| As American industrialization gained momentum in the second half of the nineteenth century, new sources of energy were sought to sustain industrial growth and transformation. The once-isolated mountains of central Appalachia, rich in natural resources such as coal and timber, were entered after 1880 by industrialists eager to appropriate the region's natural wealth. Mountaineers, mostly small-scale farmers, suddenly found themselves neighbors to coal towns, lumber camps, and railroad tracks. Industrialists were accompanied, moreover, by local-color writers, missionaries, educators, and others who were intent on tapping the region's human resources. This dissertation explores the penetration of one region of Appalachia, Southwest Virginia, and examines the establishment of a coal economy in the region by outside capitalists, the reactions of mountaineers to industrialization, and the experiences of European immigrants, Southern blacks, and white miners from other regions who migrated to Southwest Virginia to work in the coal mines. The study begins in the 1880s, when coal operators first began to explore the potential of the region, and closes after World War I, by which time the initial phase of development in the mountains was over.;Mountaineers and miners have traditionally been viewed as victims of Appalachian industrialization, the one robbed of his homeland and forced to enter an industrial wage system, the other housed in makeshift towns where personal freedom was curtailed, and employed in a job that was considered one of the most dangerous in America. But this study concludes that mountaineers and miners in Southwest Virginia retained a measure of autonomy and power, both preserving traditional customs as well as adopting newer opportunities for their own benefit. Mountaineers, despite the colonizing efforts of economic developers, actually remained on the periphery of Appalachian industrialization. Many were able to choose when and where, and even if, to connect with the forces of transformation. Miners, by relying on bonds of solidarity, within separate racial and ethnic entities, and by exploiting the constant labor shortage in the region, were able to maintain a degree of independence and power within the coal towns. But the relative autonomy enjoyed by mountaineers and miners in Southwest Virginia was ultimately located within the bounds of a social and economic system controlled by the coal industry. The racial and ethnic bonds that nurtured miners ironically hindered the formation of class attitudes that might have pushed more forcefully against those boundaries. Mountaineers and miners were therefore more than simply victims of an oppressive industrial system, but their autonomy had limits. |
