Uneven Ground (48 page)

60
. Caudill,
Night Comes
, 322.

61
. U.S. Forest Service,
Tri-State Floods
, 5–8.

62
. Thomas J. Kiffmeyer, “From Self-Help to Sedition: The Appalachian Volunteers and the War on Poverty in Eastern Kentucky, 1964–1970” (PhD diss., University of Kentucky, 1998), 14–62; David E. Whisnant,
Modernizing the Mountaineer: People, Power, and Planning in Appalachia
(Boone, NC: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1980), 3–25; Morris R. Mitchell, “Dare the School Build a Community?”
Mountain Life and Work
, July 1938, 1–3.

63
. Gerald Griffin, “The Truth about Eastern Kentucky,”
Mountain Life and Work
, Winter 1955.

64
. Luebke and Hart, “Migration,” 53.

65
. See Eller,
Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers
, 120.

66
. Harry W. Ernst and Charles H. Drake, “The Lost Appalachians: Poor, Proud and Primitive,”
Nation
, May 30, 1959, 492.

67
. Caudill,
Night Comes
, 371.

68
. George S. Mitchell, “Let's Unite the Pie,”
Mountain Life and Work
, Spring 1951, 19–20.

69
. “The Council Resolves,”
Mountain Life and Work
, Fall 1959, 37.

70
. W. D. Weatherford, “The Southern Appalachian Studies: Their Final Form and Potential,”
Mountain Life and Work
, Winter 1959, 27–30.

71
. Napier, “Mines, Miners, and Machines,” 129; Glen Taul, “A Seed Is Planted” (unpublished paper, 1998), in the author's possession, 3.

72
. Taul, “Seed Is Planted,” 5–17.

73
. Kentucky Junior Chamber of Commerce,
Annual Report, 1956–57
(Louisville: Kentucky Junior Chamber of Commerce, 1957);
Lexington Herald
, September 7, 1956.

74
. Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission,
Program 60
(Frankfort: Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission, 1959), A2. The history of the Eastern Kentucky Regional Development Council is detailed in Taul, “Seed Is Planted,” 9–27.

75
. Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission,
Program 60
, C1.

76
. Ibid., A3; Taul, “Seed Is Planted,” 24.

77
. Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission,
Program 60
, A3.

78
. Ibid., E1–H4.

79
. Taul, “Seed Is Planted,” 38–39.

80
. Ibid., 42–43.

81
. Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission,
Program 60
, B1.

82
. “Eastern Kentucky Needs More Than What Washington Offers,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, February 7, 1959.

Epigraph: “Kentucky,”
Time
, February 23, 1959.

1
. See, for example,
Louisville Courier-Journal
, February 15, 19, March 10, 12, 1960.

2
. Harry W. Ernst,
The Primary That Made a President: West Virginia 1960
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), 5.

3
. The best accounts of the 1960 West Virginia primary are Ernst,
Primary
, and Theodore H. White,
The Making of the President, 1960
(New York: Atheneum, 1961).

4
. The conference was organized by the Maryland Department of Economic Development, whose director, George W. Hubley, was until early 1960 the commissioner of economic development for Kentucky and was familiar with the East Kentucky Development Commission and
Program 60
. See David A. Grossman and Melvin R. Levin,
The Appalachian Region: A Preliminary Analysis of Economic and Population Trends in an Eleven State Problem Area
(Annapolis: Maryland Department of Economic Development, 1960).

5
. Robert L. Riggs, “Philosophy Conflict Blocks Seven-State Pact,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, May 21, 1960.

6
. Council of State Governments,
Summary: Conference of Appalachian Governors
(Atlanta, 1960), 6, John D. Whisman Papers, box 56, file 928, Special Collections Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington (hereafter cited as Whisman Papers).

7
. Hugh Morris, “States Differ on Need for U.S. Aid to Area,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, May 18, 1960.

