19. Education was sporadic and of often low quality throughout the region
Education was not a priority throughout most of Appalachia even as recently as the mid-20th century, for a variety of reasons. Teaching is a profession, and those practicing a profession were (and in some cases still are) viewed with suspicion throughout Appalachia. So were strangers to the region, teachers arriving from elsewhere – particularly from New York and New England – were not warmly welcomed by the conservative and cautious residents. The need to work and help pay for one’s own upkeep superseded the need to learn from classroom and textbooks, since how much can be taught about mining coal or felling trees from within the confines of a school? The relationship of education to poverty was simply not a concept for consideration.
