A Fulbright Specialist is part of a growing initiative to preserve a lost history of Hungarian Americans and their role in fueling America’s rise as an industrial powerhouse, illuminating an important chapter in the nation’s history.

Briane Turley, an adjunct associate professor in the history department at West Virginia University (WVU), spent six weeks in Hungary working with the University of Szeged to advance digital preservation of Hungarian American heritage in the Appalachian Mountains.

His focus is a community whose contributions to America’s industrial development were instrumental in sustaining Appalachia’s coal industry. “At one point, the largest coal preparation plant in the world, which was part of the U.S. Steel system surrounding Gary in McDowell County [West Virginia], was dominated by Hungarian labor, and that operation provided much of the coal supply that helped America in World War I and fueled our industrial dominance,” Turley explained.

While other communities in Appalachia have documented their histories in more detail, Turley said, “the [Hungarian] communities in this region, it’s just like that information, the stories, the narratives were lost.”

A Partnership Rooted in Discovery

“Fulbright is the foundation of all of our research,” Turley emphasized. This project traces its origins to Turley’s first visit to the University of Szeged in Hungary in 2002 to teach courses in American religious history as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar. That experience was the beginning of many deep personal and professional relationships that Turley has fostered in the years since. Turley’s Fulbright also helped establish an academic partnership between WVU and the University of Szeged that included exchange programs benefiting American and Hungarian students.

In 2019, something new clicked when Turley’s close colleague and friend, sociologist Dr. Péter Török, came to West Virginia from Kàroli Gàspàr University in Budapest, Hungary. Following a tip from Turley’s mother-in-law about possible Hungarian graves in her southern West Virginia community, the two historians discovered a gravestone memorializing twin infants with the Hungarian-language epitaph “Two Withering Roses.”

“Péter just looked back at me and he said, ‘Briane, this is a story that must be told,'” Turley recalled. That moment launched a transatlantic effort to recover and preserve Hungarian-American heritage through what became known as the Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project, transforming a long-standing academic partnership into a focused mission of preservation.

This history also had personal meaning for Turley. “My father-in-law was a pick and shovel coal miner,” he explained. “So we know the industry well, the ups and downs,” giving him insight into the realities laborers faced while building America’s industrial backbone.

Turning Discovery into Action

Over 20 years after his first Fulbright in Hungary, Turley returned as a Fulbright Specialist to support advances documenting this history and making it available to the public. He delivered lectures exploring themes in Hungarian-American history and highlighting community leaders like miner-turned-entrepreneur Marton Himler. Turley and his colleagues also developed a number of digital tools: the first GIS maps for the project’s heritage website, a digital archive with family papers and photographs, and a digitized archive of Magyar Bányászlap (Hungarian Miners’ Journal), a weekly newspaper that chronicled Hungarian-American community life from 1913 to 1961.

Hungarians were among the first Europeans to work Appalachian mines. They established communities from Pennsylvania to Georgia as early as the 1880s. Their hard work and determination embodied the American spirit, helping to transform the nation into an industrial leader. “Each community has played a part, an important role, in the tapestry of what makes America what it is,” Turley reflected.

The Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project has struck a chord with both Hungarian and American audiences. During public lectures in Budapest and Szeged, “people would come up after class and just want to talk about it, [saying] ‘we thought our families were forgotten in these places'” he recalled. Turley, who began his career as a high school history teacher, also took time to inspire the next generation of Hungarians to learn about the past by visiting high schools.

The work of the project is gaining momentum. Last year, WVU hosted Hungarian sociolinguist Anna Fenyvesi as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar to research Hungarian American linguistic heritage and document more than 3,000 Hungarian graves throughout Appalachia. Looking ahead, there are plans to establish a research center for Hungarian-American heritage, and, supported by a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award, an Assistant Professor at East Tennessee State University will travel to Hungary to develop a feature-length documentary about a Hungarian mining entrepreneur in the early 1900s who would play an important role in America’s fight against Nazi Germany in World War II.

For Turley, his work has come full circle, honoring a friendship that began with Fulbright. Reflecting on the bonds he has forged with Péter Török and other colleagues in Szeged over the years, he noted, “My best friends for life are Hungarians.” Although Péter passed away in 2022, the project continues to honor his words by making previously inaccessible Hungarian-language sources searchable for researchers, and ensuring these stories are told, preserved, and remembered for generations to come.