The first half of the 20th century: 1910–1950. Railroads, coal, and (to a lesser extent) textiles were among Appalachia's dominant industries at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the region's north. (Michael Bradshaw, The Appalachian Regional Commission: Twenty-Five Years of Government Policy (Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1992): 17–19; John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002): 229, 234–240, 253–254.) The coal industry in particular flourished between 1910 and 1930; Pennsylvania, which produced anthracite coal in the northeast and bituminous coal in the west, was the nation's second most populous state (after New York) until 1950. In southern Appalachia—especially in the areas adjacent to the southern Piedmont—textiles became the major industry. (Williams, Appalachia: A History: 273–274.) While the regional economy grew, however, not all of Appalachia shared in the boom. Rural areas, especially those dependent on agriculture, steadily declined during the early 20th century, as former farmers headed for the mines, the textile mills, or other industrial locations. (Williams, Appalachia: A History: 274.)

Things began to change with the Great Depression, as coal (like many other industries nationwide) declined, taking the fortunes of areas dependent upon coal with it. Paradoxically, Appalachia's rural areas experienced some in-migration during this period, as unemployed industrial workers returned to the family farm to make out a living. But these effects proved temporary; with the United States' entry into World War II, the country's wartime needs renewed the demand for coal and its byproducts—such as steel. (Williams, Appalachia: A History: 253, 307.)

The first half of the 20th century also saw the involvement of the federal government in large-scale resource projects in Appalachia. Millions of acres of land in the Appalachian region—in fact, nationwide—were set aside to establish national parks. Regional projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority also came into existence. Nevertheless, many parts of Appalachia, particularly in its southern areas, continued to be plagued by extreme poverty. (Williams, Appalachia: A History: 289–301; and Bradshaw, The Appalachian Regional Commission: 18–19.

Appalachia's population grew from 12.8 million to 1910 to 17.7 million in 1950, a 39 percent increase. While impressive, this growth was dwarfed by the 68 percent population growth for the rest of the country. (All pre-1960 figures for the non-Appalachian United States include Alaska and Hawaii.) During each decade, Appalachia grew more slowly than the areas outside of it—even during the high population-growth periods of the 1910s and 1920s (see Figure 4). This disparity especially was true in the 1940s; in the decade that saw the United States enter and win the Second World War, the Appalachian population grew just one-fourth as fast as the population outside the region (4 percent versus 16 percent).

Figure 4: Appalachia experienced its fastest growth in the pre-Depression decades and the "turnaround years" of the 1970s. Throughout the 20th century, however, the region grew more slowly than the rest of the United States.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1910 census through 2000 census.

While both central and southern Appalachia each grew more than 50 percent during this period (55 percent and 51 percent, respectively), northern Appalachia increased its population just 29 percent. The respective patterns varied during each decade, however. Central Appalachia's growth rate of 17 percent outpaced that of the rest of the region during the 1910s. In the 1920s and 1930s, central and southern Appalachia had double-digit rates of increase, while northern Appalachia's growth lagged behind in both decades (growing 9 percent in the 1920s and just 4 percent in the 1930s). In the 1940s—a decade of very slow population growth for the region—southern Appalachia's 8 percent increase dwarfed the 2 percent growth rate that both northern and central Appalachia experienced.

Among the region's states, the demographic experience during the early 20th century was decidedly mixed. For example, West Virginia and the Appalachian portions of several states grew more than 50 percent between 1910 and 1950. West Virginia's population increased 64 percent from 1.2 million in 1910 to 2 million in 1950 (a figure greater than its 2000 population of 1.8 million, but that's getting ahead of the story); western North Carolina's population grew 76 percent; western South Carolina's rose 74 percent; East Tennessee's saw a 62 percent increase; and northern Alabama's increased 59 percent. By contrast, growth was much slower in the Appalachian sections of other states. In Appalachian Ohio, for example, the population increased just 11 percent between 1910 and 1950, and the 2 percent growth in Mississippi's Appalachian population included population losses of nearly 5 percent in the 1910s and 8 percent in the 1940s.

In eight of the 12 states with both Appalachian and non-Appalachian sections, population growth during the first half of the 20th century was slower in these states' Appalachian areas than in their non-Appalachian ones. (Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee were the exceptions.) In most cases, the gap was significant—non-Appalachian Ohio grew 82 percent between 1910 and 1950, more than seven times the growth rate in the Buckeye State's Appalachian section. Even western North Carolina's rapid growth in that period was slower than the 87 percent increase the rest of the Tar Heel State enjoyed.

