Of Voices Few and Far between: White Appalachian Women Migrants in Postwar Chicago, 1950–70

Abstract

Oral history has been an indispensible tool in documenting the lives of those previously invisible from broad historical movements of people. The Oral History Review has been among the major vehicles for the inclusion of women's voices. The migration of white southerners is well documented in historical literature. However, most historical accounts of the postwar urban migration of millions of whites from the South have focused on the male experience. While women are conspicuously absent from discussions of the southern Diaspora, Appalachian women as subjects of research are even more obscure. In this article, the voices of Appalachian women are at the center of the migration experience to Uptown, Chicago. In addition to secondary sources, the content of personal interviews reveals how Appalachian women responded to the demands of migration and urban life in postwar Chicago.