continents

James A. Landau JJJRLandau at AOL.COM
Fri Feb 22 20:04:10 UTC 2002


In a message dated Fri, 22 Feb 2002 10:36:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, David Bergdahl <bergdahl at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU> writes:

> Larry's point abt. Iceland is well taken: culture overrides geography for
> most of us.

     There is a clear definition of what consitutes the Midwest, and it is a socio-economic definition.

     First, the "South" is those 13 states which had stars on the Confederate battle flag (the one with the St. Andrew's cross).  Hence the South includes Maryland, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas but excludes the slave states of Missouri and Delaware.
What do these 13 states have in common?  They were dominated, politically and culturally, by the socio-economic class that included the large-scale slaveowners and those economically associated with them (including the slaves).  In most of these states the politically dominating areas were those in which the major form of agriculture was the slave-run plantations.
     Note that Texas, although it never developed the plantation agricultural model, was politically dominated by the slaveowning class.  Several of the Texans at the Alamo brought their slaves along (being non-combatants, some of these slaves survived.)
     Delaware, although a slave state, was more akin culturally and economically to the North.  It was also, like New Jersey, originally a Swedish rather than an English colony.  Missouri was a slave state only due to national politics; it was largely settled by the same peoples who settled say Illinois.

     Then there is the Northeast, which is subdivided into New England and Middle Atlantic.  With one possible exception (West Virginia), all states of the Northeast border the Atlantic or, in the case of Vermont, were created as a political compromise between Atlantic-bordering states.  The Northeast

     What then is the Midwest?
     Someone used the expression "whitebread".  This is apt in a rather literal sense.  Economically the Midwest consists of those states not in the South or the Northeast whose dominant agricultural mode is grain-farming on an extensive scale.  Socially the Caucasian population of the Midwest mostly arrived either from the Northeast or via the Northeast, commonly via Ellis Island.  For example, the German element in Missouri did NOT come from the South.
     The African-American population of the Midwest arrived from the South as a different population movement.  Note that while the Midwest and the North are hardly free from racism, they did NOT import the overt Jim Crow laws and customs characteristic of the South.

     The West has a purely economic definition.  It consists of those states for which climate and geography forbade extensive Midwest-style grain agriculture except in limited areas (such as the San Juaquin valley of California).

     How to classify West Virginia?  It is not Southern.  It broke off from Virginia because, although part of Virginia, it was a region with few slaves and therefore not part of the standard Southern socio-economic model.  It must be either Northeast or Midwest, but it does not border the Atlantic like a Northeast state nor was it settled from the Northeast like the rest of the Midwest.

     Is Pittsburgh part of the Midwest?  It is in a Northeast state, but it is entitled to be at least an honorary part of the Midwest because most of the Caucasian settlers of the Midwest entered either via Pittsburgh or the Great Lakes ports from Erie, PA, west.

     Have I answered everybody's questions?

     Yes, "culture overrides geography".  Not quite.  The South is defined by its culture, which descended from its practice of owning slaves, yet one must remember that slave-owning flourished where it did, and failed to flourish in the north, for reasons of geography.  Geography causes the economic distinction between the Midwest and the West (i.e. the relative lack of grain-growing in the West).

     Now that I have your attention, I will discuss the linguistic question.  I frankly do not know the boundaries of "General American", "Eastern", and "Southern", but it is obvious that these boundaries must reflect population movements, because until the advent of radio after World War I there were few mechanisms besides population movements that could bring a dialect into a geographical area and therefore form isoglosses, isocafs, etc.
     How do the linguistic boundaries follow my above definitions?

     - Jim Landau

P.S. Climbing off my soapbox, I would like to point out a widespread lexical blunder in the news media.  The topic is flying the Confederate flag over a certain state capitol.  The flag in question is the St. Andrew's cross (the Confederate battle flag, which was never the official flag of the Confederacy.)  The news media, however, has frequently referred to the flag in question as the "Stars and Bars", which was the original official CSA flag but which maybe one Southerner in ten might recognize.

PPS.  I don't the date of the following folk song, but from context probably early 19th century:

    When first I came to Louisville
      My fortune there to find
    I met a fair young maiden there
      Her beauty filled my mind
    Her rosy cheeks, her ruby lips
      They gave my heart no rest
    I was in love with Flora
      The lilly of the West.



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