To save the land and people: A history of opposition to coal surface mining in Appalachia

This study traces the rise and fall of a movement to abolish coal surface mining in Appalachia during the twentieth century. It begins with natural and social histories of the region and examines the development of a strip mining industry, the emergence of state-level demands for regulatory legislation and a ban, the shift of the campaign to the federal level, and the collapse of the opposition movement. The significance of the research is threefold. First, it contributes to the development of social environmental history as a subfield by focusing on common people and the interplay between social relations and the environment. The dissertation also reveals the importance of a tradition of veneration for small, private property in shaping political consciousness and social conflict in the United States. Finally, it reveals inhabitants of Appalachia as capable of using a socially constructed identity developed by local color writers, missionaries, and settlement workers as an ideology for contemporary struggle.