Bibliography
This bibliography includes the major works referenced throughout The History of Appalachia: Mountains, People, and Power, organized by topic. It is not exhaustive but provides a foundation for further reading and research. For annotated descriptions of the most important scholarly works, see Appendix E: Key Studies in Appalachian Scholarship.
General Appalachian History
Billings, Dwight B., and Kathleen M. Blee. The Road to Poverty: The Making of Wealth and Hardship in Appalachia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Catte, Elizabeth. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia. Cleveland: Belt Publishing, 2018.
Drake, Richard B. A History of Appalachia. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
Dunaway, Wilma A. The First American Frontier: Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 1700-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Edwards, Grace Toney, JoAnn Aust Asbury, and Ricky L. Cox, eds. A Handbook to Appalachia: An Introduction to the Region. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006.
Eller, Ronald D. Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982.
Eller, Ronald D. Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008.
Inscoe, John C., ed. Appalachians and Race: The Mountain South from Slavery to Segregation. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
Lewis, Ronald L. Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads, Deforestation, and Social Change in West Virginia, 1880-1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Pudup, Mary Beth, Dwight B. Billings, and Altina L. Waller, eds. Appalachia in the Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Shapiro, Henry D. Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 1870-1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978.
Stoll, Steven. Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia. New York: Hill and Wang, 2017.
Williams, John Alexander. Appalachia: A History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Indigenous History
Dunaway, Wilma A. The First American Frontier: Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 1700-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Finger, John R. Cherokee Americans: The Eastern Band of Cherokees in the Twentieth Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.
Finger, John R. The Eastern Band of Cherokees, 1819-1900. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984.
Hill, Sarah H. Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Mankiller, Wilma, and Michael Wallis. Mankiller: A Chief and Her People. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993.
McLoughlin, William G. Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Perdue, Theda. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
Perdue, Theda, and Michael D. Green. The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears. New York: Viking, 2007.
Settlement and Frontier
Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Griffin, Larry J., and Don H. Doyle, eds. The South as an American Problem. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995.
Leyburn, James G. The Scotch-Irish: A Social History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962.
Morgan, Robert. Boone: A Biography. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2007.
Pudup, Mary Beth, Dwight B. Billings, and Altina L. Waller, eds. Appalachia in the Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Slaughter, Thomas P. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Webb, James. Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. New York: Broadway Books, 2004.
Civil War in Appalachia
Ash, Stephen V. When the Yankees Came: Conflict and Chaos in the Occupied South, 1861-1865. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Crawford, Martin. Ashe County's Civil War: Community and Society in the Appalachian South. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.
Inscoe, John C., and Gordon B. McKinney. The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Noe, Kenneth W., and Shannon H. Wilson, eds. The Civil War in Appalachia: Collected Essays. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997.
Sarris, Jonathan Dean. A Separate Civil War: Communities in Conflict in the Mountain South. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.
Industrialization and Labor
Corbin, David Alan. Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners, 1880-1922. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981.
Corbin, David Alan, ed. The West Virginia Mine Wars: An Anthology. Charleston, WV: Appalachian Editions, 1990.
Eller, Ronald D. Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982.
Gaventa, John. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980.
Hevener, John W. Which Side Are You On? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978.
Lee, Howard B. Bloodletting in Appalachia: The Story of West Virginia's Four Major Mine Wars and Other Thrilling Incidents of Its Coal Fields. Morgantown: West Virginia University, 1969.
Lewis, Ronald L. Black Coal Miners in America: Race, Class, and Community Conflict, 1780-1980. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1987.
Savage, Lon. Thunder in the Mountains: The West Virginia Mine War, 1920-21. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990.
Shogan, Robert. The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004.
Trotter, Joe William, Jr. Coal, Class, and Color: Blacks in Southern West Virginia, 1915-32. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
Wagner, Thomas E., and Phillip J. Obermiller. African American Miners and Migrants: The Eastern Kentucky Social Club. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.
Environment
Burns, Shirley Stewart. Bringing Down the Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal on Southern West Virginia Communities. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2007.
Davis, Donald Edward. Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000.
House, Silas, and Jason Howard. Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009.
Lewis, Ronald L. Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads, Deforestation, and Social Change in West Virginia, 1880-1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Loeb, Penny. Moving Mountains: How One Woman and Her Community Won Justice from Big Coal. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007.
McNeil, Bryan T. Combating Mountaintop Removal: New Directions in the Fight Against Big Coal. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011.
Montrie, Chad. To Save the Land and People: A History of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Reece, Erik. Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.
