Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads, Deforestation, and Social Change in West Virginia, 1880-1920
368
Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads, Deforestation, and Social Change in West Virginia, 1880-1920
368eBook
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Overview
Virginia provides an ideal site for studying the broader social impact of deforestation in Appalachia, the South, and the eastern United States.
Most of West Virginia was still dominated by a backcountry economy when the industrial transition began. In short order, however, railroads linked remote mountain settlements directly to
national markets, hauling away forest products and returning with manufactured goods and modern ideas. Workers from the countryside and abroad swelled new mill towns, and merchants ventured into
the mountains to fulfill the needs of the growing population. To protect their massive investments, capitalists increasingly extended control over the state's legal and political systems.
Eventually, though, even ardent supporters of industrialization had reason to contemplate the consequences of unregulated exploitation. Once the timber was gone, the mills closed and the railroads pulled up their tracks, leaving behind an environmental disaster and a new class of marginalized rural poor to confront the worst depression in American history.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780807862971 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The University of North Carolina Press |
| Publication date: | 11/09/2000 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Lexile: | 1620L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 5 MB |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Virgin Forest and the Backcounty Economy
2. The Touch of Capital: Railroads, Timber, and Economic Development of the Backcounties
3. Land, Capital, and Timber Operations at the Periphery
4. Making Capital Secure: Law and the Industrial Transformation of West Virginia
5. Workers in the Woods
6. Ethnicity, Exploitation, and Social Conflict
7. Connecting the Periphery: Commercialization of the Countryside
8. "New Men" versus the "Old Men": Political Economy and the County Seat Wars
9. The Market Revolution and the Decline of Agriculture
10. If Trees Could Cuss: Environmental Destruction and the Beginnings of Restoration
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Virgin spruce forest at headwaters of Cherry River, Greenbrier County, 1912 Maps and Figures Maps Figures
Log raft and ark on the Guyandotte River, Lincoln County, ca. 1900
Log jam on the Elk River near Sutton, Braxton County, 1898
Arks and crew of log drivers tied up along the Greenbrier River near Cass, Pocahontas County, 1898
Clearing the forest to build Davis, Tucker County, 1883
Panorama of Davis, Tucker County, ca. 1909
Babcock Lumber Company, Davis, Tucker County, 1909
New Court: Justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, 1889-1909
Moment of relaxation in a woods camp, probably Randolph County, ca. 1900
Woods crew near Bartow, Pocahontas County, ca. 1910
Snaking logs near Bayard, Grant County, 1903
A giant of theforest, Nicholas County, ca. 1920
Felled white oak, Nicholas County, 1914
Shay engine and log loader in woods
Steam skidder logging out the Blackwater River Canyon, Tucker County, ca. 1910
Log train near Dobbin, Grant County, ca. 1910
Wreck of the Lucy Belle near Lokelia, Pocahontas County
Unloading logs at Horton, Randolph County
Standard mill pond and jack ladder to the mill
Family at a portable camp near Helvetia, Randolph County, 1900
African American and Italian immigrant track crew near Cass, Pocahontas County
The Star Restaurant, Whitmer, Randolph County, ca. 1910
Thaddeus M. Fowler's rendering of Parsons, Tucker County, 1905
Placing county records in a temporary courthouse in Parsons, Tucker County, 1893
Thaddeus M. Fowler's rendering of Elkins, Randolph County, 1897
Destruction of vegetation and soil by fires in the Canaan Valley, 1912
Deforestated rim of Blackwater River Canyon, Tucker County, ca. 1910
Deforestation and logging roads in Blackwater River Canyon accelerated erosion, ca. 1910
Trench on Meadow River Lumber Company lands, probably Greenbrier County
Morgantown residents walked across the Monongahela River bed, 1930
1. Distribution of forests in West Virginia, 1882
2. Major railroads in West Virginia, 1917
3. Railroads and backcounties in West Virginia, 1917
4. West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railroad during the county seat wars
1. West Virginia Lumber Mills, 1904-1920: Mills Reporting
2. West Virginia Timber Production: Ten-Year Pattern
What People are Saying About This
A major scholar of Appalachian history has brought together, synthesized and made sense of much of the debate and literature that have characterized the field of Appalachian history for the past two decades. . . . A very fine book that will be of enormous use to Appalachian historians in the future.—Journal of Social History
Lewis's superb study of the logging industry in West Virginia . . . provides the best account yet of how industrialization transformed the Appalachian forests at the turn of the century.—Journal of American History
An important contribution to the growing body of scholarly writing that has been revising the idea of Appalachian exceptionalism for the past decade. . . . Will help banish forever the persistent social construct of a people and region somehow set apart from the major developmental currents of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century industrial capitalism. . . . Meticulously researched, well written, and enhanced by dozens of poignant photographs. It is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on the dynamism of a rural-industrial society historically dismissed as static.—Journal of Southern History
The most important recent book on Appalachian society. . . . Lewis's book stands virtually alone.—American Historical Review
A thorough and detailed account of the emergence, florescence, and decline of the timber industry in West Virginia, in particular in five of the state's Allegheny Highland counties.—Environmental History
A very useful book that will be of great value to historians of agriculture, but also to those interested in the history of American environment, politics, law, and Appalachia.—Agricultural History Journal
The story of the deforestation of the mountains is a drama of monumental tragedy and waste. In Lewis's hands that story comes alive with meaning for Appalachia today. . . . A book that everyone interested in the process of development in the mountains should read—and read again.—Journal of Appalachian Studies
"A moving book that deserves reading by environmentalists, sociologists, social, agricultural, and economic historians, and those with interests in southern Americana.—Choice
A skillful blend of economic, legal, and social history, this is the most complete study to date of the impact of human institutions on the Appalachian environment.—Timothy Silver, Appalachian State University
Carefully scrutinizing the actions of all those involved—from the most savvy railroad executive to the toughest 'wood hick' logger—Lewis unravels the complex legal, social, and economic relationships that led to the destruction of West Virginia's forests. This is, to date, the most complete study of the impact of humans and their institutions on the Appalachian environment.—Timothy Silver, Appalachian State University