8
. Conference of Appalachian Governors, “A Resolution Subscribing to and Supporting a Declaration for Action Regarding the Appalachian Region,” in Council of State Governments,
Summary
, 32–33.

9
. Ibid., 32.

10
. Ibid., 32–33.

11
. Irwin Unger,
The Best of Intentions: The Triumph and Failure of the Great Society under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon
(New York: Doubleday, 1996), 23.

12
. “Kennedy Names 11 to Draft Aid Plan for Depressed Areas,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, December 5, 1960; Fred W. Luigart Jr., “Kentuckian Is Joining Depressed-Area Group,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, December 7, 1960.

13
. John D. Whisman to Appalachian Commission Members, n.d., in the author's possession; “The Kennedy Task Force on Area Redevelopment,”
Congressional Record
, 86th Cong., December 27, 1960, 10–13, Whisman Papers, box 41, file 642.

14
. Whisnant,
Modernizing the Mountaineer
, 71–72; James E. Anderson,
“Poverty, Unemployment, and Economic Development: The Search for a National Antipoverty Policy,”
Journal of Politics
29 (February 1967): 78–79.

15
. Anderson, “Poverty, Unemployment,” 79. See also Branscome,
Federal Government in Appalachia
, 23–24.

16
. Conference of Appalachian Governors,
A Proposal to the Area Redevelopment Administration for a Technical Assistance Project to Formulate Development Programming for the Appalachian Region
(June 1961), in the author's possession.

17
. Michael Bradshaw,
The Appalachian Regional Commission: Twenty-five Years of Government Policy
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 30–31; Branscome,
Federal Government in Appalachia
, 24; Whisnant,
Modernizing the Mountaineer
, 73–74.

18
. Whisnant,
Modernizing the Mountaineer
, 75–87.

19
. Caudill,
Night Comes
, 390.

20
.
Louisville Courier-Journal
, February 18, 1962.

21
. Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission,
Program 60: Report
(Frankfort: Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission, 1962), 8.

22
. John Kenneth Galbraith,
The Affluent Society
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958). See also Unger,
Best of Intentions
, 32.

23
. Michael Harrington, “Our Fifty Million Poor: Forgotten Men of the Affluent Society,”
Commentary
, July 1959, 26.

24
. Julius Duscha, “A Long Trail of Misery Winds the Proud Hills,”
Washington Post
, August 7, 1960.

25
. David A. Grossman and Melvin R. Levin, “The Appalachian Region: A National Problem Area,”
Land Economics
38 (1961).

26
. Ford,
Southern Appalachian Region
.

27
. Harrington,
Other America
.

28
. See Leon Keyserling, “Two-Fifths of a Nation,”
Progressive
, June 1962, 11–14.

29
. Thomas B. Morgan, “Portrait of an Underdeveloped Country,”
Look
, December 4, 1962.

30
. Caudill, introduction to
Night Comes
, xii–xiii.

31
. Homer Bigart, “Kentucky Miners: A Grim Winter,”
New York Times
, October 20, 1963.

32
. See Bernie Bookbinder, “Appalachia: The Desperate Americans,”
Newsday
, December 17, 1963.

33
. John Ed Pearce, “The Superfluous People of Hazard, Kentucky,”
Reporter
, January 3, 1963, 33–35.

34
. Carl M. Brauer, “Kennedy, Johnson, and the War on Poverty,”
Journal of American History
69, no. 1 (1982): 103; Unger,
Best of Intentions
, 31–34.

35
. Dwight MacDonald, “Our Invisible Poor,”
New Republic
, January 19, 1963, 134.

36
. Michael L. Gillette,
Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History
(New York: Twayne, 1996), 1–11.

37
. Brauer, “Kennedy, Johnson,” 102–3.

38
.
Lexington Herald
, March 18, 1963;
Louisville Courier-Journal
, March 19, 1963;
Whitesburg (KY) Mountain Eagle
, March 20, 1963.

