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Part of the reason is that what was considered "southern" in 1800 what is considered "southern" today are two very different things. Today places like Mississippi are considered the heart of the south, but back when Maryland was most often considered a southern colony/state there was no Mississippi or Alabama, or Arkansas, or else these places were only just being established as frontier states. Even around the time of the Revolutionary War, Georgia had only been founded a few decades before, and was hardly settled. Savannah, Georgia was literally the southernmost population center of any significance until we annexed the French colonial center of New Orleans during the 1803 Louisiana Purchase:
In addition to this, the original British American colonies started with two regions: New England, which was rooted in Massachusetts, and the Chesapeake which was rooted in Virginia. Between these regions lay Dutch colonies, and only after the conquest of Niuew Netherland in 1664 did these areas begin be anglicized and go on to form the middle colonies (Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey). Although Virginia is the south began, but by the time of the Civil War, the new states to the southwest like Alabama, etc, had formed a culture that had become radically different than the "southern" culture that previously existed. Furthermore, while the southern states moved on direction politically, culturally, and economically, Maryland and Delaware moved the opposite direction.
A striking example of this divergence is well illustrated in the southern rejection of free labor and industry in favor of cash crops like cotton. The states south of Maryland and Delaware increasingly hardened their stance on slavery as being a permanent and all-encompassing institution, while Maryland had developed an industrial city (Baltimore) and a black population that was 50% free and rapidly growing. By 1860 about 80% of blacks were free in Delaware. Contrast this to the most "moderate" southern state of Virginia, where less than 10% of blacks were free, and were actually being coerced back into slavery by the powerful plantation elite. Although Maryland and Delaware agriculturalists had traditionally been invested growing tobacco, by 1860 they had largely switched to growing corn and like in western Pennsylvania and Ohio a pattern of self-sustaining (free labor) family farms had emerged. If there is one single event that best depicts this divergence, it would have to have be when in 1832 the Virginia House of Delegates harshly rejected Thomas Rudolph's quite conservative proposal for a very gradual (80 years in length) abolition of slavery. Virginia, the most "moderate" southern, flatly refused any compromise on slavery within the state, while at the same time Maryland and Delaware were following in the footsteps of New Jersey and already well on their way to dismantling the institution and embracing industrialization.
So when people spoke of "the south", Virginia was the core of this region and Maryland and Delaware began to diverge some time ago. Today the core of the south is very clearly somewhere around Mississippi and Alabama rather than Virginia and a place like Maryland has grown to have far more in common with a place in the heart of the northeast like New York or Connecticut in contrast to a place in the heart of the south like Alabama or Mississippi.
Very interesting and thorough analysis. I'm starting to think this must explain why most Southerners think of Virginians (and some cases North Carolinians) as 'Yankees' lol.
This certainly wasn't the case in most of Central and Southern Maryland. The tobacco economy in Maryland remained strong well up until the time of the Civil War...so much that every single county in Southern Maryland (including Anne Arundel) was majority Black (with Black labor used to work the tobacco fields).
The switch from Tobacco to corn in these southern regions was marked in all of these regions, although plantations absolutely reaped significant profits. Remember that like other states the settlement patterns of Maryland shifted and moved westwards and in this case northwards as well. The epicenter of the state was originally around St. Mary's (the extreme south of Maryland) while by 1860 it was firmly in the Baltimore County region. As Maryland pushed west, the parts of Maryland's land conducive to free labor crops (Baltimore, Carroll, Howard, etc) became settled.
I don't think Maryland was well on its way to dismantling slavery. I mean, that's one reason Breckenridge carried the state, right?
There are ways to interpret "well on it's way". Relative to other southern states, Maryland and especially Delaware were striking anomalies. Were there areas with strong support for guarding the institution of slavery? Absolutely, just as the article astutely points out. But the most politically and economically powerful area in Maryland by 1860 was decidedly around Baltimore and no longer in St. Mary's or the southern eastern shore. So indeed Maryland was a "divided" state, but it was not equally divided. The power at this point lay well within the hands of the Baltimore industrialists who were supported by the large presence of free laborers and the ever-increasing immigrant population. Not only did they have the power of politics, economy, and demographics behind them, but their influence and control increased with each passing year as the power of the planters waned.
