Kentucky.... specifically Louisville...south or midwest? (Lexington, Owensboro: environment, credit, skyscrapers)

[missymomof3]

Cracker barrels open new stores all the time and who can blame em? They are in the buisness to make money and they are packed all the time so why wouldn't they spread out somewhere besides the south?

[missymomof3]

Today I went to my daughter's 5th grade graduation and listened to the people around me. If those people didn't have accents I don't know who does! I heard more accents there than not and these are folks from different parts of the county since it is a traditional school.

[Louisvilleslugger]

Now honestly, I do see why you’d think it has a Midwestern under-culture, but it is a major city. The same argument, I assure you, can be made of New Orleans, Atlanta, Charleston. Major cities have major immigration, and people from all over the country--and the world--make their homes there. Sad as it is, it has shown its effects on the cities, but I assure you, at Louisville’s core, is the South. It has even been said that during the darkest days of the war, Louisville had more “Johnny Rebs” and “Southern Belles” than the entire state of Mississippi. As an historian, I might be inclined to believe that. Having mentioned Southern Belles, you’d be well advised to note Sallie Ward was a Louisvillian. Her portrait is often named “The Southern Belle.” That is because she was THE Southern Belle in the ante-bellum days. More Scarlett O’Hara than Scarlett herself! Literally, she was considered THE belle of the South! None of that is even mentioning that, as someone else noted, Louisville is a river city, giving it all the more reason to intermingle cultures. Nonetheless, to the trained ear, one can hear the traces of Southern accents in downtown Louisville, and thick as molasses accents among some of the older residence. Step outside the city limits--you can no longer judge the South by its cities. Anyone who lives in a Southern city will note the changes over the years. They’ve become melting pots, good or bad! Oh, and what is Louisville’s nickname? You don’t know? Let me tell you, “Gateway to the South!” That’s a take on its old days as a river port, and its being a Southern city, noted for two great Southern pastimes, horseracing and bourbon!

From a cultural geography perspective the usual northmost line of Southern cultural influences in the lower Midwest is US 40, so it might be more accurate to consider southern Indiana and Illinois more southern than it would to consider Kentucky Midwestern. The Southern Focus study referenced earlier seems to confim the Southern character of Kentucky. About the only part of the state that could be considered Midwestern are the three northern counties across the river from Cincinnati.

Louisville is probably a bit more unusual in that it has aspects that are not traditionally associated with the South. In terms of historical aspects the city was settled by Virginians, and then recieved a large immigration from Germany and Ireland. Unlike other Midwestern cities it did not experience input from the second immigration from southern and eastern Europe to any signifigant degree, and lacks any historical "ethnic neighborhoods" that characterize true Midwestern cities like Dayton or Fort Wayne or South Bend. Louisville has experienced in-migration from the rural areas of central and western Kentucky (the areas directly south and west of the city), which has reinforced its southern character in modern times, which reinforced the southern character of the local working-class.

Louisville was and is industrial, but that is not necessarily a marker of being a Midwestern anomaly in a southern region, as numerous southern cities have an industrial base, such as the textile cities of the Carolina Piedmont. Louisvilles industial development was part of the New South, and marketed to the South, and its leading newspaper editor of the postbellum era, Henry Watterson, was considered an expontent of the New South ideology. During the postbellum era the L&N Railroad, headquarted in Lousiville, was a major carrier into the deep South, terminating at Pensacola and New Orleans, and painted its locomotives "confederate gray".

Another aspect of Louisville that gives it a historical and modern Southern character is the experience of slavery. Louisville did have a large slave population (one of the largest), and slaves were used in industry (44 worked for one company), building trades, steamboat trade, and as household servants. During the Jim Crow era Louisville did segrate blacks and whites into seperate school systems, and event tried to enact ordnances restricting blacks to certain neighborghoods (found unconstitutional by the USSC). One did not see this type of legal Jim Crow elsewhere in the Midwest. Some of the residential patterns of black settlement also paralled other urban south centers. In Midwestern cities blacks settled in older inner city neighborhoods, but in Louisville there was a tendancy for blacks to settle on the urban periphery, originally in Smoketown, but later in neighborhoods like Little Africa (later Park Duvalle) and in the Wet Woods (the Newburgh Road area). This pattern is similar to that identified by Harold Rabinowitz in his "Race Relations in the Urban South", where freed slaves formed settlements on the edges of Southern cities (which is quite visible in Lexington, too).











