Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area

In NIGHT COMES to the CUMBERLANDS author Harry M. Caudill focuses on the terrible social sore of squalor, ignorance and demoralization among the inhabitants of the Cumberland region of eastern Kentucky. The ugly practices of coal mining plundered the hills, leaving natives jobless and hopeless among refuse-clogged streams, sterile fields, and abandoned "company towns." And these shocking conditions prevail in the Cumberlands even today. Harry M. Caudill is well qualified to speak on the subject. His ancestors have been in the Cumberlands since 1792, and he has spent six years in the Kentucky House of Representatives struggling for conservative legislation, improved school financing, and improved administration.