The boundaries of class in preindustrial Appalachia

Journal of Historical Geography, 15, 2 (1989) 139-162

The boundaries of class in preindustrial Appalachia Mary Beth Pudup

This article recovers social bases of preindustrial Appalachian regional development during the nineteenth century and specifically middle class formation within the predominantly subsistence economy. Because of Appalachia's social and economic isolation from the emergent US capitalist economy, the preindustrial era is traditionally conceived in terms of arrested development. Relatedly, the absence of commercialization is taken to imply stunted social differentiation. This article attempts to move beyond notions of arrested development by explicating the particular dynamics of localized subsistence social reproduction. Three southeast Kentucky counties are case studies. A descriptive model defines social relations governing differentiation within Southeast Kentucky and between the mountains and the larger political economy. Both internal and external relations were constitutive of the region's development path. Evidence on two common indicators of social differentiation, property ownership and occupational stratification, manifest certain patterns and provide a tentative roll call of local elite membership, but do not represent a class map from which to read historical process. The extended historical geographical analysis shows how property ownership and middle class professional occupation came to intersect socially and geographically within certain family lineages and county seat towns. Lineages of the middle class are traced to settlement, land acquisition and county political practice. Middle class formation was supported by the twin pillars of longevity and kinship and was shored up by Kentucky's internal political geography. American history has been described as very largely a record of the westward movement of a frontier, not a geographical boundary, but a type of social life which has reacted upon and modified the ideals and political institutions of the nation... But this on-rushing tide left quiet pools in the mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee. There the frontier has survived in practical isolation until this very day.

George Vincent (1898)

Writing in the American Journal of Sociology in 1898, G e o r g e Vincent voiced the emerging i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f fin de sibcle A p p a l a c h i a as an A m e r i c a n region u n s c a t h e d by the vicissitudes o f h i s t o r y / q Vincent, a sociologist at the U n i v e r s i t y o f Chicago, was e m b l e m a t i c o f a large n u m b e r o f i n c r e d u l o u s a c a d e m i c s a n d professional writers at the t u r n o f the c e n t u r y w h o traveled t h r o u g h A p p a l a c h i a " f r o m a desire to see s o m e t h i n g o f this old f r o n t i e r life." V i n c e n t represents well this intrepid g r o u p , f u r t h e r m o r e , because his travels t o o k h i m t h r o u g h southeastern K e n t u c k y , p e r h a p s the m o s t f a v o r e d venue o f the " l a n d w h e r e time s t o o d still. ''12j D e s c r i p t i o n s p r o d u c e d b y Vincent a n d his c o n t e m p o r a r i e s f o c u s e d on A p p a l a c h i a ' s s u p p o s e d l y arrested social and e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t . Sheltered b y the m o u n t a i n s , a h o m e s p u n s t a n d a r d o f living h a d survived in s o u t h e a s t e r n 0305-7488/89/020139 + 24 $03.00/0

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Kentucky akin to the primitive existence eked out by the likes of Daniel Boone. In fact, one observer labeled Appalachia's people "our contemporary anc~estors ''[3] because their subsistence livelihood seemed so reminiscent of pioneer America. Such melancholy epithets were inspired by certain lived conditions within Appalachia. During the 1890s Appalachia was populated chiefly by subsistence farmers living in log houses; producing corn, beans, and some livestock; and tending household gardens and orchards. Local trade involving bartering household surpluses like eggs and feathers for goods like coffee and sugar--in short, for those few goods outside the purview of household production. Because households made their own clothes, tools and furnishings, commercial industry was limited to combination grist and sawmills, and these engaged chiefly in custom work for local farmers. Transportation on foot and horseback followed meandering creek beds. Finally, material conditions of life in southeastern Kentucky were sustained by a cultural ethic of self reliance and a social fabric in which kinship bonds were warp and woof. The survival of these conditions made Appalachia a living museum of frontier life, "useful as furnishing a fixed p o i n t . . , to measure the progress of a moving world. ''[4] In this spirit, Vincent encouraged sociology students to abandon the classroom for the mountains "and at first hand in the Cumberlands deal with the phenomena of a social order arrested at a relatively early stage of evolution. ''[sl Vincent also urged economists, anthropologists, linguists and historians to join in a coordinated effort to produce monographs about preindustrial Appalachia. The urgency of his call arose from the fact that precisely as it was being made, development of the bituminous coal industry threatened irreversible changes in Appalachia's social and economic life. Yet few contemporary scholars heeded Vincent's call for detailed studies of preindustrial Appalachia. And, with few exceptions, the call has remained unheeded. [6] The curious mix of academics, activists and professional writers continually drawn to Appalachia during the twentieth century has instead, and quite understandably, devoted attention to the plight of the region's bituminous coal miners. Conditions of life and work in the characteristically dangerous and cyclically unstable industry have been carefully chronicled and repeatedly scrutinized. [71 The tragic dimensions of Appalachian industrialization have been greatly dramatized because they are usually staged against a historical backdrop portraying preindustrial Appalachia as a land of egalitarian self-sufficiency. Juxtaposing the two historical eras--the modern coal dependent versus the premodern subsistence society--has become a standard interpretation of Appalachian historical geography. The dramatic counterpoint between past and present has been achieved, however, at the expense of a deepened understanding of the former. As a result, the epithet "retarded frontier" has taken on a double meaning, referring not only to alleged conditions of arrested development at the turn of the century but also to the study of the historical processes which may have engendered those conditions. This article moves toward the social historical recovery of preindustrial Appalachia by moving beyond notions of development arrested by the region's enduring subsistence livelihood. Rather than substituting for social historical processes, subsistence established its own logic of social reproduction operating at the local level. Social class formation in Appalachian Kentucky is explicated

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in terms of these local dynamics and their intersection with the wider capitalist economy emergent in the rest of Kentucky and United States. Specifically, the article examines the coalescence of a local elite, including large landowners and individuals with commercial and professional middle class occupations. Three southeastern Kentucky counties are case studies for social and geographical analysis. The article begins by critically appraising contemporary Appalachian studies, demonstrating continuity between recent claims about preindustrial society and turn-of-the-century studies: namely, that preindustrial Appalachia was egalitarian, static, and therefore an example of arrested development. I suggest this portrayal has not been subjected to historical scrutiny. Notions of arrested development, for example, do not account for the emergence of an indigenous landholding and commercial elite who performed a vital role in capitalist development. The second section puts forth a descriptive model of class formation in Appalachian Kentucky during the nineteenth century portraying local class formation as the intersection between local and non:local political economies. Following this, the article considers evidence on two common indicators of social differentiation, property ownership and occupational stratification, that manifest certain patterns and provide a tentative roll call of elite membership. The final section analyzes how property ownership and professional occupation came to intersect socially and geographically within a few family lineages located in county seat towns. From retarded frontier to traditional mountain subculture

Appalachia has long served as a counterpoint to other parts of the nation. In the antimodernist spirit of the day, turn-of-the-century observers saw in the region's subsistence economy the rugged individualism and earthy survival instinct being eroded elsewhere by the twin evils of industrialization and urbanization. [sl Yet true also to their classically American ambivalence, fascination with the primitive was accompanied by celebration of the contemporary "progress"--local growth of the bituminous coal industry--guaranteeing its demise. Recent Appalachian studies, too, have drawn their own comparisons, but from a rather different perspective. Reflecting on the region's deepening poverty amidst the height of US post-war prosperity, observers during the past two decades questioned how industrialization fostered "the development of underdevelopment" in the region. [91 Integration of Appalachia into the larger national economy and society which accompanied development of the coal industry--integration once heralded as progress--has seemed perhaps a step backward rather than forward, to the extent that integration weakened the bases for regional self-sufficiency. This shift in the interpretative winds has had two related implications for the study of Appalachian social history. The first, and more theoretical, has established that the axes of social differentiation most relevant to understanding Appalachia are those separating the region from the outside world. This proposition is rooted in a rejection of "culture of poverty" theories ascribing Appalachia's economic and social problems to the region's persistent isolation. [1~ Recent regional studies have sought to eliminate the historical misconception of isolation and demonstrate that the region's maladies resulted from precisely the opposite condition of integration. Guided by a variety of