The aspect of religion as a indicator of southern cultural character is also key as Louisville is a center of the Southern Baptist faith, with a large seminary in town. Baptists vie with Catholics as the largest denomination in the city. You will not find a Midwestern city ouside Missouri (one county in Kansas city) that has a signifigant Baptist population. Louisville however does.



The Bible Belt

If it's worth mentioning Richmond Va (former capitol of the Confederacy) has a larger Catholic population than Louisville. While Texas has always had a large Hispanic Catholic population, the cities of San Antonio and Galveston, Texas were hot beds for German Catholics. It should also be noted that Louisville German and Irish in migration was to a MUCH less degree than St.Louis and Cincinnati, so much less that Louisville's blacks will be the largest ancestry in the city within 2 or 3 years.

Louisville like every other Southern city lost black population during the first black migration North. This is quite the opposite in St.Louis and Cincinnati, in which this played a major role in the building of the cities we see today. St.Louis especially was a hotbed for black migrants, which was the complete opposite for Louisville, being steeped in Southern culture and idealology.

http://www.uic.edu/educ/bctpi/greatm...eftcolumn.html

http://ucdata.berkeley.edu:7101/rsfc.../blkp10_00.gif

Here are two excellent sources showing how Louisville and the South in general held the highest concentration of blacks until the migration.

The physical character of the city is more southern to me. The common vernacular housing of the older pre-WWII city is not like that in other Midwestern cities, where one sees the use of one or two story houses or cottages (sometimes duplex apartments) with the gable end facing the street. Louisville uses the very Southern shotgun house, as well as other forms that are appear to be unique to Louisville, such as a variation on the foursquare. For post WWII building, there was the continued popularity of neoclassical or colonial revival in developer housing. Even the local version of the ranch house sometimes uses wrought iron on the front porches as a sort of generic reference to "New Orleans/River City".

All of the following sources label Louisville and Kentucky as Southern in terms of dialect.











In terms of pop culture, there is that popularity of deep fried fish and seafood, and hush puppies, in local fast food chains. Fairly banal but you dont get hush puppies up north. Ultimatly this is all anecdotal, but from my time in Louisville, compared to Chicago, Louisville is quite southern to me. I really do not see the Midwestern aspect in the city. The place seems to identify more with the South, and feel more southern, than even close-by Midwestern cities like Cincinnati and Indianapolis.



Here is a cultural map created by this nations most reknown geographer D.W. Meinig. He draws the Southern boudary line through Southern the Southern ares of Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, So obviously Louisville is safely tucked below that line (not saying that it doesn't have Midwestern influence). Again I'm aware that Louisville has Midwestern influence, however it does not top the Southern influence.

[ajf131]

Only thing I disagree with on that map is the Ozark region. THe OZark region is more of one unique unto itself than it is a part of the South. People there have more in common with each other than the surrounding states. So with the exception of the Ozark region, I generally would agree with that map.

[plaidmom]

I voted "Southern". I can drive an hour south (I'm in IN) and people don't ask me to repeat myself when I use my Texas "y'all".

Nuff said.

[Louisvilleslugger]

Originally Posted by ajf131

Only thing I disagree with on that map is the Ozark region. THe OZark region is more of one unique unto itself than it is a part of the South. People there have more in common with each other than the surrounding states. So with the exception of the Ozark region, I generally would agree with that map.

I'm not to sure about the ozarks not being Southern just because it's a unique area of the South. Look at the French culture in Lousiana and East Texas, or the Gula dialect in the Charleston/Savannah areas. The South is not just one big stereotype that you either fit in or you don't, it has diverse cultural variations, as does every U.S. region.

