Why have they covered all the walls in newspaper?
Insulation and decoration. Getting anything else would have been an expense they couldn’t afford - Appalachia was (and, for that matter, still is) one of the poorest regions of the USA.
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A lot places didn’t. My family comes from a rural location and there were places without telephone service in the 70s.
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The house I grew up in didn’t get running water until the 70s when my parents got it and put in a well.
I grew up in southern Appalachia, and the 90s my grandma would take me with her sometimes to check in on this elderly woman who lived alone in a house without running water. She had a well in her front yard and hauled all her water by hand. She lived into her 90s there taking care of herself. She did have electricity, but not AC.
Now for clarity this was EXTREMELY unusual which was why my grandma would check in on her a fair amount, along with other members of the community. But it’s definitely not that far in the past in some areas, for some families.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwIvn27PgsA
They say in Harlan country, there are no neutrals there. You’ll either be a union man or a thug for J H Blair
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Insulation and decoration.
Pardon the late reply, but what would the walls themselves be made of? They almost look like layered cardboard there. Or maybe sheet metal.
Cardboard as a kind of drywall was sometimes used under the papers, but wood for the structure itself.
It was used for insulation. I once went to the filming location for The Hunger Games where Katniss was supposed to live. The location is in North Carolina. The houses are an abandoned mill town and still standing. Many of the houses had similar interiors, but a lot of the newspaper has been torn down over the years.
so they can always have a ziggy available to laugh at
Youngsters lap up a surplus-commodity supper of pan-fried biscuits, gravy and potatoes at the Odell Smiths of Friday Branch Creek. The newspapers were pasted by Mrs. Smith in an effort to keep the place neat." John Dominis — Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Add the photographer. They were the one actually doing something.
I wonder where they are now
Tinder box
