A “hillbilly” in the Virginia mountains drying apples on the roof. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
By Lauren Stepp
The Hatfield–McCoy feud is one of the most iconic arguments in American history. But it didn’t happen—at least not how you think it did.
According to Katherine Ledford, a professor of Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University, any violence that happened along the Kentucky-West Virginia border in the late 1800s was likely caused by economic and social unrest related to “the extraction of coal and timber resources.” But since the bitter realities of rapid industrialization didn’t make for eye-catching headlines, history was sensationalized.
“The two families were depicted in contemporary newspapers as bloodthirsty, backward, irrational feudists,” says Ledford. “A stolen pig, supposed Civil War retributions and forbidden love between a Hatfield and a McCoy spiced up the story….”
This wouldn’t be the last time Appalachian folk were misrepresented.
In an April 1900 edition of the New York Journal, Appalachia was described as a place where the “untrammeled White citizen”—the hillbilly—“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.”
Around this time, the “hillbilly” trope began appearing in literature, films and advertisements. During the Great Depression, hillbillies even became the focus of comics like Paul Webb’s Mountain Boys.
As Anthony Harkins writes in Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, “these works crystallized long-developing conceptions of mountaineer backwardness and social degeneracy.”
Late-20th century sitcoms like The Beverly Hillbillies and Hee Haw had a similar effect, further entrenching stereotypes in our collective consciousness.
Growing up in Mitchell County, Ledford remembers watching television and feeling insulted by such depictions of mountain folk. “I felt the stereotypes didn’t apply to me,” she says. “It wasn’t until I went to college at UNC-Chapel Hill that I realized that it didn’t matter how I saw myself. Others saw me as a ‘hillbilly.’ I was teased for my mountain accent and people dismissed where I was from, assuming I was happy to ‘escape’ the mountains.”
Since that experience, Ledford has spent her career researching mountain culture around the world. Through her studies, she has discovered that “every place has its ‘hillbillies,’” from the Highlands of Scotland to the Apennines of Europe. “Every society needs an ‘other,’ and mountain people often serve that role,” she says.
Ledford will offer more insight into this phenomenon during The Hillbilly: Past, Present and (Most Probably) the Future, an online presentation sponsored by the Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center. Though Ledford’s goal will be to dispel notions of Appalachia as “a region of feuds, moonshine stills, mine wars, environmental destruction, joblessness and hopelessness,” she has her work cut out for her.
“The hillbilly stereotype isn’t going anywhere,” she explains. “It’s too useful. For the United States, Appalachian people have played, and continue to play, the role of sinners and saints, a group of people to blame and ridicule and a reservoir of hope for a ‘back-to-the-land,’ community- and family-focused future.”
For more information, visit History.SwannanoaValleyMuseum.org.
