The role of schooling in the economic development process has been targeted as essential in both human capital theory and modernization theories. Research into the nature of underdevelopment in Central Appalachia has provided a basis for debate among regional scholars as to its causes and consequences, yet serious discussion of pre-modern…

In the summer of 1925, national attention focused on Dayton, Tennessee, where John T. Scopes was on trial for teaching evolution in violation of state law. The Tennessee "monkey trial" symbolized the confrontation of modern, secular, urban America with conservative, religious, rural America. Although urban journalists and social critics…

This book uses the rural reform movement in Tennessee from 1900 to 1930 as a window through which to view the Progressive campaign to reshape rural life in the South. Tennessee provides an especially valuable perspective on the nature and significance of Progressive reforms in the rural South because of the diversity of its geography and rural…