Contact:
susan.soto@asu.edu | 480-965-3506
APPALACHIA: A HISTORY OF MOUNTAINS AND PEOPLE
SUNDAYS AT 3 PM
EIGHT/KAET-TV
– Unprecedented History of the People and Nature of Appalachia Offers a Complex Picture of the Storied Region; Sissy Spacek Narrates Four-Part Series –
As a new administration floats bold plans for the country’s infrastructure, Americans are visualizing a 21st-century version of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. To many, FDR’s Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) epitomizes the ambitious projects of that time. As the trucks rolled into Appalachia, FDR’s Works Progress Administration dispatched staff photographers to document the lives of the “forgotten Americans” served by the TVA. Their silvery images of sad-eyed miners and gaunt children remain our reference point for Appalachia.
PBS’ new and unprecedented history of the people and nature of this storied region, however, offers a more complex picture. Appalachia’s mountains are some of the oldest in the world and feature one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. The area has also seen massive exploitation of both people and nature in the name of the industrial revolution. Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People, a groundbreaking four-part series airing Sundays,
July 5, 12, 19 and 26, 2009 at 3 p.m. on Eight/KAET, travels through time and terrain to uncover the depth of the Appalachian story. With Academy Award-winning actress Sissy Spacek as narrator, magnificent visuals, colorful stories and insightful interviews with experts like author Barbara Kingsolver and Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist E.O. Wilson, the cast of scientists, historians and artists weaves a surprising tale that twists and climbs like a remote mountain road.
Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People runs rich with colorful stories and fascinating perspectives. Scientific anecdotes about the nature of the region help viewers appreciate Appalachia as an ecological treasure. One acre of cove forest in the Great Smoky Mountains supports more species of trees than all of Europe. It’s even believed that trees first evolved here 200 million years ago. Tropical jungles compacted over millions of years to create the coal that fuels our carbon economy. Deep underground, ghostly outlines of these ancient petrified plants still glow on the black coal. Miners called them flowers of darkness. Above ground, one acre of moist Appalachian forest can sustain 7,000 salamanders, most of them toxic; the pelt of soil that covers the land is a biochemically living system packed with millions of microbes, bacteria, nematodes and thousands of species of fungi. Rooted in that living soil, the American chestnut tree has been harboring a disease that prevents it from becoming a tree in the truest sense of the word, but throughout the Appalachian forest, the American chestnut’s stubborn roots continue to live underground until scientists can find a cure.
Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People is packed with human drama, as well. Hernando de Soto lost his South American fortune when he maniacally, desperately and unsuccessfully searched for gold among the tribes of the Appalachians. A few hundred angry, loosely organized mountain men turned the tide of the American Revolution when they clobbered a regiment under the command of one pompous British major. Stealthy mining company spies tracked miners’ every move as workers held secret organizing meetings in the middle of the night and bravely took the Mine Workers’ Oath. In every Appalachian story, the landscape irrefutably shaped human culture, and the people in turn shaped the land in a complex dance between natural history and American history.
As Kingsolver says in the film, “Somehow being enclosed in the mountains, you can always feel like there’s something just over the ridge, something waiting for you.”
About Eight/KAET-TV
Eight, Arizona PBS specializes in the education of children, in-depth news and public affairs, lifelong learning, and the celebration of arts and culture — utilizing the power of noncommercial television, the Internet, educational outreach services, and community-based initiatives. The PBS station began broadcasting from the campus of Arizona State University on January 30, 1961. Now more than 80 percent of Arizonans receive the signal through a network of translators, cable and satellite systems. With more than 1.3 million viewers each week, Eight consistently ranks among the most-viewed public television stations per capita in the country. Arizonans provide more than 60 percent of the station’s annual budget. For more information, visit www.azpbs.org.
Eight is a member-supported service of Arizona State University.