A History of the Ozarks, Vol. 3: The Ozarkers is the final volume of a trilogy chronicling the history of this middle-American highland region. It picks up the story where volume 2 left off, at the end of the long Civil War era in the late nineteenth century, and carries it into the twenty-first century. Through a period of roughly 130 years, The Ozarkers charts the region’s major socioeconomic developments: the rise and decline of the timber boom, the peaks and valleys of the lead and zinc industries, the growth of commercial agriculture and the demise of the family farm, widespread poverty a ... More

A History of the Ozarks, Vol. 3: The Ozarkers is the final volume of a trilogy chronicling the history of this middle-American highland region. It picks up the story where volume 2 left off, at the end of the long Civil War era in the late nineteenth century, and carries it into the twenty-first century. Through a period of roughly 130 years, The Ozarkers charts the region’s major socioeconomic developments: the rise and decline of the timber boom, the peaks and valleys of the lead and zinc industries, the growth of commercial agriculture and the demise of the family farm, widespread poverty and massive post-World War II outmigration, the boom in cheap-labor manufacturing, and the emergence of massive corporations (Walmart, Tyson Foods, Bass Pro Shops) that have brought select parts of the region unprecedented levels of affluence and unexpected racial and ethnic diversity. Undergirding The Ozarkers is an analysis of the role that stereotypes of “hillbillies” and mountaineers has played in the evolution of a region and its inhabitants. The book explores this phenomenon through a close examination of the tourism and entertainment industry, from the mineral water spas of the late nineteenth century to the torrid growth of Branson in the late twentieth. Tying this volume to previous ones in the series is the connective thread interpreting the Ozarks as a colorful regional variation of the American story, not the forgotten and backward land apart so long chronicled by folklorists and travel writers.