Miners, Millhands, And Mountaineers Summary

Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers by R.D. Eller is a story that discredits the myths surrounding the people that live in the Appalachian Mountains. Most people think the Appalachian area was passed up by modernization and see the people as “hillbillies” and as “backwards”. The area is marked by its traditional ways and strong family ties and some people think this contributes to what is trapping the people in that area to poverty. Eller, on the other hand, sees the Appalachian Mountain community differently and wrote this book to shed a new light on the people in that area. He shares many facts that reveal that the area is not as backwards and out of date as many people think. He argues that the stereotypes are false and the area is actually

The result of this modernization left the people to face forces that were far beyond their control. The people of Appalachia are more than just mountain people, they are the backbone of the America economy. The southern Appalachian Mountain area is primarily a mountainous landscape that boasts a vast ecosystem. The region was almost totally covered with trees and native mountaineers would utilize the areas natural resources in their everyday life. The trees provided shelter from the heat in the summer and protection from the areas fire, windstorms, ice storms and snow storms. The forests were home to many plants and animals that the natives used as their primary food source. The forests were also the reason that the lumber companies gained an interest in this area. The logging industry expressed their interest in this area around the 1900s when the timber industry became to boom. Loggers came and started clearing the forests in many Appalachian communities leaving the people with limited shelter and food. Paper mills were also introduced to the area around this time and contributed to the deforestation of the area. While logging, the loggers couldn’t help but notice the

I found this book to be interesting because it taught me a lot about the area that I call home. Ronald Eller did a great job of discrediting the stereotypes that mark this area. From my understanding: the Appalachia region was ravaged by outsiders, and the area’s economy was flipped to serve the outsiders rather than the natives. Eller also did a great job at providing detailed information of how the timber and mining industries made such a massive impact. Native mountaineers were often convinced to sign over their property rights to the industries for an allowance. Coal companies came to own most of the land in the Appalachia and had little interest in its people or preserving the character of the community or their quality of life. This goes to show that Mountaineers were not as “backwards” and as “hillbilly” as people like to think. They were misinformed and, often times, were tricked into selling their proper to greedy industry owners. In the book, Ronald Eller does an excellent job at discussing the transformation of the land over 5 decades. The area went from an isolated and self-sustaining region of small farms to an area where most families were indebted to the cooperation’s for their livelihood. The information Eller provided was very thorough and well researched. He also included photographs, maps and tables to supplement the information presented in the text. My only