Hillbilly Highway

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In the United States, the Hillbilly Highway is the out-migration of Appalachians from the Appalachian Highlands region to industrial cities in northern, midwestern, and western states, primarily in the years following World War II in search of better-paying industrial jobs and higher standards of living. Many of these migrants were formerly employed in the coal mining industry, which started to decline in 1940s. The word hillbilly refers to a negative stereotype of people from Appalachia. The term hillbilly is considered to be a modern term because it showed up in the early 1900s. [1] Though the word is Scottish in origin, but doesn't derive from dialect. In Scotland, the term "hill-folk" referred to people who preferred isolation from the greater society and the term "billy" referred to someone being a "companion" or "comrade". The Hillbilly Highway was a parallel to the better-known Great Migration of African-Americans from the south.

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U.S. route 23, Hillbilly Highway US 23 map.png
U.S. route 23, Hillbilly Highway

Many of these Appalachian migrants went to major industrial centers such as Detroit, Chicago, [2] Cleveland, [3] Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Toledo, and Muncie, Indiana, [4] while others traveled west to California. [5] Many of the Appalachians lived in concentrated enclaves, an example being Uptown, Chicago, which was nicknamed "Hillbilly Heaven" in the 1960s. While most often used in this metaphoric sense, the term is sometimes used to refer to specific stretches of roadway, such as U.S. Route 23, [6] or Interstate 75. [7] The participants in the Hillbilly Highway are known as Urban Appalachians. The migration was not a finite process, as it is continuing today and the migrants commonly moved back to their home states in retirement, or relocated only temporarily.

Appalachia

Appalachia includes the whole of West Virginia, and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. [8] The region consists of 420 counties in 13 states. [9] The Appalachia is divided into 13 regions but is grouped into three commonly known sections; northern, central, and southern. Throughout the Appalachian region there are at least 31 mountains. [10] The Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal-state partnership that currently focuses on economic and infrastructure development, was created in the 1960s to address poverty and unemployment in the region. In FY 2007, the Appalachian Regional Commission designated 78 counties in 9 states as distressed, based on low per-capita income and high rates of poverty and unemployment ≠ [11] (of 410 counties in 13 states included as Appalachian). [12] The ARC notes that some severely distressed areas still lack basic infrastructure, such as water and sewer systems. [12] The 1990 Census indicated that the poverty rate in central rural Appalachia was 27 percent. [12] In West Virginia, the 2000 poverty rate statewide was 17.9%; in nine counties more than a quarter of the population lived below the poverty line, with percentages as high as 37.7%. [13] Un- and under-employment rates are higher than the nation's average. [12] Breathitt County, Kentucky had a 9.9% unemployment rate averaged over 2001–2003, a 33.2% poverty rate in 2000 (down from a twenty-year high of 39.5% in 1990), and only 57.5% of adults had high school diplomas in 2000. [14]

Coal mining

Coal mining has been integral to the region and its economy. West Virginia is one of the largest coal producing state in the Appalachian region. [15] One feature of the Appalachian coal mines was the existence of company towns. In the company towns, the coal companies provided the "municipal" services, owned the homes and the stores, where the accepted currency was usually company scrip (despite laws in some states against it) [16] and the prices were excessive. [17] Some of these towns were described by the U.S. Coal Commission in 1922 as being in a state of disrepair "beyond the power of verbal description or even photographic illustration, since neither words nor pictures can portray the atmosphere of abandoned dejection or reproduce the smells." [18] Eventually union struggles occurred in these towns; in central Appalachia miners battled to unionize the mines from the 1890s to the 1940s and fought again from the late 1970s to 1999. [19] Some company towns tried to become models of social welfare, in order to dissuade workers from unionizing. [20] Nonetheless, "mine wars" erupted, including in Matewan, West Virginia on May 19, 1920.

