Chapter 19 Exercises: Immigrant Appalachia — The Diversity of the Coalfields

Chapter 19 Exercises: Immigrant Appalachia — The Diversity of the Coalfields

Exercise 1: Reading the Census — Diversity in the Numbers

Using digital census records from the National Archives (available free at archives.gov) or through IPUMS (ipums.org), examine the 1910 federal census for one of the following coal-producing counties:

McDowell County, West Virginia
Fayette County, West Virginia
Harlan County, Kentucky
Tazewell County, Virginia

a) Select a single coal camp or town within the county and list every country of birth recorded for residents. How many different nationalities were present? What were the largest groups?

b) What percentage of the population was foreign-born? What percentage was listed as "Negro" or "Black"? What percentage was native-born white?

c) Look at the occupations listed. Were immigrant miners concentrated in any particular jobs? Were there differences in occupation by nationality or race?

d) Examine the household structures. Did immigrant families tend to live in nuclear family units, or were there boarders? How common was the practice of taking in boarders, and what does it tell you about the economics of coalfield life?

Exercise 2: Primary Source Analysis — The Dillingham Commission

Read the following excerpt from the U.S. Immigration Commission (Dillingham Commission) Report, Volume 7: Immigrants in Industries — Bituminous Coal Mining (1911):

"The bituminous coal mines of the country, especially those of the Central Competitive Field and of West Virginia, have drawn to them practically all the races of southern and eastern Europe. Of the races employed, the most important numerically are the Slovaks, Poles, Magyars, Italians, and Croatians... The presence of so many races speaking different languages in a single community has given rise to social conditions and problems scarcely less interesting than those found in any of the great cities of the United States."

a) The Commission uses the word "races" to describe national and ethnic groups (Slovaks, Poles, Magyars, etc.). How does this language differ from how we use the word "race" today? What does the Commission's usage reveal about early twentieth-century understandings of human difference?

b) The report says the coalfields have social conditions "scarcely less interesting" than those in great cities. What is implied by this comparison? Is the Commission surprised that diversity exists in the mountains?

c) The Dillingham Commission's work led directly to the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924. Knowing this outcome, how do you read the report's tone? Is it a neutral study or an argument for restriction?

d) The Commission reports that coal operators deliberately used ethnic diversity to prevent organizing. Who benefits from documenting this fact? Does the report condemn or simply describe the practice?

Exercise 3: Mapping the Migration — From Europe to the Coalfields

Create a map (drawn by hand or using digital mapping tools) that traces the migration routes of at least two immigrant groups from their regions of origin to the Appalachian coalfields.

a) For Italian migrants: trace the route from southern Italy (Calabria or Sicily) to Naples, across the Atlantic to New York (Ellis Island), and then by rail to the coalfields of southern West Virginia. Label the key waypoints.

b) For Hungarian migrants: trace the route from the mining regions of Hungary or Slovakia, through European ports (Hamburg, Bremen, or Trieste), across the Atlantic, and to the coalfields. Label the key waypoints.

c) Compare these routes to the route taken by Black miners recruited from the Deep South (Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas) to the same coalfields. How do the distances compare? The modes of transportation? The legal and bureaucratic obstacles?

d) All three groups arrived at the same destination. Does mapping their different origins change how you think about the coalfield communities they built together?

Exercise 4: The Company's Strategy — Analyzing Divide and Control

The chapter describes how coal companies deliberately recruited diverse workforces to prevent union organizing.

a) From the company's perspective, explain the logic of the divide-and-control strategy. Why was a linguistically and ethnically diverse workforce harder to organize? What specific mechanisms of division did companies use?

b) From the union's perspective (the UMWA), what strategies could overcome the language and ethnic barriers that companies exploited? What evidence from the chapter suggests these strategies were effective? What evidence suggests they were insufficient?

c) The same strategy — using ethnic and racial divisions to prevent labor solidarity — has been documented in other industries and other eras. Can you identify a modern example where employers use workforce divisions (by immigration status, by contract vs. permanent employment, by language) to prevent collective action?

d) Is there an inherent tension between celebrating diversity and building solidarity? Or can the two coexist? Use the coalfield experience to support your argument.

Exercise 5: Oral History Interpretation — Voices from the Coal Camps

Read the two oral history excerpts included in the chapter (Maria Ferraro and Joseph Kowalski) and answer the following:

a) Both speakers are describing the experiences of grandparents or grandmothers. What information is available to them through family memory? What information has been lost? How reliable is family oral tradition as historical evidence?

b) Maria Ferraro's grandmother communicated with neighbors "through the food." What does food exchange represent in terms of cross-cultural contact? Is this a form of communication? Is it a form of solidarity?

c) Joseph Kowalski says his grandfather "was as much a West Virginian as anybody" and that being buried in the hills makes "these hills his." What is the relationship between burial, land, and belonging? How does this claim challenge narratives about who belongs in Appalachia?

d) If you were conducting an oral history project about immigrant communities in the coalfields, what questions would you ask? Draft a list of ten questions you would use in an interview with a descendant of coalfield immigrants.

Exercise 6: Whose Story Is Missing? — The Women of Immigrant Appalachia

The chapter notes that women's experiences in the immigrant communities are less well documented than men's.

a) Why is this the case? What kinds of records were generated by the coal industry, and whose activities do they document? What kinds of activities are invisible in these records?

b) Using the information provided in the chapter (and any additional research you can conduct), write a one-page description of a typical day in the life of an Italian, Hungarian, or Polish woman in a coal camp around 1910. What work did she do? What challenges did she face? What resources and support networks were available to her?

c) Women who took in boarders were performing essential economic labor — feeding and housing single male miners for pay. How should we categorize this work? Is it domestic work? Commercial work? Both? How does our categorization affect how we value it?

d) If the coal camp archives are dominated by male voices and male experiences, where might we look for evidence of women's lives? What alternative sources — church records, family photographs, material culture (quilts, cookware, gardens), cemetery records — might help us reconstruct women's history in the coalfields?

Exercise 7: Then and Now — Tracing Immigrant Heritage

Choose one of the following coalfield communities and research its current status:

Lynch, Kentucky (Harlan County)
Kimball, West Virginia (McDowell County)
Keystone, West Virginia (McDowell County)
Gary, West Virginia (McDowell County)

a) What was the community's population at its peak? What is it today? What accounts for the change?

b) Are there any surviving institutions from the immigrant era — churches, fraternal lodge buildings, cemeteries, commercial buildings? What condition are they in?

c) Are there any active efforts to preserve or commemorate the immigrant heritage of the community? Heritage events, museum exhibits, oral history projects, historical markers?

d) Write a 500-word reflection on what the physical landscape of this community tells us about the history described in Chapter 19. What can be read in the buildings, the cemeteries, the empty lots? What has been erased?

Exercise 8: Community History Portfolio — Immigration and Diversity

Building on previous portfolio entries, investigate the ethnic and racial diversity of your selected county during the industrial era.

a) Using census data, document the foreign-born and African American populations of your county in 1900, 1910, and 1920. Present the data in a table or chart.

b) Were there ethnic or racial enclaves within coal camps or towns in your county? What evidence can you find — census records, church records, oral histories, newspaper accounts?

c) Was the UMWA active in your county? If so, were union locals integrated? Is there evidence of interracial solidarity or of racial conflict?

d) What happened to the immigrant and Black communities in your county as the coal economy declined? Did they persist, shrink, or disappear? What evidence supports your answer?