Ticket to a Better Life : Narratives of Heritage and Assimilation in Urban Appalachia

In 1954, Harriette Simpson Arnow’s The Dollmaker became an iconic part of Appalachian literature as it humanized the Great Migration when millions of Appalachians left the mountains for opportunities in the industrial cities of the Midwest. Though fiction, Arnow’s work chronicled the situation in which many displaced Appalachians found themselves, struggling between a devotion to their homeland and heritage grounded in the mountains and a need and desire to fit into their new lives in the city. Among the millions who grappled with that tension were children, representing the future of the nation and, in many ways, deciding the future of the Appalachian region and its traditions. Just as the children of The Dollmaker faced this tension with varying outcomes, real-life youth today still confront the dilemma between a mountain heritage and “escaping” to and assimilating in cities with more opportunities. My paper will explore the narratives of this tension as they are played out not only in fiction but in real-life situations such as the predominantly Appalachian population of Cincinnati’s Lower Price Hill neighborhood and its local school, Oyler. I will examine how narratives about the neighborhood and school perpetuate the stereotypes of Appalachians and how they handle the ongoing struggle between family, place, and tradition, and progress and assimilation. Are the youth of the urban Appalachian population told they can thrive while maintaining their families’ traditions and identities, or is the message, even in a diverse, urban setting, always one of “getting out” and pursuing “a better life”