The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey [1 ed.] 9780813165172, 9780813155807

Citation preview

The Southern Appalachian Region

TH~ ~~UTH~RN AP~AtA~HIAN~

~\~\~

SCALE

\

Cincinnat i

,,.,,_,

\ I

~,~

"

~0

Is

'....._ .....................,

W I"Ctool

"1!l"1!l-

......

1::. 1::. (":>

1. 2.

NORTH CAROLINA Blue Ridge Mountains Blue Ridge Slopes

263,812 189,889

59,875 33,760

40,365 31,158

- 58,149 - 12,822

- 50,539 - 15,656

21.9 20.6

14.7 17.9

-21.4 - 8.4

-18.4 - 9.0

8. 9.

KENTUCKY Eastern Hills Eastern Coal Fields

215,719 398,690

58,021 139,996

41,345 96' 559

- 89,410 -135,805

- 60,245 -208,317

23.2 27.5

17.6 18.9

-33.6 -26.8

-25.7 -40.8

1. 2. 3. 4.

VIRGINIA Southwest Coal Fields Valley of Virginia S. W. Valley of Virginia Shenandoah Valley

176,125 212,168 184,657 224,735

49,107 40,391 29,631 26,194

38,330 31,758 25,807 27,980

- 34,621 - 31,185 - 15,230 1,348

- 61,300 - 35,562 - 25,111 5,146

-

25.6 19.1 16.8 13.8

19.3 14.7 14.0 13.9

-18.8 -15.1 - 9.0 - 0.8

-30.8 -16.5 -13.7 - 2.5

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

WEST VIRGINIA Central Hills Upper Monongahela Valley Southern Coal Fields Allegheny-Greenbrier Eastern Panhandle

158,186 254,907 382,303 165,669 60,832

28,436 39,737 106,226 31,280 6,506

22,297 32,315 86,960 22,010 7,299

-

- 48,147 - 64,588 -170,343 - 44,591 2,286

-

14.9 14.1 24.1 16.3 11.8

12.1 11.3 18.7 11.7 13.1

-21.3 -10.5 -13.6 -19.4 - 9.9

-26.2 -22.5 -36.6 -23.7 - 4.1

4,218,054

919,422

715,361

-970,450

20.9

16.2

-13.1

-19.0

The Region Source:

42,112 29,170 56,515 37,725 5,389

-716,367

Vital Statistics of the United States, 1940-1960; U. S. Census of Population, 1950 and 1960.

Table ll. Population and Components of Population Change, Southern Appalachian Metropolitan Areas, 1940-1950 and 1950-1960 Number

Rate

Natural increase State economic area

Asheville Charleston Chattanooga Huntington-Ashland Knoxville Roanoke Total Source:

Population 1960

1940-50

Net migration

1950-60

1940-50

---

-

;:!

~

(';:)

01::>

s·

;:!

-

-

;:r< ~·

Natural increase

1950-60

1940-50

---

1950-60

---

130,074 314,656 283' 169 199,342 368,080 158,803

16,396 60,958 38,353 28,698 53,058 14,994

15,862 59,562 44,928 29,436 61,816 20,084

475 -15,978 - 2,579 -11,672 34,240 6,982

- 10,191 - 66,978 8,212 - 26,774 - 30,841 5,312

15.1 22.0 18.2 16.0 21.3 13.5

12.8 18.5 18.2 15.0 18.3 15.1

1 ,454,124

212,457

231,688

10,518

-137,684

18.7

17.0

-

Vital Statistics of the United States, 1900-1960; U. S. Census of Population, 1950 and 1960