The Ozark area of Arkansas IMO is Southern, once you get to the Midpart of Missouri it's moreso a blend, but is Midwestern before anything else.

[ECoast77]

I'm going to go ahead and apologize in advance for the long-winded reply I have discussed the points that the user "Louisvilleslugger" has brought up on numerous sites before in discussions like these.

First of all, I would really like to see what the voting results would look like had a third option for "border region" been included. People like me - and my family history goes back to Louisville for hundreds of years - would generally opt for a more compromising "border city" route in classifying the city. But when faced with a blunt choice between the South and Midwest, I would always group the city in with the Midwest, and specifically lower Midwestern cities such as Cinci, St. Louis, KC, etc. Comparing the city to Upper Midwestern cities like Minneapolis is every bit as absurd as comparing it to Deep South cities like Jackson, Mississippi, and I'll avoid doing that. Now, he STATE of Kentucky is an entirely different matter, of course, no question about it, though it is still a border state, but one with a predominantly Southern culture as nearly everyone would agree too. But you cannot judge a city like Louisville based on the state that it is in, as too many people do. Nor can you judge it based on the Kentucky Derby, the presence of Kentucky Fried Chicken, or other superficial qualifiers.

Originally Posted by Louisvilleslugger

Oh, and what is Louisville’s nickname? You don’t know? Let me tell you, “Gateway to the South!” That’s a take on its old days as a river port, and its being a Southern city, noted for two great Southern pastimes, horseracing and bourbon!

Louisville is also VERY commonly referred to as our country's "southernmost Northern city" - or alternatively (or in conjuction), "northernmost Southern city." I prefer the first. Check http://www.kpmgcampus.com/campus/kno...louisville.asp and http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/ci/sh/?...uisville%2C+KY, two of many examples. The whole "Gateway to the South" thing started as a marketing concept, anyhow, and could be understood several different ways. To me, it means that Louisville is ground zero. Go north of it, and any remaining traces of Southern culture start to vanish. Likewise, south of it the Midwestern elements drop off rapidly.

From a cultural geography perspective the usual northmost line of Southern cultural influences in the lower Midwest is US 40, so it might be more accurate to consider southern Indiana and Illinois more southern than it would to consider Kentucky Midwestern. The Southern Focus study referenced earlier seems to confim the Southern character of Kentucky. About the only part of the state that could be considered Midwestern are the three northern counties across the river from Cincinnati.

The analyses in cultural geography are mixed. One of the most authoritative sources on the Midwest - "The North American Midwest: A Regional Geography" by John Garland includes the entire state of Kentucky, and Louisville, in the region culturally, economically, and geographically. To some people, that one "Southern Focus" survey answers all of the questions and cannot be challenged. I say it is one non-collaborated study - though a meticulous and comprehensive one. The "Southern Focus" study also didn't present people with choices - essentially, it was "Are you Southern or not?" For one example with rather different results, the study "Changing Usage of Four American Regional Labels", published in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers by Professor James R. Shortridge, only 47.86% of Kentuckians opted for the term "South" to describe the state, while a full 33% opted for the term "Midwest." That's only a 15% gap and self-labeled "Southerners" were a minority (albeit, a large minority, and the plurality group), which hardly means that Midwestern culture is "marginal" in this city or state. Furthermore, I guarantee that the people who are identifying as "Midwestern" in Kentucky are ONLY in Louisville and Northern Kentucky...not Bowling Green, Owensboro, Paducah, etc. In neighboring Tennessee, for example, over 80% of residents chose the term "South" in that same study, and the term "Midwest" didn't even register there. If a state in which 1/3 of residents believe they're in the North and less than half believe they're in the South isn't a border state, I'm not quite sure what is. Of course, this is just one study also. But it does show that we will never, ever know the exact percentages, and cannot be so dogmatic and bigoted as to believe that any one study can give us all of the answers about this state - Southern Focus or otherwise.

Louisville is probably a bit more unusual in that it has aspects that are not traditionally associated with the South. In terms of historical aspects the city was settled by Virginians, and then recieved a large immigration from Germany and Ireland...

