The 1963 book forever changed Appalachia by exposing the plundering of the mountains of eastern Kentucky. The book established Caudill, then 41, as the voice of the beleaguered mountain people.
Commercially, "Night" was a modest success. Culturally, "Night" was a bombshell, with an impact far beyond mere sales.
"Tens of thousands of acres," Caudill wrote in its pages, "fell to the exploiters, from a people who, though they might fight each other with medieval brutality, at a business negotiation were as guileless as infants."
Ronald Eller, an Appalachian historian at the University of Kentucky, said "the book was a pivotal moment."
"Harry articulately and openly challenged the system," Eller said. "The fact that so much about 'Night' still rings true today is quite an indictment of the political culture of the commonwealth."
By fall 1963, the whole world was coming to Whitesburg to share a meal with Harry and Anne Caudill and take his "poverty tour" of shattered mountains and shantytowns.
Word spread of "ugly, poverty-ridden" Appalachia, as The New York Times' book review put it.
Harry Caudill wryly described the response: Americans cleaned out their closets and shipped tons of old clothes to eastern Kentucky; threadbare suits cut for 1940s fashions dominated the mountains for years. A charitable wholesaler sent 12,000 pairs of children's shoes. Other donations were less thoughtful.
"The town of Harlan was blessed with an entire carload of cabbages for several days on a side track while the cargo rotted, and the Louisville and Nashville — which touts itself as 'Old Reliable' — promptly discarded it on a riverbank," Caudill wrote. "The ten tons of decaying vegetables sent an odoriferous pall to plague the county seat and raise serious doubts about the whole idea of Christian charity."
In early November of 1963, President John F. Kennedy told incoming Gov. Edward "Ned" Breathitt that he was arranging a visit to eastern Kentucky to announce aid for the impoverished region, Breathitt said in a 1998 oral-history interview.
After Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, his successor, Lyndon Johnson, assumed Kennedy's agenda as his own. In 1964, Johnson took the tour Kennedy planned, dropping into Martin County by helicopter to declare his War on Poverty and shake the hands of startled mountaineers on their front porches.
More than anything, Caudill said, Appalachia needed employers independent of coal.
Congress established the Appalachian Regional Commission, or ARC, in 1965 as a fairly traditional public works project. Billions of dollars in federal aid would go to counties designated as "Appalachia," predominantly for road construction, with other projects sharing smaller sums.
Thirteen states would share in the ARC's munificence, from New York to Mississippi. In Kentucky, Appalachia as Congress defines it extends through Lexington's suburbs to just outside Bowling Green in the western half of the state.
Caudill dismissed the ARC as an uncoordinated boondoggle. He said it didn't end the region's dependence on coal, improve schools or break up political cliques.
Medicare and Medicaid, created by Johnson, provided health care for the old and poor, which was much of Appalachia. That was good, Caudill said.
On the other hand, each new handout encouraged malingering by the lazy, he said. Free access to medicine let pill addicts claim "bad nerves" and stay doped up all day — a prescient criticism given the prescription drug abuse currently afflicting eastern Kentucky.
Another trend that has been emerging that meshes biology and technology is in the realm of body-enhancing electronic implants. This ranges from things like LEDs or magnets pierced under the skin to Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) implants. The functionality of these implants includes anything from location-based recognition and “sensory expansion” by being able to feel magnetic fields, to security and being able to secure wearable band-free gadgets.
Benjamin Popper, an editor at The Verge focused on the intersection of technology and culture, said, “This year has seen incredible progress in the advancement of cybernetics. A man with a bionic leg was able to climb the stairs at Chicago’s tallest building. He didn’t need a remote control, his brain was able to direct his mechanical limb as if it were his own flesh and bone. A robotic arm controlled by this woman’s thoughts has achieved new levels of fine motor control.
3D printing is something that will have transformative effects in areas spanning medical, tech and retail. In the medial realm, 3D printers have already been used to create anything from prosthetic limbs to hearing aids. But 3D printing’s next feat will be in creating human organs; already, human tissue has been printed from these devices. Some reports even predict that pharmaceutical companies will be able to use 3D printers for drug development. In the tech space, researchers have recently created an inexpensive conductive plastic composite called carbomorph that will in the future allow consumers to 3D print personal electronics like smartphones, iPods and other devices. But 3D printers will also play a large role in the retail space, as the technology will allow consumers to print their own clothing and accessories. In an interview with USA Today, Steve Yankovich, head of eBay’s mobile business, said that 3D printers would eventually allow consumers to print the things they previously ordered online or bought in-store.
Across areas, 3D printing will also offer consumers a higher level of customization. Craig Elimeliah, the VP, Director of Creative Technology and Digital Solutions at RAPP, a multichannel marketing agency network, said, “3D printing gives us the opportunity to create experiences that lets both brands and their loyalists collaborate on product development, innovation as well and co-creation of physical branded objects. Brands should be releasing 3D printing schemas that are customized to enhance a product or a product experience…. As 3D printers become cheaper and more ubiquitous, we will witness a new era of the customer experience, an era where brands are engaging one-to-one with their consumers on a level so intimate that the products themselves will be a collaborative experience. Some examples could be a soap dispenser that matches your exact kitchen décor printed directly from your 3D printer and all you had to do was buy the refill. The examples are endless and the possibilities are exciting,” he said.
Currently, many retailors are simply extending their website experience across all channels, but increasingly savvy consumers are beginning to demand more—looking for experiences like buying online but picking up in store, buying in store but having it delivered or even using a smartphones as a replacement sales associate in store. In the near future, personal smartphones will be used to do anything from checking product availability in store to getting product information.
As brick and mortar stores evolve to stay relevant, they will increasingly turn to location-based technologies like RFID in order to offer customers more relevant and personalized shopping experiences. Gartner analyst Kevin Sterneckert recently told USA Today that in the near future, by the time a customer walks into a brick and mortar store, “the employees there will probably know what you want to buy, based on information on your trusty phone or tablet. Merchants will know your gender, age, race and income.”
“The omni-channel shopping paradigm is all about providing an immersive and consistent consumer experience across all channels. It’s about reinforcing your retail brand, educating customers about merchandise, and reducing purchase friction,” said Shahram Seyedin-Noor, the CEO and co-founder of GraphDive, which unlocks the power of social data to give vendors insights into their customer’s interests, preferences and demographics. “Not only will that increase in 2013, but it will bring into its fold much stronger elements of social personalization and integration. Retailers will have access to new platforms, such as GraphDive, that integrate and analyze “big data” from different sources—combining, for example, prior purchase behavior with Facebook data – to enable personalized user experiences across the Web, mobile, and offline worlds.”
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