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theoretical frameworks, most notably the internal colonialism model, Appalachian studies have converged u p o n an essentially geographical conception of social relations. Accordingly, Appalachia has been the colony and victim o f industrialization while outsiders, comprised of speculators, investors, and missionaries, have been the agents of colonizationJ ~q This sympathetic reading of Appalachian history substitutes spatial relations for social relations and transforms Appalachia into a social class tout court--economically, socially, and culturally exploited by outsiders. The second and related implication of the interpretative shift has been a reassessment of preindustrial Appalachian history. Once caricatured as a retarded frontier, the social and economic practices o f that era have been reclaimed in recent studies as elements of a traditional mountain subculture. This subculture is characterized by a set of material practices surrounding the subsistence production and reproduction of households and a related mentalitd emphasizing individualism, traditionalism, and familism. E~2JExemplifying this interpretation of preindustrial Appalachia is R o n a l d Eller's celebrated book, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers, which begins: Few areas of the United States in the late nineteenth century more closely exemplified Thomas Jefferson's vision of a democratic society than did the agricultural communities of the southern Appalachians. Long after the death of Jefferson and long after the nation as a whole had turned down the Hamilitonian path towards industrialism, the Appalachian Mountains remained a land of small farms and scattered open-country villages.., nowhere did the self-sufficient family farm so dominate the culture and social system as it did in the Appalachian South. L~1 A fundamental tenet of the traditional mountain subculture is the absence or unimportance of social class differentiation during the preindustrial era. Oral histories testifying "we're a l l k i n " are taken to signify a largely undifferentiated population, and also that kinship rather than class was the organizing principle of mountain society. Yet egalitarian descriptions usually come attached with the caveat that class distinctions did exist in the mountains during the nineteenth century and, eventually, became very important. The juggling of social egalitarianism and stratification is evident in Eller, who waxes eloquent a b o u t the virtues of the traditional mountain subculture but nonetheless concedes that: The dominance of a democratic ethos, however, did not mean the absence of a class structure in nineteenth century Appalachia ... class distinctions did exist in the larger community, county, and region... The southern mountain country contained a minority of wealthier, landed families whose economic power and political influence set them off as an elite group ... These wealthier families provided the local political leadership in the mountains and often controlled local commercial enterprises.., their political influence, access to resources, and contracts with the outside placed mountain elites in a strategic positions to benefit from economic change.[141 The existence of a preindustrial elite would seem to contradict an egalitarian interpretation o f the traditional mountain subculture especially if, as is alluded, members of the elite benefited from capitalist development at the expense of their neighbors. The contradiction is avoided, however, by depicting the elite as supporters rather than initiators--as individuals who merely rode the development b a n d w a g o n drawn by outsiders. F o r example, Arnett cites evidence from local newspaper editorials in writing that " m a n y of the citizens of the area--especially merchants, professionals, and real estate agents--welcomed

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capitalists, whatever their nationality, with open a r m s . ''[15] Eller echoes this sentiment: "native middle class entrepreneurs served as effective brokers for absentee investors and as energetic missionaries of the new industrial faith. ''I16j By doing so, suggests Conti, "this local leadership pursued essentially a modernizing role, diffusing change from the American metropolis to the Appalachian hollers. ''I171 Only Batteau has cast the local elite more provocatively, asserting that "in every form of major development . . . the pioneering entrepreneurs were not outsiders, but locally born and raised entrepreneurs from such towns as Hazard and Paintsville. ''t181 Batteau's assertion notwithstanding, even the bandwagon consensus allows for a few extraordinary local individuals who became regional investment tycoons in their own right. This allowance is possible because their careers are considered "strange"--exceptions to the rule in an otherwise colonized region. [~91 Neither the recognition of preindustrial class distinctions, nor the reputed activities of a local elite, therefore, vitiates an interpretation of Appalachian social history as chiefly a story of insiders and outsiders. Underlying this interpretation is a romantic vision of a preindustrial society presided over by the traditional mountain subculture. This vision has helped throw into sharp relief dislocations caused by twentieth-century industrialization. But it has effectively restricted analysis of social history during the nineteenth century and, in doing so, has tacitly accepted the vintage notion that preindustrial Appalachia was a case of arrested development. The absence of concrete historical analysis has left vital issues unexplored. For example, quite possibly the stellar careers of local tycoons were more typical than previously assumed, meaning that local elites really might have been "pioneering entrepreneurs"--leaders rather than followers. In any case, a pivotal question is how and to what extent their activities at the turn of the century were rooted in earlier decades of social and economic practice. A local elite could not have emerged sui generis in 1880. Other, related, questions about the c o m m o n pattern of local elite formation include whether each county had its own local elite, or whether the elite was really only a handful of truly u n c o m m o n individuals region-wide. Finally, in the formation of an elite, and in preindustrial society more generally, to what extent did class and kinship constitute mutually supportive rather than exclusive social relations?

Drawing class boundaries in preindustrial Appalachia These questions surrounding social historical processes in preindustrial Appalachia strike at two necessarily related dimensions of class formation: first, how the local population became internally differentiated, and second, how these axes of local differentiation meshed with patterns and processes of differentiation externally, in the wider society. Both dimensions are represented in Fig. 1, a framework depicting class formation in terms of the concrete historical geography of preindustrial Appalachia. The framework is inspired by the work of historian Robert Brenner, whose studies of agrarian class structure and economic development in preindustrial Europe show how variations among the class structures of different European nations set each u p o n a rather distinct long-term trajectory of economic development. [2~ Brenner distinguishes between two aspects of local class structure. First are the relations among direct producers in a society, and between producers and

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Internal

External

social formation J Production and Exchange Relations

Relations of Integration

Household subsistence Non-commercial subsistence Political and economic livelihood, incorporating producers. Financially weak subordination within farming and home landowning and merchant elite Kentucky to Bluegrass ruling manufacturing, and depending who dominate local political class; effective isolation from upon freehold access to land, state and national capitalist offices and the distribution of tools, and family labor. Barter political patronage development terms of trade for surpluses determined by direct producers Figure 1. Class formation in Appalachian Kentucky, 1820-1880

the tools and resources acted upon in the immediate process of production. This set of social relations is commonly referred to as "the labour process" or the "social forces of production." Within the second aspect of local class structure are "the inherently conflictive relations of property" surrounding how part of the product is extracted from the direct producers by a class of nonproducers. These social relations are commonly referred to as the "property relationship" and the "surplus extraction relationship." These two aspects of local class structure can be separated analytically but exist historically as unified social relations. As Brenner states: It is around the property or surplus extraction relationship that one defines the fundamental classes in a society--the class(es) of direct producers on the one hand and the surplus-extracting, or ruling class(es) on the other ... different class structures, specifically "property relations" or "surplus extraction relations," once established, tend to impose rather strict limits and possibilities, indeed, rather specific long term patterns, on a society's economic development, t2t]