Quite true. The German percentages in Kentucky differentiate the state from the rest of the South.

Those are "percentages reporting any German ancestry", from a report that you can generate at

http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/maps/USMaps.asp?vargroup=3 .

On that map, darker colors = heavier in German ancestry - so for example, W. Virginia and Kentucky are heavier in Germans than Virginia, while Illinois is heavier in Germans than Kentucky, and Wisconsin is heavier in Germans than Illinois, etc. etc. Only 4 "Southern" states, all of them somewhat marginal - Kentucky, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Florida - have German ancestry percentages in one of the 3 upper quintiles - every single other Southern state, including so-called "heavily German" Texas, are in the lower 2 quintiles. Furthermore, looking at Jefferson County, KY compared to others in terms of percent claiming any German ancestry (numbers from same site):

Jefferson, KY - 18.6%
Jackson County, MO - 17.7%
Marion County, IN - 17.2%
Davidson, TN - 9%
Shelby, TN - 6.1%
Richmond, VA - 14.7%
Henrico County, VA - 5%
Bexar County, TX - 10.2%

In Texas, Hispanic immigration has somewhat diluted the picture - but nobody has ever called Texas cities "Midwestern" in any event, so that's besides the point. You have to look at multiple factors working together, and this is just one of them. Nor is modern-day Jefferson County is only marginally less black compared to typical urban Midwestern counties - Jefferson County is about 19% black, compared to 23.4% in Hamilton County, OH; 24.1% black in Marion County, IN; and 23% black in Jackson County, MO. In truth, this county's demographics would be out of place in either region for various reasons, but I find far, far fewer differences between Louisville's demographics and Kansas City's (500 miles away) than Memphis's (only 385 miles away.)

And distance-wise, let's not forget what the two biggest cities are to Louisville - Cincinnati and Indianapolis, both undeniably Midwestern. You can't ignore the factor that such a proximity plays. I have often, oftentimes heard Louisville referred to as a smaller, slightly-more-Southern version of Cinci.

Louisville was and is industrial, but that is not necessarily a marker of being a Midwestern anomaly in a southern region, as numerous southern cities have an industrial base...

Louisville's Rust Belt-type industrial development (I'm not talking textile mills here) and consequent population declines for much of the later 20th Century are unquestionably more in line with Midwestern cities than Southern ones. It can't be argued otherwise. Why does Birmingham, Alabama have industry? Simple: It's purely a matter of location, with the area being one of the only places in the country (and world) where all 3 ingredients needed for steel fabrication can be found. In 1998, the Census Bureau issues a document discussing a potential "rebound" in the Rust Belt. They said, among other things, "ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING demographic and economic
trends of the mid-1990s has been the comeback
of the so-called Rust Belt — that swath of
formerly smoke-shrouded Midwestern cities identified
with big factories, big autos and big steel." Which cities did the Census include in the Rust Belt in this report?

Cedar Rapids, Iowa .................................... 7.7 -0.6 13.4 2.9
Sioux City, Iowa-Neb. ................................ 5.1 -2.1 6.6 3.6
Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint, Mich. .................... 4.9 -2.0 6.2 4.5
Louisville, Ky.-Ind. .................................... 4.7 -0.5 10.9 4.4
Jackson, Mich. .......................................... 3.7 -1.1 8.9 5.1
Kokomo, Ind. ........................................... 3.1 -6.5 5.7 3.6
Canton-Massillon, Ohio .............................. 2.2 -2.6 7.9 5.4
Peoria-Pekin, Ill. ....................................... 2.0 -7.3 8.8 6.1
Dubuque, Iowa ......................................... 2.0 -7.8 8.9 5.7
Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, Iowa-Ill. ..... 1.8 -8.8 5.9 4.4
Cleveland-Akron, Ohio ............................... 1.7 -2.7 6.3 5.1
Parkersburg-Marietta, W.Va.-Ohio ................ 1.0 -5.5 6.7 6.2
Saginaw-Bay City-Midland, Mich ................. 0.9 -5.3 8.7 4.9

So apparently, Louisville is the only Dixie-fied "Southern" city to make the cut, in with a list of Northern industrial cities like Cleveland, Detroit, and Canton. Riiiight. It's a good report. Explanation of the numbers and more analysis of the region is available here - http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/cenbr987.pdf

Another aspect of Louisville that gives it a historical and modern Southern character is the experience of slavery...During the Jim Crow era Louisville did segrate blacks and whites into seperate school systems, and event tried to enact ordnances restricting blacks to certain neighborghoods (found unconstitutional by the USSC). One did not see this type of legal Jim Crow elsewhere in the Midwest.

