By Meredith Dreistadt, AmeriCorps Member and acting archivist at Arthurdale Heritage, Inc. This article appeared in the Volume 1, Issue 3 Winter 2020 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. In the height of the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady to the newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt, left affluent Washington, D.C. to travel to one of the most impoverished communities in the country: the coal mining towns along Scotts Run in northern West Virginia. There she saw firsthand how horrifically affected families were by both the ripples of the Great Depression and the greed of coal companies that ruled over the…
