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I think your view of the Midwest is very limited. What you are describing in culture exists even in rural Pennsylvania and New York.
Culturally, rural Ohio is more like rural PA than it is like rural Kentucky.
The Midwest culture originated in the Northeast, anyway. It is fair to say that the Midwest is culturally an extension of the Northeast than it is of the South. Also the divide between the "Heartland" and the "Coasts" you allude to can easily be seen even in Midwest states. Someone from Cleveland is just as far culturally from Cincinnati the same way someone from Chicago is far culturally from Cincinnati. Everything you talk about is tied to density, not location. For example all those attitudes of the Midwest you described are absent in places like Chicago, Minneapolis, or Cleveland.
I fully agree that the urban/rural divide is stronger and more pervasive than regional ones. Northern Virginia differs from the rest of the state, more than it does from Boston. Rural California, 100 miles northeast of LA, has more in common with rural Ohio, than it does with the standard trope of California culture. But the difference is that along the coasts, and especially the corridor from DC through Boston, there is essentially an uninterrupted swath of cities and suburbs, never quite petering out to rural regions or small towns. Ohio however is sufficiently sparse, that the various cities are islands, developing individually.
Also, because the cities are islands, they're more beholden to the surrounding rural culture, than to a kind of sisterhood between cities. Consider the example of Chicago. It of course is a major city, but the rest of Illinois is starkly different, not comprehending Chicago, and vice versa. The same is simply not true in the NYC region, for example. Cincinnati, being an island, but too small to enjoy Chicago's self-confidence, is much beholden to its surrounding rural region. That makes it quintessentially more "heartland" than Chicago.
Yet again -- THERE WAS NO PLANTATION CULTURE IN THE NORTH. THERE WAS NO ATTEMPT TO RECREATE THE ENGLISH ARISTOCRACY IN THE NORTH. THAT IS WHAT "SOUTHERN" CULTURE IS -- THE RESIDUE OF THAT PHENOMENON.
I fully agree that the urban/rural divide is stronger and more pervasive than regional ones. Northern Virginia differs from the rest of the state, more than it does from Boston. Rural California, 100 miles northeast of LA, has more in common with rural Ohio, than it does with the standard trope of California culture. But the difference is that along the coasts, and especially the corridor from DC through Boston, there is essentially an uninterrupted swath of cities and suburbs, never quite petering out to rural regions or small towns. Ohio however is sufficiently sparse, that the various cities are islands, developing individually.
Also, because the cities are islands, they're more beholden to the surrounding rural culture, than to a kind of sisterhood between cities. Consider the example of Chicago. It of course is a major city, but the rest of Illinois is starkly different, not comprehending Chicago, and vice versa. The same is simply not true in the NYC region, for example. Cincinnati, being an island, but too small to enjoy Chicago's self-confidence, is much beholden to its surrounding rural region. That makes it quintessentially more "heartland" than Chicago.
Ok but this feature then is not limited to one area of the country. By this logic, the Heartland is everything outside of a big city, including say Upstate New York by the Adirondacks.
Cincinnati is not the South but it could seem Southern to somebody who is not used to Southern culture.
I lived in one of the least Southern states of the South (Kentucky) and Cincinnati is undoubtedly not Southern compared to even Louisville which is the least Southern city of KY
...By this logic, the Heartland is everything outside of a big city, including say Upstate New York by the Adirondacks.
Indeed. The Heartland is everything outside of the commutable exurbs of big cities. Philadelphia and NYC are sufficiently close together, that there's no space between them for a Heartland. Likewise Philadelphia and DC. But what about say 50 miles north of Albany, NY? Definitely Heartland!
Ohio is unusual, in that it lacks an overwhelmingly dominant single city (Colorado's Denver, Illinois' Chicago, Minnesota's Minneapolis-St. Paul, etc.), and instead has three midsized cities, each just over 100 miles from the other. Thus all three are islands, with Heartland between them.
I think your view of the Midwest is very limited. What you are describing in culture exists even in rural Pennsylvania and New York.
Culturally, rural Ohio is more like rural PA than it is like rural Kentucky.
The Midwest culture originated in the Northeast, anyway. It is fair to say that the Midwest is culturally an extension of the Northeast than it is of the South. Also the divide between the "Heartland" and the "Coasts" you allude to can easily be seen even in Midwest states. Someone from Cleveland is just as far culturally from Cincinnati the same way someone from Chicago is far culturally from Cincinnati. Everything you talk about is tied to density, not location. For example all those attitudes of the Midwest you described are absent in places like Chicago, Minneapolis, or Cleveland.
While the Midwest culture originally was created by transplants from places like NY and PA, by the late 1800's it was taken over by the large influx of German immigrants to the region. Virtually all of the Midwestern states show German as the dominant ethnic group while other ethnic groups like Irish or English run a distant 2nd. Very close to half the population of the country in census studies claim their heritage as German. And most reside in the Midwest. No question the Cincinnati culture is still Midwestern but clearly the German influence still exists to some degree today.
