsolver lives in the Appalachia area of the United States. She said in 2020 that rural America is generally regarded by artistic elites with "a profound antipathy". Kingsolver began her full-time writing career in

660-623: A Virginian. In 2018 the Library of Virginia named her one of the Virginia Women in History . Unsheltered was published in 2018 and follows two families in Vineland, New Jersey with one in the 1800s and the other in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy . Her latest book, published in 2022, is Demon Copperhead . The novel was inspired by David Copperfield and is set in southern Appalachia, deliong with

770-474: A commencement address entitled "How to Be Hopeful". In the late 1990s, Kingsolver was a founding member of the Rock Bottom Remainders , a rock-and-roll band made up of published writers. Other band members included Amy Tan , Matt Groening , Dave Barry , and Stephen King , and they played for one week during the year. Kingsolver played the keyboard, but is no longer an active member of the band. In

880-1057: A distrust of religious hierarchies , both rooted in the evangelical tendencies of the region's pioneers, many of whom had been influenced by the Holiness movement and " New Light " movement in England. Many of the denominations brought from Europe underwent modifications or factioning during the Second Great Awakening (especially the Holiness movement) in the early 19th century. Several 18th and 19th-century religious traditions are still practiced in parts of Appalachia, including natural water (or "creek") baptism , rhythmically chanted preaching, congregational shouting, snake handling , and foot washing . While most church-goers in Appalachia attend fairly well-organized churches affiliated with regional or national bodies, small unaffiliated congregations are not uncommon in rural mountain areas. Protestantism

990-613: A majority of southern Appalachians still supported the Union. Though with opposition by Southern Unionist , middle and southern Appalachia became components of the Confederacy . In 1861, a Minnesota newspaper identified 161 counties in southern Appalachia—which the paper called "Alleghenia"—where Union support remained strong, and which might provide crucial support for the defeat of the Confederacy. However, many of these Unionists—especially in

1100-526: A movement among conservationists to preserve what remained and allow the land to "heal". In 1911, Congress passed the Weeks Act , giving the federal government authority to create national forests east of the Mississippi River and control timber harvesting. Regional writers and business interests led a movement to create national parks in the eastern United States similar to Yosemite and Yellowstone in

1210-483: A music scholarship, studying classical piano. She changed her major to biology after realizing that "classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of [them] get to play ' Blue Moon ' in a hotel lobby". Kingsolver was involved in activism on her campus, and took part in protests against the Vietnam War . In 1977, Kingsolver graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Science, and moved to France for

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1320-555: A resurgence in popularity across the country during the American folk music revival of the 1960s, when musicologists such as Mike Seeger , John Cohen , and Ralph Rinzler traveled to remote parts of the region in search of musicians who they thought were unaffected by modern music. Today, dozens of annual music festivals held throughout the region preserve the Appalachian music tradition. Early Appalachian literature typically centered on

1430-490: A significant role in developing the instrumental aspects of Appalachian music, most notably with the introduction of the five-stringed banjo —one of the region's iconic symbols—in the late 18th century. Another instrument known in Appalachian culture was the Appalachian dulcimer which, practically, is a guitar-shaped instrument laid on its side with a flat bottom and the strings plucked in a manner to make alternating notes. In

1540-571: A small percentage of the region's present population, their most notable concentration being the reservation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. The Melungeons , a group of mixed African, European, and Native American ancestry, are scattered across northeastern Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, and southwestern Virginia. According to the American Factfinder 's 2013 data,

1650-461: A village of indigenous peoples near present-day Tallahassee, Florida , whose name they transcribed as Apalchen or Apalachen ( IPA: [aˈpal(a)tʃen] ). The name was altered by the Spanish to Apalache ( Apalachee ) and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north. Pánfilo de Narváez 's expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15, 1528, and applied

1760-562: A year. In 1980, she enrolled in graduate school at the University of Arizona , where she earned a master's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology . In 1985, Kingsolver married Joseph Hoffmann, and gave birth to their daughter Camille in 1987. During the first First Gulf War , she moved with her daughter to Tenerife in the Canary Islands for a year, mostly due to her frustration over America's military involvement. After returning to

1870-524: Is a geographic region located in the central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. In the north, its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountains of New York, continuing south through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Great Smoky Mountains into northern Georgia , Alabama , and Mississippi , with West Virginia near the center, being

1980-553: Is a dialect of Midland American English known as the Southern Midland dialect and is spoken primarily in central and southern Appalachia. The Northern Midland dialect is spoken in the northern parts of the region, while Pittsburgh English (more commonly known as "Pittsburghese") is strongly influenced by the Appalachian dialect. The Southern Appalachian dialect is considered part of the Southern American dialect , although

2090-551: Is captured in works such as Olive Tilford Dargan 's Call Home to the Heart (1932), Agnes Sligh Turnbull 's The Rolling Years (1936), James Still 's The River of Earth (1940), Harriette Simpson Arnow 's The Dollmaker (1954), and Harry Caudill 's Night Comes to the Cumberlands (1962). In the 1970s and 1980s, the rise of authors like Breece D'J Pancake , Dorothy Allison , and Lisa Alther brought greater literary diversity to

