Migration Out of Appalachia
Adrienne Range
Many people who experienced it can tell about the impact that the migration out of Appalachia had on people in the 1950’s. One person that has told his story about the migration is Gary Hicks, who is currently a pump foreman for the City of Elizabethton. Born in 1939, Gary is now 60 years old. He graduated high school and entered the real world in the1950’s. At that time finding a job wasn’t very easy for anyone in Southern Appalachia. In a tape-recorded personal interview, he told of his migration experience and a search for a job. Lack of work forced many people in Elizabethton in the fifties to search for jobs in the more industrialized North; however, they found Detroit disappointing.
Gary told of when he experienced the lack of work directly. He said, "Back when I got out of high school in the fifties just about everybody was leaving here and going to different places to find work." He also told how this made him feel:
Well, it felt like I was gonna have to hit the road cause I was gonna have to find work. I worked at a service station during the time I was going to school and to make any money you needed to have work at the plants down here, which is North American Rayon or Bemberg. If you didn’t have a job there, why you didn’t have a very good job.
With little to no work available, people were looking for jobs elsewhere and many were looking in the big cities.
One reason for the migration was the economic problem many people in Appalachia were facing (Brown 70). It seemed many of them had no choice but to leave their poverty stricken lives in search of a better economic way of life (Brown 61). Industrialized towns became very appealing to them (Brown 61). Opportunities were much greater in the larger cities (Brown 61). They knew that industry meant jobs and money, and Appalachia wanted to be a part of it (Brown 73).
These things influenced Gary to move to Detroit where he came to realize that a great difference in wages was occurring between Elizabethton and Detroit. Gary said:
Started out - I don’t remember what I started out but I was making $2.10 there at that time, and that was good wages for back then cause I didn’t start making that again until after I left up there and come back here. I was here seven years before I got a job at the plant and started making that much money. That’s the difference in the wages up north and down south, and that’s another reason everybody’s moving up north.
Appalachia was far behind the north economically. This was common knowledge and seemed like just another good reason to move.
These reasons were causing many different people to leave the area. Brown argues that most of them were young adults or teenagers, between the ages of 18 and 34 (67). The number of males moving was much larger than the females that left the region (Brown 67). Also within the male population of migrants, the single males were more
prominent in leaving than those that were married (Brown 68-69). These statistics, however, were different from what Gary felt was true. He said, "It was men, women, families. I have aunts, uncles, cousins that left here back in the early fifties and the biggest part of them are still there." Gary’s family wasn’t the only one moving, and in June of 1957, he joined them. He tells of how he quickly moved when given the opportunity. He said, "My cousin had stopped in here right after I graduated from high school and come in for vacation and was going back and asked me if I wanted to go and I said why not." He moved, but not for very long. Detroit wasn’t all he had hoped it would be.
Gary said that Detroit was very different from what he was used to. The lifestyle, traffic, and everything about Detroit were new to him. The community where he lived was very mixed. There were different nationalities and languages all around. While in Detroit, Gary worked in Kroger’s Bakery. He discussed what they talked about on an average day. He said, "Well most of them that I worked with was Southerners and worked in the bakery. They were from Kentucky, North Carolina, and some from Bluff City and all there was to talk about was getting enough money to come home." Gary did get to return home after that summer, when he was laid off from his job.
This type of situation would help explain why many people came back to Appalachia. Ties began between certain cities and regions due to the migration (Brown 66). If a lay off occurred in the origin region, the people would migrate out of Appalachia (Brown 66). The opposite would also occur at times and would send people back to the Appalachian region (Brown 66).
The Great Migration of Appalachia didn’t involve merely a few people but the entire Appalachian Region. Few jobs in Elizabethton caused one Appalachian to discover a whole other world. Gary faced realities he had never experienced and happily returned to his home in the end. Appalachia and the people involved have been forever changed by this huge migration that not only prospered cities, but allowed people to prosper as well.
Works Cited
Brown, James S. and George A Hillery, Jr. The Southern Appalachian Region.
Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press, 1962.
Hicks, Gary. Personal interview. 28 November 1999.