Night Comes To The Cumberlands: A Biography Of A Depressed Area

At the start of the 1960s the USA was unquestionably the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world.

Yet despite its prosperity and influence there were areas of the country which seemed to have been forgotten.

In 1962 Harry Caudill, a lawyer and legislator, decided to shine a light upon the appalling conditions which he witnessed in Eastern Kentucky.

His introduction lays out the issues which he saw before him: A million Americans in the Southern Appalachians live in conditions of squalor, ignorance and ill health which could scarcely be equaled in Europe or Japan or, perhaps, in parts of mainland Asia.

Caudill begins with the history of region, from its first settlements through to the Civil War, the feuds that erupted between violent neighbors, the emerging lumber trade and the advent of the coal industry, before uncovering the devastation of the depression, the effects of massive environmental damage and the ever continuing decline into poverty and despair for many of the inhabitants.

“Mr. Caudill’s richly informed and sobering account of the Cumberlands’ painful plight is the product not only of thorough research, but also of an intimate knowledge of the region and its people.” Saturday Review

“The picture he has assembled is clear without undue simplification, and forceful without spurious appeal to emotion. … In the social, economic, and legislative battles which must be fought, and fought soon if the people of our Southern Appalachians are ever to be relieved of their very real and pressing difficulties, no finer single weapon can be imagined than this one book.” Kirkus Reviews

“The pathetic history of the Cumberland Plateau in Eastern Kentucky illustrates the results, for men and nature, of unregulated free enterprise, the pre-eminence of the rights of property, and the absence of responsible public supervision.” The New York Review of Books

“Night Comes to the Cumberlands, focused nationwide attention on the plight of Appalachia's residents. President John F. Kennedy appointed a commission to investigate conditions in the region and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, made Appalachia a keystone of his War on Poverty.” The New York Times

The success of this book was immediately felt in the Cumberlands as in the quarter-century succeeding its publication more than $15 billion were spent in the impoverished region. But even though this injection of aid was widely appreciated Caudill and others stated that the forecast was still bleak and only marginal improvement had been made.

This work is essential reading for anyone interested in the social history of the United States, the history of Kentucky and the continuing issue of poverty in rural areas.

Harry Caudill as an American author, historian, lawyer, legislator, and environmentalist from Letcher County, in the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky. His influential book Night Comes to the Cumberlands was first published in 1962 and he passed away in 1990.