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I read an article entitled "Southernizing the American Working Class" a while back and recall it mentioning white Southern migrants to Northern industrial cities being largely relegated to certain neighborhoods or suburbs. The only place I've ever heard of such a concept was in the article I'm talking about, which does make sense because I do believe Southerners were discriminated against. What I really want to know and ask and have people think about is which are of their city or metro white Southerners concentrated in. But this seems like a difficult task because as far as I know this seems to be a largely forgotten part of history that most people know nothing about. It seems we tend to hear more about black Southerners having migrated, while not a peep about that whites who did the same.
One indication of where those who migrated for industrial jobs might have settled is where industrial districts historically were. In Kansas City, MO, where I live, I'm thinking the Old Northeast area was likely one part of town and this metro where white Southerners settled because of both the fact the bottoms below the area have historically always been industrial and because of some leftover demographic remnants in the area that I believe were part of the dominant mixture of the area as recently as 20-30 years ago before Hispanics became very prominent. Northeast Kansas City is also very old, so it was around during the height of industrial migration. It was also a white area. Another area in Kansas City I suspect is the Central Ave corridor in Kansas City, KS, which is analogous to Old Northeast in Kansas City, MO. Still yet other areas I suspect are North Kansas City, which has always been heavily industrial and with small houses, as well as Independence, MO. Actually, just like black migration out of the city spread into certain suburbs, I think those in the aforementioned Old Northeast area largely moved to Independence, MO. Today, Independence, MO, North Kansas City, and much of Kansas City, KS have a unique, less urban flavor to them, being very blue collar and much less urban culturally than much of the rest of Kansas City. I think those differences may be attributable to Southern migrants having had formed a large part of the base population that has multiplied to this day.
I'm just guessing here with what I've said, because I don't know where to find any information I'm this subject matter and I've just simply never heard anybody talk about it. That's part of he reason it's fascinating to think about, I think. Also, I heard from another person that many industrial cities and their large employers used to actually target the South specifically to advertise for workers. Knowing which cities did that the most would be interesting, but I've never read or heard anything spoken of such a thing by anybody except one person.
Anyway, I hope I've made myself clear here and if anybody knows anything about this, I hope you chime in.
Akron, OH was once referred to as "the capital of West Virginia" due to all the Appalachian people from West Virginia who moved there after World War II to work in the factories.
In 1987, Dwight Yoakam made a song called "Readin', Writin', Route 23," which was about poor Appalachian people from Kentucky moving to Ohio and Michigan for jobs.
In Chicago a North Side neighborhood called Uptown was historically a place where a lot of the Southern white Appalachian immigrants moved to, though I don't think a lot of that community remains.
The same population also moved to Detroit neighborhoods in the southwest part of the city and into some suburbs. When I lived in Motown the suburb of Taylor was know for its Appalachian folks and influence.
EDIT: I also just remembered that there huge numbers of these folks in Baltimore too during and after WWII:
"When these Appalachian refugees poured into Baltimore in the '40s and '50s, they were not met with welcoming arms; rather, they were usually were shunted into bottom-rung industrial jobs and "hillbilly ghettos" in Dundalk, Hampden, Highlandtown, Lower Charles Village, Middle River, and elsewhere."
I remember an episode of "Homicide Life on the Street" where they focused on that population of WV Appalachians who settled in Baltimore. I think that neighborhood was called "Pigtown".
Most West Virginians and Kentuckians went to Ohio because it was close to their home state. I know Flint, Michigan received a lot of white southerners migrants.
A good percentage of the people in Monroe, Michigan have origins in Tazewell, TN and Middlesboro, KY. They came to Monroe to work in the paper factories that used to be there.
I used to work in home health care in Monroe and it seemed that half of the population had roots in KY and TN and the other half were descendants of the original French Catholic settlers. They were either devout Southern Baptists or devout Roman Catholics, with very little else in between.
Interesting stuff! I can't say I have much personal knowledge of whites having come from the South in my city, Kansas City, but of all the black people I know of whose parents or grandparents came from the South came from Arkansas. It does make sense that Southerners would have largely gone to the nearest Northern cities.
Interesting stuff! I can't say I have much personal knowledge of whites having come from the South in my city, Kansas City, but of all the black people I know of whose parents or grandparents came from the South came from Arkansas. It does make sense that Southerners would have largely gone to the nearest Northern cities.
When it comes to black or Southern influence in Northern cities, for the most part all you have to do is follow the major highways and train lines from the South to the North. It explains why Chicago had an influx of blacks and Southerners from Mississippi, and why Detroit and the Ohio cities had an influx of blacks from Alabama and Appalachians from West Virginia and Kentucky. Along the East Coast, the black population in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC mostly came from Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.
Pittsburgh is a bit of a different animal because its economy peaked and flattened around 1950, so it didn't tap into the Great Migration as much as the Midwestern cities did, whose economies peaked around 1970 or 1980. Furthermore, there was no direct train service between Pittsburgh and the deep South, and the only highway connection to the deep South was U.S. 19. As a result, most of the black population in Pittsburgh was second-hand migration of Alabama blacks east from Ohio, and it historically combined with northern West Virginia for its own self-contained Appalachian bubble.
I remember an episode of "Homicide Life on the Street" where they focused on that population of WV Appalachians who settled in Baltimore. I think that neighborhood was called "Pigtown".
That might have been the case before, but today Pigtown is a black ghetto. The most southern feeling parts of the Baltimore metro area are eastern Baltimore County and northern Anne Arundel County particularly Dundalk, Essex, and Glen Burnie, though the flat waterfront landscape in these places also contributes to a more southern feel. Country music is still pretty big in the Baltimore area too.
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