r.

Seems a bit unfair to go blaming the victim there, and attributing poverty to just not "valuing industriousness" enough.

The point is that poverty can be extended by the culture. So it's not all due to the culture, but it has an effect. Blaming the victim is different from making people aware of the different cultures and the effect. And it's industriousness (my synopsis) and Education.

Appalachia may have been cut off, but the South didn't need to be. At the time of the Civil War there were 11 different gauges of RR in the South. The industrial revolution was taking off in the North and one of the big reasons the North won was we could lay new railroad and fix it. Also,the South didn't make war materials and food for the troops priority, and private shipments were the same priority. Then we get the Lost Cause crusade to gloss it all over. And, as I remember it, half of the Appalachia were in favor of the Union.

The people who write about different American cultures will tell you the people who originally settle an area shape the culture of an area that lasts.