History/Political Science paper by Turley, Briane
“Coal Dust Absorbs our Tears:’ The Hungarians of Appalachia, 1880-1928” (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper demonstrates that immigration and labor historians have yet to explore the role of Hungarian immigrants in the factories and coalfields of Appalachia, defined for our purposes as West Virginia, southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky and several eastern counties in Ohio. Neglect of the topic is noteworthy since the earliest immigrant coalminers in the southern Appalachian coal mines were Hungarians, and Hungarian laborers dominated some of America’s largest coal mines, including the massive US Steel facility in Gary, West Virginia.
A handful of scholars such as Julianna Puskas were aware that Hungarians worked the mines and factories in the Appalachian region, but she was apparently unaware of the numbers involved. Indeed, by 1906, a second Austro-Hungarian consulate was deemed necessary in West Virginia to grapple with the seemingly endless volume of issues encountered there by Hungarian laborers.Puskas rightly indicated that most of the Hungarians who went to work in Appalachia lived in boarding houses and eventually left the region to return home or to secure better jobs in the US North and Midwest. Yet Hungarian migrants tended to live in boarding houses in other regions of the US where they exhibited a similar transience. This paper will demonstrate that a surprising number of Appalachian Hungarians settled in this uniquely southern region of the US, reared families, and played a vital role as an important civilizing agent in their communities.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
A graduate of the University of Virginia (PhD and MA), Turley has received four Fulbright Awards including a Lectureship at the University of Szeged in Hungary, the Alumni Initiative Fulbright, and two lectureships granted under the Fulbright Specialist Roster program. In September 2011, the University of Szeged faculty awarded him the Pro Facultate Philosophiae Medal for his work in securing an ongoing exchange program with West Virginia University. A member of the Graduate Faculty in History at WVU, Turley recently served a Fellowship with the Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies in Budapest, which supported his research on this topic.