Appalachia

birthdates of successful Canadian hockey players and the computer geniuses Billy Joy and Bill Gates both being born in 1950. Part two focuses on cultural legacies. Gladwell focuses on both success and failure. He discusses the “culture of honor” in Appalachia and the rice paddy development in China that fosters useful problem solving skills. Through this series of case studies, Gladwell inserts background information that further supports his claim and helps the reader understand his theory.…

This can include things such as the white working class and the way in which they have started to feel marginalized. This could be seen in the book Hillbilly Elegy, written by J.D. Vance, who grew up in Appalachia Ohio. He concludes that the white working class in the Appalachian area are suffering from numerous problems including lack of education, economic problems, and the idea that affirmative action holds people in these areas back (America’s Forgotten…

On March 3rd, 1791, the federal government, with George Washington as acting President, had passed an excise tax on whiskey. The farmers mostly grew the grains, however giving their location in the western counties of Pennsylvania, made grain shipments near impossible to the east. Traveling with shipments were difficult and very time consuming because the Allegheny Mountains separated the west from the east. Almost all farmers, from small to lager, kept their whiskey stills and continued to make…

As a fellow resident of Appalachia, a fellow Virginia, but most of all as a fellow human being, I understand your fears. I understand the need and desire to protect and keep safe what is most precious to all of us. Our children are worth so much more than anything else on this earth…

he only Inauguration I have attended, and probably the only one I ever will attend, was Barack Obama’s first, eight years ago. My wife and I were nearly broke, but we gathered money from the life insurance left by my mother, who had died of lung cancer six weeks before the election. We wrapped our California kids, ages five and three, in a million layers of clothing and hats, filled thermoses with soup and hot chocolate, shared hand-warmers among us, and packed as though we were braving the…

Personal agency is a subject that is difficult to have an impartial or neutral position on, as it sparks a lot of controversy, due to its basis on the premise that those in the lower class are in their position by choice. J.D. Vance increasingly proves this statement through his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy”, with his focus on the Appalachian culture and their resistance to personal agency. Vance compellingly criticizes the lower class and specifically Appalachian culture and discusses that…

In the chapter, On the Illinois: The Making of Modern Music and Culture in the Oklahoma Ozark Foothills, The Oklahoma Ozark area is a physical and cultural transition zone between the Great Plains and the eastern woodlands. This area has been considered home to many of the Cherokee people since their removal by U.S. soldiers and settlers beginning in the 1820s (pg. 239). The Cherokees has lived in the Oklahoma Ozark area longer than any other ethnic group compared as of currently. The Cherokees…

Parton received the nickname The Queen of Country Music after releasing more #1 hits than any other country singer in U.S. history. (famous birthdays) Before she became famous, she grew up alongside eleven brothers and sisters in a one-room cabin in Appalachia, Tennessee, and learned to sing at church. Dolly Parton, a woman who showed passion for what she does and wanted to share that with others, has changed many people's lives and education and should be recognized as a very big and important…

of Isaac Holcombe and see why he is so important to the author. Isaac is significant in Ron Rash’s novel “One Foot in Eden” because he parallels the biblical story of Isaac in the Bible, which also play off Rash’s concern for Nature in Southern Appalachia. Isaac is a significant character in the story “one Foot in Eden” by Ron Rash because he parallels the biblical story of Isaac in the bible. There is a character named Isaac, which can be seen throughout the bible. In the Bible, he is the son…

When one thinks of Republican ideology today, one thinks of conservatives, with a geographic base in the regions of the South, Midwest and Appalachia. They’re known for emphasizing border and immigration control, small government, pro-life views, and a strict interpretation and protection of the enumerated rights set forth in the Constitution, specifically the right to bear arms. These ideals, and any other rhetoric one may hear if they listened to a pundit on Fox News. On the Democratic side,…