Transforming the Appalachian countryside
Subtitle: railroads, deforestation, and social change in West Virginia, 1880-1920
By: Ronald L. Lewis.
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press; The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 348
Subjects: Industrialization -- West Virginia.; West Virginia -- Economic conditions.; West Virginia -- Social conditions.; West Virginia -- Environmental conditions.
Description: In 1880, ancient-growth forest still covered two-thirds of West Virginia, but by the 1920s lumbermen had denuded the entire region. Ronald Lewis explores the transformation in these mountain counties precipitated by deforestation. As the only state that lies entirely within the Appalachian region, West Virginia provides an ideal site for studying the broader social impact of deforestation in Appalachia, the South, and the eastern United States.

Eventually, even ardent supporters of industrialization had reason to contemplate the consequences of unregulated exploitation. Once the timber was gone, the mills closed and the railroads pulled up their tracks leaving behind an environmental disaster and a new class of marginalized rural poor to confront the worst depression in American history.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-337) and index.