Why people in Pittsburgh don't like the term Appalachia (North East: home, live)

[Craziaskowboi]

It has to do with perception. When people think of Appalachian culture, they think of rural culture and Southern culture. Pittsburgh is neither rural nor Southern.

[jimmyev]

Originally Posted by PeterRabbit

In elementary school in the 1950s when we were taught about Appalachia, there wasn't anything to identify with as a kid growing up near Pittsburgh. Those folks had very little except for plenty of hard times and outhouses. Around here we had flush toilets plus TVs and a lot of those areas didn't even have electricity yet. Text books at the time had only black and white photos which made the sad situations look worse.

It may not be that we don't like the term Apppalachia as much as we can't relate to it. Tallysmom summed it up well, "... Pittsburgh may be in Appalachia, but it's not in an Appalachian state of mind..."

My father lived along Slippery Rock Creek in Lawrence County, 50 miles north of Pittsburgh. Until he was 12, they didn't have electricity, there was an outhouse and the school was a one-room school house. In 1957 they moved six miles into New Castle and got electricity. I don't know when the neighbors along the creek got it.

[robertbrianbush]

Doesn't fit Appalachia either. While there is a great deal of poverty in Appalachia, most people living in Appalachia are not poor, and the vast majority do work, the vast majority outside of coal mines (nothing wrong with mining, it is very well-paying work today, but I have found that many people outside of the region don't realize that there are universities, hospitals, steel mills and factories, retail, warehouses, etc in the region as well, just not as many as we would like). I point this out because I have relatives in Dayton, Ohio who had difficulty wrapping their minds around the concept of a person from Appalachia NOT being poor, like that was a strange concept lol. As to the feuds, they happened, but were greatly sensationalized in the press, which often made the stories seem more dramatic than they were (this was the late 19th century, in the days of yellow journalism and the "local color" literary movement). One of the ways in which this was accomplished was by overstating how backward the participants were and how primeval the hatred and violence was. The participants new EXACTLY what they were fighting for - the same things that most people fight over - money and power. Each side was usually led by an elite faction (meaning elite within their county or area. By faction I mean that the different sides were family based, but not all family members participated,many fought for the other side, and many were involved who had no kinship to either party). The bone of contention was usually land and natural resources or political advantage (a means to the end of securing control of land and natural resources, and shielding your side from prosecution while trumping p charges and convictions against your rivals. Political control also allowed you to rig elections. Under the Kentucky Constitution the counties were near totally independent fiefdoms- the state govt did not have the power to intervene and do anything, such as audit the books, for example, unless requested to do so by county authorities). The heyday of feuding was when the mountains were first thrown open to large scale mining and timbering - large tracts of land previously considered to be useless mountainside land were suddenly worth fortunes. It was not at all unusual for state officials, all the way up to the gubernatorial level, to get involved (by arming a favored side, political and judicial tricks, etc. At one point during the Hatfield-McCoy Feud ( a feud that originated largely in a dispute over a 5,000 acre tract of timber land) President Cleveland had to order the national guards of Kentucky and WV away from the border (under threat of nationalization and giving the order himself if both governors didn't agree). The feuding familes were not necesarily poor - although many participants (often minions or foot soldiers or poor relatives) were. One famous feuding family produced two generals, an admiral, a congressman, and sent one of it's scions to the Sorbonne. I am not being apologetic - that was a brutal and sad episode in the region's history, but I feel that it is a chapter in the history of our Industrial Revolution that should be much better understood. And no, people in the mountains don't engage in such feuds today.

[MaryS80]

Because the term has been so embedded in the American mind as uneducated dirt poor hillbillies who drink moon shine and live in shanties.

I just find it hard to consider an area stretching from southern NY, to Alabama to be one region. Pittsburgh, Philly, and Wilkes-Barre are all very different and unique to me. Pittsburgh really is its own place, Ohio is generally accepted as the midwest, and Philly is considered the east coast, and part of the NY/NJ/PA tri-state area. So where does that eave Pittsburgh? It's just its own little place nestled in the hills.

