Mining and the fall and rise of poverty in southern West Virginia

Abstract

The region in the United States now known as West Virginia was, prior to the Civil War, an isolated, sparsely settled frontier populated primarily by subsistence farmers and hunters. With the vigorous advent of industrial development elsewhere in the US, what became the state of West Virginia turned into a production powerhouse of coal, the lifeblood of growth for the country. Coal and its exploitation became the defining feature of the West Virginian social and economic landscape. Changes included massive in-migration, the emergence of company coal towns, wage labor with a significant increase in incomes for local people as well as improved opportunities for small businesses. From the 1950s on, however, increasing mechanization reduced the need for labor, ‘easy coal’ was gone and broader economic and social changes meant coal production in West Virginia plummeted. Environmental and social devastation ensued with levels of poverty unmatched elsewhere in the United States. The development of a Third World status for this region went largely unnoticed by the rest of the country. What were the causes for this and who was responsible?