Appalachia 
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SOURCE: Hedgehog Review
4/10/2020
Left Behind: The Trouble with Euphemism
by Nancy Isenberg
A historian of white rural poverty says that the cultural phenomenon of JD Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy" is just the latest deployment of the "left behind" euphemism to obscure the nature of poverty in the United States. The rural poor are and have been part and parcel of the American economic order.
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SOURCE: Folklife
3/1/2021
“Making a Living by the Sweat of Her Brow”: Hazel Dickens and a Life of Work
by Emily Hilliard
"Hazel’s song catalog is often divided into separate categories of personal songs, women’s songs, and labor songs. But in her view and experience, these issues all bled together; her songs address struggle against any form of domination and oppression, whether of women, workers, or herself."
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SOURCE: New York Times
2/8/2021
West Virginia Has Everyone’s Attention. What Does It Really Need?
by Emily Badger
The influence of Senator Joe Manchin in Washington has fueled speculation about federal aid to depressed communities in the Mountaineer State. But historians like William Hal Gorby and in-state activists say that there will be no quick fixes.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/30/2021
The Real Meaning of Hillbilly
The work of historian Chuck Keeney is critical to recovering the radicalism of Appalachian miners and a "redneck" identity that is based in struggles for equality and shared dignity instead of reactionary individualism, says writer Abby Lee Hood.
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SOURCE: Vox
11/10/2020
Everything About Netflix’s Hillbilly Elegy Movie Is Awful (Review)
"It strips out Vance’s sociopolitical commentary entirely, which, however you feel about the commentary, leaves the story without an all-important ingredient: a political and sociological point."
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SOURCE: Black Perspectives
8/12/2020
Unearthing New Histories of Black Appalachia (Review)
by Jillean McCommons
Tension between Black and white memory of the founding of Liberia, South Carolina drives John M. Coggeshall’s study, which adds significant insight to the history of Black Appalachia.
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SOURCE: Black Perspectives
6/16/2020
Appalachian Hillsides as Black Ecologies: Housing, Memory, and The Sanctified Hill Disaster of 1972
by Jillean McCommons
The Sanctified Hill disaster exposed the vulnerability of Black people to climate events due to a combination of placement and neglect.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
5/18/2020
You Don't Have to Choose Between Jobs and Safety. Just Ask West Virginia
We can guarantee economic security and keep every working family safe, paid for by an end to grotesque wealth inequality. Here’s how.
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SOURCE: Associated Press
5/18/2020
‘Matewan Massacre’ A Century Ago Embodied Miners’ Struggles
Historian Lou Martin, a board member of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, recounts the oppressive atmosphere in mining towns that led to a violently repressed unionization drive.
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5/10/2020
60 Years Ago, West Virginia Helped Make JFK President
by Robert Rupp
JFK's diligent campaigning in West Virginian in 1960 overcame the state's suspicion of his Catholic faith and later put Appalachia on the nation's policy agenda.
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SOURCE: Pacific Standard
1/16/19
Jessica Wilkerson: If We Forget Appalachia's Radical History, We Will Misunderstand Its Future
In her new book, Jessica Wilkerson tells the stories of the radical mountain women who fought against bosses and laid the groundwork for ensuing generations of Appalachian resistance.
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SOURCE: The Activist History Review
4-25-18
This is what happened when a historian with a rural background wrote favorably about gun control in the Washington Post
by Nathan Wuertenberg
He was subjected to anti-Semitic diatribes from people who denied he represented rural America.
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SOURCE: WSP
2-12-18
RFK's visit to Appalachia, 50 years later: How Kennedy country became Trump country
Children of Kennedy Democrats are Trump Republicans. And for those inspired by RFK in 1968, what should be a happy anniversary is instead an occasion to puzzle a drastic reversal of political fortune.
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SOURCE: New Republic
2-6-18
The Truth About Appalachia
A conversation with historian Elizabeth Catte, author of a new book that upends narratives about a region that has been dubbed Trump Country
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SOURCE: NPR
1-31-18
Historian Makes Case For "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia" In New Book
Historian Elizabeth Catte takes on J.D. Vance's memoir "Hillbilly Elegy."
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