Social relations surrounding the organization of direct material production and reproduction establish the boundaries within which a local class structure forms. Throughout preindustrial Appalachia, these social relations constituted widespread household access to means of subsistence outside spheres of commodity production and exchange. Subsistence livelihood meant households could reproduce themselves on an annual basis without producing for a commercial market. Non-commercial relations of production and reproduction became entrenched in southeastern Kentucky during the middle decades of the nineteenth century as the region's economy became progressively isolated from the deepening commercialization and sectoral specialization of the national e c o n o m y . [ 221 T h e i s o l a t i o n itself h a d t a n g l e d r o o t s b u t c h i e f a m o n g t h e m l a c k o f i n v e s t m e n t in m o u n t a i n r e s o u r c e s a n d i n f r a s t r u c t u r e t h r e e q u a r t e r s o f the n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y . [23I I n d u s t r i a l d e m a n d f o r s o u t h e a s t e r n K e n t u c k y ' s coal, c a u s i n g the r e g i o n to r e m a i n

was a wholesale d u r i n g the first d i d n o t yet exist agricultural long

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after its comparative advantage for farm production had been outstripped by agricultural development in other farming regions like the Midwest. The cumulative absence of investment in mountain farm and transportation improvement, coupled with the success of investments elsewhere, caused mountain agriculture to lapse into and become entrenched in subsistence production. Various forms of subsistence production, including farming and home manufacturing, prevailed until demand for coal penetrated the region at the turn of the century. Over the course of the nineteenth century these material processes translated into a social formation comprised chiefly of subsistence producers and a small number of merchants and professionals. Subsistence production and barter terms of trade did not permit local accumulation of money capital. Therefore both direct producers and non-producers lacked the financial means to become a vanguard class and finance regional capitalist development. Effective barriers to local capital formation render moot the question of whether local elites in Appalachian Kentucky were leaders or followers. The local elite simply lacked the financial resources to become capitalists single-handedly. Moreover, the money capital shortage was a barrier continually raised over the course of the nineteenth century as industrial capital investment requirements escalated. Absentee capitalists eventually became the principal industrial investment class--a position to which local elites could not ascend. Furthermore, because of the limitations of subsistence production, the social, political, and economic bases of mountain elites were somewhat outside the realm of direct surplus extraction. Certainly the elite had an immediate material basis, especially in local property ownership. But, as will be described later, power and status were accorded through putatively non-economic means as well. The local class structure surrounding the subsistence economy was sustained also by social relations binding the local area into the larger political economy. These external relations constituted the second dimension of class formation. Although these relations include those which tied Appalachian Kentucky into the national, and even international, political economy, perhaps the most important relations were those geographically proximate to the mountain region. Appalachia has been referred to as the "backyard" of various southern and border states. The analogy is useful in recalling how during the nineteenth century, before national markets became fully integrated, individual states were critical arenas of local social and economic development3241 The relationship between the locale and the nation was typically mediated through the particular historical geography of whatever state the locality belonged to--in this case Kentucky. Historical geography thus enters into the process of class formation by helping to define external relations. Kentucky is known for its internal social, economic, and political differentiation which, mimicking Gaul, divided the state into three parts. Most relevant here are lines of differentiation between the southeastern mountain region and the central Bluegrass region. Drawn sharply at an early date, these eventually became more than physiographic divides. Although further west than the mountains, the Bluegrass region was settled earlier and very quickly developed an economy based on commercial agriculture. But more than this, the Bluegrass became the principal locus of political and economic power within the state throughout the nineteenth century. Legacies of early ties between Kentucky and Virginia, when the former

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was part of the latter, assert their importance because the Bluegrass, and through it the state as whole, became ruled by a quasi-aristocratic class of slaveowning planters and lawyers. Between the upper class in the Bluegrass and the predominantly yeoman mountain area "was renewed the old conflict that had characterized the struggle between the backcountry and the tidewater in the older seaboard states. ''lzSl The heart of the struggle during the antebellum era were issues of slavery, taxation, property qualifications for voting, and the basis for legislative representation, r26j Each section's predominant class made competing claims on the statehouse, and while their contest can not be detailed here, historical accounts report neither side lost entirely. One immediate and enduring result was that Kentucky's politics became regionally Janus-faced, witnessed most clearly by its position as a border state during the Civil War. That position was very m u c h a token, however, since Janus usually smiled more warmly and frequently toward the Bluegrass. [271 F o r example, state policies governing public investment in the critical sectors of transportation and farm improvement consistently favored the Bluegrass to the exclusion of the mountain region, f2sl This historical political geography is a necessary context for understanding the formation and relative position of the elite in Appalachian Kentucky. Whatever power the mountain elite enjoyed was always limited by the subordinate political and economic position of the mountain region--early on labelled the state's "pauper counties." The local power of the mountain middle class was exactly that: local power. Yet the local arena afforded this class considerable r o o m in which to maneuver. For one of Kentucky's enduring southern legacies was intense political localism, bred partly by the state's inheritance of Virginia's tradition of county government. Kentucky assumed the county tradition while itself a county of Virginia, and, as historian Robert Ireland has argued, took it to unparalleled heights: Early in her statehood, Kentucky displayed a particular predilection for the art of county-making which did not abate as the decades passed. By the end of the nineteenth century Kentuckians had created 119 counties, adding still another in the early twentieth century.[29~ Although originally intended and officially m a n d a t e d as only administrative subdivisions, Kentucky's counties became, in Ireland's words, Little Kingdoms: Kentucky's counties in reality took on characteristics of semi-sovereignties.Once created, they refused to be abolished, fought with neighbors over boundaries, resisted encroachment on their territories, engaged in internecine struggles over county seats, and besieged the legislature with requests that their own particular problems be ameliorated by special legislation. Such activity not only tended to distract the attention of legislators from the more general needs of the Commonwealth but also contributed to its prevailing localism,t3~ The centrality of the county to Kentucky history lends credence to the present endeavor of tracking the elite in three such entities. Political boundaries can often be dismissed as artificial, but not so in Kentucky. County-lines in the state--like those throughout the S o u t h - - w e r e and are very real social boundaries. Historically each was a crucible within which a middle class formed. County seats were not just administrative centers but commercial and social centers as well. In fact, Ireland claims " . . . the closeness of a rural resident to these communities often bore a direct relationship to his economic and social

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standing. ''L3u County-seat residence in fact became a most telling geographical limitation of the mountain middle class. The model of class formation put forth here accepts that southeastern Kentucky became relatively isolated during the nineteenth century. But isolation did not "retard" or "arrest" development away from a normative path but rather established a distinctive path of social and economic development for the mountain region based on its enduring subsistence livelihood. That Appalachian Kentucky experienced a distinctive development path accords with a conception of capitalist development embracing a variety of historically a n d geographically possible developmental trajectories. The heterogeneity arises from the merger of dynamic local conditions, rooted in social relations of production and exchange, resource endowments, and settlement histories, with dynamics of the wider society and economy manifest in changing relations of integration. Just as New England, the Midwest, and the South each experienced distinctive "roads" of development based on their distinctive class structures, so too, did Appalachia. [321 Case studies and methods

Had the preindustrial era in southeastern Kentucky been different from what it was, documenting middle class formation might be rather straightforward. For example, local newspapers would identify community movers and shakers, and report their activities. Farmers' and merchants' account books would delineate patterns of business transactions, while records of mercantile and financial institutions would reveal who was lending and otherwise making deals with whom. Finally, diaries and family archives would permit an intimate portrayal of how members of a rising middle class perceived their own position and its relation to others throughout the locality. In the present case studies, however, as in most counties throughout Appalachia, newspapers were not published regularly until the twentieth century. Banks were not established until the turn of the century and commerce, such as it was, was conducted in small country storefronts without a predilection for record-keeping. Family traditions among the middle class, like those among the overwhelming majority of the Appalachian population, were largely oral traditions. As a result, the c o m m o n set of qualitative social historical sources does not avail itself in the study of preindustrial Appalachia. More than a methodological dilemma, however, the dearth of primary documents limits what may ever be known about the social history of the southern mountain region. Problems of historical recovery raise obstacles to the study of class formation in the mountains and, at the very least, necessitate a more singular reliance on public records. Silences in the historical record also necessitate a certain creativity--commensurate with spinning gold from straw-in the gathering and use of scattered written records that have survived. A partial solution to problems of historical recovery is achieved, here by casting a wide net on documentary sources to include three counties as case studies: Floyd, Harlan, and Perry in southeastern Kentucky (Fig. 2). Together the counties comprise a "development cohort" because their economic bases were similarly transformed from subsistence agriculture to industrial coal production at the turn of the century. Identical public records, including tax and census schedules, were maintained in all three counties providing baseline data

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Big Sandy River basin

:)l"lNS,O~l~MAR"f ~'

i .........