What happened here in Maryland was a microcosm of what happened in the country as a whole. In the United States as a whole, the capitalist northern industrialists supported by free laborers became more and more powerful while the once powerful southern planters saw their power slipping and led a reactionary rebellion in the form of the CSA. Like the elite planter class elsewhere in the south, the planters of southern Maryland were becoming weaker each year, but unlike their southern neighbors they failed to mount a reaction strong enough to stem the tide. Like Robert Brugger details in his book Maryland: A Middle Temperament 1634-1980, slavery in Maryland was a dying institution. People in Maryland and Delaware were catching on to what the British had realized a few decades earlier: that you can make more money by freeing your slaves and having them become part of the free market. In simple terms, the percentage of blacks who were enslaved was dropping every year, while in every single state south of Maryland, those blacks who had been freed after the War of Independence were being reintroduced into bondage. South of Maryland, the percentage of enslaved was rising and the institution of slavery was being permanently cemented as an unmovable fixture of southern culture.
Good chat, but that's all for tonight. It's past ten and I still have a heap of papers that need grading!
Delaware was a middle colony. Never a southern state. However, Maryland started out as a southern colony. This is why when the Mason-Dixon line was being used to divide the north and the south in the 1800s, they placed Delaware in the north, while placing Maryland in the south, because Delaware used to be part of Pennsylvania when the line was being surveyed.
Maryland has grown to have far more in common with a place in the heart of the northeast like New York
What are these commonalities? They aren't linguistic, ethnic, governmental, or even political. Maybe the case could be made for politics, except that NY's population is more heavily Democratic.
Were there areas with strong support for guarding the institution of slavery? Absolutely, just as the article astutely points out. But the most politically and economically powerful area in Maryland by 1860 was decidedly around Baltimore and no longer in St. Mary's or the southern eastern shore.
Breckenridge actually won Baltimore in 1860. Baltimore voted 49.6% Southern Democrat, 41.8% Constitutional Union, 5.0% Northern Democrat and 3.6% Republican. Baltimore favored the most obvious pro-slavery candidate by a decisive margin. The idea that it was the Southern Maryland counties and the southern counties alone that favored retention of the peculiar institution is not supported by the facts.
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Originally Posted by hobbesdj
What happened here in Maryland was a microcosm of what happened in the country as a whole. In the United States as a whole, the capitalist northern industrialists supported by free laborers became more and more powerful while the once powerful southern planters saw their power slipping and led a reactionary rebellion in the form of the CSA.
The irony is that the industrialists and Baltimore's ruling class in general were culturally aligned with the South. This was true even decades after the Civil War and was reflected in the city's social customs, politics, and the monuments it erected (even naming one of its parks in honor of General Robert E. Lee). Johns Hopkins was considered one of the best, if not the best, Southern institutions in the United States. So even as the city industrialized, the southern orientation of the city's fathers remained well into the 20th Century.
So the question, as KodeBlue put it, is what happened between 1970 and 2014 where the city has become less recognizably southern?
So the question, as KodeBlue put it, is what happened between 1970 and 2014 where the city has become less recognizably southern?
So would we say that 1970 is when the pivot from a southern identity began in earnest? It seems that sources stopped placing Baltimore in the South as frequently around that time.
You've got Reg Lewis, a Baltimore native and the first Black billionaire in America, referring to his hometown as southern.
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The Baltimore of the 1940s and 1950s was a city of gentility, slow living and racial segregation. No one had heard of Martin Luther King....or civil rights...or integration. As in other Southern cities of the time, there were many things black people in Baltimore couldn't do. They couldn't try on clothes or shop at many downtown stores. They couldn't eat in certain restaurants or go to certain movie theaters.
