Blood in the Hills: A History of Violence in Appalachia

After the Civil War, Appalachia was widely perceived as an uncivilized wilderness, riddled with hidden dangers and populated by thieves and murderers. Extensive media coverage of horse stealing and scalping raids contributed to the characterization of the region's residents as intrinsically violent. Later, news of the conflict between the Hatfields and the McCoys as well as the bloodshed associated with the coal labor strikes reinforced Appalachia's aggressive reputation. Blood in the Hills: A History of Violence in Appalachia provides an in-depth analysis of hostility in the region from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Editor Bruce E. Stewart and a host of scholars investigate notorious cases of violence in Appalachian history-conflicts resulting from the region's rapid modernization, and violence as a function of social control. Blood in the Hills examines sensationalized episodes such as the murder of Canadian journalist Hugh O'Connor and the rise and fall of the state of Franklin to explain the misconceptions behind the area's violent stereotype, while also acknowledging that Appalachians seldom hesitated to take matters into their own hands when bureaucracy failed. Stewart and the contributors demonstrate that these incidents were part of larger national patterns of violence and address issues such as geographical isolation, ethnicity, kinship, gender, class, and race-factors often omitted in characterizations of the region's people. Delving into the region's culture and history. Blood in the Hills uses empirical analysis to prove that violence is no more natural in the hills than anywhere else. The volume's contributors utilize detailed research and analysis to explain the social and political factors that have contributed to the public's perception of past and present Appalachia. Book jacket.