Publication Date

5-2023

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Dorothea Browder, Audra Jennings, Alexander Olson

Degree Program

Department of History

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

There is a long history of environmental exploitation and disastrous flooding in Central Appalachia. The region has long been plagued by exploitative practices such as strip mining and mountaintop removal which have stripped vegetation from land, leading to more disastrous floods and more frequent floods. With repeated floods comes a vicious cycle of substantial damage and destruction, as well as inadequate time and resources for full recovery before the next flood strikes. Consequently, floods and poverty have been cyclical, interlinked, and inseparable. Thus, this paper explores the relationship between poverty, flooding, and relief by analyzing the connections between the War on Poverty and the 1977 floods in Central Appalachia. In doing so, I correct two misconceptions about Central Appalachia and the War on Poverty, the first being that progress made from the War on Poverty, specifically in relation to grassroots organizing and insurgency, dwindled following the reactionary conservatism period of Ronald Reagan’s administration in the 1980s, and the second being a modern political narrative that the War on Poverty failed in large part because of the use of big government to address poverty.

Using oral histories, organizational mission statements, newspaper articles, and governmental documents, I analyze how Central Appalachians understood the connections between poverty and flooding. My research builds on historiography from scholars of the War on Poverty and environmental and political histories of Central Appalachia, as well as critical disaster studies. While much has been dedicated to exploring flooding, little has been geographically focused on Central Appalachia, despite the cultural significance and weight that flooding holds in the region. In exploring grassroots organizing following the founding of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC) in 1981, my work recasts the narrative that grassroots, progressive efforts diminished in Eastern Kentucky following the coal mining strikes of the early 1970s.

Disciplines

Appalachian Studies | Arts and Humanities | Emergency and Disaster Management | History | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social History | United States History

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