Upper Cumberland River basin

i Case Study Counties

Figure 2, Study area and case study counties, showing drainage divisions

on property ownership and occupation. Beyond these basic public records, however, the counties vary greatly in both the quality and kind of surviving written sources. Each county thus contributes somewhat different primary documentation. No single county or its sources is typical, but taken together they paint a representative portrait of southeastern Kentucky's preindustrial social history. The representativeness of the case studies is supported further by their geographical differences, also depicted in Fig. 2. They are not fully contiguous, but a more important difference is that each lies within a separate drainage basin. The particular position of each county within its basin shaped its accessibility, and the direction and pattern of its economic interaction in and outside the mountains. Floyd County straddles the Big Sandy River, a stream exceptional in southeastern Kentucky because it was navigable inland by small steamboats almost to its mountain headwaters in neighboring Pike County. Social and economic ties link Floyd closely with its neighbors in the Big Sandy Valley. By contrast, Harlan County straddles the headwaters of the Cumberland River. This river did not permit inland navigation, rendering Harlan largely inaccessible except by tortuous overland travel. Much of the county's economic interaction took place with and through downstream Bell and Knox counties. Perry County extends along the North Fork of the Kentucky River, and its accessibility was similar to Harlan's. Perry County's closest ties were with neighboring Letcher, Clay and Leslie. The three case studies capture experience from each of the three major mountain drainage divisions, Important natural differences disclose themselves in their comparative historical geographies.

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Social differentiation by property ownership and occupation

Property ownership Ownership of property typically denotes social class membership when specified in amount, kind, and value within a particular historical and geographical context. In a preindustrial rural society the most vital property relations surround land. But in preindustrial rural society located in a mountain region, like southeastern Kentucky during the nineteenth century, the land ownership takes on added specificity: who owns what. land. Scarce alluvial bottom lands claimed by the earliest settlers carried a high premium. Local tax assessor books record names of landowners, a m o u n t and value of acreage, and, up to the 1870s, along what stream property was located. The analysis here uses decennial data on land ownership for data years corresponding to those of the federal census before capital investment in mountain resources: 1860, 1870 and 1880. [331 Since the goal is drawing the boundaries of a preindustrial elite, the analysis focuses on the extent and degree of landownership concentration. An initial approximation of the category of large landowner is made in Table 1, defined as possessing 500 or more acres. The first column under each year indicates the number of landowners possessing 500 acres or more, while the second column indicates their proportion of all landowners in the county. The third column under each year indicates the percentage of all assessed acreage accounted for by owners in the 500 acre-plus category. The data suggest that although a small percentage of county landowners owned more than 500 acres, the small percentage controlled a disproportionate share of assessed county acreage. More revealing data on landownership concentration during the preindustrial era are contained in Table 2. These considerably raise the stakes by defining the category of large landowner as possessing 1000 or more acres. At this threshold, however, the percentage of acreage controlled is consistently and, in the case of Harlan County in 1860, vastly disproportionate to the percentage of landowners in the category. These aggregate numbers suggest that if land was wealth, then both were significantly concentrated in each county long before absentee investment in the area's resources. Moreover, the data mask the huge size of some individual holdings, f341In Harlan County, for example, where landownership concentration was greatest in 1860, William Turner owned the largest individual holding, containing 38,550 acres. Lest it seem Turner was an anomaly, during the same year Noble Smith was assessed for 32,875 acres, while Henry Skidmore registered 25,600. The average size of individual holdings within the 1000 acre-plus category did decline over the period. But even as late as 1880, in Perry County 12 local individuals each were taxed for ownership of more than 2000 acres. The composition of the largest ownership category did not change markedly among the three assessment years. Even more decennial persistence is evident for local family surnames. Surname tabulation reveals Harlan County's concentrated ownership is largely attributable to five family surnames: Farmer, Howard, Lewis, Smith, and Turner. Members of these local families together accounted for 41% of the county's assessed acreage in 1860. A similar pattern is found in the other two counties as well, albeit not to such a great extent in Floyd County.

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M. B. PUDUP TABLE 1 Local landownership, 500 acres and greater 1860, 1870 and 1880 1860

Floyd Harlan Perry

1870

1880

No. land owners

% land owners

% No. assessed land acreage owners

% land owners

% No. assessed land acreage owners

% land owners

% assessed acreage

106 140 170

10.4 16.0 27.1

56-8 83.4 79.5

10.4 15.8 18.0

62.0 43-0 59.4

8.4 11.3 12.4

57.0 56-2 42.3

139 112 139

143 110 115

Sources: Floyd, Harlan and Perry County Tax Assessor Books, 1860, 1870 and 1880, microfilmed copies in the Kentucky Department for Library and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky TABLE 2 Local landownership, 1000 acres and greater, 1860, 1870 and 1880 1860 No. land owners Floyd Harlan Perry

29 71 82

1870

% land owners

% No. assessed land acreage owners

2-8 8.1 13.1

28.5 67.5 57.5

46 51 58

1880 % land owners 3.4 7-2 7.5

% No. assessed land acreage owners 40.2 33-0 38-2%

54 41 49

% land owners 3-2 4.2 5.2

% assessed acreage 40.2 31.6 33-0

Source: Floyd, Harlan and Perry County Tax Assessor Books, 1860, 1870 and 1880, microfilmed copies in the Kentucky Department for Library and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky

A vital issue raised by the degree of concentration is the nature of the social relations surrounding land ownership. Did large owners constitute a landlord class, or were they subsistence farm operators on a grand scale? Silences in the historical record permit only tentative answers. The federal agriculture census began collecting farm tenure data in 1880, late for the period considered here and unfortunate, too, because the census enumerated tenants but not landlords. During this year, nonetheless, the proportion of tenant farm operators ranged from 24% in Perry and 26% in Harlan, to 33% in Floyd County. I351Very likely these tenants rented from local landowners since absentee had not yet superseded local landownership. F361Moreover, most were share tenants rather than cash tenants, further suggesting largely local rental agreements. Yet it would be incorrect to conclude all large landowners were landlords or, for that matter, that renting land to others precluded operating a farm oneself. Many large owners were farm operators. This becomes clear when tax records for 1880 are partially linked with manuscript census schedules. For the three counties combined, the 1880 census of agriculture reported a total of 127 farms in its largest farm size class of 1000 or more acres. Of this number, a 60% majority (or 77 farm operators) were also large landowners in the 1000 acre-plus assessment category defined here. f37j Indicating a potentially different set of social relations between landowning and farming at a slightly earlier date are data on slave ownership. Although not common, slavery did exist in the mountain region, f381Because slaves were taxable

PREINDUSTR1AL APPALACHIA

15t

property, their numbers and owners are listed in assessment records and cast additional light on landownership concentration. Slaveowners and large landowners do not correspond perfectly, but other patterns are evident. The largest individual slave owners in each county, as Table 3 indicates, also tended to be the largest landowners. The most glaring case is Harlan County's William Turner, w h o owned 42 slaves in 1860 along with 38,550 acres o f land. Furthermore, although the same individuals do not always appear in both categories, the same family surnames do. This is especially the case in Harlan County where land ownership had reached a high degree of concentration among 5 families. These same families owned almost half of all slaves in the county. TABLE 3

Intersecting slave and landownership, 1860

Name

No. slaves

Acres land

Floyd

James S. Layne John Martin, Sr Samuel P. Davidson estate James A. Lackey

25 20 19 18

2880 1100

William Turner James F. Renfro Aley Ledford John Lewis, Sr Samuel Howard, Sr

58 25 t8 17 13

38,550

Perry John Walker, Sr Robert S. Brashears Nicholas Combs, Sr

12 11 11

1950 4000 1650

Harlan

2325 5033 1571

Sources: 1860 Floyd, Harlan and Perry County Tax Assessor

Books, microfilmed copies in the Kentucky Department for Library and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky Occupation

A second c o m m o n measure of social differentiation is occupation. F o r analysis of middle class formation in an agricultural area, a principal metric of differentiation is non-farming occupation. The lack of commercialization in the Appalachian Kentucky e c o n o m y registered in the small number of non-farming occupations listed on manuscript schedules in the population censuses of 1860, 1870 and 1880, which in no case amounted to even 1% of the population. F o r example, during 1860 in Perry County, only 19 people in the total population of 3950 identified themselves with a non-farming occupation. In 1880 only 17 individuals did so in a population o f 5607! The 1880 numbers are higher in Floyd C o u n t y - - 5 5 non-farming occupations identified--but with a large population of 10,176, the proportion remains similarly small. I391 W h e n non-farming occupations are stratified, moreover, the stunted commercialization and specialization of the preindustrial economy become even more evident.