The decline of mining and the move north

Given the instability of coal prices, particularly after World War I ended, and the ongoing union fights, many miners chose to leave the industry and migrate north for jobs. This resulted in the economic exploitation of coal workers which is a period from 1880 to 1930 called the "Coal Wars". One of the most notable events during the coal wars was the Battle of Blair Mountain. This battle came to be known as the largest labor uprising in the United States history as well as being the largest armed uprising since the Civil War. This tragic event lead to upwards of 100 people being killed while many more were arrested. With the added friction in coal mining, and prohibition taking full effect, many so called mountain people carried on selling moonshine since that was one of the prime sources of income at the time. [21] Though this trend would start to slowdown due to the increasing interest of the government to go after these people since it was after all illegal. [21] Factories like General Motors started recruiting people after World War II, causing around seven million people to migrate North. Whites tended to go to areas in Ohio and Pittsburgh, while African-Americans tended to go to areas in Detroit and Baltimore. [22]

Appalachian migration

As much so as coal mining, migration has been an important part of the Appalachian experience. Large numbers of people migrated out of Appalachia in the 20th century for economic reasons. Between 1910 and 1960, millions of Southerners left their home states of Tennessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas, Virginia and West Virginia. [23] A large percentage of those leaving Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee went north for jobs in the industrial sector.

Many West Virginians and Kentuckians migrated to the industrial cities of Ohio, for jobs in rubber and steel. [24] Industrial towns in Southern Ohio, including Dayton and Cincinnati, were favorites for migrants from Eastern Kentucky because they remained close to home.[ citation needed ] Some Ohio companies (including Champion Paper Company, Lorillard Tobacco Company, and Armco Steel) reportedly recruited their labor force from specific counties in the mountains, and gave preference to employees' family members when hiring new workers, making out-migration from rural Appalachia easier. [25]

Detroit

In a 1935 article in The Nation , Louis Adamic writes that the "hill-billies" were believed by Detroit auto manufacturing employers to be "safe" – that is, not inclined to unionize. [26] Adamic reports that auto companies were recruiting during the early '30s with the belief that these rural people had not been influenced by ideas of unionism.[ citation needed ] The article goes on to report that the hill-billies were looked down upon by almost everyone, due to their extremely low standard of living and lack of familiarity with modern plumbing, and because they were seen as taking away jobs from the old-time automotive workers.[ citation needed ] The advent of assembly lines meant that unskilled workers could ably perform tasks at manufacturing plants, so these unskilled mountain folk were adequate employees.

Migrant identity

The Appalachian people who migrated to Detroit (and in smaller numbers to Flint) in order to work in the automotive plants gained an identity distinct from the one that they possessed in their home state. [27] Many families were forced to separate and adapt to new environments, causing traumatic experiences. The discrimination and negative stereotypes that they faced caused new issues that went into following generations. The migrants felt out of place and had a hard time feeling a part of their new community. [22] In their home states, people saw themselves as distinct from those living in other parts of the state, or in a different part of the South. Once they migrated to Michigan, they were lumped together as southern white laborers, and a group consciousness based on that label emerged. Migrants from all over Appalachia began to feel a social solidarity with each other, preferring to work and live beside other Southerners than with Northerners. It was believed that the southern Appalachian migrants began to resemble one another by characteristics less rapidly than Northern rural migrants because of their group consciousness and the persistence of certain southern regional attitudes, and an acute awareness of the difference between themselves and other native-born white Americans.[ citation needed ] Because the Appalachian migrants had no cultural context for situations they encountered in northern industrial cities, their reactions were dictated by their rural southern lives and attitudes.[ citation needed ] This led to these migrants going back to their old homes during holidays and layoffs where everyday life seemed more familiar to them.[ citation needed ] As many as 35% of migrants would return to their old homes from places like Flint and Michigan during such periods of layoffs between 1940 and 1970.[ citation needed ]

Country singer Bobby Bare's 1963 hit single "Detroit City", written by Danny Dill and Mel Tillis, describes the homesickness and culture shock commonly experienced by Southern migrants.

