A popular American view suggests that the region of Appalachia consists of beautiful, yet rugged mountainous areas inhabited by a relatively homogenous, marginalized population, poor in material wealth, but rich in culture, history and "authentic" forms of music (Pearson 2003).  Traditionally, the sociocultural region of Appalachia is defined to include the upland areas of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia.  Sometimes, much of Pennsylvania, northern Alabama and Southeast Ohio are also included (Thompson 2006).  Federally, however, the Appalachians encompass eighteen states reaching from Maine to Georgia.  

     Although quite expansive, Appalachia is tightly connected by strong culture and a body of behaviors based on speech and dialect, folk music and dance, crafts, superstitions, religion and building traditions.  Due to steep ridges, difficult to transverse land and agriculturally poor soil, the Appalachian region was more attractive for poorer people looking for cheaper land (McClatchy 2000).  

    In 1916, on his visit to Southern Appalachia, Cecil Sharp observed, "The region is from its inaccessibility a very secluded one.  There are but few roads...It is completely isolated and cut off from all traffic with the rest of the world.  Their speech is English, not American, and from the number of expressions they use which have long been obsolete elsewhere, and the old-fashioned way in which they pronounce many of their words, it is clear that they are talking the language of a past day...Economically they are independent..." (Campbell 1917).