Culture and Poverty in Appalachia: A Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Analysis

The prevalent explanation for the persistence of poverty in Appalachia stresses the region's traditional culture which ill equips its population for participation in the modern world. This research casts doubt on the cultural explanation. A scale of "middle-class orientation" was produced from the secondary analysis of data gathered from several thousand respondents in North Carolina. Attitudinal differences bet ,een respondents from the Appalachian subregion of that state and from other regions including the urban, industrial piedmont were quite small and attributable to rurality. Analysis controlling for age suggests that attitudinal factors cannot be used to account for economic development as it occurred in the Appalachian region. An alternative approach for further research is discussed. Appalachia is a land of great natural wealth. Yet, despite its wealth, many of its people are poor-no matter whether income, health, educational attainment, or housing are the criteria (H. Lewis and Knipe, 1971). But it is not true, as John C. Campbell (1921) warned, that Appalachia is a homogeneous area. Despite its stereotype as an underdeveloped rural area with a distinctive regional subculture, many of its six million inhabitants enjoy typically urban, middle-class life styles.1 Yet few studies of Appalachian poverty have questioned the accuracy of the stereotypic description. In this paper I will discuss the theoretical implications of these studies. As with any complex phenomenon, explanations of poverty are strategically located at several conceptual levelscultural, social, and psychological. It is useful in particular to distinguish between cultural and situational theories of povery in reviewing the literature on Appalachia.2 Unlike situational explanations which see the behavioral characteristics of the poor as adaptations to environment and circumstance, cultural theories attribute to the poor a culture at variance with the rest of society. Their poverty is seen as an outcome (Spilerman and Elesh, 1971). Cultural theories predominate in the literature on Appalachia. By comparing the attitudes of respondents from the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina with those of respondents from the non-mountain regions of the same state, I will offer evidence which casts doubt on the distinctiveness and importance of the Appalachian subculture. THE PREVAILING THEORY OF THE APPALACHIAN SUBCULTURE The culture of poverty is the most common theory in the literature on poverty and Appalachia alike. (See Herzog, 1967; Irelan and Besner, n.d.) It has developed out of the anthropological research of Oscar Lewis. Although he is commonly criticized for mistaking behavior for culture (Leeds, 1971), Lewis has identified nearly eighty cultural traits which he claims are shared by the poor of all nations. Once it arises-and Lewis is not clear as to how this comes about-the culture of poverty tends to be self-perpetuating. Once socialized, the poor are "thereafter . . . psychologically unready to take full advantage of changing conditions or improved opportunities that may develop in their lifetime" (O. Lewis, 1966:19). This is because the "poverty of culture is one of the crucial traits of the culture of poverty" (O. Lewis, 1966:25). This illustrates the tendency for culture of poverty theorists to go beyond descriptions of maladaptive value orientations. Often they hypothesize cognitive and personality pathologies as well. (See Hess, 1970.) Culture of poverty explanations, when applied to Appalachia, take several forms. Usually they hypothesize a culture lag (Ford, 1 James Brown (1970) has observed that "the industrial composition of the region in 1960 was remarkably similar to that of the United States as a whole." 2 Situational and cultural explanations are not mutually exclusive. Culture is responsive to situation (see Stephenson, 1968). The distinction is a matter of emphasis and it is analytically useful in discussing problems of explanation.