2200-463: Is given to a U.S. citizen for a previously unpublished work of fiction that addresses issues of social justice. The Bellwether Prize is awarded in even-numbered years and includes guaranteed major publication and a cash prize of US$ 25,000, fully funded by Kingsolver. She has stated that she wanted to create a literary prize to "encourage writers, publishers, and readers to consider how fiction engages visions of social change and human justice". In May 2011,

2310-693: Is now Appalachia over 16,000 years ago. The earliest discovered site is the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Washington County, Pennsylvania , which some scientists claim is pre- Clovis culture . Several other Archaic period (8000–1000 BC) archaeological sites have been identified in the region, such as the St. Albans site in West Virginia and the Icehouse Bottom site in Tennessee. The presence of Africans in

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2420-703: Is now Kentucky took part in George Rogers Clark 's Illinois campaign . Two years later, a group of Appalachian frontiersmen known as the Overmountain Men routed British forces at the Battle of Kings Mountain after rejecting a call by the British to disarm. After the war, residents throughout the Appalachian backcountry—especially the Monongahela region in western Pennsylvania and antebellum northwestern Virginia (now

2530-403: Is often strongly idealistic and has been called a form of activism. Her characters are frequently written around struggles for social equality, such as the hardships faced by undocumented immigrants, the working poor, and single mothers. Other common themes in her work include the balancing of individuality with the desire to live in a community, and the interaction and conflict between humans and

2640-484: Is pronounced /æpəˈleɪtʃ(i)ə/ , also /æpəˈleɪʃ(i)ə/ , all with a third syllable like "lay". The use of northern pronunciations is controversial to some in the southern region. Despite not being in Appalachia, Appalachian Trail organizations in New England popularized the occasional use of the "sh" sound for the "ch" in northern dialects in the early 20th century. Native American hunter-gatherers first arrived in what

2750-610: Is the largest city by population to be sometimes considered within the Appalachian region. As defined by the 2020 census , the following metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) are sometimes included as part of Appalachia: An estimated 90% of Appalachia's earliest European settlers originated from the Anglo-Scottish border country—namely the English counties of Cumberland , Westmorland , Northumberland, County Durham , Lancashire and Yorkshire , and

2860-494: Is the most dominant denomination in Appalachia, although there is a significant Roman Catholic presence in the northern half of the region and urban areas, such as Pittsburgh and Scranton. The region's early Lowland and Ulster Scot immigrants brought Presbyterianism to Appalachia, eventually organizing into bodies such as the Cumberland Presbyterian Church . English Baptists —most of whom had been influenced by

2970-450: The / æ p ə ˈ l æ tʃ ən z / , and the cultural region of Appalachia is pronounced /ˈæpəˈlætʃ(i)ə/ , both with a third syllable like the "la" in "latch". This pronunciation is favored in the "core" region in the central and southern parts of the Appalachian range. In northern U.S. dialects, the mountains are pronounced / æ p ə ˈ l eɪ tʃ ən z / or / æ p ə ˈ l eɪ ʃ ən z / . The cultural region of Appalachia

3080-574: The Appalachian Regional Commission was created to further alleviate poverty in the region, mainly by diversifying the region's economy and helping to provide better health care and educational opportunities to the region's inhabitants. By 1990, Appalachia had largely joined the economic mainstream but still lagged behind the rest of the nation in most economic indicators. Since Appalachia lacks definite physiographical or topographical boundaries, there has been some disagreement over what

3190-659: The Bosnian War . In 2011, the former "Lifetime Achievement Award" was renamed the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award with a $ 10,000 honorarium. In 2008, Martin Luther King Jr. biographer Taylor Branch joined Studs Terkel and Elie Wiesel as a recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented to him by special guest Edwin C. Moses . The 2008 ceremony

3300-587: The Civil War . While there were two major theaters of operation in the region—namely the Shenandoah Valley and the Chattanooga area—much of the violence was caused by bushwhackers and guerrilla warfare . The northernmost battles of the war were fought in Appalachia with the Battle of Buffington Island and the Battle of Salineville resulting from Morgan's Raid . Large numbers of livestock were killed (grazing

3410-657: The Democratic Republic of Congo (then "the Democratic Republic of Zaire"), the novel is not autobiographical. The novel was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection. The Poisonwood Bible won the National Book Prize of South Africa and was shortlisted for both the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award . Her next novel, published in 2000, was Prodigal Summer , set in southern Appalachia. In 2000, she

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3520-488: The French and Indian War in 1763 lured settlers deeper into the mountains, namely to upper east Tennessee , northwestern North Carolina, upstate South Carolina , and central Kentucky. During the 18th century, enslaved Africans were brought to Appalachia by European settlers of trans-Appalachia Kentucky and the upper Blue Ridge Valley. According to the first census of 1790, more than 3,000 enslaved Africans were transported across