Stoll, Steven. Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia. New York: Hill and Wang, 2017.
Education
Breckinridge, Mary. Wide Neighborhoods: A Story of the Frontier Nursing Service. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1952.
Glen, John M. Highlander: No Ordinary School, 1932-1962. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988.
Horton, Myles, and Judith Kohl and Herbert Kohl. The Long Haul: An Autobiography. New York: Doubleday, 1990.
Searles, P. David. A College for Appalachia: Alice Lloyd on Caney Creek. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995.
Stoddart, Jess, ed. Challenge and Change in Appalachia: The Story of Hindman Settlement School. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002.
Whisnant, David E. All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
Culture: Music
Conway, Cecelia. African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia: A Study of Folk Traditions. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995.
Malone, Bill C. Country Music, U.S.A. 3rd revised ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010.
Olson, Ted, and Ajay Kalra, eds. Appalachian Music: A Reader. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013.
Ritchie, Jean. Singing Family of the Cumberlands. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1955.
Rosenberg, Neil V. Bluegrass: A History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Wolfe, Charles K. Classic Country: Legends of Country Music. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Zwonitzer, Mark, and Charles Hirshberg. Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002.
Culture: Literature
Arnow, Harriette. The Dollmaker. New York: Macmillan, 1954.
Caudill, Harry M. Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.
Giardina, Denise. Storming Heaven. New York: Norton, 1987.
Giardina, Denise. The Unquiet Earth. New York: Norton, 1992.
House, Silas. Clay's Quilt. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2001.
Miller, Jim Wayne, ed. I Have a Place. Pippa Passes, KY: Alice Lloyd College, 1981.
Pancake, Breece D'J. The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake. Boston: Little, Brown, 1983.
Rash, Ron. Serena. New York: Ecco, 2008.
Smith, Lee. Fair and Tender Ladies. New York: Putnam, 1988.
Still, James. River of Earth. New York: Viking Press, 1940.
Walker, Frank X. Affrilachia: Poems. Lexington, KY: Old Cove Press, 2000.
Wilkinson, Crystal. The Birds of Opulence. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2016.
Culture: Religion
Dorgan, Howard. Giving Glory to God in Appalachia: Worship Practices of Six Baptist Subdenominations. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987.
Jones, Loyal. Faith and Meaning in the Southern Uplands. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Kimbrough, David L. Taking Up Serpents: Snake Handlers of Eastern Kentucky. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
McCauley, Deborah Vansau. Appalachian Mountain Religion: A History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.
Culture: Food, Craft, and Material Culture
Barker, Garry. The Handcraft Revival in Southern Appalachia, 1930-1990. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.
Hsiung, David C. Two Worlds in the Tennessee Mountains: Exploring the Origins of Appalachian Stereotypes. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997.
Lundy, Ronni. Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2016.
Sohn, Mark F. Appalachian Home Cooking: History, Culture, and Recipes. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005.
Wigginton, Eliot, ed. The Foxfire Book. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972.
Wigginton, Eliot, ed. Foxfire 2-12. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973-2004.
Culture: Language
Montgomery, Michael, and Joseph S. Hall, eds. Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004.
Wolfram, Walt, and Donna Christian. Appalachian Speech. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1976.
Wolfram, Walt, and Natalie Schilling. American English: Dialects and Variation. 3rd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.
Stereotypes and Media Representation
Billings, Dwight B., Gurney Norman, and Katherine Ledford, eds. Back Talk from Appalachia: Confronting Stereotypes. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.
Harkins, Anthony. Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Williamson, Jerry Wayne. Hillbillyland: What the Movies Did to the Mountains and What the Mountains Did to the Movies. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Modern Appalachia: Politics
Catte, Elizabeth. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia. Cleveland: Belt Publishing, 2018.
Isenberg, Nancy. White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. New York: Viking, 2016.
Rice, Connie Park, and Marie Tedesco, eds. Women of the Mountain South: Identity, Work, and Activism. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015.
Vance, J.D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. New York: Harper, 2016.
Modern Appalachia: The Opioid Crisis
Keefe, Patrick Radden. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. New York: Doubleday, 2021.
Macy, Beth. Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America. New York: Little, Brown, 2018.
Quinones, Sam. Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic. New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Modern Appalachia: Economy and Transition
Case, Anne, and Angus Deaton. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020.
Catte, Elizabeth. Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia. Cleveland: Belt Publishing, 2021.
Eller, Ronald D. Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008.