Enough with this myth of Louisville being a "heavy slave" city. Louisville is an old city, and was one of relatively few in the western theater, at the time of the Civil War, to have a very significant population among the slave states. Louisville had a large absolute number of slaves, but it's MUCH MORE important to look at the PERCENTAGES of slaves - and in 1860, slaves made up an incredibly huge 11% of Jefferson County, KY. Some small counties in rural southern Georgia may have had only 200 or 300 slaves, but this may have been out of a total county population of only 450 or 500 - you absolutely cannot look at it simply in terms of absolute numbers. In any event and regardless of the very important slavery issues, Louisville's role in the Civil War was crystal clear. Louisville was host to regular meetings between Sherman and Grant at the old Galt House, including ones that led to the plans for the campaign that burned Atlanta to the ground and "made Georgia howl." Hardly Southern in my book.

Even in terms of Jim Crow, Louisville (and Kentucky) was mixed - certainly not Minnesota, but sure as hell not Alabama, either. I am black and have grandparents who grew up in the area - and know blacks who lived through the horros of Jim Crow in the Deep South - so I know what I'm talking about. This was especially true in the case of suffrage, a most fundamental right that was generally not denied to blacks in Kentucky, as it was in nearly every other non-border state of the South. To quote a few passages from Louis C. Kesselman's scholarly article "Negro Voting in a Border Community: Louisville, Kentucky" published many years ago (1957 in fact) in the Journal of Negro Education: "The Southern system of suffrage barriers is virtually unknown in the Border states...Louisville Negroes have enjoyed freedom to vote and participate in party politics since 1870. The Midwestern influence upon this city has been demonstrated by its success in desegregating its university and private colleges, public and parochial schools, public libraries, parks, swimming pools, and golf courses without incident..." Remember, Missouri, Maryland, etc. also had at least some form of legal or de facto segregation up until the Civil Rights movement - yes, Kentucky was more Southern and thus more stringent in its enforcement, but it is a flat out lie to equate this state's treatment of blacks to states such as Georgia and Alabama in order to try make some kind of a point. Both older blacks raised in Kentucky and those raised under the oppressive hell of unrelenting Jim Crow in the Deep South would resent that, and I know it from personal conversations.

The aspect of religion as a indicator of southern cultural character is also key as Louisville is a center of the Southern Baptist faith, with a large seminary in town. Baptists vie with Catholics as the largest denomination in the city. You will not find a Midwestern city ouside Missouri (one county in Kansas city) that has a signifigant Baptist population. Louisville however does.

.

Whoa. You just completely ignored and marginalized the fact that both Louisville and Kansas City - both situated in border states - have something major in common there. Why? Because Kansas City is a quintessential Midwestern city and yet, religiously, it's profile is VERY similar to Louisville's. From the ARDA, the numbers are:

Jefferson, KY - 156,949 Catholics, compared to 108,354 Southern Baptists (a ratio of roughly 1.45 Catholics for every SBC member)

Jackson, MO - 101,207 Catholics, compared to 75,521 Southern Baptists (a ratio of roughly 1.34 Catholics for every SBC member)

So, per capita, the chief county of Louisville's MSA is MORE heavily Catholic than the chief county in Kansas City's MSA. Therefore, by your logic, Kansas City must be boiling over with Southern culture. It is hardly a coincidence that these two cities in border states share this characteristic. It also shows that major Midwestern cities can have a substantial Baptist component, though I'll be the first to admit that these is a phenomenon of the Lower Midwest only. In the Spring 1978 edition of the Journal of Popular Culture, Stephen W. Tweedie, in the study "Viewing the Bible Belt" did NOT include Louisville in the Bible Belt. His litmus test (agree with or not) was based on the popularity of television-based religious shows. He stated that "nearly half of the Southern ADIs have high viewing rates, with only 6 of its 29 large television markets falling in the low viewing rate. These six "exceptions" are all in peripheral locations with regard to the South - Baltimore and Washington, Louisville, San Antonio, Houston, and Miami." Houston was sort of a surprise there, to me at least, but the rest made sense.