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M.B. PUDUP

Manuscript census schedules show that as late as 1880, non-farming occupations were limited to artisans, mechanics and general merchants. These occupations were scattered throughout the county, the last usually located at the m o u t h of a large creek. By contrast, individuals with professional occupation in law and politics typically resided in county seat towns of Prestonsburg (Floyd), Mr. Pleasant (Harlan) and Hazard (Perry). This tendency became more pronounced during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. But by 1880 it was already clear that county seats were headquarters of a nascent commercial and professional middle class. Of the three case study counties, this tendency surfaced earliest in Floyd. The Floyd County seat of Prestonsburg was incorporated in 1867, the first town-county seat or otherwise--incorporated among the three case studies, t4~ Prestonsburg boasted the largest resident class of lawyers, merchants, and political officials during the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s. The professional population was very stable, in fact, because the three professional groups were to a certain extent interchangeable: lawyers and merchants moved in and out of political office. The extraordinary circumstances of Floyd County helped an urban middle class coalesce there earliest. Like other counties in the Big Sandy Valley, Floyd had both relatively greater internal commercial development and sustained external interactions than other mountain divisions.

Lineages of the middle class Although exceptional because of its early date, the emergence of a commercial and professional middle class in the seat of Floyd County prefigured what would take place elsewhere in the mountains. The intersection of professional occupation, political office, county seat residence and property ownership, all within the compass of a certain few families, was the rule--not the exception-governing middle class formation in southeastern Kentucky. The following discussion imposes an inescapable linearity upon reinforcing elements of a social historical process. But taken together, it suggests middle class formation was supported by the twin pillars of longevity and kinship and shored up by Kentucky's internal political geography. This argument accords with sociologist James Brown's findings about social organization in the "Beech Creek" neighborhoods in the Kentucky mountains during the mid-twentieth century. 14q Writing about social class in the mountains nearly a century after the period considered here, Brown's study characterized 9 the high-classfamiliesin the BeechCreek neighborhood as being long-residentfamiliesof good background, "moral athletes," hard workers and good livers, less isolated and more modern than other familiesin the area and as people who emphasized self-improvementand who participated more widely in neighborhood affairs,f421 The social origins of the mountain middle class extend back to the settlement of what would become each county. Earliest settlers, it is widely agreed, were fortunate in having their pick of the best lands--the relatively scarce alluvial bottoms. But it is also evident that the first generation of settlers had its pick of as much land as it wanted. Even in the absence of definitive land acquisition documentation, the large size of individual holdings and familial concentration of landownership is apparent from the 1860 assessment records. Furthermore, county histories make no secret that "first families" claimed huge boundaries of

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153

land. Large acquisitions by the families of first settlers are in fact a point of local historical pride. I431 Apparently one c o m m o n route of land acquisition among the largest owner families in each county was through the Kentucky land disposal laws. This series of laws, passed during the first half of the nineteenth century, gradually devolved control over the sale of land to individual county jurisdictions, ostensibly to assist local revenue raising. [441By 1835, the law permitted individuals to claim, survey, and purchase 200-acre parcels of "uninhabited" land for a minimum price of twenty cents an acre. Evidence from early nineteenth-century tax assessments suggests that after the initial wave of settlement in the mountains, many first families took advantage of the land laws to acquire thousands of acres of land. Figure 3 compares size distributions of land ownership in Harlan and Perry counties during the earliest tax assessment, i.e. shortly after county formation and thirty years later. F45JVery few large holdings of more than 200 acres were recorded during the early assessment. The size distributions of holdings two decades hence reveal a very different pattern, however, with a significant number of holdings of 1000 acres or more. Tax assessment records suggest that first settlers established themselves predominantly on acreages of 100 acres or less. Acquisition of large acreages was largely a post settlement phenomenon. During ensuing decades inheritance practices kept l a n d - - m o s t likely the best lands--within first family lineages. By the late nineteenth century owners of the best land in each county, therefore, could be counted among the descendants of the early claimants of large holdings. Political activism among early mountain settlers followed closely on the heels of their arrival and land acquisition. In fact, the three activities were closely linked. During the early decades of the nineteenth century, "most of Kentucky's counties were created because settlers found it difficult to reach county seats not within a day's travel from home. ''[46j Petitioning the state legislature to designate their newly settled area a separate county quickly established a political agenda among early settlers. These individuals surveyed the county's land, drew its boundaries, and, when the new county became official, filled its first political posts. County creation therefore provided an early nexus of local elite formation and from the outset tied political power to property ownership. A case in point is the formation of Perry County. Elijah Combs had been one of the first settlers along the North Fork of the Kentucky River during the late 1810s and, along with his neighbors, agitated for separation into a new county. When the petition was granted in 1821, Combs was named one of three commissioners charged with locating and surveying a county seat. Combs' large land holdings embraced an especially wide bend of the river and it was here that Hazard was located. Elijah and his wife Sally deeded 10 acres to the county for the town in 1826. A town failed to materialize immediately, and so for two decades their home served as the court house. Their eldest son Jesse was the first county court clerk, a position he held continuously until 1874. [471 In Harlan County, George Brittain, then a substantial landowner and member of the state legislature, is credited with using his political influence in having Harlan designated a separate county in 1819. As a reward for his efforts, Brittain became the first county clerk, t48j The county seat of Harlan, initially named Mt Pleasant, was located at the confluence of the three forks of the Cumberland River, land claimed by the previously mentioned William Turner. Small wonder

154

M.B.

130

PUDUP

'

120

Harlan C o u n t y

110 100

9o 80 o

=E Z

so ,o

30

2o 0 <100

101-2OO 2 0 1 - 3 0 0 3 0 1 - 4 0 0 4 0 1 - 5 0 0

501-600 601-700

701-800 801-900 t01-1000

>1000

Acres ~'~

1820

~----~ 1850

9O

Perry C o u n t y

8o 70

Z~-,

Z~ 9

50

"~ "~

30

"~ ""

Z~

e~

E Z

,o \, <11)11

I 101-200

I 201-300 301-400 401-500

i 501-600

I 601-700

i i I r 701 8 0 0 801 t O 0 9 0 1 - 1 0 0 0 > 1 0 0 0

Acres ~'~

1821

I~]

1850

Figure 3. Changing size distribution of landownership in Harlan and Perry counties, t 820 and

1850 that in 1860 Turner owned 16 of the total 25 town lots in Mt Pleasant, or that during various years he had occupied many local political posts. State political practice mingled with longevity and kinship in another way contributing to middle class formation, by permitting local political offices to remain within landholding first families. The second state constitution, in effect

PREINDUSTRIAL APPALACHIA

155

between 1799 and 1850, made the governor responsible for appointing all county officers. Despite this mandate, Ireland claims: Normally he [the governor] abided by the recommendation of the county court justices themselves ... If a justice of the peace sat on the court long enough to become a senior justice, he usually became the sheriff, since the county court controlled nominations to this office as well ... Before 1850, county courts appointed most of the other officers of the county directly without outside approval3491 Over the course of the nineteenth century local political office-holding in the mountains gained a high premium. Oral histories repeatedly testify that holding political office was one o f the few paying j o b s in the mountains. Tax commissioners, for instance, earned a percentage on the a m o u n t of real and personal property they assessed, lS~ Along with providing employment and income, oral histories also clearly signal that local political office conferred considerable local status and power, not least because the conduct o f county government centered on dispensing p a t r o n a g e - - w h i c h frequently t o o k the form of paying jobs. The distribution of teaching positions in each county became one of the most closely guarded patronage preserves: Every little school in the county had one trustee.., whoever he recommended that [county] superintendent had to hire... This school election [for superintendent] was a special time of year [and were] hotter than the President's because there were so many people that didn't have jobs. The ones that had the largest number of votes and relatives that could vote in their behalf [would] get the school.., it was about the only paying job there was in this county. [51]

