Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People
Appalachia, a land of magnificent beauty and startling contrasts-- stretches from New York to Mississippi and is home to the oldest mountains in North America and the most ancient forests in the world. It is said that more is known about Appalachia that is untrue than about any other region in the country. APPALACHIA: A History of Mountains and People sets the record straight. Ten years in the making, this groundbreaking series tells the compelling story of how landscape shapes humans cultures and, in turn, how humans shape the land-- the dynamic interaction of natural history and human history. Surrounded by half the population and two-thirds of the industry in the United States, Appalachia has experienced in full force the impact of humans on the most biodiverse mountain ecosystem on the continent. APPALACHIA is the story of the Iroquois and the Cherokee, of Revolutionary War heroes and Civil War atrocities, a brutal industrial logging and pioneering public conservation. Above all, APPALACHIA provides a window unto the defining question of our age: how to use the land to provide for the needs of today and at the same time, preserve it for the future. It is the American story writ intensely.
- 2009-2009
- 1 season
- Oregon Public Television
- Documentary
Appalachia, a land of magnificent beauty and startling contrasts-- stretches from New York to Mississippi and is home to the oldest mountains in North America and the most ancient forests in the world. It is said that more is known about Appalachia that is untrue than about any other region in the country. APPALACHIA: A History of Mountains and People sets the record straight. Ten years in the making, this groundbreaking series tells the compelling story of how landscape shapes humans cultures and, in turn, how humans shape the land-- the dynamic interaction of natural history and human history. Surrounded by half the population and two-thirds of the industry in the United States, Appalachia has experienced in full force the impact of humans on the most biodiverse mountain ecosystem on the continent. APPALACHIA is the story of the Iroquois and the Cherokee, of Revolutionary War heroes and Civil War atrocities, a brutal industrial logging and pioneering public conservation. Above all, APPALACHIA provides a window unto the defining question of our age: how to use the land to provide for the needs of today and at the same time, preserve it for the future. It is the American story writ intensely.
Season 1 Episode Guide
4 Episodes 2009
Episode 1
Time and Terrain
Thu, Apr 9, 2009
The Series Begins with the birth of some of the work's most ancient mountains, the Appalachians. It traces the evolution of the Great Forest, which blankets the region, sheltering unique mosaic of plant and animal life. We see Appalachia's Native Peoples at the time of European contact- vibrant adaptive cultures with finely tuned relationships to the natural world. THe arrival of the Europeans signals vast upheavals for every form of life.
Episode 2
New Green World
Thu, Apr 16, 2009
Native American and European cultures collide in the great and ancient forest. First come surveyors and mapmakers, then hunters and cabin builders. The vast differences between the two ways of life come to a climax when gold is discovered in 1829 on Cherokee lands in the Georgia hills, resulting in the removal of the region's first peoples. We see a new inhabitant, the European pioneer, carving out a life on the Appalachian frontier, coming to terms with the wilderness, creating a uniquely mountain way of life.
Episode 3
Mountain Revolutions
Thu, Apr 23, 2009
The Civil War transforms a region of small farms nestled in a lush forest into a weakened and divided land. Railroads push into the mountains as speculators spread through every hollow. The land, the people, the wildlife and the culture are forever changed as coal is dug and ancient trees felled in order to fuel the nation's booming economy. Journalists attack the "peculiar" people of the mountains and resources flow out in a mighty flood leaving behind a poor people in a rich land.
Episode 4
Power and Place
Thu, Apr 30, 2009
A rich, deeply conflicted region forges its own identity amidst continual exploitation and renewal- from the first American school of scientific forestry to the death of the American Chestnut, from union battles to the conservation , from the War on Poverty to the Cherokee Renaissance. Form the heartbreak of mountaintop removal mining to the hope of a new American Chestnut tree, the struggle to find a proper relationship to the natural world remains the real Appalachian story.