Getting Appalachians

September 30, 2008 By

webb Not so long ago, in the days when the country’s financial system was not falling down a cliff, Barack Obama was said to have a problem with white Appalachians. He couldn’t connect with them; he didn’t speak their language; he had denigrated them. Why?

Some writers had speculated about the reasons. Yet Peter Boyer of The New Yorker must be one of the few reporters who has done in-depth reporting on the issue. And his latest story deserves a wide audience, not least for its emphasis on the importance of religion to Appalachians, especially those who live in the swing state of Virginia.

Perhaps the story’s chief virtue are the quotes that Boyer got from his interview subjects. Here is David (“Mudcat”) Saunders, a Democratic strategist, about the hurdles that Obama faces this November:

If Obama loses Virginia, Saunders says, it will be because he didn’t succeed in breaking down cultural barriers. Obama’s famous remark, made at a fund-raiser in San Francisco, that rural voters are bitter, which causes them to cling to religion and guns, lingers in the heartland. “I don’t pray because of resentment–I pray because it makes my life better,” Saunders says. “I don’t have a gun because of resentment–I’ve got a gun because I’ve always had one. I don’t ever remember not having a gun of some kind.”

Although Saunders worked for John Edwards in the primary, his on-the-record quote was candid for a Democratic strategist, especially a few months before a presidential election. Boyer did a good job not only identifying Saunders as a fine interview subject, but also letting his subject speak.

Another virtue of the story were Boyer’s summaries of Appalachian life. Sprinkled throughout the story are interesting references to religion; Boyer notes, for example, that most of the original Scotch-Irish settlers were Calvinists. I have read several long magazine articles (for example, this one ain’t bad) about the Scotch-Irish or Scots-Irish, yet this was the first time that I have read a writer note their religious denomination.

To take another example, Boyer nicely summarized Sen. Jim Webb’s depiction of his people:

Webb has been thinking and writing about such people for forty years. When he turned to writing after serving as a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam, he became obsessed with the American cultural divide, and the fact that his people, the Scots-Irish, stood so firmly on one side. The descendants of the Ulster warrior clans that settled the Appalachian frontier were a proud, ornery lot, deeply patriotic and always ready for a fight. They invented country music, fostered the form of democracy named for their kinsman Andrew Jackson, and supplied generals on both sides of the Civil War. In “Born Fighting,” his 2004 book about the Scots-Irish influence in American life, Webb summarized the culture’s core ethos: Fight. Sing. Drink. Pray.

The story had only two real errors in my view. One was nominal (and not related to religion). Virginia Polytechnic University, the school that former Gov. Mark Warner helped persuade the Atlantic Coast Conference to admit in its conference, is better known as Virginia Tech University. The other was an omission of fact: John McCain is Scots-Irish on his dad’s side. Might not that fact contribute to Obama’s problem? (Admittedly, Obama fared poorly against Hillary Clinton with this group of voters.)

But that is a quibble. This story got religion.

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Filed Under: People, Politics, Religion, Social Issues
  • http://www.seay.us Sandy O’Seay

    Friends,

    As a proud alumnus of Virginia Tech, may I say that the university has never been known as “Virginia Tech University” and is not now known by this name. The name for years was “Virginia Polytechnic Institute,” later adding the words “and State University.” The name “Virginia Tech” is the unofficial name, but “Virginia Tech University” has never, ever been used.

    Thanks,

    Sandy O’Seay
    Virginia Tech, ’66

  • Dale

    Interesting that you bring up this topic. Another angle you might address is that this is not just an Appalachian or Southern story–the Scots-Irish are also present as a cultural force in Western Pennsylvania and New York.

    My ancestors were predominantly Protestant Irishmen of Scottish descent (the term Scotch-Irish or the more recent derivation, Scots-Irish, are distinctively American designations–the immigrants usually described themselves as Irish). To say that religion was part of the immigrant Scots-Irish culture is an understatement–it was the absolute center of their society, a strong point of resistance against encroachments by the central governments of London and later the colonies. The migration to the American colonies was prompted by English legislation requiring Presbyterian ministers to submit to the English King as the head of the church; those who associated themselves with nonconforming congregations were deprived of civil rights, including property rights. They weren’t Puritans, but they also left their homes for America in order to secure greater religious freedom.

    In the colonies, the central governments intentionally used the religiously nonconformist Presbyterian Scots-Irish as a buffer between the “civilized” areas like Philadelphia and the Native American culture to the West; when hostilities broke out, it was the Scots-Irish that bore the cost. For example, when George Washington attempted to establish British territorial claims over Pittsburgh, he was defeated and allowed to retreat with honor; but during the war that followed, the French and their Indian allies raided and destroyed Scots-Irish farms all along the Pennsylvania frontier, with little protection forthcoming from Philadelphia. That reinforced the Scots-Irish immigrants’ distrust of anything that resembled a central authority like the King.

    When the Scots-Irish moved into an area, the first thing they did was to organize a church, almost inevitably Presbyterian of some stripe, which became the source of education and political life in the new community. The influence of the Presbyterian church was strong enough for the Pennsylvania establishment of the time (the first half of the eighteenth century), predominantly Quaker and Anglican, to make dire warnings of theocracy (sound familiar?) if the fractious Presbyterians were allowed to unite.

    People of Scots-Irish descent may not be aware of this history, but it may account for the cultural combination of conservative religious principles and suspicion of central government. A story about the Scots-Irish culture that doesn’t include religion is incomplete at best.

  • Matt

    The reporter starts by identifying the school in question as “Virginia Tech”, the name by which it is familiar to most readers. It is through quoting Saunders that the name “V.P.I.” comes into it. Reporter did fine on that point.

  • http://www.augustiniandemocrat.blogspot.com John Brandkamp

    It’s funny that you should mention this book by Webb. I ordered it today at my store to peruse it. My mother’s family is Scots/Irish/English, from the hills of W.V., and their cultural background deeply shaped who they were. Neat article. Thanks!