Reconstructing Appalachia

The Civil War and the social upheaval that followed left lasting marks on Appalachian families, towns and the wider nation. This anthology, edited by Andrew L. Slap, turns to the region's postwar years, a stretch of history that has received little attention in the existing literature. Its essays concentrate on the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction eras and bring to light lesser-known episodes in the region's past.

Contributors include scholars John C. Inscoe, Gordon B. McKinney and Ken Fones-Wolf, along with newer researchers Mary Ella Engel, Anne E. Marshall and Kyle Osborn. The essays cover postwar events in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, presenting Appalachia as a varied set of communities in which place and family carried great weight.

The chapters examine racial reconciliation, the friction between former Unionists and Confederates, the changing ways the war was remembered, and shifting understandings of race, gender and economic standing.