Dissertation

Swine, timber, and tourism: The evolution of an Appalachian community in the middle west, 1830-1930

Nicholson, Howard Lee

1992

Overview

The southern Indiana hill country represents a microcosm of social, economic, and political development in the Ohio River Valley. Settlers increasingly arrived in the region after the War of 1812. They were largely old Mid Atlantic families acculturated in the upland South. Subsequent generations migrated west through Cumberland Gap and onward to the Ohio River Valley hill country where they appropriated land. Many migrants remained in the communities for only a brief period of time. Yet, a core of permanent residents, persisters, acquired legal title to land and gained social, economic, and political status and prestige. The hill country communities were part of a cohesive society. Both prosperous persisters and their lesser neighbors enjoyed economic security from the open range raising of swine. The social, economic, and political structure of the southern Indiana hill country changed in the postbellum period. New state fencing law defined that owners of swine were responsible for the confinement of their property. Simultaneously, higher market prices for both grains and timber encouraged farmers to change their agricultural enterprises. Subsequent generations planted more grain crops, and cut timber from the ridge lands. The immediate result was increased wealth for leading persister families that distanced them from their lesser neighbors. Prominent individuals identified with Republican political goals. Socio-economic and political tension mounted to the point that vigilante violence became a routine part of postbellum society. Depressed late nineteenth century agricultural prices and soil erosion forced many families to abandon their farms and to migrate onward. In one particular community, the Bean Blossom-Salt Creek Valley, tourism became the only alternative to continued economic stagnation. Promotion of the new economy failed to unify the community. It remained deeply divided in the third decade of the twentieth century. Current scholarship suggests that tension between persisters and their lesser neighbors was an integral part of community life in the nineteenth century Middle West. This study suggests that conflict was especially pronounced in the Ohio River Valley hill country, and that events in the region served to foreshadow social, economic, and political occurrences in other regions, especially the Appalachian Mountain communities.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: American history / American studies / Social structure
• ISBN: 9798208043585