White Southerners
Regions with significant populations | |
---|---|
Southern United States | |
Languages | |
Southern American English, Cajun English, Louisiana French, Italian, Spanish, other languages of Europe | |
Religion | |
Christianity[1] |
White Southerners, are
Academic John Shelton Reed argues that "Southerners' differences from the American mainstream have been similar in kind, if not degree, to those of the immigrant ethnic groups".[3][4] Reed states that Southerners, as other ethnic groups, are marked by differences from the national norm, noting that they tend to be poorer, less educated, more rural, and specialize in job occupation. He argues that they tended to differ in cultural and political terms, and that their accents serve as an ethnic marker.[5]
Upon white Southerners Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton being elected to the U.S. presidency during the late 20th century, it symbolized generations of change from an Old South to New South society. Journalist Hodding Carter and State Department spokesperson during the Carter Administration stated: "The thing about the South is that it's finally multiple rather than singular in almost every respect." The transition from President Carter to President Clinton also mirrored the social and economic evolution of the South in the mid-to-late 20th century.[6]
Historical identity
In 1765, London philanthropist Dr. John Fothergill remarked on the cultural differences of the British American colonies southward from Maryland and those to the north, suggesting that the Southerners were marked by "idleness and extravagance". Fothergill suggested that Southerners were more similar to the people of the Caribbean than to the colonies to the north.[7] Early in United States history, the contrasting characteristics of Southern states were acknowledged in a discussion between Thomas Jefferson and François-Jean de Chastellux. Jefferson ascribed the Southerners' "unsteady", "generous", "candid" traits to their climate, while De Chastellux claimed that Southerners' "indelible character which every nation acquires at the moment of its origin" would "always be aristocratic" not only because of slavery but also "vanity and sloth". A visiting French dignitary concurred in 1810 that American customs seemed "entirely changed" over the Potomac River, and that Southern society resembled those of the Caribbean.[7]
Northern popular press and literature in this early period of US history often used a "we"-versus-"they" dichotomy when discussing Southerners, and looked upon Southern customs as backward and a threat to progress. For instance, a 1791 article in the New York Magazine warned that the spread of Southern cockfighting was tantamount to being "assaulted" by "the enemy within" and would "rob" the nation's "honor". J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur's 1782 Letters from an American Farmer declared that although slavery had not been completely abolished in the Northern states, conditions in Southern slavery was "different... in every respect", emphasizing the contrasting treatment of slaves. Crèvecœur sought to portray Southerners as stuck in the social, cultural and economic remnants of colonialism, in contrast to the Northerners whom he considered to be representative of the distinctive culture of the new nation.[8]
The War of 1812 brought increasing awareness to the differences between Northerners and Southerners, who had opposed and supported the war respectively. The Panic of 1819 and the 1820 admission of Missouri as a slave state also exacerbated the North–South divide. In 1823, New York activist Gerrit Smith commented that there was an almost "national difference of character between the people of the Northern and the people of the Southern states." Similarly, a 1822 commentary in the North American Review suggested that Southerners were "a different race of men", "highminded and vainglorious" people who lived on the plantations.[9]
Some Southern writers in the lead up to the
In the eleven-thirteen states that seceded from the United States in 1860–61 to form the Confederacy, 31% of families held at least one African American in slavery.[13]
Recent studies
According to a 2014 study, about 10% of self-identified White Southerners have African ancestry, compared to 3.5% of White Americans in general.[14][15]
Sociologist William L. Smith argues that "regional identity and ethnic identity are often intertwined in a variety of interesting ways such that some scholars have viewed white southerners as an ethnic group".
Precursors to Killian include sociologist Erdman Beynon, who in 1938 made the observation that "there appears to be an emergent group consciousness among the southern white laborers", and economist Stuart Jamieson, who argued four years later in 1942 that Oklahomans, Arkansans and Texans who were living in the valleys of California were starting to take on the "appearance of a distinct 'ethnic group'". Beynon saw this group consciousness as deriving partly from the tendency of northerners to consider them as a homogeneous group, and Jamieson saw it as a response to the label "
The Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, published in 1980, includes a chapter on Southerners authored by John Shelton Reed, alongside chapters by other contributors on Appalachians and Yankees. Writing in the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies, social anthropologist M. G. Smith argued that the entries do not satisfactorily indicate how these groups meet the criteria of ethnicity, and so justify inclusion in the encyclopedia.[21] Historian David L. Carlton, argues that Killian, Reed and Tindall's "ethnic approach does provide a way to understand the South as part of a vast, patchwork America, the components of which have been loath to allow their particularities to be eaten away by the corrosions of a liberal-capitalist order", nonetheless notes problems with the approach. He argues that the South is home to two ethnic communities (white and black) as well as smaller, growing ethnic groups, not just one. He argues that: "Most important, though, and most troubling, is the peculiar relationship of white southerners to the nation's history." The view of the average white Southerner, Carlton argues, is that they are quintessential Americans, and their nationalism equates "America" with the South.[22]
See also
- Mountain white
- sociocultural group
- Black Southerners
- Redneck
- Hillbilly
- History of the Southern United States
- White Americans in Texas
- Jews in the Southern United States
- Cajuns
- Cracker (term)
- French Louisianians
- Country (identity)
- White Americans in Louisiana
- White Americans in Maryland
- History of Italians in Arkansas
- History of Italians in Mississippi
References
- ^ "Religious Landscape Study".
- ISBN 978-1-57233-743-5.
- ISBN 978-0807110386.
southerners ethnic group.
- ISBN 978-0669810837.
- ISBN 978-0826208866.
john shelton reed Southerners.
- ^ Applebome, Peter (10 November 1992). "From Carter to Clinton, A South in Transition". New York Times. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
- ^ ISBN 9780198025016.
- ISBN 9780198025016.
- ISBN 9780198025016.
- ^ De Bow's Review Volume 30 Issues 1–4. J.D.B. De Bow. 29 August 1861. pp. 48, 162, 261.
- ^ ISBN 9781611173260.
- ^ ISBN 9780820330082.
- ^ Bonekemper III, Edward H. (2015). The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing. p. 39.
- Washington Post.
- PMID 25529636.
- ^ Smith, William L. (2009). "Southerner and Irish? Regional and Ethnic Consciousness in Savannah, Georgia". Southern Rural Sociology. 24 (1): 223–239.
- ISBN 0-89116-838-9.
- ISBN 978-0870234880.
White Southerners Killian.
- ISBN 978-0807829837.
- ^ Wilson, Clyde (13 August 2014). "What is a Southerner?". Abbeville Institute. Retrieved 24 June 2015.
- doi:10.1080/01419870.1982.9993357. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2015-07-21. Retrieved 2015-06-24.
- ISBN 978-0-8203-1752-6.
Further reading
- Griffin, Larry J.; Evenson, Ranae Jo; Thompson, Ashley B. (2005). "Southerners, All?". Southern Cultures. 11 (1): 6–25. S2CID 201776159.
- Lind, Michael (5 February 2013). "The white South's last defeat". Salon. Retrieved 24 June 2015.
- Moltke-Hansen, David (2003). "The Rise of Southern Ethnicity". Historically Speaking. 4 (5): 36–38. S2CID 161847511.
- OCLC 1038430174.
- Tindall, George B. (1974). "Beyond the Mainstream: The Ethnic Southerners". The Journal of Southern History. 40 (1): 3–18. JSTOR 2206054.