Even during the early 20th century, Appalachian counties currently designated as more economically developed (the Competitive and Attainment counties) grew faster than their less economically developed counterparts (the Distressed and Transitional counties). Both the Competitive and Attainment counties grew more than 60 percent between 1910 and 1950—even faster than the rate for the non-Appalachian United States. By contrast, the Distressed and Transitional counties in the region grew less than 40 percent. This overall pattern held true for each decade except the 1930s. During that decade, the Appalachian counties currently in the Distressed category grew 11 percent as a whole, while the Attainment counties grew just 5 percent. (The Competitive counties grew faster in the 1930s than the Transitional counties, however—10 percent to 6 percent.) In the more economically robust 1940s, however, the Distressed counties actually surrendered some of their 1930s gains, losing nearly 3 percent of their population.

Postwar economic and social change: 1950–1970. The 1950s and 1960s produced several historical and societal developments that decisively reshaped America's political and socioeconomic landscape. The nation saw the quickening of the Cold War, the rise of the civil rights movement, the growth of the U.S. space program, and America's involvement in conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. Meanwhile, rapid social and economic change posed both unprecedented opportunities and challenges as the nation enjoyed tremendous economic prosperity, the start of the suburban boom, and the beginning of the national migration southward as well as westward. It was also during this period when economic conditions in the Appalachian region received even more government attention, leading partly to the War on Poverty during Lyndon Johnson's administration and, more directly, to the formation of the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1965.

Unfortunately, the 1950s and 1960s marked the beginning of a protracted economic decline in the Appalachian region. The national demand for the coal produced in Appalachia was subsiding in favor of oil and other energy sources. And where there remained a demand for coal, it was for the type that could be strip-mined—rather than deep-mined, which was the technique used to gather much of the coal in the Appalachians. (Bradshaw, The Appalachian Regional Commission: 19; and Williams, Appalachia: A History: 345.) Moreover, the growth of the defense industry that occurred with the height of the Cold War largely bypassed Appalachia with a few exceptions. (Two notable exceptions were the areas around Oak Ridge, Tenn. (which started as a nuclear research facility during World War II); and Huntsville, Ala. (which housed one of the space program's key centers for engineering research and development). See Williams, Appalachia: A History: 366–367.) And the region's agricultural counties continued their steady decline as well. (Williams, Appalachia: A History: 317–318.)

Given this backdrop, the 1950–1970 period was, unsurprisingly, not very kind to Appalachia demographically (see Table 1, page 13). The region's population grew only 5 percent, from 17.7 million to 18.6 million. By contrast, the rest of the United States increased its population 38 percent. Appalachia's population grew just 2 percent in the 1950s (compared to 21 percent in the rest of the country) and 3 percent in the 1960s (versus 15 percent elsewhere—see Figure 4, page 9).

Appalachia's three subregions had vastly different demographic experiences during the 1950s and 1960s. Southern Appalachia's population increased 16 percent over the period—more than three times Appalachia's overall rate. Southern Appalachia's metropolitan areas—as currently defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—grew even faster, at 25 percent. Northern Appalachia, by contrast, grew very slowly between 1950 and 1970, at just 3 percent. During the 1960s, in fact, northern Appalachia added just 29,000 people to its 1960 population of 9.8 million (a growth rate of 0.3 percent). But if northern Appalachia's population experienced stagnation in the 1950–1970 period, central Appalachia's took an outright nosedive. From a population of 2.2 million in 1950, central Appalachia lost nearly 430,000 people (almost 20 percent) over the next 20 years. In the 1950s alone, central Appalachia lost 13 percent of its residents. The situation was even worse in central Appalachia's outlying rural areas (those counties lying outside metropolitan and micropolitan areas as defined by the OMB). (For more information about metropolitan and micropolitan areas, see U.S. Office of Management and Budget, "Standards for Defining Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas, Federal Register 65, no. 249 (Dec. 27, 2000): 82227-82238.) These rural areas lost more than one-fourth of their residents between 1950 and 1970.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1950 census through 1970 census.

