Five generations of Vances gathered in West Virginia last month for a reunion, singing hymns and swapping stories in a quiet park hugged by towering green mountains waiting to burst into autumnal ...

Despite the shoeless-yokel stereotype, hillbillies are mostly independent-minded and self-reliant people with an aversion to postmodernism and Big Brother. Paraphrasing Sturgill Simpson from his song, ...

Riley Crabtree is a Columbus Dispatch opinion writer. The first-generation college student was raised near Jackson, Ohio and attends Miami University. Like JD Vance, I am from the great state of Ohio.

It’s easy to understand why “Hillbilly Elegy,” the 2016 memoir by JD Vance, piqued the interest of the American people. It recycles a narrative America has relied on for a century to sleep soundly ...