Appalachia
Appalachia 1 / Rogovin Appalachia 2 / Rogovin

Milton Rogovin
American, 1981
Gelatin silver prints
2003.480.1—.2
© Milton Rogovin

Rogovin and his family spent nine summers in Appalachia in the 1960s. With the help of union activists, they gained access to the depressed mining communities of West Virginia and Kentucky. The region received special attention in the 1960s as one of the neediest in the country. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his War on Poverty in rural Kentucky, evidence about the health hazard of black lung disease was presented to the government, and disasters such as the underground explosion that killed 78 West Virginia miners in 1968, all focused attention on the region.