3630-576: The Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983 and 2007's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle , a description of eating locally . She has also been published as a science journalist in periodicals such as Economic Botany on topics such as desert plants and bioresources. In 2000, Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize for Fiction . Named for the bellwether , the literary prize supports writers whose works support positive social change. The award

3740-552: The Manhattan Project and advancements in supercomputing and nuclear power . By the 1950s, poor farming techniques and the loss of jobs to mechanization in the mining industry had left much of central and southern Appalachia poverty-stricken. The lack of jobs also led to widespread difficulties with outmigration. Beginning in the 1930s, federal agencies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority began investing in

3850-752: The PEN American Center announced it would take over administration of the prize, to be known as the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Kingsolver has written novels in both the first-person and third-person narrative styles, and she frequently employs overlapping narratives. Kingsolver often writes about places and situations with which she is familiar; many of her stories are based in places she has lived, such as Central Africa , Arizona , and Appalachia . She has stated that her novels are not autobiographical, although there are often commonalities between her life and her work. Her work

3960-672: The Separate Baptist and Regular Baptist movements—were also common on the Appalachian frontier, and today are represented in the region by groups such as the Free Will Baptists , the Southern Baptists , Missionary Baptists , and "old-time" groups such as the United Baptists and Primitive Baptists . Circuit riders such as Francis Asbury helped spread Methodism to Appalachia in the early 19th century, and today 9.2% of

4070-664: The Upland South , following Protestant Scotch-Irish migrations to the southern and Midwestern United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Upland South region includes the Ozark Plateau in Missouri , Arkansas , and Oklahoma , an area which is not included in the ARC definition. While exploring inland along the northern coast of Florida in 1528, the members of the Narváez expedition , including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca , found

4180-437: The yeoman farmers of Appalachia and their wealthier lowland counterparts continued to grow, especially as the latter dominated most state legislatures. People in Appalachia began to feel slighted over what they considered unfair taxation methods and lack of state funding for improvements (especially for roads). In the northern half of the region, the lowland elites consisted largely of industrial and business interests, whereas in

4290-560: The 1860s and native novelists such as Mary Noailles Murfree . Works such as Rebecca Harding Davis 's Life in the Iron Mills (1861), Emma Bell Miles ' The Spirit of the Mountains (1905), Catherine Marshall's Christy (1912), Horace Kephart 's Our Southern Highlanders (1913) marked a shift in the region's literature from local color to realism. The transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society and its effects on Appalachia

4400-562: The 18th century, Appalachia (then known simply as the "backcountry") began to distinguish itself from its wealthier lowland and coastal neighbors to the east. Frontiersmen often argued with lowland and tidewater elites over taxes, sometimes to the point of armed revolts such as the Regulator Movement (1767–1771) in North Carolina. In 1778, at the height of the American Revolution , backwoodsmen from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and what

4510-515: The 1960s the region had failed to capitalize on any long-term benefits from these two industries. Beginning in the 1930s, the federal government sought to alleviate poverty in the Appalachian region with a series of New Deal initiatives, specifically the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The TVA was responsible for the construction of hydroelectric dams that provide a vast amount of electricity and that support programs for better farming practices, regional planning, and economic development. In 1965,

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4620-435: The 2008 James Beard Foundation Award . Kingsolver returned to novel-writing with The Lacuna , published in 2009. Kingsolver received her first Women's Prize for Fiction for the novel in 2010. The Lacuna won the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction . Flight Behavior was published in 2012. It explores environmental themes and highlights the potential effects of global warming on the monarch butterfly . In 2011, Kingsolver

4730-502: The 21st century. Since 2001, a number of the region's public schools were threatened with loss of funding due to difficulties fulfilling the demands of No Child Left Behind . Appalachian music is one of the best-known manifestations of Appalachian culture. Traditional Appalachian music (called old-time music ) is derived primarily from the English, Irish, and Scottish ballad and fiddle traditions. African-American blues musicians played

4840-536: The ARC's pragmatic definition. The term " Greater Appalachia " was introduced by American journalist Colin Woodard in his 2011 book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America . Sean Trende , senior elections analyst at RealClearPolitics , defines "Greater Appalachia" in his 2012 book The Lost Majority as including both the Appalachian Mountains region and

4950-573: The Appalachian Mountains dates back to the 16th century with the arrival of European colonists. Enslaved Africans were first brought to America during the 16th-century Spanish expeditions to the mountainous regions of the South. In 1526 enslaved Africans were brought to the Pee Dee River region of western North Carolina by Spanish explorer Lucas Vazquez de Ayllõn . Enslaved Africans also accompanied

5060-496: The Appalachian region. Sociologists such as James Brown and Cratis Williams and authors such as Harry Caudill and Michael Harrington brought attention to the region's plight in the 1960s, prompting Congress to create the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1965. The commission's efforts helped to stem the tide of outmigration and diversify the region's economies. Although there have been drastic improvements in

