Baltimore's Hillbilly Strain (Brooklyn Park: houses, neighborhoods, live)

[Infinite_heights77]

Smh!!

How would you describe Baltimore's hillbilly attitude? And how have these attitudes and behaviors evolved over the years? Has this population added positives or negatives to the cultural tapestry and landscape of the city?

[goldenage1]

I recall walking around the neighborhood near the B&O Museum in the 1990's. I was shocked by the unhealthy appearance of some of the white folks sitting out on the stoops. I saw pasty complexions, stringy hair, bad teeth and chain smoking, and I mentally labelled them "hill-billy". I understand some West Virginia folks came to work on the railroads.

Have they blended in with the rest of the white working class, or are they still distinct?

[gwillyfromphilly]

Originally Posted by Infinite_heights77

Smh!!

How would you describe Baltimore's hillbilly attitude? And how have these attitudes and behaviors evolved over the years? Has this population added positives or negatives to the cultural tapestry and landscape of the city?

Do you have some sort of personal hatred towards Baltimore because almost all your postings deal with bashing Baltimore with little merit. So now your talking about Baltimore's alleged hillbilly culture? Next you'll be creating topics called "Why does Baltimore so many rowhouses?"

[Nomadicus]

General stereotyping will never fly in my book. Labeling is not showing ones best side of themselves anytime.

[barante]

Let me just say that the OP poses an interesting question. Because during WWII some 250,000 out-of-towners --many categorized at the time as hillbillies streamed to Baltimore. To work not on the railroads but in defense plants. Much of today's Bolton Hill and Reservoir Hill were among areas hillbillycized.

No one has really studied this, with two possible exceptions. Antero Pietila's Not in My Neighborhod: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City refers to the core population's resentment, which produced resentment among out-of-towners, as exhibited in the controversial doggerel The Evening Sun published. The other book is Kenneth D. Durr's Behind the Backlash: White Working Class Politics in Baltimore 1940-1980.

[MrRational]

Dig out your copy of Simon's "Homicide" book.
He has an entire section in it on the Billy-Boy phenomenon.

[barante]

Originally Posted by gwillyfromphilly

"Why does Baltimore so many rowhouses?"

Obviously you want to tell us why Philly has them too.

[gwillyfromphilly]

Originally Posted by barante

Obviously you want to tell us why Philly has them too.

What does this have to do with Philly?

[santafe400]

Ironically many of these "hillbillies" that you speak of, can trace their family roots to rural, improvised areas of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. This is where many of the poorer whites, outside of ethnic neighborhoods came from during the 20's, 30's, and 40's. (ie. Brooklyn Park, Hampden, etc.)

Let me just say that the OP poses an interesting question. Because during WWII some 250,000 out-of-towners --many categorized at the time as hillbillies streamed to Baltimore. To work not on the railroads but in defense plants. Much of today's Bolton Hill and Reservoir Hill were among areas hillbillycized.

I know that Bolton Hill and Reservoir Hill were historically Jewish neighborhoods in the early 1900's. Also, if for whatever crazy reason you drive along some of the major arteries through West Baltimore, typically the wealthy folks lived in the larger dwellings along the main roads, and the working folks lived off on the side streets where the homes are typically a bit smaller and more low-key.

How would you describe Baltimore's hillbilly attitude? And how have these attitudes and behaviors evolved over the years? Has this population added positives or negatives to the cultural tapestry and landscape of the city?

I think its a fair question. Indeed, there are many parts of the city, and the suburbs for that matter that are a bit rednecky. I believe it has given Baltimore an identity, albeit not the greatest one. We are typically thought of as the "backwater" town to much of the East Coast, as we lack a certain cosmopolitan element that often gives Baltimore a stigma similar to say Cincinnati, as an overgrown unimportant semi-major city that struggles to attract folks from other parts of the country.

[barante]

While much of the Eutaw corridor was viewed as Jewish between 1910 and WWII, Bolton Hill was not. In any case, after the war hillbillies were evicted from both Bolton Hill and Reservoir Hill -- where Linden Avenue and Whitelock Street had dense concentrations -- through urban renewal that created another set of problems.

Pigtown, which according to UMd Law Professor Garrett Power, is Baltimore's oldest continuing slum (don't flame me!) also had lots of hillbilly influence. There was a wonderful tavern called Zebulon there once. As in Zebulon, N.C. I once went there with a bunch of guys to see kids learning to dance. One teenage girl came to me and said, "Are you professors, or something, the way you look at us?"