The Industrialist and the Mountaineer: The Eastham-Thompson Feud and the Struggle for West Virginia's Timber Frontier (WEST VIRGINIA & APPALACHIA)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.53 (692 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1943665516 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 312 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-05-12 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Lewis has crafted a thoroughly researched, well-written, and lively narrative account that uses one violent event—and all it set into motion—to show how old Civil War conflicts were rekindled, how increasingly marginalized farmer-loggers attempted to challenge corporate power, and especially how control of courts and local governance were central instruments in this epic struggle.” Dwight Billings, University of Kentucky . “Fascinating and informative
Lewis’s book uses this largely forgotten episode as a window into contests over political, environmental, and legal change in turn-of-the-century Appalachia. For Lewis, their clash was one flashpoint in a larger phenomenon central to US history in the second half of the nineteenth century: the often violent imposition of new commercial and legal regimes over holdout areas stretching from Appalachia to the trans-Missouri West. . In 1897 a small landholder named Robert Eastham shot and killed timber magnate Frank Thompson in Tucker County, West Virginia, leading to a sensational trial that highlighted a clash between local traditions and modernizing forces. Taking a ground-level view o