Net migration 1940-50 -

1950-60

---

0.4 5.8 1. 2 6.5 13.7 6.3

- 8.2 -20.8 - 3.3 -13.6 - 9.1 4.0

0.9

-10.1

The Great Migration, 1940-1960 failed to grow because they have not been as attractive to migrants as most metropolitan areas in the nation. During the 1940's, only Knoxville and Roanoke gained through migration, and the total net migration rate of the six areas was 0.9 percent compared with a national rate for metropolitan areas of 9.2 percent (Table ll). Practically all of the growth during the decade stemmed from the excess of births over deaths, the natural increase rate for regional metropolitan areas being 19 percent compared with ll percent for all metropolitan areas in the nation. During the 1950-1960 decade, the combined metropolitan areas of the Region actually lost population through migration (the net migration rate being -10.1 percent), even though natural increase was great enough to bring about a seven percent population gain. All SMSA's except Roanoke lost through net migration, four of them (Asheville, Charleston, HuntingtonAshland, and Knoxville) at relatively high rates. The growth of the Knoxville area in the 1940's was due primarily to the development of the Atomic Energy Commission plants at Oak Ridge. In the 1950's, as the number employed there decreased, the rate of growth dropped and the area suffered a net loss through migration. Chattanooga has been growing steadily, but not spectacularly. The Charleston and Huntington-Ashland SMSA's have been growing very slowly, especially in the 1950's. Though there has been much industrial development in these cities, chiefly in chemical industries based on coal, it has been at such a high technological level that large numbers of additional workers, and especially unskilled laborers, were not needed. Migration from the Southern Appalachian Region, as we have pointed out, is by no means a new development. Nor is it an isolated phenomenon, but part of a national pattern. In the decade 1950-1960, the shift of population from farm to city appears to have been dramatically accelerated throughout the nation, and marginal farming areas, where poverty is chronic, h~ve contributed heavily to the flow of migrants. Mechanization of the mining industry, together with a decline in the market for coal, have brought about severe unemployment in the nation's mining communities-and the Region has a large share of these. Evidence of the part played in Appalachian migration by marginal farming areas and depressed mining communities will be examined in detail in a later section. But poverty-which is not new to the Region-cannot alone account for the accelerated out-movement of the population. An increased awareness of the oppor-

61

tumbes and benefits offered by the urban-industrial society has a significant role here (see Chapter II). But though the Appalachian people, like other Americans, are concentrating in cities, the Region's own cities have actually lost population through migration. A large proportion of the migrants from rural areas are moving to cities outside the Region. This, too, is a point to which we shall return, for it has significant implications for the Region's future.

Direction of Migration In the analysis of migration streams, we are dealing for the first time with data on both in- and outmigration. The data are limited to 1935-1940 and 19491950, for the census did not include questions directly concerning migration before 1940, and migration data from the 1960 census were not available at the time of writing. The available data are sufficient to reveal the tremendous complexity of the migration currents of the Southern Appalachians, though the major existing patterns can be readily determined. Perhaps the most striking feature revealed by a comparison of these two migration periods is the stability of the patterns of migration. Whether attention is focused on the proportion of migrants moving within the various state economic areas, the proportion moving to nearby areas, or the proportion to distant areas-whether within or outside of the Region-the ratios for the two periods are remarkably close and at times are practically identical. Yet, within this stability, there are differences. For one, the volume of migration increased tremendously. In 1935-1940, a total of 624,349 migrants left the state subregions, 2 a rate of 124,800 migrants per year. In 1949-1950, a one-year period, 306,640 persons moved from the state economic areas, a yearly volume almost two and one-half times that of the earlier period. A second major difference between the two periods was an increase in proportions of migrants who moved longer distances: of those who left the Appalachians, a much greater proportion of the 1949-1950 migrants than of the 1935-1940 group moved to nonadjacent areas. 3 Still, the patterns in 1935-1940 and 1949-1950 are so similar that concentration on the later period is warranted. One of the most impressive patterns for the 19492 Subregions are divisions roughly comparable to the state economic areas used in the more recent decades. 3 It should be noted that both 1935-40 and 1949-50 were periods of depressed economic activity. Although it would be difficult to compare the conditions in these years with those of other years, they are nevertheless "abnormal" situations.

TH~ ~~UTH~RN APPAtA[HIAN~

c,\~\~

SCALE 10

0

10

lO

10

40

IO IIJLl!l

~

liLA

\

~,~

"

~(';;)

GIJ

"

~

Lu

~

Wlaltoa·!!.!!!!!_

~

_ _J Grwn.boro

(';;) (';;)

~

~ ~

--------

41

,..._

~

c-vU'Figure 23 CONTIGUOUS MIG RATION, 1950 Pen:entage of out-migrants from wue economic areas going to contiguous areas

G I I Blrm(ftl;ba~a

\

~

~ G \ 0

.

-A t.IIUILa

~

Under25.0

~

25.0.54.9

-

!5.044.9

-

45.0-S-4.9

-

55,0 or more

Sour«: Sp«:ial tabulations from U. S. Ceruw or Population, 1950

The Great Migration, 1940-1960 1950 data is the close correspondence between in- and out-migration streams, illustrating the well-established principle that each migration current is accompanied by a counter-current. Without exception, the proportion of people going to any destination from any

63

the northern areas in the Region swap migrants with each other. In some cases neighboring areas take more than 55 percent of each other's migrants. To a large extent this local movement is associated with the coal mining portions of the Region. In most parts of the

Table 12. Percentage of Southern Appalachian Interarea Migrants Going to Specified Destinations, 1949-1950 Destination East North Central states

Remain in state of origin

Other App. states

D. C. & Maryland

2.

