Migration Out of Appalachia

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Migration Out of Appalachia

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 over 60 years old. He graduated high school and entered the real world in the 1950’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.

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