Quotes from Steven Stoll

They meant that a people who used common lands for common uses lived within a deviant economic culture.

Hill-Billie was threatening for being free from hierarchy and unassimilated into Atlantic capitalism.

My daddy was a coal miner, and I understand being out of work, okay? I've been down that road myself. And I know you've got to provide for your family. But I'm saying they're only giving us two options. They're saying, "Either starve—or destroy West Virginia." And surely to God there must be another option.31

Jacqueline Jones argues, "Race signifies neither a biological fact, nor a primal prejudice, and it lacks the coherence of a robust political ideology; rather, it is a collection of fluid, contingent mythologies borne of (among other imperatives) fighting a war, assembling a labor force, advancing the designs of demagogues, organizing a labor union, and preserving voting and public schooling as privileges reserved for some, rather than as rights shared by all.

The mountains made travel difficult much of the year and at times impossible. But industry had no trouble finding what it wanted and removing it. Corporations lay track into thousands of hollows and pulled billions of dollars in lumber and coal from the region over the following century. Still, those searching for the causes of poverty in Appalachia—throughout the twentieth century and even today—blame its isolation.

Historical events never have simple or obvious implications. Some people thrived by using the very instruments intended to dispossess them.