"And we just can't afford to sit back and watch all that (land) be destroyed so a few people can get rich now. One of these days the dear old federal government is going to have to come in and spend billions of dollars just to repair the damage that's already been done. And guess who will have the machines and the workmen to do the job? The same coal operators who made the mess in the first place will be hired to fix it back, and the taxpayers will bear the cost."[2] -- Harry M. Caudill
Harry M. Caudill was an American author, historian, lawyer, legislator, and environmentalist from Letcher County, in the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky.
Biography
Caudill served in World War II as a private in the U.S. Army and was elected three times as to the Kentucky State House of Representatives. He taught in the History Department at the University of Kentucky from 1976 to 1984. A common theme explored in many of Caudill's writings is the historic underdevelopment of the Appalachian region (particularly his own home area of southeastern Kentucky). In several of his books (most prominently Night Comes to the Cumberlands, 1962) and many of his published articles, he probes the historical poverty of the region, which he attributes in large part to the rapacious policies of the coal mining industries active in the region, as well as their backers: bankers of the northeastern United States. He notes that such interests most often had their headquarters not in Appalachia but in the Northeast or Midwest, and thus failed to properly reinvest their sizable profits in the Appalachian region. Following publication of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, President John F. Kennedy appointed a commission to investigate conditions in the region and subsequently more than $15 billion in aid was invested in the region over twenty-five years.[1]
Activist and Writer
In his later years he became an active opponent of the rapidly growing practice of strip mining as practiced by companies working in Appalachia, which he believed was causing irreparable harm to the land and its people. He spoke out and published in many magazines about the subject. Caudill pointed out that strip mining could be done responsibly as in England, Germany, and Czechoslovakia where topsoil, subsoil, and rocks are removed separately and placed back in layers in their original order.[2]
He also produced several volumes of folklore and oral history, which he collected himself from residents of the area centering on Letcher County and Harlan County, Kentucky.
Personal
Caudill died in 1990 and is buried in Battle Grove Cemetery, Cynthiana, Kentucky.
Legacy
The Harry M. Caudill Library located in Whitesburg, Kentucky, the main library of the Letcher County Public Library District, is named for Caudill.
Books by Harry M. Caudill
- Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area (1962; Jesse Stuart Foundation, 2001).
- My Land Is Dying (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973).
- The Watches of the Night (1976; Jesse Stuart Foundation, 2010).
- A Darkness at Dawn: Appalachian Kentucky and the Future (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1976).
- Dark Hills to Westward: The Saga of Jenny Wiley (1969; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1994).
- The Senator from Slaughter County (1973; Ashland, KY: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1997).
- The Mountain, the Miner, and the Lord and Other Tales from a Country Law Office (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1980).
- Slender is the Thread: Tales from a Country Law Office (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1987).
- Appalachian Wilderness: The Great Smoky Mountains (Epilogue written by Caudill; co-authored by Eliot Porter and Edward Abbey) (New York: Dutton, 1970).
References
^ a b "Harry M. Caudill, 68, Who Told of Appalachian Poverty", New York Times, December 1, 1990 [1]
^ a b David McCullough. Brave Companions. Portraits in History.. Simon & Schuster, 1992. p. 163f. ISBN 0-671-79276-8.
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