You've got Nathaniel Branson, a social worker, giving his account of Baltimore.
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Baltimore is a southern city. When I came here Baltimore was as southern, if not more so, as my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
You've got Frank Shrivers, the local historian, saying that affluent Baltimoreans spoke with a thick southern accent in the 50s.
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“When I moved to Bolton Hill from Cincinnati in 1951, there was a thick Southern accent here,” says Shivers, the 80-year-old local historian, who still lives there.
You've got John Waters giving an account of Baltimore in the 60s.
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That’s what happened, I lived through it—Baltimore was the South, and there was a lot of segregation there.
You've got John Fahey, the country singer, rendering his account of Baltimore during the 50s and 60s.
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Washington, DC was a city of southern culture, like Richmond. So was Baltimore.
You've got Diane Cole, a Baltimore native, calling her hometown a southern city in the 70s.
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The glimmering glass pavilions, pyramid-shaped aquarium and spiffy red-brick downtown baseball park that today lure tourists by the millions to Baltimore's Inner Harbor were little more than blueprints on a developer's drawing board when, in 1970, I first left the sleepy Southern town of my birth.
So the question is what happened to all of this southern culture? Did it move out to the burbs? Did it simply disappear?
I keep telling them to read Lawrence Denton's A Southern Star For Maryland: Maryland and the Secession Crisis.
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Originally Posted by BajanYankee
Breckenridge actually won Baltimore in 1860. Baltimore voted 49.6% Southern Democrat, 41.8% Constitutional Union, 5.0% Northern Democrat and 3.6% Republican. Baltimore favored the most obvious pro-slavery candidate by a decisive margin. The idea that it was the Southern Maryland counties and the southern counties alone that favored retention of the peculiar institution is not supported by the facts.
The irony is that the industrialists and Baltimore's ruling class in general were culturally aligned with the South. This was true even decades after the Civil War and was reflected in the city's social customs, politics, and the monuments it erected (even naming one of its parks in honor of General Robert E. Lee). Johns Hopkins was considered one of the best, if not the best, Southern institutions in the United States. So even as the city industrialized, the southern orientation of the city's fathers remained well into the 20th Century.
So the question, as KodeBlue put it, is what happened between 1970 and 2014 where the city has become less recognizably southern?
What are these commonalities? They aren't linguistic, ethnic, governmental, or even political. Maybe the case could be made for politics, except that NY's population is more heavily Democratic.
Yes they are. Maryland politically votes like a Northeastern state, ethnically different from the South in that among whites it is majority German American, which while maybe not a Northeastern trait is certainly a Northern one. The South is either American or English in ancestry. Linguistically most of the state is the most like Southern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and south Jersey, whose dialect is distinct from the rest of the South according to the University of Pennsylvania's linguistics map. Oh wait...you're always right.
Yes they are. Maryland politically votes like a Northeastern state, ethnically different from the South in that among whites it is majority German American, which while maybe not a Northeastern trait is certainly a Northern one. The South is either American or English in ancestry. Linguistically most of the state is the most like Southern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and south Jersey, whose dialect is distinct from the rest of the South according to the University of Pennsylvania's linguistics map. Oh wait...you're always right.
He was asking how Maryland was similar to New York since one poster said New York was the core of the Northeast. There are as many ways to distinguish Baltimore, Maryland from New York City as there are to distinguish it from Richmond, Virginia.
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Originally Posted by KodeBlue
I've asked older people of all races about whether they ever considered Maryland southern, and the answer is always "no."
40% of Marylanders said their community was in the South in UNC's Southern Focus poll. So that kinda blows your anecdotal evidence out of the water.
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This certainly wasn't the case in most of Central and Southern Maryland. The tobacco economy in Maryland remained strong well up until the time of the Civil War...so much that every single county in Southern Maryland (including Anne Arundel) was majority Black (with Black labor used to work the tobacco fields).