I will concede your point that Louisville's loss of blacks during the Great Migration is indeed a Southern element of the city. That's undeniable, but regardless, just one element out of many.

All of the following sources label Louisville and Kentucky as Southern in terms of dialect.

When it is present, Kentucky's accent is most certainly not vintage Southern, and in many parts of Louisville (especially near downtown and on the east side) the accent is rare to sporadic at best. Some neighbors may have it, some may not. Linguists group the South Midland/Lower Midland accent in different ways - for a varying example : . Furthermore, one of the studies that you normally include with your list of links - the LAVIS study - includes Bowling Green, KY, of all places, in a group of Northern cities linguistically, whereas Nashville and points South were labeled Southern. This was done based on user judgments from a lower Midwestern city - overall, college-educated Bowling Green residents ranked in this study as haven a "more Northern" accent than some residents of Michigan, at least to the untrained ear - quite a shocker. The study is accessible here - http://www.msu.edu/~preston/LAVIS.pdf Check out pages 7-9 specifically. Anybody from Louisville KNOWS that there are plenty, plenty of us who do not have a Southern accent, or traces of it. I'm not saying that's a good thing or bad, but it is a fact. And it's not due to immigration either, as Louisville is not booming like Atlanta or Charlotte. We are not drawing in outside citizens to water down the accent, as is happening in Sunbelt cities further South.

Of course, I completely disagree with the one gentlemen's anecdotal analysis of the city, but that hardly matters.

And lastly, a note on climate. Technically, Louisville is located in the transition area between the humid continental (typically Midwestern) and humid subtropical (typically Southern) climate zones, but it is often included in the former. According to highly popular weather site Weatherbase (http://www.weatherbase.com, Louisville receives more snow annually on average than Cinci - Louisville with 16.2 inches compared to Cinci with 14.2 inches. Very Southern, ha. Hardiness lists, relating to plant environments, are important to consider also, and you'll notice that in this important ecological measure, Louisville is grouped in with lower Midwestern area - lower Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, etc. -




The saying "from coal to corn" is quite accurate, as much of Kentucky lies squarely in the Midwest Corn Belt. Not true of any other so-called "Southern" city.




And on a last somewhat "sentimental" note - that world famous Southern magnolia, one of the South's most famous and iconic plants? Not in Kentucky -



http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=MAGR4

So yes, I can understand how some Louisvillians may travel to Milwaukee and feel out of place. But many of us also feel FAR more out of place when in Mobile, AL or Beaumont, TX. We drink "soda" or "pop", we speak with a plain accent, we identify as Northerners or Midwesterners, not Southerners, but we think it's GREAT to live in a city that can, in truth, claim either region, and generally has the best of both, while avoiding the extremes of either. Really though, I couldn't disagree more strongly (but respectfully) with claims that Louisville is merely a Catholicized "Diet Nashville" or something. I've never seen the city in that light, and I never will. It often comes up in professional articles - one of my favorite examples is at http://www.blacktable.com/thomas040527.htm This city is multifaceted, diverse, and has a very hard to define identity. Just my view, though.
*Steps down.