5170-569: The Blue Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee. Although Swedes and Finns formed only a tiny portion of the Appalachian settlers, it was Swedish and Finnish settlers of New Sweden who brought the northern European woodsman skills such as log cabin construction which formed the basis of backwoods Appalachian material culture. Germans were a major pioneer group to migrate to Appalachia, settling mainly in western Pennsylvania and southwest Virginia . Smaller numbers of Germans were also among

5280-550: The Carolinas filled up, immigrants began pushing further and further westward into the Appalachian Mountains. A relatively large proportion of the early backcountry immigrants were Ulster Scots —later known as " Scotch-Irish ", a group mostly originating from southern Scotland and northern England, many of whom had settled in Ulster Ireland prior to migrating to America —who were seeking cheaper land and freedom from prejudice as

5390-483: The Civil War, mandatory education laws and state assistance helped larger communities begin to establish grade schools and high schools. During the same period, many of the region's institutions of higher education were established or greatly expanded. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, service organizations such as Pi Beta Phi and various religious organizations established settlement schools and mission schools in

5500-1155: The Company of Women , Hazard Zones , Gloria , Running , Morgantown , Lyndon Johnson and the Majorettes , Looking Good ) Maurice Manning ( Bucolics , A Companion for Owls ), Anne Shelby ( Appalachian Studies , We Keep a Store ), George Ella Lyon ( Borrowed Children , Don't You Remember? ), Pamela Duncan ( Moon Women , The Big Beautiful ), David Joy ( Where All Light Tends to Go , The Weight of This World ), Chris Offutt ( No Heroes , The Good Brother ), Charles Frazier ( Cold Mountain , Thirteen Moons ), Sharyn McCrumb ( The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter ), Robert Morgan ( Gap Creek ), Jim Wayne Miller ( The Brier Poems ), Gurney Norman ( Divine Right's Trip , Kinfolks ), Ron Rash ( Serena ), Elizabeth Madox Roberts ( The Great Meadow , The Time of Man ), Thomas Wolfe ( Look Homeward Angel , You Can't Go Home Again ), Rachel Carson ( The Sea Around Us , Silent Spring ; Presidential Medal of Freedom ), and Jeannette Walls ( The Glass Castle ). Appalachian literature crosses with

5610-439: The Lowland Scottish counties of Ayrshire , Dumfriesshire, Roxburghshire , Berwickshire and Wigtownshire . Most of these were from families who had been resettled in the Ulster Plantation in northern Ireland in the 17th century, but some came directly from the Anglo-Scottish border region. In America, these people are often grouped under the single name " Scotch-Irish " or "Scots-Irish". Many of these Scots-Irish emigrated to

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5720-409: The Scotch-Irish were looked down upon by other more powerful elements in society. Others included Germans from the Palatinate region and English settlers from the Anglo-Scottish border country. Between 1730 and 1763, immigrants trickled into western Pennsylvania , the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and western Maryland . Thomas Walker's discovery of the Cumberland Gap in 1750 and the end of

5830-413: The Southern Appalachia has a white majority, comprising 84% of the population. African Americans are 7% and Hispanics or Latinos are 6% of the population. Asians and Pacific Islanders are 1.5% of the population. The counties have great differences among themselves, in terms of racial and ethnic diversity. Christianity is the main religion in Appalachia, which is characterized by a sense of independence and

5940-411: The United States "Alleghania" or "Appalachia" in place of "America", since the latter name belonged to Latin America too. Edgar Allan Poe later took up the idea and considered Appalachia a much better name than America or Alleghania; he thought it better defined the United States as a distinct geographical entity, separate from the rest of the Americas, and he also thought it did honor to both Irving and

6050-421: The United States government into areas of science and technology were established in the mid-20th century, notably with NASA 's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, crucial with the design of Apollo program launch vehicles and propulsion of the Space Shuttle program , and at adjacent facilities Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee with

6160-466: The United States in 1992, she separated from her husband. In 1994, Kingsolver was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, DePauw University. That same year, she married Steven Lee Hopp, an ornithologist , and their daughter Lily was born in 1996. In 2004, Kingsolver moved with her family to a farm in Washington County, Virginia . In 2008, she received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Duke University , where she delivered

6270-431: The Whig Party had disintegrated. Sentiments in northern Appalachia had shifted to the pro- abolitionist Republican Party . In southern Appalachia, abolitionists still constituted a radical minority, although several smaller opposition parties (most of which were both pro- Union and pro-slavery) were formed to oppose the planter-dominated Southern Democrats . As states in the southern United States moved toward secession ,

6380-523: The commission was established, counties were added based on economic need, however, rather than any cultural parameters. The first major attempt to map Appalachia as a distinctive cultural region came in the 1890s with the efforts of Berea College president William Goodell Frost , whose "Appalachian America" included 194 counties in 8 states. In 1921, John C. Campbell published The Southern Highlander and His Homeland in which he modified Frost's map to include 254 counties in 9 states. A landmark survey of

