appalachian culture
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The False Perception of the Tragic Appalachian Culture
Because the local color writers of the northern region were ignorant of the Appalachian history, they had a false perception of the Appalachian culture and their people. They thought of them as backward, isolated, uneducated frontiersmen that lived in a region that has been left behind and lacked modernization. They failed to consider the struggling time between 1880 and 1930 when their natural resources and land were taken away by the northern coal companies. During this time they lost many things: their ancestral homes, their independence, and their happy lives.
A writer, by the name of Ron Eller, sees the reason why the Appalachian culture is behind in modernization. He sees how the rapid industrial growth changed the Appalachian culture. " What had been a quiet back country of the Old South became a new frontier for expanding industrial capitalism. This altered the traditional pattern of mountain life calling for certain adjustments and defense on the part of the mountaineers" (Eller). Because of this new change by the industrial growth, the Appalachian culture remained stationary, unable to make progress in their technological advances.
They years of 1880 and 1930 were very difficult for the Appalachian people...