I don't think much of the rural areas of the Midwest are much like rural areas of the Northeast. Perhaps NY and PA but I don't see the resemblance with New England at all. I've lived in several places in both regions including rural areas and New England is not that much like the Midwest, even in its rural areas. New England was founded by the Puritans (first Europeans along with the Dutch).
My brother examined the history of Indiana where he presently lives. He found it was a haven for horse thieves, murderers and other unsavory criminal elements since its inception. Quite the opposite of the kind of people that founded New England.
While the Midwest culture originally was created by transplants from places like NY and PA, by the late 1800's it was taken over by the large influx of German immigrants to the region. Virtually all of the Midwestern states show German as the dominant ethnic group while other ethnic groups like Irish or English run a distant 2nd. Very close to half the population of the country in census studies claim their heritage as German. And most reside in the Midwest. No question the Cincinnati culture is still Midwestern but clearly the German influence still exists to some degree today.
I don't think much of the rural areas of the Midwest are much like rural areas of the Northeast. Perhaps NY and PA but I don't see the resemblance with New England at all. I've lived in several places in both regions including rural areas and New England is not that much like the Midwest, even in its rural areas. New England was founded by the Puritans (first Europeans along with the Dutch).
My brother examined the history of Indiana where he presently lives. He found it was a haven for horse thieves, murderers and other unsavory criminal elements since its inception. Quite the opposite of the kind of people that founded New England.
Depends. The Lower Midwest (Midlands) region essentially has that hybrid NY/PA settler + German influence (neither which is Southern) and the Great Lakes had more influence from New England settlers. Look at Cleveland as a fine example of this.
Of course even though Cleveland isn't the discussion here, let's admit that all the characteristics of being heavily German in settlement still make a place decidedly unSouthern. As jmecklenborg said, the attempt at recreating a West Indies style English aristocracy didn't exist in the North but that is what Southern culture was based around. If we take away the White dominance aspect of it, Cincinnati also lacks the rural Black aspect of the culture the South is also known for.
No matter how you arrive to the conclusion, culturally Cincinnati isn't Southern and never was.
Another aspect of the debate is: “What do we mean by ‘Southern Culture’ ”? If it’s vast plantations owned by aristocrats and tended by slaves, surrounded by an impoverished white underclass and a small middle-class, then indeed, the Lower Midwest and the non-Southern Heartland is nothing like that. But if instead we mean a decentralizezd, slow-paced, agricultural/blue-collar culture, emphasizing hardscrabble practicality over esoteric knowledge, nativism over cosmopolitianism,… then Southern culture and Heartland culture are essentially congruent, save of course for local variations like foods and accents.
Returning to the German aspect of Cincinnati and the Midwest overall, again, which Germans? Cincinnati has no imprint of the Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Hohenzollern Prussian super-state: rigid and regimented, venerating science and engineering, centralized, promoting a meritocracy of an educated elite.
To sum up, my point is that Cincinnati has more in common with Memphis and Montgomery and Little Rock, than it does with NYC or Boston or Seattle. And a person raised in rural circumstances – whether in Ohio, or Kentucky, or Mississippi – who comes to Cincinnati to work in a downtown firm – would feel little of the culture shock, that said person would have felt in NYC or Boston or Seattle, or even DC (which technically is part of the South).
Another aspect of the debate is: “What do we mean by ‘Southern Culture’ ”? If it’s vast plantations owned by aristocrats and tended by slaves, surrounded by an impoverished white underclass and a small middle-class, then indeed, the Lower Midwest and the non-Southern Heartland is nothing like that. But if instead we mean a decentralizezd, slow-paced, agricultural/blue-collar culture, emphasizing hardscrabble practicality over esoteric knowledge, nativism over cosmopolitianism,… then Southern culture and Heartland culture are essentially congruent, save of course for local variations like foods and accents.
Returning to the German aspect of Cincinnati and the Midwest overall, again, which Germans? Cincinnati has no imprint of the Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Hohenzollern Prussian super-state: rigid and regimented, venerating science and engineering, centralized, promoting a meritocracy of an educated elite.
To sum up, my point is that Cincinnati has more in common with Memphis and Montgomery and Little Rock, than it does with NYC or Boston or Seattle. And a person raised in rural circumstances – whether in Ohio, or Kentucky, or Mississippi – who comes to Cincinnati to work in a downtown firm – would feel little of the culture shock, that said person would have felt in NYC or Boston or Seattle, or even DC (which technically is part of the South).
To your bolded statement:
Are we to take the Interior Mountain West as Southern now as well? I think you really have a hard time separating culture from pace of life. Rural country people from all over the world are what you describe as Southern whether they are people in Cincinnati or Western Michigan. None of that is exclusive to the South and therefore it cannot rightly become Southern at all.
All this is is just goal post shifting to make the round peg of Cincinnati fit into the square hole of Southern culture. You just described the attitude and lifestyle of people in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Using your definition, a lot of the country is "Southern". Southern culture is independent of all those things. Southern culture is called such because it is unique to the South. Everything you listed is not.
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