Political office-holding was thus one of the principal sources of local power and status in the mountains that had a basis outside the surplus extraction from material production. Election superseded appointment to county government with ratification o f the third Kentucky constitution in 1850. This did little to change emergent patterns o f family dominance in office holding, however, because before the twentieth century few county offices had any educational or professional requirements. In their stead, what m a y loosely be referred to as "family reputation," coupled with kinship alliances forged by marriage, became standard qualifications for election to county office. As late as 1907, the Harlan Enterprise suggested that a m o n g the qualifications of then current county judge, H a m p H o w a r d , was his relationship as the grandson of the first m a n to settle in the area, Samuel C. H o w a r d : 52l During the middle decades of the nineteenth century Samuel H o w a r d had filled many county offices, including county court justice, sheriff and coroner. Longevity and kinship also help explain the conduct o f local commerce during the nineteenth century. An e c o n o m y that became increasingly dominated by subsistence production did not create many opportunities for merchant capital accumulation. C o n t e m p o r a r y reports of the R. G. D u n & Co., frequently i m p l y - - a n d occasionally state o u t r i g h t - - t h a t local merchants were continually on the brink of failure during the nineteenth century. U n d e r conditions where local merchant capital faced barriers to accumulation, the conduct of commerce was often supported by extra-economic means, as evidenced by the D u n & Co.'s advice to wholesalers outside the region a b o u t extending merchandise credit to local merchants. I531 Two critical factors determining D u n & Co.'s credit assessments of local merchants were property ownership and "reputation." Obviously, the former

156

M.B. PUDUP

entered into the latter, but longevity and kinship affiliations seemed equally solid, if sometimes intangible ground on which merchants' reputation could be staked. For example, after listing the value of his real estate, the initial report (dated December 18, 1871) on Harlan general-store merchant D. H. Smith noted he was son of the current county judge Noble Smith and the son-in-law of the "wealthiest man in the county", William Turner. The report urged "Sell him all you can. He will always be good. They will back him. ''t541 This proved an accurate prediction when D. H. Smith was out of business five years later. His debts and assets had been assigned to his father Noble Smith, "who has since been paying up debts on par." In Hazard, seat of Perry County, dry goods merchant Shadrack Duff possessed similarly sterling kinship credentials. The Dun & Co. reported "his father owns a good farm. I think Shadrack Duff is good particularly so if John A. Duff, his father, endorses for him." John Duff had been among those securing numerous warrants for county land; in 1860 he listed 33 separate parcels amounting to 3075 acres, f551 Also in Perry County, D. S. Vermillion earned a declaration in 1879 that he was "good for anything he undertakes" on the basis of mercantile experience beginning before the Civil War. f561 These sorts of judgments could and did cut both ways. Newcomers without long-standing kinship credentials and local property could be considered relatively poor credit risks. For example, when W. R. Richmond commenced business in Prestonsburg during the early 1870s, Dun employees warned wholesalers outside the region to "do cash business" with Richmond: his means were unknown, his reputation was not fully established, and he "had not been long in the county. '[571 Despite suggestive remarks filling Dun & Co.'s ledgers, merchants in southeast Kentucky are difficult to trace over the course of the nineteenth century. Silences in the historical record are one reason why vital issues about middle class formation remain unassessable. Moreover, wounds inflicted during the Civil War cut deeply in the mountains, prematurely halting many promising commercial careers through death and war-related out-migration. But perhaps the most important problem in identifying a merchant-centered middle class is that merchants regularly, or rather irregularly, moved in and out of their trading occupation. Tracing merchants as a nucleus of a "commercial class" in the mountains is thus difficult not simply because individual merchants fall between cracks in the historical record--listed in the Kentucky Gazetteer one year but absent from tax rolls the next. Rather, before the 1880s, southeastern Kentucky's merchants did not resemble a coherent commercial class. Farmers and farmers' sons, individually and in partnerships, became merchants, and then, after a few years, resumed farming. Ensuing years might see the same individuals or an immediate kin resume trade in the family name. Clearly, many individuals considered themselves farmers first and merchants second. Even drawing a class boundary around those who claimed trading as their chief occupation in the decennial census or annual tax assessment is fraught with difficulties. Tax records show that many merchants--especially the most prominent--owned large amounts of land, which they rented to others for a share of the produce, t581 In another pattern common to the southern mountains before 1860, merchants also were slaveowners. E591 The situation of Prestonsburg merchant John P. Martin during 1860 is illustrative. Aside from his commercial establishment, in that year Martin also was assessed for ownership of 4000 acres of land and 10 slaves. E6~ In Perry County, Robert S. Brashears presents a similar case.

PREINDUSTRIAL APPALACHIA

157

Brashears was a prominent merchant according to the Dun & Co., yet was also the largest slaveowner in the county. Moreover, he owned 4000 acres of land. t611 Much the same can be said for the practice of law in the mountains, again especially before the 1880s. Lawyers were required to gain admittance to the Kentucky bar, but otherwise were not required to attend law school, or for that matter obtain a baccalaureate degree. Some lawyers in the mountains did have formal legal education. But more commonly, individuals wishing to become lawyers apprenticed themselves to a local lawyer, judges or justice, and 'read law' under his tutelage. Like mercantile trade, law practice was often combined with farming--and frequently also with trading. Such was Hugh Harkins of Prestonburg who, though a lawyer, was also a tanner and tavern-keeper during the 1840s and 50S. [62] Some merchants and lawyers in the mountains during the preindustrial era no doubt made their professional occupations their sole livelihoods. The greater commercial development of the Big Sandy Valley exhibits itself again in this regard, since among the three case studies, Floyd possessed the largest and most continuously-active professional class. Outside the Big Sandy, however, more commonly these professions did not become specialized until the turn of the century, when capitalist development created new local mercantile, legal, and other professional opportunities. By then each county possessed a closely knit group of merchants, lawyers, and politicians whose roots were planted early and deep in the land. Although following often disparate paths to their collective destination, they formed the nucleus of the mountain middle class. The Eversole family of Perry County represents well the path of one middle class lineage. John C. and his brother, Joseph Eversole, opened a general store near the family homestead on Grapevine Creek during 1855. Both were sons of Jacob, who had been the first Eversole in Perry County. Because of their family land holdings, which in 1860 totalled more than 10,000 acres, they were credited by Dun & Co. as "perfectly good & prompt. ''t631 During the War the brothers quit business, and Union Army Major John C. Eversole was killed in a local ambush. The following decade witnessed the next generation of Eversoles' entrance into local commerce. Joseph C., son of the deceased John, opened a dry goods and grocery store in Hazard during 1875. Four years later he had taken his cousin Abner into partnership, no longer having sufficient time to devote to his trade. For alongwith being a merchant, Joseph C. was studying to be an attorney. In fact, he had married Susan Combs, with whose father, Josiah H., then Perry County Court Clerk, he "read" law. Joseph C. Eversole was elected county school commissioner in 1875 and served two terms. His life and career ended abruptly, however, when he was murdered in 1888. t641His children and other kin followed his ascent into the middle class, however. Two sons took up law. One (John B.) practiced in Lexington and became "actively identified with coal mining interests." The other son (William C.) was elected Perry County attorney in 1897, and four years later county judge. By this time new professional opportunities were availing themselves in Perry County and, fittingly, two other sons took up practice respectively as a doctor and civil engineer. I651What the future might have harbored for Joseph C. Eversole can never be known. But considering the career of Arthur Blankenship (A.B.) Cornett in Harlan County permits some speculation. Cornett was born on family land, son to farmer William L. and grandson to William Sr--the latter a farmer, blacksmith, and in 1860, owner of nine slaves.

