Industrialization and Appalachia Essay Example

Industrialization and Appalachia Essay Example Industrialization and Appalachia Essay Industrialization and Appalachia Essay Industrialization and AppalachiaThe Industrial revolution did non skip over Appalachia but the native mountain people did non profit from the effects of industrialisation and were left in a worse state of affairs. The stereotype of the Appalachian people that was formed prior to the industrialisation epoch was that mountain people were baronial. barbarian. independent. proud. rugged. dirty and uneducated. The industrialists to advance economic development and industrialisation of Appalachia used this backward image of the Appalachian people. They believed that the native Appalachian people were incapable of developing the Appalachian Mountains natural resources on their ain.However in seeking to maintain up with the modern universe during the industrial revolution the people of Appalachia were doomed to their pre-industrial image. Until the epoch of industrialisation Appalachia was a part of little. open-country communities. concentrated in vales. coves and hollows. Each community of farms was self-sufficing socially and economically. The focal point of a self-sufficing husbandman was that of endurance by working in their ain harvests and runing or raising farm animal for nutrient.They tended to hold big households to assist with all the demands of the farm. After the Civil War Northerners came into the southern Appalachian Mountains. and many were surprised by what they found. They f ound a battalion of mineral and timber wealth every bit good as a romantic beauty of the mountain landscape. Capitalists responded to this find and began to industrialise the Appalachian Mountains for their ain net income. Capitalists believed that the Appalachian people were excessively backward to cognize that they were sitting on an copiousness of resources so they manipulated the mountain climbers into selling big sums of land for fundamentally nil.As Eller wrote in his book Miners. Millhands and Mountaineers. some sold full mountains for a mule. Equus caballus or rifle . Industrialization depended foremost upon the edifice of an equal transit system into. out of. and within the mountain parts of the South. The railway was built and it opened the doors to the full development of the mountains natural resources. Coal and timber extraction were the primary resources that drove the Industrial Revolution in Appalachia. The extraction of these resources required the employment of the Appalachian husbandman.The mountain climber left their farms for pay employment and became dependent on that. The uncontrolled flow of the coal and lumber industry took up immense secret plans of farming area and forced households to travel to the excavation towns. With the presence of the coal and lumber companies in topographic point. the mountain climber could non trust to be more than hardly self-sufficing. The country industrialized without developing sufficient substructure to prolong itself. destining the mountain people to poverty. The mean mountain climber had been an independent kind of individual. running his ain farm. raising a household and constructing his ain hereafter. When brought into coal. lumber. and textile towns. he was at the clemency of his employer. The mountain climber became wholly dependent on his employer and was forced into awful conditions. Besides this dependance to his employer the mountain climber could non travel back to his old place topographic point and farm once more because the film editing of lumber ruined agribusiness.One of the most of import consequences of industrialisation in Appalachia has been the negative impact it has had on the long-run economic wellness of the part. None of the industries in Appalachia. and particularly non the coal industry. encouraged rival or spin-off economic development during their roar old ages. The consequence has been sporadic economic growing without existent economic development ( A Handbook to Appalachia. 15 ) . In Miners. Millhands and Mountaineers. Eller’s thesis was that while Appalachia had undergone industrialisation. the part itself failed to overhaul.He argues that during and after the industrialisation procedure mountain people lost their independency and self-government of their ascendants. without going full participants in the benefits of the modern universe. The mountain people found that the turning prosperity had bred greater dependance on the system beyond t heir control. Worst of all. none of the wealth the industrialists stripped from the mountains remained at that place. The industrial revolution was non decently development in Appalachia and it left the Appalachian people hapless and hardly able to care for themselves. So it is obvious that. in seeking to maintain up with the modern universe. the people of Appalachia were doomed to their pre-industrial image or stereotype.Plants cited1. A Handbook to Appalachia. an debut to the part ; edited by Grace Toney Edwards. JoAnn Aust Asbury. Ricky L. Cox Copyright 2006 by theUniversity of Tennessee Pres/Knoxville. 2. Eller. Ronald D. Miners. Millhands and Mountaineers. The University of Tennessee Press. 1982.