The Cumberland Mountain Media Project, held by the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University, consists of fifty-one ½ inch video tape recordings of interviews of East Tennesseans who lived and worked in the Appalachian coal fields, as well as scenes of the communities. The collection also includes interview questions, interviewer training materials, a National Endowment for the Humanities Youthgrant application, a project description, and one photograph of a strip mine. Topics include living in coal camps during the early years, community services including the health clinic, scenes of abandoned coal plants and coal mines, stories about "the old way of life," descriptions of coal mining methods used in early years of mining in Appalachia, problems facing the residents, homegrown projects developed to stimulate economic growth, and scenes of daily life in the region.

The current digital collection includes MP4 file surrogates of the collection's 51 recordings along with a PDF file surrogate of collection's folder of paper materials.