6490-409: The ecosystems in which they live. Kingsolver has been said to use prose and engaging narratives to make historical events, such as the Congo's struggles for independence, more interesting and engaging for the average reader. Dayton Literary Peace Prize The Dayton Literary Peace Prize is an annual United States literary award "recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace" that

6600-418: The effects of the opioid crisis on the region's families. In 2023, Demon Copperhead received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction alongside Hernan Diaz 's Trust , the first time the award was shared in its history. Kingsolver is also a published poet and essayist. Two of her essay collections, High Tide in Tucson (1995) and Small Wonder (2003), have been published, and an anthology of her poetry

6710-494: The end of Reconstruction . Pittsburgh as well as Knoxville grew into major industrial centers, especially regarding iron and steel production. By 1900, the Chattanooga area of north Georgia and northern Alabama had experienced similar changes with manufacturing booms in Atlanta and Birmingham at the edge of the Appalachian region. Railroad construction gave the greater nation access to the vast coalfields in central Appalachia, making its economy greatly dependent on coal mining. As

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6820-419: The expeditions of Fernando de Soto in 1540 and Juan Pardo in 1566, who both traveled through Appalachia. The de Soto and Pardo expeditions explored the mountains of South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia, and encountered complex agrarian societies consisting of Muskogean-speaking inhabitants. De Soto indicated that much of the region west of the mountains was part of the domain of Coosa ,

6930-406: The feuds as the natural products of profound ignorance, poverty, and isolation, and perhaps even inbreeding . In reality, the leading participants were typically well-to-do local elites with networks of clients who, like the Northeast and Chicago political machines , fought for their power over local and regional politics. Logging firms' rapid devastation of the forests of the Appalachians sparked

7040-589: The habitats of native species and contributed significantly to the decline in agricultural land use in larger Appalachia. There are growing IT sectors in many parts of the region. Frontier , the fastest supercomputer in the world, is housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In the 21st century, Appalachia has swung heavily towards the Republican Party . Due to topographic considerations, several major cities are located near but not included in Appalachia. These include Cincinnati , Ohio, Cleveland , Ohio, Nashville, Tennessee , and Atlanta , Georgia. Pittsburgh

7150-449: The initial wave of migrants to the southern mountains. The initial wave of Appalachian ethnography and anthropology in the first half of the 20th century disregarded this German culture, instead choosing to focus almost solely on the Scots-Irish component of Appalachian culture. This was likely due to Germanophobia caused by the two World Wars, and has since begun to be corrected. In the 19th century, Welsh immigrants were brought into

7260-464: The initiative failed after Tennessee's governor ordered the Confederate Army to occupy the region, forcing East Tennessee's Unionists to flee to the north or go into hiding. The one exception was the so-called Free and Independent State of Scott , though it was never recognized by either the Union or the Confederacy and thus would later be invaded by Confederates. Both central and southern Appalachia suffered tremendous violence and turmoil during

7370-518: The larger genre of Southern literature . Internationally renowned writers such as William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy have made notable contributions to the American canon with tales set within Appalachia. McCarthy's Suttree (1979) is an intense vision of the squalidness and brutality of life along the Tennessee River , in the heart of Appalachia. Other McCarthy novels set in Appalachia include The Orchard Keeper (1965), Outer Dark (1968), and Child of God (1973). Appalachia also serves as

7480-479: The mid-1980s as a science writer for the University of Arizona, which eventually led to freelance feature writing, including many cover stories for the local alternative weekly, the Tucson Weekly . She began her career in fiction writing after winning a short-story contest in a local Phoenix newspaper. Kingsolver's first novel, The Bean Trees , was published in 1988, and told the story of a young woman who leaves Kentucky for Arizona, adopting an abandoned child along

7590-524: The mountain areas of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama—were "conditional" Unionists in that they opposed secession but also opposed violence to prevent secession, and thus when their respective state legislatures voted to secede, some would either shift their support to the Confederacy, or flee the state. Kentucky sought to remain neutral at the outset of the conflict, opting not to supply troops to either side. After Virginia voted to secede, several mountain counties in northwestern Virginia rejected

7700-461: The mountains into East Tennessee and more than 12,000 into the Kentucky mountains. Between 1790 and 1840, a series of treaties with the Cherokee and other Native American tribes opened up lands in north Georgia , north Alabama , the Tennessee Valley , the Cumberland Plateau , and the Great Smoky Mountains . The last of these treaties culminated in the removal of the bulk of the Cherokee population (as well as Choctaw , Chickasaw and others) from

7810-418: The name. Now spelled "Appalachian", it is the fourth oldest surviving European place-name in the U.S. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the Appalachian Mountain range. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutiérrez 's 1562 map; the first use for the mountain range is the 1565 map by Jacques le Moyne de Morgues . Le Moyne