Fisher, Stephen L., and Barbara Ellen Smith, eds. Transforming Places: Lessons from Appalachia. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Hendryx, Michael, and Melissa M. Ahern. "Relations Between Health Indicators and Residential Proximity to Coal Mining in West Virginia." American Journal of Public Health 98, no. 4 (2008): 669-671.
Stoll, Steven. Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia. New York: Hill and Wang, 2017.
Wuthnow, Robert. The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Small-Town America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018.
Race in Appalachia
Cabbell, Edward J., and William H. Turner, eds. Blacks in Appalachia. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985.
Dunaway, Wilma A. Slavery in the American Mountain South. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Inscoe, John C., ed. Appalachians and Race: The Mountain South from Slavery to Segregation. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
Lewis, Ronald L. Black Coal Miners in America: Race, Class, and Community Conflict, 1780-1980. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1987.
Trotter, Joe William, Jr. Coal, Class, and Color: Blacks in Southern West Virginia, 1915-32. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
Walker, Frank X. Affrilachia: Poems. Lexington, KY: Old Cove Press, 2000.
Wilkinson, Crystal. The Birds of Opulence. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2016.
Women's History
Anglin, Mary K. Women, Power, and Dissent in the Hills of Carolina. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
Breckinridge, Mary. Wide Neighborhoods: A Story of the Frontier Nursing Service. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1952.
Engelhardt, Elizabeth S.D. The Tangled Roots of Feminism, Environmentalism, and Appalachian Literature. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003.
Engelhardt, Elizabeth S.D., ed. Appalachia and Beyond: Conversations About Women, Writing, and Regional Experience. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008.
Maggard, Sally Ward. "Coalfield Women Making History." In Back Talk from Appalachia, edited by Dwight B. Billings, Gurney Norman, and Katherine Ledford, 228-250. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999.
Perdue, Theda. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
Scott, Shaunna L. Two Sides to Everything: The Cultural Construction of Class Consciousness in Harlan County, Kentucky. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Primary Source Collections and Reference Works
Appalachian Regional Commission. Annual reports, economic assessments, and research publications. Available at arc.gov.
Appalachian Journal. Boone, NC: Appalachian State University. Published since 1972.
Journal of Appalachian Studies. Published by the Appalachian Studies Association since 1995.
National Archives. Records of the Bureau of Mines, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Appalachian Regional Commission.
University of Kentucky Special Collections. Appalachian Oral History Project.
West Virginia Division of Culture and History. West Virginia History journal and archival collections.
Oral History Collections
Appalachian Oral History Project. University of Kentucky and Alice Lloyd College. Interviews conducted 1970s-present.
Foxfire Archives. Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center, Mountain City, Georgia.
Marshall University Oral History of Appalachia Collection. Huntington, West Virginia.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Southern Oral History Program.
West Virginia University. West Virginia and Regional History Center.
Geology and Natural History
Davis, Donald Edward. Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Hack, John T. "Geomorphology of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia and West Virginia, and the Origin of the Residual Ore Deposits." United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 484, 1965.
Hatcher, Robert D., Jr. "The Appalachian Orogen: A Brief Summary." In From Rodinia to Pangea: The Lithotectonic Record of the Appalachian Region, edited by Richard P. Tollo et al., 1-19. Geological Society of America Memoir 206, 2010.
Weidensaul, Scott. Mountains of the Heart: A Natural History of the Appalachians. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 1994.
Film and Documentary
Blood on the Mountain. Directed by Mari-Lynn Evans and Jordan Freeman. 2016. Documentary on the coal industry's impact on West Virginia.
Harlan County, U.S.A. Directed by Barbara Kopple. 1976. Academy Award-winning documentary on the Brookside Mine strike.
Hillbilly. Directed by Ashley York and Sally Rubin. 2018. Documentary examining Appalachian media representation.
Matewan. Directed by John Sayles. 1987. Feature film depicting the Matewan Massacre of 1920.
Stranger with a Camera. Directed by Elizabeth Barret. 2000. Documentary about the killing of a Canadian filmmaker in Letcher County, Kentucky, examining the ethics of outsider representation.
The Appalachians. Directed by Mari-Lynn Evans. PBS, 2005. Multi-part documentary series on regional history.
The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. Directed by Julien Nitzberg. 2009. A controversial documentary that many scholars cite as an example of exploitation cinema.
This bibliography reflects works available as of 2025. For the most current scholarship, consult the Appalachian Studies Association and the journals Appalachian Journal and Journal of Appalachian Studies.