"Two Worlds in the Tennessee Mountains: Exploring the Origins of Appalachian Stereotypes"

David C. Hsiung

The winner of the 1996 Appalachian Studies Award

Most Americans know Appalachia through stereotyped images: moonshine and handicrafts, poverty and illiteracy, rugged terrain and isolated mountaineers. Historian David Hsiung maintains that in order to understand the origins of such stereotypes, we must look critically at their underlying concepts, especially those of isolation and community.

Hsiung focuses on the mountainous area of upper East Tennessee, tracing this area's development from the first settlement in the eighteenth century to the eve of the Civil War. Through his examination, he identifies the different ways in which the regions inhabitants were connected to or separated from other peoples and places. Using an interdisciplinary framework, he analyzes geographical and sociocultural isolation from a number of perspectives, including transportation networks, changing economy, population movement, and topography.

According to Hsiung's interpretation, two worlds coexisted in the Tennessee mountains: some people made connections with the rest of the country and others lived in relative isolation. When this latter group came to be characterized by their neighbors as backward, growing perceptions of difference within the mountain region eventually found their way into fiction and popular images of Appalachia for well over a century.

By demonstrating that these perceptions of difference first emerged from within Appalachia itself, Two Worlds in the Tennessee Mountains alters the commonly held views of this region and its people during the antebellum period. This provocative work will stimulate future studies of early Appalachia and serve as a model for the analysis of regional cultures.

Synopsis taken directly from the jacket cover of Two Worlds in the Tennessee Mountains.

Reviews

"The issues of perception and self-perception of southern mountaineers have never been addressed with this level of sophistication and creativity, especially for the antebellum period."

- John Inscoe, past president, Appalachian Studies Association

"During the revolutionary and antebellum eras, some residents of upper East Tennessee saw themselves as isolated from the rest of the United States, even though they were increasingly integrated into its larger society. Nevertheless, they strove to establish further connections with a railroad, faced opposition and apathy from some of their neighbors, and described these neighbors as backward...When writers from outside the region tapped into this self-image, they obtained the raw material for best-selling short stories and novels that shaped the popular image of Appalachia for well over a century."

- from the Preface