158

M.B. PUDUP

In the 1880 census, A. B. Cornett named himself a farmer and supplemented farming income at Poor Fork by trading in livestock and teaching school. Already a large landowner by inheritance, of late he had begun investing in real estate as well. His biography states that he quit farming and trading in 1883 to serve a one-year stint as superintendent of schools, and then returned to trading--but this time setting up business in the county seat. In 1890 Cornett again quit trading to assume duties as newly elected county court clerk. Reelected in 1894, he held the position until 1898 when he was elected county judge. His path through farming, trading, and political office extended in other, new directions only then taking shape in Harlan County. He co-founded the First State Bank of Harlan in 1902 and became its first vice-president. Along with his son-in-law W. W. Lewis, himself scion of a venerable Harlan lineage, he organized the Cornett-Lewis Coal Company and made his son D. B. Cornett its president.E661 Some of the differences between Floyd and the other case study counties can be seen in the experience of the Davidson family. Joseph M. Davidson was a Prestonsburg merchant whose father, Samuel P., also a merchant, had arrived in Floyd during the early 1800s. Born in 1837, Joseph M. formed an early commercial alliance by marrying into the Hatcher family, the most prominent merchants up and down the Big Sandy Valley. During various years he is recorded as trading with his cousin Green Witten, as well as with members of other mercantile families including the Steeles, Mayos, Mays and Martins. Like other merchants he had cash debts owed him, some of which were paid-because real property was often the only currency in circulation--in mortgaged land, livestock and occasionally crop liens. These mortgages were at least one basis for his substantial landholdings, taxed in 1870 as 10 separate tracts amounting to 2290 acres. Davidson also acquired land through the state disposal laws and thereby within ten years had more than doubled his acreage. In a firm styled "Davidson, May, and Hatcher" he added to his Prestonsburg store a saw and grist mill during the early 1870s thanks to those investors' "high standing" among their creditors, t67j Along with being a merchant and miller, Joseph M. Davidson was actively engaged in politics. Locally he served as a county court justice and sheriff and served in Frankfort two terms as Floyd County representative in the state legislature. Thanks to the activities of his brothers, the Davidson family name remained prominent in Prestonsburg economic and political affairs. But Joseph M. Davidson's patrilineage ended with him, because his children all were daughters. Their marriages, however, provide compelling evidence of the sorts of ties binding the middle class. As one source delicately put it, by family position and individual qualifications his daughters were "in every way fitted to share in the important destiny" of their husbands. E68JMary Sallie Davidson married H. H. Fitzpatrick, a merchant and descendant of a Prestonburg mercantile family dating to the early 1800s. Alice G. Davidson married Frank A. Hopkins, a lawyer and relatively late arrival in the Prestonsburg area (1874), from across the Virginia divide of the Big Sandy. Along with investing widely in local commercial and industrial development, Hopkins also enjoyed a stellar career in politics that began as superintendent of schools and led to the US House of Representatives. The third daughter, Josephine B. Davidson, found a suitable match in Walter S. Harkins--indeed she made perhaps the most prized match of all. Harkins descended from a family of Prestonsburg lawyers. His grandfather

PREINDUSTRIAL APPALACHIA

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Hugh had migrated to Floyd C o u n t y in 1835, passed the bar two years later, and after that date the town was " n o t without a Harkins in its Bar. ''[69] Walter S. Harkins did more than have a "role" in local development. On some occasions he sat in the director's chair. One early instance of this was spearheading the first bank in Floyd C o u n t y in 1887, which he named " T h e Bank J o s e p h i n e " - - i n honor of his wife.

Conclusion Although the preindustrial era has long been considered a period of arrested social development in Appalachia, the histories of these middle-class lineages suggest otherwise. In the decades following 1880 the local middle class became actively involved in capitalist industrialization. Through its direct involvement in transforming the mountains from a region of subsistence farming to industrial coal production, the middle class made itself. Yet despite the often vast acreages owned by members o f the nascent middle class during the preindustrial era, and despite their claim on local trade and politics, the local middle class did not become a vanguard, financing capitalist development in the mountains. Local wealth and power remained bounded by political and physical geography and, within those boundaries, lacked the credit and currency to underwrite single-handedly a capitalist transformation. The preindustrial subsistence economy provided the middle class with limited financial ability to carry out this potential role. Local individuals were not unaware o f their financial inability to sponsor industrial investment in the mountains. Harlan C o u n t y judge, George B. Turner, son of the much-vaunted William Turner, recognized as m u c h in an article published in the Lexington Herald during the 1880s. But rather than lament what he and his local counterparts could not achieve, Turner chided his relatively well-off neighbors in the Kentucky Bluegrass for failing to share his developmental vision: I have often marveled at the dormancy of the populous and wealthy portion of the enterprising people of Kentucky that they would for so long permit undevetopment of the vast resources lying within her borders, almost in sight of their very doors. Not only is this coal and timber needed for home consumption, but would prove a source of great advantage financially as a revenue paying section of the state. The development of the vast resources of the mountains of Kentucky would make an impoverished and pauper section of the otherwise grand old commonwealth rich, prosperous and happy, beneficial to consumers throughout the state and redound to the interest of our common country. {7~ Despite their location in a region of purported "arrested development," at the turn o f the century the mountain middle class quickly fell in step with town-based "boosters" across the nation. Like its counterparts elsewhere, the mountain middle class actively and eagerly encouraged capital investment from outside the region. In the process, this class settled itself in Prestonsburg, Harlan and Hazard, building stores and hotels, founding banks and newspapers, and financing construction o f streets and public untilities. M a n y individuals inherited or made farsighted and shrewd investments in m o u n t a i n resources. A m o n g these, some maintained their holdings to become coal owners and operators on their own account, others sold out and m a d e a fortune, while others traded their land for equity positions in new coal and land firms. Lawyers took on capitalist clients and handled property transactions, searched titles,

160

M.B. PUDUP

abstracted deeds, and paid taxes for absentee owners. Furthermore, in this passage to a capitalist economy the local middle class tightened its rein on county government. Clearly the sum of these activities did not cast the middle class as follower or leader of capitalist investors outside the regibn. Rather, its role was that of a local commercial and service class--a role history had prepared it for well. Regional Research Institute, W e s t Virginia University, M o r g a n t o w n , W V 26506,

USA

Acknowledgements Research for this article was generously supported by a travelling dissertation fellowship from the University of California, a James Still Fellowship in Appalachian Studies from the University of Kentucky, and a Mellon Fellowship from the Berea College Appalachian Center. Permission to quote from the R. (3. Dun & Co. Collection was granted through the Baker Library of the Harvard University Business School. Notes

[1] G. Vincent, A retarded frontier American Journal of Sociology 4 (1898) 1-20 [2] Others who based their descriptions of Appalachia on conditions in southeastern Kentucky include: J. L. Allen, Through the Cumberland Gap on horseback Harper's New Monthly Magazine 78 (June 1886) 50-66; G. Ryan, The highlands of Kentucky The Outlook 58 (February 1896) 363 68; E. C Semple, The Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky mountains, The Geographical Journal 17 (1901) 588 623; and C. D. Warner, Comments on Kentucky Harper's New Monthly Magazine 78 (1888-89) 255-71 [3] C. G. Frost, Our contemporary ancestors in the southern mountains Atlantic Monthly 83 (1899) 311-19 [4] Frost op. cit. 311 [5] Vincent op. eit. 20 [6] Some of the best descriptions of this era are in the form of oral histories collected in L. Shackelford and B. Weinberg (Eds), Our Appalachia (New York 1977) [7] Some exemplary works in this regard are M. J. Bowman and W. Haynes, Resources and people in east Kentucky (Baltimore 1963); H. Caudill, Theirs be the power (Urbana 1983); D. A. Corbin, Life, work and rebellion (Urbana 1981); J. Gaventa, Power and powerlessness (Urbana 1980); J. Hevener, Which side are you on? (Urbana 1977) [8] Antimodernism in America culture is analyzed by T. J. J. Lears, Noplace of grace (New York 1981) [9] R. Simon, The development of underdevelopment: the coal industry and its effects on the West Virginia economy, 1880-1920 (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, University of Pittsburgh 1978) [10] One of the earliest efforts to discredit the culture of poverty thesis is D. B. Billings, Culture and poverty in Appalachia: a theoretical discussion and empirical analysis Social Forces 53 (1974) 315~3 [11] H. Lewis, L. Johnson and D. Askins (Eds), Colonialism in modern America. the Appalachian case (Boone 1978) [12] The most coherent statement along these lines is E. Knipe and H. Lewis, The impact of coal mining on the traditional mountain subculture, pp 35-7 of K. Moreland (Ed.), The not so solid South (Athens 1971) [13] R. D. Eller, Miners, millhands and mountaineers; industrialization of the Appalachian south (Knoxville 1982) 3 [14] R. D. Eller, Land and family: an historical view of preindustrial Appalachia Appalachian Journal 6 (1979) 83-109 [15] D. Arnett, Eastern Kentucky: the politics of dependency and underdevelopment (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Duke University 1978) 46