The experiences of the Appalachian states were as varied as those of the subregions (see Table 1, page 13). Georgia's Appalachian section, for example, grew nearly 30 percent in the 1950s and 1960s—faster than the 23 percent increase it experienced between 1910 and 1950. Appalachian South Carolina continued its rapid growth from earlier in the century, increasing its population 25 percent in the 1950–1970 period. The Appalachian sections of North Carolina and New York also grew at least 15 percent over that time. By contrast, population growth stagnated in Appalachian Pennsylvania (at a 3 percent rate); and West Virginia and the Appalachian sections of Kentucky, Virginia, and Mississippi all lost population. West Virginia's story between 1950 and 1970 contrasted greatly with that state's experiences earlier in the century. After growing 64 percent to just over 2 million residents between 1910 and 1950, the Mountaineer State's population declined 13 percent (losing 261,000 residents) in the next two decades, with population losses in both the 1950s and the 1960s. The shrinkages of the Appalachian population in Kentucky (18 percent) and Virginia (7 percent) were similar to West Virginia's experience, while the 4 percent loss in northeastern Mississippi more closely resembled its own stagnant growth rate prior to 1950.

In every state except Alabama and South Carolina, population growth was greater outside Appalachia in the 1950–1970 period. Not surprisingly, the non-Appalachian portions of Kentucky, Mississippi, and Virginia (all of which lost people in their Appalachian sections) grew. However, the rest of Mississippi grew slowly (at just over 3 percent) during the 1950s and 1960s, while growth in the non-Appalachian counties of Kentucky (26 percent) and especially Virginia (50 percent) was much more rapid. And even in many of the states whose Appalachian portions grew during the 1950s and 1960s, growth was much more rapid in the rest of the state. For example, while Appalachian Maryland grew 10 percent in the 20-year period, the rest of the Old Line State grew 72 percent—nearly twice the rate of the non-Appalachian United States.

Among the four economic development categories, Appalachia's Competitive and Attainment counties—most of which were either in metropolitan areas or on their way to attaining metro status—had the fastest growth during this period. The Competitive counties grew an impressive 42 percent during the 1950s and 1960s (continuing their experiences from earlier in the century), while the Attainment counties grew more slowly, at 16 percent. Growth was slow among the Transitional counties; the 1970 population in this group was only 6 percent greater that the 1950 population. But as expected, it was the Distressed counties that had the worst demographic experience in the 1950s and 1960s: These counties lost one-fifth of their collective 1950 population of 3.1 million during the two-decade period as their economic fortunes declined.

After the Sixties: 1970–1990. It was during the 1970s and 1980s that many of the demographic trends that had started during the 1950s and 1960s intensified (for example, increased suburbanization and a movement to the South and West). But there was one major difference between the periods: the renewed attraction of rural areas, mostly in the 1970s.

Americans' preference for living in more open spaces already was present, fueled partly by the unrest (much of which was racially charged) in many large cities during the late 1960s. A 1968 Gallup Poll, for example, found that, although 32 percent of adults actually lived in rural and small-town America, 56 percent wanted to live in such areas—provided that good jobs were available. Additionally, slight majorities of respondents called for the federal government to encourage the growth of small towns and discourage the continued expansion of large metropolitan areas. (Niles M. Hansen, The Future of Nonmetropolitan America: Studies in the Reversal of Rural and Small Town Population Decline (Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books, 1973): 10㪣.) And many Americans had already begun to act on those preferences. During the 1950s, for example, the share of Americans living in places of between 10,000 and 100,000 people had increased from 20 percent to 26 percent, while the share living in cities of 1 million or more fell from 12 percent to 10 percent. Moreover, suburban growth between 1960 and 1968 averaged 2.8 percent per annum, compared to annual growth rates of 1 percent for nonmetropolitan areas and just 0.1 percent for central cities. (Niles M. Hansen, Intermediate-Size Cities as Growth Centers: Applications for Kentucky, the Piedmont Crescent, the Ozarks, and Texas (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971): 5–7.)

But it was during the 1970s that Americans' residential choices matched their preferences for less-concentrated areas in a way that extended to rural areas. The combination of cheap land, an increased sense of environmentalism, and (in Appalachia's case) some interest in the region's traditions and amenities resulted in the arrival of newcomers to rural and small-town Appalachia. Although many of the newcomers would leave after a few years, others would stay. (Williams, Appalachia: A History: 353–358.)

During the 20-year period between 1970 and 1990, Appalachia added an additional 2.4 million people to its population, an increase of 13 percent. While the region's rate of growth was significantly slower than the 23 percent increase in the rest of the country, it was nearly three times Appalachia's growth rate during the previous 20-year period. But the region's pattern of growth over this period resembled rural America's pattern. During the 1970s, Appalachia's population increased nearly 2.1 million, the largest number during any 10-year period in the 20th century. And not only was the region's 11 percent growth rate the highest in 50 years, it came close to matching the 12 percent growth rate in the rest of the country (see Figure 4, page 9). The 1980s, however, saw Appalachia experience its smallest rate of growth over the century—well under 2 percent (347,000 people).

