Date of Award
12-1-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A. in Southern Studies
First Advisor
Matt O'Neal
Second Advisor
Rebecca Marchiel
Third Advisor
Ryan Parsons
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
This thesis investigates how ideas of interregional migration were used in service of urban renewal agendas in Uptown Chicago from 1950 to 1972. It argues that The South and Appalachia as regional ideas were impactful in postwar midwestern urban development politics, even as regional identity was less powerful as an adhering force for actual migrants in comparison with factors of race and class. Chapter 1 examines the development and use of the urban enclave model of interregional migration by the Uptown Chicago Commission in the late 1950s. It argues that anxieties around suburbanization and urban decline fueled the production of the “southern white migrant” and their association with Uptown. Chapter 2 examines how and why the language of interregional migration in Uptown Chicago evolved in the 1960s to increasingly reference “southern Appalachian migrants” in conversation with or place of “southern white migrants.” It argues that the Council of the Southern Mountains and their Chicago office, along with the national War on Poverty, played key roles in this shift in regional language.
Recommended Citation
Dowdy, Charles Wayne, "Southern / Appalachian Migrants and Urban Development Politics in Uptown Chicago, 1950-1972" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3509.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/3509