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Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist Defiance in the Ozarks

2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 105; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jahist/jay370

1945-2314

Jeanette Keith,

Race, History, and American Society

J. Blake Perkins argues that conflict between Ozarkers and the federal government since the 1890s has been misconstrued to fit preconceived notions about isolated, ignorant traditionalist mountain people. He demonstrates that the sources of rural “defiance” cannot be reduced to such easy clichés. His debunking begins with the book's title, which evokes “Populist defiance” of federal power. As Perkins notes, in the 1890s Ozark populists wanted a stronger national government that “could protect small producers from the predatory power of elites, including local elites” (p. 7). By the early twenty-first century, however, populism, as articulated by an Ozark Tea Party movement leader, meant “limited government, a free market, and a capitalistic system” (p. 216). Perkins's examination of Ozark history from the 1890s through the 1920s focuses on the 1890s moonshine wars, local resistance to World War I conscription, and small farmers' refusals to cooperate with the federally mandated cattle tick eradication program in the 1920s. His research indicates that Ozarkers often employed federal power to further their own political or social agendas, and he suggests that what the national press saw as violent resistance to Washington, D.C., actually represented conflict between factions in the local community.