7920-540: The nationwide demand for lumber skyrocketed, lumber firms turned to the virgin forests of southern Appalachia, using sawmill and logging railroad innovations to reach remote timber stands. The Tri-Cities area of Tennessee and Virginia and the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia became major petrochemical production centers. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw the development of various regional stereotypes. Attempts by President Rutherford B. Hayes to enforce

8030-430: The natives after whom the Appalachian Mountains had been named. At the time, however, the United States had already reached far beyond the greater Appalachian region, but the "magnificence" of Appalachia Poe considered enough to rechristen the nation with a name that would be unique to its character. However, Poe's popular influence only grew decades after his death, and so the name was never seriously considered. By 1860,

8140-577: The north-central part of West Virginia)—refused to pay a tax placed on whiskey by the new American government, leading to what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion . The resulting tighter federal controls in the Monongahela valley resulted in many whiskey/bourbon makers migrating via the Ohio River to Kentucky and Tennessee where the industry could flourish. In the early 19th century, the rift between

8250-561: The observations of people from outside the region, such as Henry Timberlake 's Memoirs (1765) and Thomas Jefferson 's Notes on the State of Virginia (1784), although there are notable exceptions, including Davy Crockett 's A Narrative of the Life of Davy Crockett (1834). Travellers' accounts published in 19th-century magazines gave rise to Appalachian local color , which reached its height with George Washington Harris 's Sut Lovingood character of

8360-447: The only state entirely within the boundaries of Appalachia. In 2021, the region was home to an estimated 26.3 million people. Since its recognition as a cultural region in the late 19th century, Appalachia has been a source of enduring myths and distortions regarding the isolation, temperament, and behavior of its inhabitants. Early 20th-century writers often engaged in yellow journalism focused on sensationalistic aspects of

8470-639: The ordinance and with the help of the Union Army established a separate state, admitted to the Union as West Virginia in 1863. However, half the counties included in the new state, comprising two-thirds of its territory, were secessionist and pro-Confederate. This caused great difficulty for the Unionist state government in Wheeling , both during and after the war. A similar effort occurred in East Tennessee. Still,

8580-506: The parts of the region south of the Mason–Dixon line , the lowland elites consisted of large-scale land-owning planters . The Whig Party , formed in the 1830s, drew widespread support from disaffected Appalachians. Tensions between the mountain counties and state governments sometimes reached the point of mountain counties threatening to break off and form separate states. In 1832, bickering between western Virginia and eastern Virginia over

8690-1301: The region encompasses. The most commonly used modern definition of Appalachia is the one initially defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) in 1965 and expanded over subsequent decades. The region defined by the commission currently includes 420 counties and eight independent cities in 13 states, including all 55 counties in West Virginia , 14 counties in New York, 52 in Pennsylvania , 32 in Ohio , 3 in Maryland , 54 in Kentucky , 25 counties and 8 cities in Virginia , 29 in North Carolina , 52 in Tennessee , 6 in South Carolina , 37 in Georgia , 37 in Alabama , and 24 in Mississippi . When

8800-542: The region for their mining and metallurgical expertise, and by 1900 over 100,000 Welsh immigrants were living in western Pennsylvania alone. Thousands of German-speaking Swiss migrated to Appalachia in the second half of the 19th century, and their descendants remain in places such as East Bernstadt, Kentucky , and Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee . The coal mining and manufacturing boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought large numbers of Italians and Eastern Europeans to Appalachia, although most of these families left

8910-573: The region in modern-day New York state and Pennsylvania. By the mid-18th century the French had outposts such as Fort Duquesne and Fort Le Boeuf controlling the access points of the Allegheny River and upper Ohio River valleys after exploration by Celeron de Bienville . European migration into Appalachia began in the 18th century. As lands in eastern Pennsylvania, the Tidewater region of Virginia and

9020-603: The region in the following decade by the United States Department of Agriculture defined the region as consisting of 206 counties in 6 states. In 1984, Karl Raitz and Richard Ulack expanded the ARC's definition to include 445 counties in 13 states, although they removed all counties in Mississippi and added two in New Jersey . Historian John Alexander Williams, in his 2002 book Appalachia: A History , distinguished between

9130-794: The region to believe they were more widespread than in reality. In an 1899 article in The Atlantic , Berea College president William G. Frost attempted to redefine the inhabitants of Appalachia as "noble mountaineers"—relics of the nation's pioneer period whose isolation had left them unaffected by modern times. Entering the 21st century, residents of Appalachia are viewed by many Americans as uneducated and unrefined, resulting in culture-based stereotyping and discrimination in many areas, including employment and housing. Such discrimination has prompted some to seek redress under prevailing federal and state civil rights laws. Appalachia, and especially Kentucky, became nationally known for its violent feuds in

9240-457: The region via the Trail of Tears in the 1830s. Appalachian frontiersmen have long been romanticized for their ruggedness and self-sufficiency. A typical depiction of an Appalachian pioneer involves a hunter wearing a coonskin cap and buckskin clothing , and sporting a long rifle and shoulder-strapped powder horn . Perhaps no single figure symbolizes the Appalachian pioneer more than Daniel Boone ,

