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After World War II, thousands of people moved north to cities like Cincinnati and Dayton from Appalachia. They were seeking work and new opportunities. Advocates in Cincinnati formed the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition (formerly known as the Urban Appalachian Council) to support this new population of migrants. This year the UACC is celebrating 50 years of advocacy.
The UACC has spent decades providing resources to the Appalachian community as well as celebrating its culture and preserving stories. Historian Nola Hadley-Torres worked with the group in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She set out to interview women who had moved to Cincinnati from Appalachia. She wanted to document their experiences, to break Appalachian stereotypes, and to see how urbanization had affected their lives.
She interviewed 28 women. She spent hours sitting with each participant, usually in their home, asking them about a wide array of topics, including everything from their first school, to mealtime, to household chores, to how their parents met.
Evelyn Hurt Bolton, who moved from Hazard, Kentucky, recalled her first impressions of Cincinnati, “I had just turned thirteen, I remember my first look of Cincinnati coming off that ramp into Lower Price Hill. It was January now, it was garbage day…you can imagine how absolutely nasty it was. It was almost like I was hyperventilating… things were just so closed in and everything. I sure never appreciated Hazard like we did after we moved up here… we had no choice because of work. “
According to Hadley-Torres , oral histories not only help to account for people who might be overlooked by traditional record keeping, but they also gather what historical events meant to people. “When I came here, I didn’t know that I was so different, “ June Smith Tyler said, “I didn’t know that I talked funny, I didn’t know that people thought I was ignorant because I was from the mountains.”
It’s been over thirty five years since Hadley-Torres conducted her oral history interviews and she looks back on the project fondly, “I think over the course of the interviews, as I found out more and more about each of the women, I just felt so much respect for them. Almost all of them gave me information about being extremely motivated to support their families and their community.”
Note: Archival audio provided by the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries from "Appalachia: Out-Migration Project: Urban Appalachian Women in Cincinnati, Ohio Oral History Project."
This story was produced at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO. Culture Couch is supported by the Ohio Arts Council.
