Hillbilly Highway

The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of a White Working Class

By: Max Fraser

Narrated by: Lyle Blaker

Over the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, as many as eight million whites left the economically depressed southern countryside and migrated to the booming factory towns and cities of the industrial Midwest in search of work. The "hillbilly highway" was one of the largest internal relocations of poor and working people in American history, yet it has largely escaped close study by historians. In Hillbilly Highway, Max Fraser recovers the long-overlooked story of this massive demographic event and reveals how it has profoundly influenced American history and culture—from the modern industrial labor movement and the postwar urban crisis to the rise of today's white working-class conservatives.

The book draws on a diverse range of sources—from government reports, industry archives, and union records to novels, memoirs, oral histories, and country music—to narrate the distinctive class experience that unfolded across the Transappalachian migration during these critical decades. As the migration became a terrain of both social advancement and marginalization, it knit together white working-class communities across the Upper South and the Midwest—bringing into being a new cultural region that remains a contested battleground in American politics to the present.

©2023 Princeton University Press (P)2023 Tantor

Made me homesick

These are my people. My roots. I came from Fentress County, TN. Grew up in Muncie, IN, graduated from Southside highschool. I remember getting out of school on Friday and loading up in the car headed back to Tennessee... "going home," Daddy said. We did it almost every weekend. I'm back in the South now, but I have great Muncie friends and great memories of growing up.

My history - shared

I very much enjoyed this book. It was written about my ancestors, my family, me. I grew up in Muncie, IN in the 1970's. My father and mother were born and raised in Fentress County, TN. They were part of the migration from the poor rural south into the midwest foundries. We spent our time split between Muncie and Jamestown, TN. I lived so much of what the author spoke about and it brought me to tears because it helped me understand more of what my parents faced that I was not fully aware of as a child. My father always hated being called a "hillbilly" and now I understand. I moved away from Muncie in 2008 after my father passed away. I still have extended family members who live there. I moved to Wise and then Lee Counties in VA. My husband is a coal miner near the area of Dante, VA, So much of this book relates to me and my life. I want to share it with others! Thank you for writing it.

A fascinating look into a forgotten Midwest urban community

My father lived part of his childhood in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. Other than an old country bar turned hipster hangout called Carols Pub, there is little to no remnant of this former community.

Growing up in the Chicago suburbs in the 80s and 90s I had a couple classmates that had some relatives in Kentucky and Tennessee, so I had some a kernel of interest in this forgotten community.

I think a lesson learned here is that communities facing economic hardship and held back by negative stereotypes can include many groups that since been forgotten about.

Definitely worth a listen.

Save your time and money

This book has a ton of research and facts, but never was able to come up with a coherent summary of all the information. Some of the conclusions given were senile and silly. For instance, the term white privilege was attached to hillbillies. Even today as a second generation college graduate I experienced prejudice working for northern based companies, based on my geography. Many people in the north think of you automatically a racist or stupid or both, when you are from the south. When my younger brother worked for a New York based major international corporation he was promoted. A representative from Texas called and said “let me get this straight, you’re from Tennessee and you worked in Alabama and they promoted you”?
After receiving an international award and still stagnating. He eventually left the company. By the way, terms like white privilege that have come out of the cesspool of so-called higher education do nothing but promote hatred and division. Once prestigious schools like Harvard have now become cauldron of hate as documented in recent events.