Singer Steve Earle wrote a song titled "Hillbilly Highway", recorded on his 1986 album Guitar Town . Also released as a single, "Hillbilly Highway" recounts the story of three generations of Appalachian men who leave their homes to find work elsewhere. [28]

Country singer Dwight Yoakam's song "Readin', Rightin', Rt. 23" from his 1987 album "Hillbilly Deluxe" describes how, for the children of coal miners south of Prestonsburg, Kentucky, the most important things that they learn are reading, writing, and to take U.S. Route 23 out of the area to find factory jobs in the industrial cities north of Appalachia. However, the singer laments that the same migration that might lead them to financial stability could also separate them from their families and social support system. [29]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Hillbilly is a term for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in the Appalachian region. As people migrated out of the region during the Great Depression, the term spread northward and westward with them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Appalachia</span> Geographic region in the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United States

Appalachia is a geographic region located in the central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. It stretches from the western Catskill Mountains of New York state into Pennsylvania, continuing on through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Great Smoky Mountains into northern Georgia and Alabama. In 2021, the region was home to an estimated 26.3 million people, of whom roughly 80% were white.

Trans-Appalachia is an area in the United States bounded to the east by the Appalachian Mountains and extends west roughly to the Mississippi River. It spans from the Midwest to the Upper South. The term is used most frequently when referring to the area as a frontier in the 18th and 19th century. During this period, the region gained its own identity, defined by its isolation and separation from the rest of the United States to the east. It included much of Ohio Country and at least the northern and eastern parts of the Old Southwest. It was never an organized territory or other political unit. Most of what was referred to by this name became the states of western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and western Virginia. It is still a vague and little used place name today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Migration (African American)</span> African American migration from Southern US between 1916 and 1970

The Great Migration, sometimes known as the Great Northward Migration or the Black Migration, was the movement of six million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West between 1910 and 1970. It was substantially caused by poor economic and social conditions due to prevalent racial segregation and discrimination in the Southern states where Jim Crow laws were upheld. In particular, continued lynchings motivated a portion of the migrants, as African Americans searched for social reprieve. The historic change brought by the migration was amplified because the migrants, for the most part, moved to the then-largest cities in the United States at a time when those cities had a central cultural, social, political, and economic influence over the United States; there, African-Americans established culturally influential communities of their own. According to Isabel Wilkerson, despite the loss of leaving their homes in the South, and the barriers faced by the migrants in their new homes, the migration was an act of individual and collective agency, which changed the course of American history, a "declaration of independence" written by their actions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Appalachian Regional Commission</span> Government agency in the United States

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The city of Baltimore, Maryland includes a significant Appalachian population. The Appalachian community has historically been centered in the neighborhoods of Hampden, Pigtown, Remington, Woodberry, Lower Charles Village, Highlandtown, and Druid Hill Park, as well as the Baltimore inner suburbs of Dundalk, Essex, and Middle River. The culture of Baltimore has been profoundly influenced by Appalachian culture, dialect, folk traditions, and music. People of Appalachian heritage may be of any race or religion. Most Appalachian people in Baltimore are white or African-American, though some are Native American or from other ethnic backgrounds. White Appalachian people in Baltimore are typically descendants of early English, Irish, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh settlers. A migration of White Southerners from Appalachia occurred from the 1920s to the 1960s, alongside a large-scale migration of African-Americans from the Deep South and migration of Native Americans from the Southeast such as the Lumbee and the Cherokee. These out-migrations caused the heritage of Baltimore to be deeply influenced by Appalachian and Southern cultures.

The city of Chicago, Illinois is home to a significant Appalachian population. The Appalachian community has historically been centered in the neighborhood of Uptown. Beginning after World War I, Appalachian people moved to Chicago in droves seeking jobs. Between 1940 and 1970, approximately 3.2 million Appalachian and Southern migrants settled in Chicago and elsewhere in the Midwest. Due to immigration restrictions in the 1920s, personnel managers in Chicago encouraged working-class migrants from the Upland South to fill those jobs. The culture of Chicago has been significantly influenced by the culture, music, and politics of Appalachia. The majority of people of Appalachian heritage in Chicago are white or black, though Appalachian people can be of any race, ethnicity, or religion.