39
. John D. Whisman, “Origin and Development of the Program, 1955–1975,” memorandum to Appalachian Commission Members, 1976, 23–24, Whisman Papers, box 203, file 2859.

40
. Advisory Policy Board to Area Redevelopment Administration and Conference of Appalachian Governors, transcript of the joint meeting, Washington, DC, April 9, 1963, 1–4, Whisman Papers, box 58, file 959.

41
. Ibid., 12–21.

42
. Ibid., 21–22.

43
. John D. Whisman, interview by Glen Edward Taul, May 5, 1995, quoted in Glen Edward Taul, “Poverty, Development, and Government in Appalachia: Origins of the Appalachian Regional Commission, 1956–1965” (PhD diss., University of Kentucky, 2001), 256. See also Advisory Policy Board to Area Redevelopment Administration and Conference of Appalachian Governors, 75.

44
. Benjamin Chinitz, “Signs of Hope in the Graveyard of the American Dream,”
Pitt
, January 1964, 1.

45
. Bradshaw,
Appalachian Regional Commission
, 34.

46
. Bigart, “Kentucky Miners.”

47
. Fred Luigart, “Mountains Get Aid from JFK Order,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, December 24, 1963.

48
. Unger,
Best of Intentions
, 77–78.

49
. Taul, “Poverty, Development,” 287–89.

50
. John L. Sweeney, interview by Glen Edward Taul, June 6, 1997, quoted in Taul, “Poverty, Development,” 287.

51
. For more detail, see Taul, “Poverty, Development,” 290–92.

52
. See Sweeney, interview, and Taul, “Poverty, Development,” 301–2.

53
. President's Appalachian Regional Commission,
Report
, 16.

54
. Ibid., 31.

55
. Ibid., 65.

56
.
Louisville Courier-Journal
, April 25, 1964.

57
. Sweeney, interview, quoted in Taul, “Poverty, Development,” 315.

58
.
Louisville Courier-Journal
, April 25, 1964.

59
. Sweeney, interview, quoted in Taul, “Poverty, Development,” 316.

60
. Governor William Scranton, letter of endorsement, President's Appalachian Regional Commission,
Report
, vi–vii.

61
. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Summary and Analysis of the Legislative History of the Appalachian Regional Development
Act of 1965 and Subsequent Amendments
, report prepared by Douglas Reid Weimer, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, Committee Print 14, 5.

62
. Ibid., 8.

63
. Taul, “Poverty, Development,” 375–76; Sweeney, interview.

64
. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks of the President at Signing Ceremony on the Appalachia Bill in the Rose Garden, March 9, 1965,” Appalachian Regional Commission Archives, box 8, folder 6, Special Collections Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington (hereafter cited as ARC Archives).

65
. Lyndon B. Johnson, commencement address (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, May 22, 1964), quoted in Robert Dallek,
Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 82.

66
. Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks of the President and Mrs. Johnson upon Departure from Tri-State Airport, Huntington, WV, April 24, 1964,” Statements of Lyndon B. Johnson, container 102, 2, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas.

67
. See correspondence and memoranda, Office Files of Bill Moyers, boxes 16, 130, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas.

68
. “Poverty and Urban Policy” (transcript of group discussion of the Kennedy administration urban poverty programs and policies), 162–63, John F. Kennedy Library, quoted in James T. Patterson,
America's Struggle against Poverty, 1900–1980
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 134.

69
. See, for example, M. Murphy, “The Valley of Poverty,”
Life
, January 31, 1964; James Reston Jr., “Appalachia: No Place for the Young,”
Chicago Daily News
, February 1, 1965; Ben B. Seligman, “Appalachia as Symbol,”
Nation
, February 22, 1965; Reese Cleghorn, “Appalachia: Poverty, Beauty and Poverty,”
New York Times Magazine
, April 25, 1965; and Jack E. Weller, “Is There a Future for Yesterday's People?”
Saturday Review of Literature
, October 16, 1965.

1
. David M. Potter,
People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954).

2
. Alice O'Connor,
Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 100.