9350-546: The region when the Great Depression shattered the economy in the 1930s. African Americans have been present in the region since the 18th century, and currently make up 8% of the ARC-designated region, mostly concentrated in urban areas and former mining and manufacturing towns; The African-American component of Appalachia is sometimes termed Affrilachia . Native Americans, the region's original inhabitants, are now only

9460-501: The region's culture, such as moonshining and clan feuding , portraying the region's inhabitants as uneducated and unrefined; although these stereotypes still exist to a lesser extent today, sociology studies have since begun to dispel them. While endowed with abundant natural resources, Appalachia has long struggled economically and has been associated with poverty. In the early 20th century, large-scale logging and coal mining firms brought jobs and modern amenities to Appalachia, but by

9570-463: The region's economic conditions since the commission's founding, the ARC listed 80 counties as "distressed" in 2020, with nearly half of them (38) in Kentucky. Since the 1980s, population growth in southern Appalachia has brought about concerns of farmland loss and hazards to the local environment. Regarding housing development, exurban development , characterized by its low-density housing, has violated

9680-524: The region's history, education in Appalachia has lagged behind the rest of the nation due in part to struggles with funding from respective state governments and an agrarian-oriented population that often did not see a practical need for formal education. Early education in the region evolved from teaching Christian morality and learning to read the Bible in small, one-room schoolhouses that convened in months when children were not needed to help with farm work. After

9790-525: The region's more rural areas. In the 20th century, national trends began to have more of an effect on education in Appalachia, sometimes clashing with the region's traditional values. The Scopes Trial —the nation's most publicized debate over the teaching of the theory of evolution —took place in Dayton, Tennessee , in southern Appalachia in 1925. Despite consolidation and centralization, schools in Appalachia struggled to keep up with federal and state demands into

9900-760: The region's population is Methodist, represented by such bodies as the United Methodist Church , the Free Methodist Church , and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church . Pentecostal movements within the region include the Church of God (based in Cleveland, Tennessee ) and the Assemblies of God . Scattered Mennonite colonies exist throughout the region. The Appalachian dialect

10010-722: The region. Along with the above-mentioned, some of Appalachia's best known writers include James Agee ( A Death in the Family ), Anne W. Armstrong ( This Day and Time ), Wendell Berry ( Hannah Coulter , The Unforeseen Wilderness: An Essay on Kentucky's Red River Gorge , Selected Poems of Wendell Berry ), Jesse Stuart ( Taps for Private Tussie , The Thread That Runs So True ), Denise Giardina ( The Unquiet Earth , Storming Heaven ), Lee Smith ( Fair and Tender Ladies , On Agate Hill ), Silas House ( Clay's Quilt , A Parchment of Leaves ), Wilma Dykeman ( The Far Family , The Tall Woman ), Keith Maillard ( Alex Driving South , Light in

10120-496: The remote mountain districts. They pitted the men in extended clans against each other for decades, often using assassination and arson as weapons, along with ambushes , gunfights , and pre-arranged shootouts . The infamous Hatfield-McCoy Feud was the best-known of these family feuds. Some of the feuds were continuations of violent local Civil War episodes. Journalists often wrote about the violence, using stereotypes that "city folks" had developed about Appalachia; they interpreted

10230-465: The rest from their neighbors and other local farmers. Kingsolver, her husband, and her elder daughter chronicled their experiences of that year in the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life , published in 2007. Although exceptions were made for staple ingredients not available locally, such as coffee and olive oil , the family grew vegetables, raised livestock, made cheese, and preserved much of their harvest. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle won

10340-498: The scene saying, 'Boys! Boys! Who started it cannot possibly be the issue here. People are getting hurt. ' " By some accounts, she was "denounced as a traitor," but rebounded from these accusations and later wrote about them. Starting in April 2005, Kingsolver and her family spent a year making every effort to eat food produced as locally as possible. Living on their farm in rural Virginia, they grew much of their own food and obtained most of

10450-525: The sequel to The Bean Trees , in 1993. Every book that Kingsolver has written since Pigs in Heaven has been on The New York Times Best Seller list. The Poisonwood Bible , published in 1998, is one of her best-known works; it chronicles the lives of the wife and daughters of a Baptist missionary on a Christian mission in Africa. Although the setting of the novel is somewhat similar to Kingsolver's own childhood in

10560-578: The state's constitution led to calls on both sides for the state's separation into two states. In 1841, Tennessee state senator (and later U.S. president) Andrew Johnson introduced legislation in the Tennessee Senate calling for the creation of a separate state in East Tennessee. The proposed state would have been known as " Frankland " and would have invited like-minded mountain counties in Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama to join it. In 1839 Washington Irving proposed to rename