[gg]

Originally Posted by sr1234

2000 and 2008? I would toss those charts away.

I think the charts would be good for the next few decades if not longer. Nothing has changed in the region in question because education just doesn't exist much.

[SammyKhalifa]

I went to school in Ohio University (Southeastern Ohio), and to me it was much more into the heart of what is "Appalachian" in my mind. That's not meant negatively either--it just seemed less industrialized and more urban/mining in my mind. I always thought of Pittsburgh as being the transition between appalachia and the industrialized midwest/rustbelt, with characteristics of both.

Haha, also I think of real "Appalachian" areas as having bigger mountains than we get here. Again I suppose that puts us in that transitional grey area.

Looking at the maps, I'm trying to think of a definition of "Appalachian" that fits Pittsburgh but not Cincy. I'm also trying to come up with what meaning of "Appalachian" they're using to apply to somewhere like Ashtabula, Ohio--a port city with no mountains to be seen.

[ki0eh]

Originally Posted by SammyKhalifa

I'm also trying to come up with what meaning of "Appalachian" they're using to apply to somewhere like Ashtabula, Ohio--a port city with no mountains to be seen.

Same one as the Mississippi section of the ARC's area, pure politics.

Actually on a road trip eastbound crossing the Midwest, when the Ohio Turnpike enters the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and you see a few trees and some elevation relief it almost seems like entering the mountains.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by PeterRabbit

In elementary school in the 1950s when we were taught about Appalachia, there wasn't anything to identify with as a kid growing up near Pittsburgh. Those folks had very little except for plenty of hard times and outhouses. Around here we had flush toilets plus TVs and a lot of those areas didn't even have electricity yet. Text books at the time had only black and white photos which made the sad situations look worse.

It may not be that we don't like the term Apppalachia as much as we can't relate to it. Tallysmom summed it up well, "... Pittsburgh may be in Appalachia, but it's not in an Appalachian state of mind..."

I recall the emphasis on Appalachia growing after LBJ became president in 1963. I remember articles in "Life" and "Look" magazine about Appalachia, and wanting to help these poor people. I was shocked to find out I lived there. I recall one such article referring to Pittsburgh as "the capital city of "Appalachia' and I was blown away. We lived a normal, middle class life. Everyone's father was a steelworker and made decent money. (Well, almost everyone's.) I'll grant you there were a few "happy homes" as my mother called them, where people lived in trailers on little used roads, and the like, but we didn't think that odd at all. Later in life, I traveled through the Kentucky portion of Appalachia and it was much poorer appearing.

[I_Like_Spam]

The dark red "distressed" county in Pennsylvania is Forest County, indicating low per capita income.

But Forest County has a very low population, except for a large state penitentiary up there.

Among the free peoples of that county, its probably no worse off than McKean or Warren or Elk.

But add in a sizable population of convicts earning 11 cents an hour, and suddenly you can see yourself at the bottom- particularly as the county has a low population to start with.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by MaryS80

Because the term has been so embedded in the American mind as uneducated dirt poor hillbillies who drink moon shine and live in shanties.

You forgot inbred.

My mother was from West Virginia. I went on a business trip a couple of years ago with a friend. On our way, I mentioned that I might be related to the person we were meeting simply because we were going to a small town that I remembered hearing relatives lived when I was little.

When we arrived, my friend mentioned during introductions that I said I might be related. After sharing what family I was related to, he quickly determined that we were in fact related---cousins---in some complicated West Virginia way that never made sense to me throughout my entire life---third cousins twice removed on the father's side or whatever (not his exact words, just an example.)

Immediately after determining that we were related, he proudly announced that I had just missed a great wedding last week---two cousins married!

I felt like I was going to pass out from the embarrassment. Of course, I didn't let on that I was shocked.

But I was sickened (still am) by the fact that I'm related to people who marry cousins.