Chapter 23 Exercises: The War on Poverty — When America "Discovered" Appalachian Poverty Again

Exercise 1: Reading Harry Caudill

If possible, read Chapters 1-3 and the conclusion of Harry Caudill's Night Comes to the Cumberlands (1963). If the full text is not available, use the excerpts and descriptions provided in this chapter.

a) Describe Caudill's central argument about the cause of Appalachian poverty. According to Caudill, is poverty the result of cultural factors, structural factors, or both?

b) Identify three specific passages in which Caudill describes mountain people. How does he characterize them? Is his portrayal sympathetic? Does it avoid condescension? Point to specific language in your analysis.

c) Caudill's book was read by President Kennedy and President Johnson and directly influenced the War on Poverty. What qualities of the book made it effective as a political document? Why did it succeed where academic studies and government reports had not?

d) The chapter notes that Caudill underestimated the tradition of Appalachian resistance. Using examples from Chapters 17 and 22, describe at least two instances of Appalachian resistance that complicate Caudill's portrayal of mountain people as passive victims of exploitation.

Exercise 2: Analyzing the Martin County Visit

Research President Johnson's April 24, 1964, visit to Martin County, Kentucky. Photographs and press accounts are widely available in the LBJ Presidential Library archives (online) and in newspaper databases.

a) Find the iconic photograph of Johnson sitting on Tom Fletcher's porch. Describe what you see in the photograph. What does the image communicate about poverty? About the relationship between the president and the poor?

b) The chapter argues that Johnson chose Appalachia as the launch point for the War on Poverty partly because Appalachian poverty was white poverty, which was "politically easier to address than Black poverty." Evaluate this argument. Do you agree? What evidence supports or contradicts it?

c) Johnson spent only a few hours in Martin County. He flew in by helicopter, visited several homes, delivered remarks, and flew out. What are the limitations of a brief, staged visit as a basis for understanding poverty? What could Johnson have learned from a longer engagement?

d) Tom Fletcher, the man on the porch, did not escape poverty. Research Fletcher's life after the famous visit. What happened to him and his family? What does his story tell us about the gap between the War on Poverty's promises and its results?

Exercise 3: Evaluating the ARC — Highway Spending

The Appalachian Regional Commission publishes data on its investments (arc.gov).

a) What percentage of total ARC spending has been allocated to highway construction? Compare this to spending on healthcare, education, water systems, and economic development.

b) Select one section of the Appalachian Development Highway System. Research its construction: when was it begun? When was it completed (or is it still incomplete)? What communities does it connect?

c) The chapter argues that highways were prioritized because they were visible, politically popular, and beneficial to the construction industry — not necessarily because they were the most effective way to address poverty. Evaluate this argument. What evidence supports it? What evidence might counter it?

d) The chapter also argues that highways sometimes facilitated out-migration rather than economic development — making it easier for people to leave rather than bringing jobs in. Can you find data on population trends in counties that received highway investments? Did population stabilize, grow, or decline after highway construction?

Exercise 4: The Culture of Poverty Debate

This exercise asks you to engage critically with the "culture of poverty" thesis and its application to Appalachia.

a) In your own words, define the "culture of poverty" thesis as formulated by Oscar Lewis. What are its key claims? What evidence did Lewis cite?

b) Now describe the structural explanation for Appalachian poverty as presented in this chapter and throughout this textbook. What specific structural factors — land ownership, mineral rights, tax policy, corporate power, political structures — produced and perpetuated poverty in the region?

c) Write a 500-word essay evaluating these two explanations. Is Appalachian poverty better explained by cultural factors, structural factors, or some combination of both? Use specific evidence from the textbook to support your argument.

d) The chapter argues that the culture of poverty thesis served a political function — deflecting attention from structural causes and protecting the interests of those who benefited from the existing economic system. Is this argument persuasive? Can you think of other contexts in which cultural explanations for social problems have served similar political functions?

Exercise 5: VISTA and the Settlement Schools — Parallel Histories

This exercise asks you to compare two waves of outside intervention in Appalachia, separated by approximately seventy years.

a) Using Chapter 14 and Chapter 25 (if available), describe the settlement school movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Who were the settlement workers? Where did they come from? What did they believe about mountain people? What did they accomplish?

b) Now describe the VISTA volunteer program as presented in this chapter. Who were the volunteers? Where did they come from? What did they believe about mountain people? What did they accomplish?

c) Identify at least three specific parallels between the two movements. Consider the volunteers' backgrounds, their assumptions, their methods, the communities' responses, and the long-term outcomes.

d) The chapter calls the settlement school workers and VISTA volunteers both "well-meaning outsiders." Is good intention sufficient to justify intervention in someone else's community? Under what conditions is outside help welcome, and under what conditions is it an imposition? Write a 400-word reflection.

Exercise 6: Poverty Data — Your County Across Time

Using Census Bureau data (data.census.gov) and ARC data (arc.gov), investigate the poverty trajectory of an Appalachian county.

a) Select a county within the ARC's territory. Record its poverty rate for each decennial census from 1960 to 2020 (or the most recent available data). Present the data in a table or graph.

b) How does the county's poverty rate compare to the state average and the national average at each time point?

c) What economic changes occurred in the county during this period? Did a major employer close? Did new industries arrive? Did the population grow or shrink?

d) Based on the data and your research, assess whether the War on Poverty and ARC investments were effective in reducing poverty in this county. What evidence supports your assessment? What evidence complicates it?

Exercise 7: Primary Source Analysis — Competing Narratives

Read the following two excerpts and respond to the questions:

Excerpt A — Sargent Shriver, Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, testimony before Congress, 1965:

"The War on Poverty is working. In Appalachia, we are building roads, schools, and health centers. We are providing job training, early childhood education, and legal services. We are giving the poor the tools they need to lift themselves out of poverty. The investment is paying off, and the results are measurable."

Excerpt B — Appalachian activist, quoted in Mountain Life and Work, 1968:

"They come in here and build a road and call it progress. But the road goes right past the strip mine that's tearing up our mountains, and the coal trucks use it more than we do. They build a health center, and that's good, but the coal company that gave everybody black lung is still running. They train people for jobs that don't exist within a hundred miles. This ain't a war on poverty. It's a war on the symptoms of poverty, and the cause of poverty — the companies that own everything and take everything — that cause they don't touch."

a) Identify the specific claims made in each excerpt. Where do they agree? Where do they disagree?

b) Both speakers are describing the same programs. Why do their assessments differ so dramatically?

c) The activist draws a distinction between "symptoms" and "causes" of poverty. Explain this distinction using specific examples from the chapter.

d) Which perspective do you find more persuasive? Why? Is it possible that both are correct simultaneously?

Exercise 8: Community History Portfolio — The War on Poverty in Your County

Building on previous portfolio entries, investigate the War on Poverty's impact on your selected county.

a) What War on Poverty and ARC programs operated in your county? Community action agencies, VISTA, Head Start, legal aid, job training, highway construction, water systems?

b) What were the measurable outcomes? How did poverty rates, health outcomes, educational attainment, and infrastructure change between 1960 and 1980?

c) Find and document at least one local voice — an oral history, a newspaper letter, a personal account — describing the experience of the War on Poverty in your county. Was it welcomed? Resented? Both?

d) Assess: Did the War on Poverty address the structural causes of poverty in your county (as identified in your earlier portfolio entries on land ownership, industrial extraction, and economic structure), or did it primarily address the symptoms while leaving the structures intact?

e) Write a 500-word analysis connecting your county's War on Poverty experience to the patterns described in this chapter.