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  • From Diversity to Unity: Southern and Appalachian Migrants in Uptown Chicago, 1950–1970
  • Thomas Wayne Copeland
From Diversity to Unity: Southern and Appalachian Migrants in Uptown Chicago, 1950–1970. By Roger Guy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007. 140 pp. Hardbound, $55.00.

In this concisely written book, Roger Guy examines the experiences of rural southerners who migrated to urban Chicago during the post-World War II years. The well-organized study begins with the rise of white migration from the Appalachian south to Uptown Chicago in the 1950s and concludes with the [End Page 270] decline of Uptown’s southern character in the 1970s. Guy’s work joins with a small but increasing number of books that focus on the migration of white southerners during the mid-twentieth century.

Through the narrative, Guy presents the reader with a clear understanding of the transitional phases of Uptown Chicago. The author utilizes newspaper publications, archive collections, and a respectable number of secondary sources. The book benefits most from the use of oral histories, which allows a deep appreciation of migrant experiences. Guy cites thirty-three oral history interviews, the majority of which the author conducted in Chicago during the mid-1990s. While economic opportunity remained the greatest draw, the oral histories found in Guy’s study provide an understanding of the multiple issues Appalachian southerners considered before uprooting to Chicago. The book opens by presenting the numerous risks and rewards the migrants debated prior to their move. Guy found that in household discussions on a potential move, women took an active role in decision-making. Through Guy’s sensitive ear, we hear the voices of women who left their southern homes for a number of reasons, including a desire for a more glamorous lifestyle and a need to escape domestic abuse.

The author gives an account of how urban Uptown Chicago facilitated the development of a new sense of community among the rural migrants. Although each new resident brought a distinct culture, Uptown became an amalgamation of southern culture. As this culture came into contact with existing Chicago norms, the worldview of the migrants became challenged. Although the book is clearly an urban study, relevant background information on southern culture(s) remains conspicuously absent. A more thorough analysis is necessary to understand how difficult it was for coal miners from West Virginia, tobacco growers from Kentucky, and cotton tenant farmers from Alabama to form a collective identity after migrating to an urban area. Noting that “Migrants originated in vastly different parts of the South” (24), the author argues that diverse southerners united in Uptown Chicago; however, most of the migrants discussed in the book came from Appalachian coal-country. A careful review of the author’s sources reveals that an overwhelming majority of the works cited deal with various components of Appalachia, mountain culture, or coal mining. As a result, while the book discusses the “southern” character of Uptown Chicago, it more accurately describes an Appalachian migration and unification. This seems especially problematic given the author’s intent to challenge “the assumption that all migrants were hillbillies from Appalachia as most press accounts assumed” (7).

Although the book appears weakest on southern culture, Guy ’ s work excels as an urban study. The author makes clear the negative perceptions of southern [End Page 271] migrants held by political leaders, police officers, and Chicago newspaper editors, all of whom vilified the southern migrants as drunks who lived in squalor. Through the oral histories, however, the reader learns that southern migrants took pride in their community and joined together to improve their neighborhoods. Guy argues that unity came, in part, due to the hostile reception the diverse southern white migrants experienced in Chicago. This experience, along with the closeness of the urban neighborhood and universal elements of southern popular culture, led to a fusion of diverse southerners. As a new consciousness developed, neighbors organized to become a proactive community. A key organization that served Uptown was the Chicago Southern Center (CSC), an outgrowth of a Kentucky-based missionary organization. The CSC sought to ease the assimilation of southerners to urban life by providing food banks and offering employment services, but it avoided political...

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