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Understood. People can talk about Philadelphia's or for that matter Nome, Alaska's "southern influences" for all I care. But peeps saying that Philadelphia has a Southern history or there has never been a Northeast or Southeast until the 1970s is just plain out of space.
Okay. But if "Baltimore was once clearly part of the South with all of its pride and prejudices," then how could Philadelphia not be part of the South? That doesn't make much sense.
Okay. But if "Baltimore was once clearly part of the South with all of its pride and prejudices," then how could Philadelphia not be part of the South? That doesn't make much sense.
Baltimore was considered a Southern city because it is in Maryland. But how does that make Philadelphia a Southern city?
Baltimore was considered a Southern city because it is in Maryland. But how does that make Philadelphia a Southern city?
Explain what you mean?
I thought I already explained it. If Philadelphia and Baltimore are basically identical, and "Baltimore was once clearly a southern city with all of the pride and prejudices of the South," then how could Philadelphia not be a southern city with all of the pride and prejudices of the South?
It was record collecting that led me to call on Fahey again, in 1998, when I was working on a story about Joe Bussard, whose stash of rare 78s rivals any in the world ("Desperate Man Blues," 2/12/99). Bussard and Fahey had been pals in the late '50s and early '60s, and Fahey still regarded Bussard as a kindred spirit in rebellion against mainstream pop culture. This time, Fahey proved as amiable as an old friend, brimming with insights and lacing his comments with his signature savage wit. He talked about the salad days of his record canvassing, when the city of his youth bore little resemblance to the present-day version: "Prior to '55, Washington, D.C., was a city of Southern culture, like Richmond. So was Baltimore. So, from a cultural point of view, until all the goddamned government workers moved in from strange, horrible Northern places like Ohio and Minnesota and took over, there was a lot of Southeastern folk music, live and canned, black and white, all over the place."
The Census Bureau has defined the Northeast region as comprising nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.[1][a] This definition has been essentially unchanged since 1880, and is widely used as a standard for data tabulation.[7][8][9][10] The Census Bureau has acknowledged the limitations of this definition[11] and the potential merits of a proposal created after the 1950 census that would include changing regional boundaries to include Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. with the Mid-Atlantic states, but ultimately decided that "the new system did not win enough overall acceptance among data users to warrant adoption as an official new set of general-purpose State groupings.
So the term "Northeast" dates to at least 1880 and has nothing to do with Amtrak.
You want to go by the census. Good for you. The MidAtlantic office of the National Archives is in Philly. It serves Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, & Virginia. What do you make of that? You can divide it any way that you want, but that is not the way that they used to teach it in school. But then they used to make us diagram sentences in English class & memorize times tables.
I thought I already explained it. If Philadelphia and Baltimore are basically identical, and "Baltimore was once clearly a southern city with all of its pride and prejudices," then how could Philadelphia not be a southern city with all of its pride and prejudices?
I see what you are saying. Since the cites are similar, if one city is considered Southern then the other must be as well. But that quote is just one person's opinion and also first note the word "once" in that quote.
Maryland, as a slave-holding border state, was deeply divided over the antebellum arguments over states rights and the future of slavery in the Union.[1] Culturally, geographically and economically, Maryland found herself neither one thing nor another, a unique blend of Southern agrarianism and Northern mercantilism.
The northern mercantilism comment is probably mostly about Baltimore. My guess is that Baltimore was probably like a Northern type city located in a mostly Southern state. I mean that Baltimore in the 1800s was a major port city trading shipping goods between what is now the Midwest to Europe. Baltimore had the B&O RR., Philadelphia had the Penn. RR, and NYC had the Erie Canal, the Erie RR and the NYCRR connecting them to the Midwest.
So I would say it is Baltimore that became similar to a Northern city like Philadelphia or New York - not the other way around.
I see what you are saying. Since the cites are similar, if one city is considered Southern then the other must be as well. But that quote is just one person's opinion and also first note the word "once" in that quote.
Maryland, as a slave-holding border state, was deeply divided over the antebellum arguments over states rights and the future of slavery in the Union.[1] Culturally, geographically and economically, Maryland found herself neither one thing nor another, a unique blend of Southern agrarianism and Northern mercantilism.
The northern mercantilism comment is probably mostly about Baltimore. My guess is that Baltimore was probably like a Northern type city located in a mostly Southern state. I mean that Baltimore in the 1800s was a major port city trading shipping goods between what is now the Midwest to Europe. Baltimore had the B&O RR., Philadelphia had the Penn. RR, and NYC had the Erie Canal, the Erie RR and the NYCRR connecting them to the Midwest.
So I would say it is Baltimore that became similar to a Northern city like Philadelphia or New York - not the other way around.
But the quote I provided said Baltimore was "once clearly a part of the South with all of its pride and prejudices." And it's not talking about the Civil War era. It's talking about the 1950s. Even the city's own website acknowledges this.
Quote:
After the Civil War, Baltimore continued to be a place of convergence and occasional conflict: an ethnically diverse, industrial, East Coast seaport with a recognizably southern disposition.
Diane Cole says the same thing in the New York Times.
Quote:
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.
And Reg Lewis writes the same thing in his autobiography.
Quote:
The Baltimore of the 1940s and 50s was a city of gentility, slow living, and racial segregation. As in other Southern cities, there were many things Black people in Baltimore couldn't do.
John Fahey says the same thing.
Quote:
Prior to '55, Washington, DC was a city of southern culture, like Richmond. So was Baltimore.
So I guess we can say that when they said "southern," they didn't really mean "Southern" with a capital "S," and that they really meant something else. That's possible...I guess. I'm just wondering if people would say the same things about Philly since Baltimore and Philly are identical cities.
You want to go by the census. Good for you. The MidAtlantic office of the National Archives is in Philly. It serves Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, & Virginia. What do you make of that? You can divide it any way that you want, but that is not the way that they used to teach it in school. But then they used to make us diagram sentences in English class & memorize times tables.
And the Mid-Atlantic has to with what with my comment?
Perhaps you will note that I was talking about the silly thing that someone made up about Amtrak making up the terms Northeast and Southeast. The fact that the census bureau has been using the term Northeast since 1880 simply proves that is wrong.
But the quote I provided said Baltimore was "once clearly a part of the South with all of its pride and prejudices." And it's not talking about the Civil War era. It's talking about the 1950s. Even the city's own website acknowledges this.
And Reg Lewis writes the same thing in his autobiography.
So I guess we can say that when they said "southern," they didn't really mean "Southern" with a capital "S," and that they really meant something else. That's possible...I guess. I'm just wondering if people would say the same things about Philly since they are identical cities.
Once. A simple word but it means a lot.
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