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[16] Eller, op. cit. 57 [17] E. Conti, Mountain metamorphosis: culture and development in east Kentucky (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Duke University 1979) 17 [18] A. Batteau, Contradictions of a kinship community, pp 25.40 in R. Hall and C. Stack (Eds), Holding on to the land and the lord (Athens 1971) 32 [19] H. Caudill, The strange career of John C. C. Mayo Filson Club Quarterly 56 (1982) 258-89 [20] R. Brenner, Agrarian class structure and economic development in preindustrial Europe Past and Present 70 (1976) 30-75 and The agrarian roots of European capitalism Past and Present 97 (1982) 16 113; T. H. Ashton and C. H. E. Philpin, The Brenner debate (Cambridge 1985) [21] Brenner, Agrarian class structure 31 [22] The Appalachian farm economy differed greatly from agricultural regions to the north and south. Compare, for example, H, Friedmann, World market, state, and family farm: social bases of household production in an era of wage labor Comparative Studies in Society and History 20 (1978) 545-86 and G. Wright, The political economy of the cotton south (New York 1978) [23] A fuller discussion of preindustrial economic development in southeastern Kentucky is contained in M. B. Pudup, Land before coal: class and regional development in southeastern Kentucky (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley 1987) [24] R. Lively, The American system Business History Review 29 (1955) 81-96 [25] J. Barnhart, Frontiersmen and planters in the formation of Kentucky Journal of Southern History 7 (1941) 19-36 [26] E. M, Coulter, Early frontier democracy in the first Kentucky Constitution Political Science Quarterly 39 (1924) 665-77 [27] E. M. Coulter, Civil war and readjustment in Kentucky (Gloucester 1966) [28] S. W. Maggard, From farmers to miners: the decline of agriculture in eastern Kentucky, pp. 25 66 in L. Busch (Ed.), Science and agricultural development (Totowa 1981) [29] R. Ireland, The county in Kentucky history (Lexington 1977) 2 [30] R. Ireland, Little kingdoms: the counties of Kentucky Lexington 1977) 1 [311 Ibid., 1 [32] C. Post, The American road to capitalism New Left Review 133 (1983) 30-51 and S. F. Feiner, Property relations and class relations in Genovese and the modes of production controversy Cambridge Journal of Economics 10 (1986) 61-75. Claims about the "distinctive', course of mountain development should not be taken as a claim that the mountain experience was "unique" [33] Numbers contained in these figures were computed in the following manner. Totals from the annual reports of the state auditor were used as a baseline for the assessed acreages and numbers of taxpayers. From these totals were subtracted the number of absentee owners and their assessed acreage. Absentee owners were identified as " N R " (non-resident) on the manuscript schedules [34] All statements about land ownership are based on tax assessment records for the given year. Microfilmed copies of tax assessment books are in the Kentucky Department for Library and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky [35] The percentages were computed from the Census of agriculture, 1880, Table V: Number and size of farms by tenure in the state of Kentucky (Washington, DC) [36] Although some speculative and capital investments in the industrial development of mountain resources were made by 1880, most postdate that year [37] Data on farm operators were obtained from the 1880 Census of Agriculture, op. cir. Data on land ownership were obtained from country tax assessment books, op, cit. [38] Competing views on slavery in Appalachia are contained in C. Goodson, Freedom and slavery in Appalachian America Journal of Negro History 1 (1916) 132-50 and J. Inscoe, Mountain masters: slaveholding in western North Carolina North Carolina Historical Review 61 (1984) 143-73 [39] Non-farming occupations were computed using the manuscript schedules of the 1860, 1870, and 1880 Census of Population for Floyd, Harlan, and Perry counties, Kentucky. Microfilmed copies in the Kentucky Department for Library and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky [40] Both Hazard, the seat of Perry county, and Mt. Pleasant, the seat of Harlan County, were incorporated by (separate) acts of the state legislature in 1884. The name of the latter town was changed to Harlan in 1912 [41] J. S. Brown, Social class, intermarriage, and church membership in a Kentucky community American Journal of Sociology 56 (1951) 232-42, The farm family in a Kentucky mountain

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neighborhood Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 587 (1952), and The family group in a Kentucky mountain farming community Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 588 (1952) [42] Brown, Social class 233 [43] J. Egerton, Generations (Lexington 1983) [44] There exists no definitive history of Kentucky land law. The best summary is the first chapter in W. R. Jillson's compendium Kentucky land grants (Baltimore 1971) [45] Omission of Floyd County is due to the destruction of early assessment records [46] Ireland, County op. cir. 2 [47] Hazard Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, A history of Perry county, Kentucky (Privately published 1953) 4-7 [48] M. G. Condon, A history of Harlan county (Nashville 1962) 15-16 [49] Ireland, County 3~4 [50] Shackelford and Weinberg, op. cit. 37 [51] Ibid., 54 [52] Supplement to the Harlan Enterprise April 10, 1908, Appalachian Collection University of Kentucky Library, Lexington, Kentucky [53] Wholesale merchants from outside the region, in cities like Baltimore and Cincinnati, commonly provided merchandise to local general store merchants on credit. The R. G. Dun & Company, forerunner of today's Dun and Bradstreet, provided the service of estimating the credit-worthiness of merchants throughout the nation. Local merchants secured their credit line on the basis of existing inventory and their own and family members' real and personal property. Payments to wholesalers were made chiefly with locally-bartered goods and to a lesser extent in cash. Dun & Co. records frequently lament the cash-poor situation of merchants in the mountains. See Kentucky volumes 12 (Floyd county), 16 (Harlan county), and 37 (Perry County), R. G. Dun & Company Collection, Baker Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration (hereafter R. G. Dun & Co. Collection) [54] Kentucky, Vol. 16, p. 154, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection [55] Kentucky, Vol. 37, p. 45, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection and Perry County Tax Assessor Book (1860) [56] Kentucky, Vol. 37, p. 51, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection [57] Kentucky, Vol. 12, p. 168, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection [58] Share-rent agreement, William Webb and F. A. Hopkins, dated November 15, 1883, Box 1, File 8, Harkins Family Papers, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Library, Lexington, Kentucky (hereafter Harkins Papers). Share-rent agreement, T. M. Nesbitt and Wesley Callahan and W. S. Harkins, dated October 15, 1884, Harkins Papers, Box 1, File 8 [59] In western North Carolina, for example, Inscoe reported most slaveowners were engaged chiefly in commercial occupations. See Inscoe, Mountain Masters op. cit. [60] Floyd County Tax Assessor Book (1860) op. cit. [61] Perry County Tax Assessor Book (1860) op. cit. and Dun Collection, Vol. 37, p. 43 [62] Dun Collection, Vol. 12, p. 158; J. C. Kerr, History of Kentucky (Chicago 1922), Vol. IV 612613 [63] Kentucky, Vol. 37, p. 45, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection [64] The murder of Eversote was one chapter in the story of the infamous French-Eversole feud. A good summary of contemporary feuding in the region is J. Klotter, Feuds in Appalachia: an overview FUson Club Quarterly 56 (1982) 290-317. [65] Kerr, History of Kentucky, Vol. V 632-3 [66] Ibid., Vol. V 227 8 [67] Kentucky, Vol. 12, p. 168, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection [68] Kerr, History of Kentucky, Vol. V 579 [69] Ibid., Vol. V 612 [70] G. B. Turner, From Harlan county--big trees and remarkably old people, undated clipping from the Lexington Herald, scrapbook dated c. 1890, The Filson Club, Louisville, Kentucky