The Metro Detroit region of Michigan is home to a significant Appalachian population, one of the largest populations of Urban Appalachians in the United States. The most common state of origin for Appalachian people in Detroit is Kentucky, while many others came from Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, and elsewhere in the Appalachia region. The Appalachian population has historically been centered in the Detroit neighborhoods of Brightmoor, Springwells, Corktown and North Corktown, as well as the Detroit suburbs of Hazel Park, Ypsilanti, Taylor, and Warren. Beginning after World War I, Appalachian people moved to Detroit in large numbers seeking jobs. Between 1940 and 1970, approximately 3.2 million Appalachian and Southern migrants settled in the Midwest, particularly in large cities such as Detroit and Chicago. This massive influx of rural Appalachian people into Northern and Midwestern cities has been called the "Hillbilly Highway". The culture of Metro Detroit has been significantly influenced by the culture, music, and politics of Appalachia. The majority of people of Appalachian heritage in Metro Detroit are Christian and either white or black, though Appalachian people can be of any race, ethnicity, or religion.

References

  1. ↑ "The Hillbilly Highway - Mapping a Living Network". www.arcgis.com. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  2. ↑ Roger Guy, From Diversity to Unity: Southern and Appalachian Migrants in Uptown Chicago, 1950-1970, Lexington Books (July 15, 2009), pg 14.
  3. ↑ Ruy Teixeira, Red, Blue, & Purple America: The Future of Election Demographics, Brookings Institution Press (September 2008), Pg 53.
  4. ↑ Roysdon, Keith; Gibson, Robin (August 23, 2014). "'River' of immigrants from the south shaped Muncie". The Star Press. Muncie, Indiana. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  5. ↑ Patrick Hook, Harley Davidson: The Complete History, PRC Publishing (April 28, 2003), pg 6.
  6. ↑ Howard Dorgan, In the Hands of a Happy God: the "No-Hellers" of Central Appalachia, University of Tennessee Press; 1 edition (April 23, 1997), pg 164.
  7. ↑ Loretta Lynn & George Vecsey, Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter, Vintage (September 21, 2010), Ch 4.
  8. ↑ According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, see http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=2 Archived 2008-12-02 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ "About the Appalachian Region". Appalachian Regional Commission. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  10. ↑ "40 Appalachian Mountains Facts About The World's Longest Hiking Trail". Facts.net. 2020-06-25. Retrieved 2021-04-09.
  11. ↑ "ARC | ARC Designated-Distressed Counties, Fiscal Year 2007". Archived from the original on 2007-07-03. Retrieved 2007-05-02.
  12. 1 2 3 4 ARC | Economic Overview
  13. ↑ Poverty Rates in Appalachia, 2000: West Virginia.
  14. ↑ ARC Regional Data Results, Socioeconomic Data: Breathitt County, Kentucky.
  15. ↑ "Where our coal comes from - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  16. ↑ Williams, John Alexander. Appalachia: A History University of North Carolina Press 2002
  17. ↑ Boyd, Lawrence. The Company Town, available at http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/boyd.company.town Archived 2007-06-07 at the Wayback Machine
  18. ↑ Williams, John Alexander. Appalachia: A History, University of North Carolina Press 2002, p. 259-260
  19. ↑ Williams, John Alexander. Appalachia: A History, University of North Carolina Press 2002, p. 259.
  20. ↑ Williams, John Alexander. Appalachia: A History, University of North Carolina Press 2002, p. 260.
  21. 1 2 oakesrl1 (2017-05-25). "It's All Legal Until You Get Caught: Moonshining in the Southern Appalachians". It's All Legal Until You Get Caught: Moonshining in the Southern Appalachians. Retrieved 2023-03-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. 1 2 Tabler, Dave (2011-08-16). "Where the Hillbilly Highway ends". Appalachian History. Retrieved 2021-04-16.
  23. ↑ Kirby, Jack Temple, The Southern Exodus, 1910-1960: A Primer for Historians, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. XLIX, No. 4, Nov. 1983, p. 585.
  24. ↑ Kirby, Jack Temple. The Southern Exodus, 1910-1960: A Primer for Historians, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. XLIX, No. 4, Nov. 1983, p. 598.
  25. ↑ Id.
  26. ↑ Adamic, Louis. The Hill-Billies Come to Detroit, The Nation, February 13, 1935, p. 177.
  27. ↑ Benyon, Erdmann Doane. The Southern White Laborer Migrates to Michigan, American Sociological Review 3 (1938), p. 334.
  28. ↑ Deming, Mark. "Guitar Town - Steve Earle". AllMusic. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
  29. ↑ "Readin', Rightin', Rt. 23". Genius. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
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