A hefty reference book weighs in

Rudy Abramson wanted to publish a reference book about Appalachia that went beyond the stereotypical images of hillbillies and poverty and presented a more realistic picture of the area’s history and natural diversity.

“The place has this reputation of being just a different nation of poor people and strip mines and that sort of thing,” said Abramson, co-editor of the newly released “Encyclopedia of Appalachia,” a 1,832-page volume that weighs nearly 8 pounds.

The work, which took a decade to complete, has just gone on sale through the University of Tennessee Press for $79.95 a copy. More than 1,000 historians, folklorists, sociologists, geologists and journalists contributed.

“What we tried to do across the entire encyclopedia was to make sure the information was authoritative, that the writing was clear and engaging and accessible, and we had balance,” said Abramson’s editing partner, Jean Haskell, retired director of Appalachian studies at East Tennessee State University.

The authors note that debate continues over exactly where Appalachia is and even how the name is pronounced.

They accept the federal definition of Appalachia as comprising all of West Virginia and parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York, roughly following the spine of the ancient Appalachian Mountains.

But the encyclopedia also considers the effect of Appalachian migrants to other areas, including cities in the Midwest, and recent trends such as “urban Appalachia” in growing metropolitan areas and “rural sprawl” in expanding tourism enclaves of the Great Smoky Mountains.

As for pronunciation, it’s “Ap-pa-LATCH-a” in the southern mountains, but more commonly “Ap-pa-LAY-cha” in the rest of the country, particularly north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The region was America’s first western frontier and provided such noble mountaineer figures as Davy Crockett. But the book goes to great length to tackle the overwhelming image of the hillbilly.

The first reference appeared in 1900 in the New York Journal. The paper described the species as “a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him.”

The image stuck. “In subsequent centuries, even after the mountains came to be cherished for their awe-inspiring beauty and appreciated as places of inspiration and recreation, mountain dwellers themselves never fared as well as the scenery,” according to the encyclopedia.

A watershed moment came in 2002 when CBS tried to remake the 1960s “Beverly Hillbillies” into a reality show. Public reaction was “swift, negative and revealing,” the encyclopedia said, and CBS shelved the idea.