10670-424: The two are distinguished by the rhotic nature of the Appalachian dialect. Early 20th-century writers believed the Appalachian dialect to be a surviving relic of Old World Scottish or Elizabethan dialects. Recent research suggests, however, that while the dialect has a stronger Scottish influence than other American dialects, most of its distinguishing characteristics have developed in the United States. For much of

10780-424: The way; she wrote it at night while pregnant with her first child and struggling with insomnia. Her next work of fiction, published in 1990, was Homeland and Other Stories , a collection of short stories on a variety of topics exploring various themes from the evolution of cultural and ancestral lands to the struggles of marriage. The novel Animal Dreams was also published in 1990, followed by Pigs in Heaven ,

10890-557: The west, culminating in the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park , Shenandoah National Park , Cumberland Gap National Historical Park , and the Blue Ridge Parkway in the 1930s. During the same period, New England forester Benton MacKaye led the movement to build the 2,175-mile (3,500 km) Appalachian Trail, stretching from Georgia to Maine . Several significant moments of investment by

11000-749: The whiskey tax in the late 1870s led to an explosion in violence between Appalachian " moonshiners " and federal "revenuers" that lasted through the Prohibition period in the 1920s. The breakdown of authority and law enforcement during the Civil War may have contributed to an increase in clan feuding, which by the 1880s was reported to be a problem across most of Kentucky's Cumberland region as well as Carter County, Tennessee ; Carroll County, Virginia ; and Mingo and Logan counties in West Virginia. Regional writers from this period such as Mary Noailles Murfree and Horace Kephart liked to focus on such sensational aspects of mountain culture, leading readers outside

11110-475: The years following World War I, British folklorist Cecil Sharp brought attention to Southern Appalachia when he noted that its inhabitants still sang hundreds of English and Scottish ballads that had been passed down to them from their ancestors. Commercial recordings of Appalachian musicians in the 1920s (such as the famous 1927 Bristol sessions ) would have a significant impact on the development of country music and bluegrass . Traditional Appalachian music saw

11220-421: Was also the first European to apply "Apalachen" specifically to a mountain range as opposed to a village, native tribe, or a southeastern region of North America. The name was not commonly used for the whole mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the " Allegheny Mountains ", "Alleghenies", and even "Alleghania". In southern U.S. dialects, the mountains are called

11330-512: Was an important part of Appalachia's economy), and numerous farms were destroyed, pillaged, or neglected. The actions of both Union and Confederate armies left many inhabitants in the region resentful of government authority and suspicious of outsiders for decades after the war. After the Civil War, northern Appalachia experienced an economic boom. At the same time, economies in the southern region stagnated, especially as Southern Democrats regained control of their respective state legislatures at

11440-665: Was awarded the National Humanities Medal by the U.S. President Bill Clinton . Kingsolver wrote a Los Angeles Times opinion piece following the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks , which received widespread criticism for conflating innocent Afghans with the Taliban regime. She wrote, "I feel like I'm standing on a playground where the little boys are all screaming at each other, 'He started it!' and throwing rocks that keep taking out another eye, another tooth. I keep looking around for somebody's mother to come on

11550-617: Was born in 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland , the daughter of Wendell Roy Kingsolver and Virginia Lee (née Henry) Kingsolver, but grew up in Carlisle, Kentucky . When Kingsolver was seven, her father, a physician, took the family to Léopoldville , Congo (now Kinshasa , Democratic Republic of the Congo ). After graduating from high school, Kingsolver attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana , on

11660-479: Was first awarded in 2006. Awards are given for adult fiction and non-fiction books published at some point within the immediate past year that have led readers to a better understanding of other peoples, cultures, religions, and political views, with the winner in each category receiving a cash prize of $ 10,000. The award is an offshoot of the Dayton Peace Prize, which grew out of the 1995 peace accords ending

11770-572: Was held in Dayton, Ohio , on September 28, 2008. Nick Clooney , who hosted the ceremony in 2007, again served as the evening's host in 2008 and 2009. The 2009 ceremony was held in Dayton, Ohio, on November 8, 2009, at which married authors and journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award. Appalachia Appalachia (locally / ˌ æ p ə ˈ l æ tʃ ə / , elsewhere also /- l eɪ tʃ ə , - l eɪ ʃ ə / )

11880-517: Was published in 1998 under the title Another America . Her essay "Where to Begin" appears in the anthology Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting (2013), published by W. W. Norton & Company . Her prose poetry also accompanied photographs by Annie Griffiths Belt in a 2002 work titled Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands . Her major nonfiction works include her 1990 publication Holding the Line: Women in

11990-510: Was raised in rural Kentucky , lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood, and she currently lives in Appalachia . Kingsolver earned degrees in biology, ecology , and evolutionary biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona , and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. In 2000, the politically progressive Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize to support "literature of social change". Kingsolver

12100-687: Was the first ever recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. The newly named award to celebrate the U.S. diplomat who played an instrumental role in negotiating the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. In 2014, Kingsolver was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Library of Virginia . The award recognizes outstanding and long-lasting contributions to literature by

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