The green hills and broad valleys of the Appalachian Mountains evoke profoundly dichotomous meanings in American life. The largest chain in the East, these mountains often have been portrayed as natural havens, escapes from coastal urbanization. At the same time, the region has been characterized by isolation and poverty that symbolize for policy-makers and media the failure of the American dream.

The Appalachian Mountains stretch across fourteen states, from Maine to Georgia; they include ranges known locally as the Berkshires, Taconics, Lehighs, Shenandoahs and Smokies. These relatively gentle slopes and broad valleys have influenced generations of painters and writers; the Berkshires in Massachusetts, for example, harbor artist colonies, while other ranges shelter elegant resorts and tourist development (especially the Smokies and Virginia’s Shenandoahs). State and national forests, as well as federal parks like Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina now protect the beauty of the Appalachians. The 2,000 mile (3,200 km) Appalachian trail, first developed by volunteers in the 1920s, traverses much of the East Coast, a journey explored in Bill Bryson’s (1998) A Walk in the Woods.

Yet Appalachia’s natural beauty contrasts with another brutal image, which developed after the Civil War, that portrayed its Southern ranges as a region of extreme backwardness and poverty In literature and film (476 movies between 1904 and 1929), local residents or “hillbillies” came to denote ignorance, isolation and internecine violence, even if they were occasionally championed as decadent heirs of an English yeoman tradition. The problem of Appalachia was tackled with the Tennessee Valley Authority and other development projects of the New Deal; in 1965, it became special target in the War on Poverty, defended by politicians from West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Yet, in 1999, Appalachia still figured in the itinerary when President Bill Clinton looked at American poverty.

Both images miss the complexity of Appalachian social ecology and history The decline of farming and community for example, was linked to largescale outside acquisitions of the land and the dangers of the coal mines that made the region a constant source of emigration to the North. Moreover, Appalachian peoples have included African Americans and Native Americans, as well as diverse white populations—all of whom “hillbilly” images ignore (a point underscored in John Sayle’s 1993 film Matewan).

Compelling voices, nonetheless, have spoken from and for Appalachia, from John Fox’s romantic turn-of-the-century portraits to Harry Caudill’s Nïght Comes to the Cumberland (1963). Barbara Kopple’s compelling Harlan County, USA (1976) chronicles the travails of coal miners and unions. Generations of bluegrass and country and western musicians have conveyed the soul of Appalachia over local radio and through recordings. Appalshop, a grassroots media cooperative, has also fought stereotypes while preserving the complexity of local traditions and struggles.