Hillbilly Elegy

Jackson, and my middle school first
welcomed a class shortly after World
War I, well before my grandparents
were born. Armco remained the town’s
biggest employer, and though troubling
signs were on the horizon, Middletown
had avoided significant economic
problems. “We saw ourselves as a really
fine community, on par with Shaker
Heights or Upper Arlington,” explained
a decades-long veteran of the public
schools, comparing the Middletown of
yore to some of the most successful of
Ohio’s suburbs. “Of course, none of us
knew what would happen.”
Middletown is one of the older
incorporated towns in Ohio, built during