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A three-part television special on the history of the people and the
land of Appalachia, with a companion CD and book.
The Appalachia region includes all of West Virginia and parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. This large land mass incorporates 397 counties in 13 states, covers a total of 195,000 square miles with over 23 million people and is arguably the least understood and most under-appreciated culture in America. Appalachia has existed for generations as a region apart, isolated physically and culturally by its impenetrable mountains. Appalachia is a land of contradictions: rich in mineral resources yet economically poor; exploited yet underdeveloped, scarred yet beautiful. The perception of the region is also one of great contradictions. During the 1800s there was a major discovery of Appalachia by local color writers and journalists of the day. The region was initially described in terms of romantic wonder. However, by the mid 1890s it was more entertaining to create the stereotypes of mountain people as hopeless, stupid people that were proud of their heritage; desperate folks that proved to be industrious; and noble first-generation frontier people that were seen as ignorant and degenerate.
These contradictory stereotypes have grown to be perceived as fact through American fiction and mass media. While media programs like The Beverly Hillbillies, the film Deliverance, and the Lil' Abner comic have been enormously popular, they have only galvanized the false and negative view of people from Appalachia. The stereotypes of a backward and poor "hillbilly" folk have long been overplayed with complex economic and social consequences while the remarkable history of the beautiful, abundant land and courageous people has not been told. The mountain peoples have been closely tied to the nation's economic fate, including the roller coaster cycles of boom and bust with coal, timber, and steel. The cultural fabric of the nation has been deeply interwoven with the music, literature, folklore, and art of the mountain people.
Socially and politically, the Appalachians have played an important part in the nation's history from the isolation of the first frontier to the bitter divide of the Civil War, from the union wars to the Great Depression, and from the Civil Rights movement to the War on Poverty. The Appalachians is a special television event
that will present a comprehensive, coherent and dramatically human
historical and cultural overview of this distinctive region. This
three-hour television special will document the unique legacy, courage,
character, arts and culture of the central and southern Appalachian
people.
Following a historical chronology, the narrative thread will feature the human voices of this mountain region through filmed interviews, journals, and letters of common people; the writers, poets, scholars, and historians; the artisans and the haunting music that have evolved with the culture. This is a portrait framed with truth, passion, and respect for the Native Americans and the people who came to this land from Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Africa, Mexico, and virtually every other nation. The people of Appalachia often don't know their own history except for the family stories that have been passed down over the generations. Certainly, popular media culture has not accurately explored the story of the people. Even current documentaries such as American Holler (HBO) have tended to focus solely on economically depressed and uneducated people without placing their story in the context of the history of the region or addressing other viable segments of the culture. The Appalachians is the definitive program on this region and will provide a fresh perspective on this rich part of American heritage. Past and present are linked with a passionate and intimately personal portrait of the land and people in a powerful, entertaining, and enlightening showcase of a culture that is still alive and vital today. It is the story of perhaps the most diverse culture in America in the process of reinventing itself. It is the story of a people whose legacy has been ignored by mass media. Photo © Charles Connor
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The Appalachian Mountains were America's "first frontier" and the people that settled this land were some of the country's first immigrants. These ethnically diverse people played a profound, and often overlooked, part in the nation's history and its cultural and economic development.