Figure 5: The 1970s featured rapid population growth in Appalachia, particularly its central and southern portions. That growth, however, slowed down in the 1980s—and actually reversed in central (and northern) Appalachia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1970 census through 1990 census.

Just as the country continued its move southward (and westward) during the 1970s and 1980s, so did Appalachia. Southern Appalachia grew nearly 30 percent during the 1970–1990 period, more than twice the regional rate and even more than the rest of the United States. And even though the subregion grew faster during the 1970s than the 1980s (see Figure 5), its 1980s growth rate of 9 percent was only slightly less than the 10 percent increase nationally. Central Appalachia also experienced healthy growth between 1970 and 1990, gaining 273,000 of the people it lost between 1950 and 1970 to surpass the 2 million mark once again. However, the two decades tell different demographic stories for the Appalachian core. In the 1970s, central Appalachia fully participated in the rural rebound, adding 373,000 people to its population—the largest single-decade increase for the subregion in the 20th century. Moreover, central Appalachia's 21 percent population growth in the 1970s nearly doubled the regional (and national) average and even exceeded southern Appalachia's growth rate. The 1980s, however, saw not merely a demographic slowdown, but an outright reversal. Central Appalachia lost nearly 100,000 people that decade—5 percent of its population. And its most rural counties (those outside core-based statistical areas), which had grown 21 percent during the 1970s, lost 7 percent of their population during the 1980s.

But even with the 1980s decline, central Appalachia did have a double-digit growth rate increase during the 1970–1990 period. The same cannot be said for northern Appalachia, whose population total barely budged in that same time frame, growing less than 1 percent. In the 1970s, Appalachia's northern areas grew just 4 percent, well below the rate for the region as a whole. (However, the rural rebound was present even in northern Appalachia; counties outside its core-based areas grew 13 percent during the 1970s.) In the 1980s, northern Appalachia lost 318,000 people, or 3 percent of its population. Every state in the region except Pennsylvania gained people in its Appalachian section between 1970 and 1990. Georgia's Appalachian section, thanks to the boom in suburban Atlanta, nearly doubled its population in that time, growing 83 percent. The Appalachian counties of South Carolina (35 percent), North Carolina (26 percent), and Tennessee (24 percent) also had sizeable increases. By contrast, population increases in West Virginia (3 percent) and the Appalachian sections of New York (3 percent) and Maryland (7 percent) were more modest, while Appalachian Pennsylvania lost 3 percent of its population. In almost every case, the population increase was greater in the 1970s than in the 1980s. (Appalachian Georgia was an exception, growing about 35 percent in each decade.) Also, every state in the region grew during the 1970s, while West Virginia and the Appalachian portions of Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia suffered population losses in the 1980s.

Whether growth was faster inside or outside a state's Appalachian section between 1970 and 1990 depended on the state. For example, the population growth rate in Georgia's Appalachian counties was more than double that in the rest of the Peach State. Appalachian Kentucky, Ohio, and New York also had greater population increases than the non-Appalachian areas of those states—thanks largely to population growth during the 1970s. (For example, Ohio's Appalachian counties grew a modest 11 percent between 1970 and 1990, but the population in the rest of the Buckeye State rose less than 1 percent.) By contrast, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania saw noticeably greater increases outside their Appalachian sections than within them. While Appalachian Pennsylvania lost people in the 1970–1990 period, for instance, the rest of the Keystone State grew 4 percent—modest, but growing all the same.

Appalachian counties in all four economic development categories grew on average at least 10 percent between 1970 and 1990. The Competitive counties, at 33 percent, grew especially fast, while the counties in the other three categories grew between 10 percent and 12 percent. At 17 percent, the population growth in the Distressed counties in the 1970s provides a particularly remarkable illustration of the attractiveness of rural areas during that decade. Not only did that rate reverse a 30-year pattern of steady decline, but it also exceeded the growth rates of the Transitional and Attainment counties. The 1980s, however, saw the Distressed counties return to their mid-20th century demographic pattern, as their aggregate population fell 5 percent. (Nevertheless, the Distressed counties' population in 1990, at 2.7 million, remained larger than the 1960 population in that group of Appalachian counties.) The story of the Attainment counties during this period is interesting in its own right. In a rarity for the Appalachian region, the nine mostly metropolitan counties in this group actually grew faster during the 1980s (7 percent) than the 1970s (4 percent).