Shelby Lee Adams has spent decades photographing the holler families of rural Kentucky and the mountain folk of Appalachia. More B&W images from the Edelman gallery. Interview With An Artist: Shelby Lee Adams (alternate B&W PDF version); Essays by Adams: All of Us and The Napier's Living Room, 1989; Interview with 92-year old Scotty Stidham.
posted by madamjujujive on Jan 18, 2010 - 15 comments

"The 2000 census found that nearly 23 percent of families living in Letcher County, KY, fell below the poverty line. The median household income in most counties is at or below $25,000, with individuals making on average $12,000 a year." The White Family by Carl Kiilsgaard [more inside]
posted by saturnine on Jun 23, 2009 - 45 comments

Annie Fellows Johnston wrote The Little Colonel books. Kate Seston Matthews, her friend and neighbour, took photographs depicting characters from the series.
posted by tellurian on Aug 5, 2008 - 1 comment

American Hollow - The Bowling family has lived in the same rural hollow in Kentucky for seven generations. The Washington Post tells their story using the Bowlings' own words (including audio clips) and photographs with a Web site you might expect from PBS. Urban Americans (and others, too) might be surprised to learn that there are many, many families in the U.S. who still live like the Bowlings.

"It's 1998 and we just last year put running water in the house, into my kitchen sink. We did it ourselves. We bought line, hooked into Iree's well, dug up a ditch and ran it to the house. But I still need a bathroom and a septic tank. I got a rinse tub that we take a bath in. I'd rather have a bathtub, but meanwhile I can make do."
posted by ewagoner on Apr 27, 2001 - 8 comments