Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project
In the late 1800's, thousands of Hungarians helped build the railways before pouring into the coal camps of West Virginia and other Appalachian states. Their history has largely remained unknown.
The Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project comprises an international team of scholars working together to explore, preserve, and share literary remains, narratives, and images regarding the important, yet largely untold, role Hungarian immigrants played in the region after 1880.
From the southwestern counties of Pennsylvania south to the hills of northwestern Georgia, Hungarian laborers worked the mines, mills, and factories, and with their families, helped build and sustain many Appalachian communities. The AHHP team invites the public to help us identify and preserve resources that help tell the Appalachian Hungarian story.
About the Project
Until recently, few historians recognized the impact that Hungarian laborers had in the Appalachian region outside of Pennsylvania. Hungarians were the first European immigrants to work the mines in southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia and, for many years, dominated the country’s largest coal mine in Gary, West Virginia. Hungarians established communities in and around Morgantown and in Kentucky and as far south as the northwest corner of Georgia as early as the 1880s.
As the Project develops, we will link viewers to digital resources such as the long-running Magyar Bányászlap (Hungarian Miners’ Journal) and include translation tools. Moreover, we will publish oral histories, literary remains, historic images, and accessible scholarly articles on our topic.