ALABAMA Sand Mountain

55.4

23.3

0.2

7.6

3.9

9.6

1. 2. A.

GEORGIA N. W. Ridge & Valley Blue Ridge Mountains Chattanooga SMA

41.9 57.3 37.4

28.9 18.6 47.1

0.6 0.6 1.0

8.0 8.2 7.7

5.1 5.2 1.3

15.5 10.1 5.5

D.

TENNESSEE Central Cumberland Plateau Valley of East Tennessee Chattanooga SMA Knoxville SMA

53.4 33.1 23.5 45.5

16.9 35.1 42.4 22.0

0.2 2.3 1.2 1.7

4.0 6.9 9.2 6.7

16.7 ll.3 9.0 10.2

8.8 11.3 14.7 13.9

1. 2. A.

NORTH CAROLINA Blue Ridge Mountains Blue Ridge Slopes Asheville SMA

42.6 67.6 44.0

24.8 14.2 17.8

3.5 2.6 3.8

ll.9 6.9 16.4

4.6 1.9 4.9

12.6 6.8 13.1

c.

KENTUCKY Eastern Hills Eastern Coal Fields Huntington-Ashland SMA

40.2 26.9 32.8

8.2 30.5 20.3

0.6 1.3 1.0

1.6 3.1 2.0

42.8 28.7 30.7

6.6 9.4 13.3

1. 2. 3. 4. A.

VIRGINIA Southwest Coal Fields Valley of Virginia S. Valley of Virginia Shenandoah Valley Roanoke SMA

25.2 35.6 51.6 41.8 51.9

48.6 48.7 22.8 17.2 17.8

5.4 5.2 6.2 14.9 6.4

3.6 3.0 2.9 4. 7 5.6

8.7 4.9 4. 7 4.2 4.8

8.5 1.6 ll.8 17.2 13.5

59.7 37.2 32.1 34.3 39.8 33.7 50.3

6.6 8.4 38.7 22.8 20.4 15.9 13.3

2.3 8.3 3.4 20.3 14.4 2.8 3.3

1.7 3.2 3.0 3.0 1.7 4.9 4.2

19.1 16.8 11.7 7.8 8.3 28.5 13.4

10.6 26.1 11.1 11.9 15.4 14.2 15.5

State economic area of origin

7. 8.

c.

8. 9.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. B.

c.

w.

WEST VIRGINIA Central Hills Upper Monongahela Valley Southern Coal Fields Allegheny-Greenbrier Eastern Panhandle Huntington-Ashland SMA Charleston SMA Source:

Florida, Miss.,&S.

c.

Other states

---

Special tabulations provided by U. S. Bureau of Census; U. S. Census of Population, 1950.

state economic area during the 1949-1950 period was practically identical to the proportion of area inmigrants from that place. Of the migrants leaving the Kentucky state economic areas, for example, 29.9, 14.1, and 24.2 percent left the Coal Fields, the Hills, and the Huntington-Ashland areas, respectively, to go to Ohio; 27.5, 12.0, and 20.8 percent of the in-migrants to these areas came from Ohio. This pattern can be repeated for each of the state economic areas of the Region. Most migration is short-distance; county-to-county movements within the various economic areas arc eliminated from the total statistics . The most obvious pattern revealed in Figure 2 3 is the extent to which

Region where there were significant numbers of miners, such as the Southwest Virginia Coal Fields (Virginia 1) and parts of the West Virginia Hills (West Virginia 2b) and Allegheny-Greenbrier (West Virginia 5) areas, a high degree of migrant "swapping" could be observed, at least in 1950. Much of this movement to contiguous areas, of course, is intra-state migration, for migrants tend to remain within their home states. Even when migration to contiguous areas was omitted, it was still apparent that many more migrants remained within their own state than went to adjacent states. Twenty percent or more of the migrants from all areas remained in the state in \vhich they \\'ere originally

TH~ ~~UTH~RN APPAtA~HIAN~ SCALE 10

0

10

20

JO

~ llllllU

40

Cmcinnatl

"'

"'\

\,_

\

~

•

0

I....

·

~

~

41

«.-

'

~

'

Wi~~aton-S.Iem