[stx12499]

Ecoast, VERY thorough and well researched data. I grew up in the actual city of Louisville. I attended public school, but I am Catholic. I have a VERY Midwestern accent like many who grew up in the actual city of Louisville. Louisville is a nice blend of Midwest and South, and it has long been a city with an identity crisis in more ways than one

Incidently, Louisvilleslugger has been on a tirade on many websites that I have seen where he tries undeniably to prove that Louisville is 100% southern. It is simply not the case! 300k of Louisville's MSA resides in Indiana, so Louisville is at the very least 1/4 Midwestern. I wish Louisville was viewed as a new south city, but we are no Nashville or Charlotte! Louisville has MUCH more in common with Cincinnati or even Chicago (on a smaller scale) than Nashville. Nashville has more country music bars on one block than all of metro Louisville, and the two cities are roughly equal in size!

[missymomof3]

Originally Posted by ECoast77

I'm going to go ahead and apologize in advance for the long-winded reply I have discussed the points that the user "Louisvilleslugger" has brought up on numerous sites before in discussions like these.

First of all, I would really like to see what the voting results would look like had a third option for "border region" been included. People like me - and my family history goes back to Louisville for hundreds of years - would generally opt for a more compromising "border city" route in classifying the city. But when faced with a blunt choice between the South and Midwest, I would always group the city in with the Midwest, and specifically lower Midwestern cities such as Cinci, St. Louis, KC, etc. Comparing the city to Upper Midwestern cities like Minneapolis is every bit as absurd as comparing it to Deep South cities like Jackson, Mississippi, and I'll avoid doing that. Now, he STATE of Kentucky is an entirely different matter, of course, no question about it, though it is still a border state, but one with a predominantly Southern culture as nearly everyone would agree too. But you cannot judge a city like Louisville based on the state that it is in, as too many people do. Nor can you judge it based on the Kentucky Derby, the presence of Kentucky Fried Chicken, or other superficial qualifiers.



Louisville is also VERY commonly referred to as our country's "southernmost Northern city" - or alternatively (or in conjuction), "northernmost Southern city." I prefer the first. Check Welcome to KPMGCampus | Louisville and Louisville Buildings, Real Estate, Architecture, Skyscrapers and Construction Database, two of many examples. The whole "Gateway to the South" thing started as a marketing concept, anyhow, and could be understood several different ways. To me, it means that Louisville is ground zero. Go north of it, and any remaining traces of Southern culture start to vanish. Likewise, south of it the Midwestern elements drop off rapidly.



The analyses in cultural geography are mixed. One of the most authoritative sources on the Midwest - "The North American Midwest: A Regional Geography" by John Garland includes the entire state of Kentucky, and Louisville, in the region culturally, economically, and geographically. To some people, that one "Southern Focus" survey answers all of the questions and cannot be challenged. I say it is one non-collaborated study - though a meticulous and comprehensive one. The "Southern Focus" study also didn't present people with choices - essentially, it was "Are you Southern or not?" For one example with rather different results, the study "Changing Usage of Four American Regional Labels", published in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers by Professor James R. Shortridge, only 47.86% of Kentuckians opted for the term "South" to describe the state, while a full 33% opted for the term "Midwest." That's only a 15% gap and self-labeled "Southerners" were a minority (albeit, a large minority, and the plurality group), which hardly means that Midwestern culture is "marginal" in this city or state. Furthermore, I guarantee that the people who are identifying as "Midwestern" in Kentucky are ONLY in Louisville and Northern Kentucky...not Bowling Green, Owensboro, Paducah, etc. In neighboring Tennessee, for example, over 80% of residents chose the term "South" in that same study, and the term "Midwest" didn't even register there. If a state in which 1/3 of residents believe they're in the North and less than half believe they're in the South isn't a border state, I'm not quite sure what is. Of course, this is just one study also. But it does show that we will never, ever know the exact percentages, and cannot be so dogmatic and bigoted as to believe that any one study can give us all of the answers about this state - Southern Focus or otherwise.



Quite true. The German percentages in Kentucky differentiate the state from the rest of the South.

Those are "percentages reporting any German ancestry", from a report that you can generate at The Association of Religion Data Archives | Surveys .

On that map, darker colors = heavier in German ancestry - so for example, W. Virginia and Kentucky are heavier in Germans than Virginia, while Illinois is heavier in Germans than Kentucky, and Wisconsin is heavier in Germans than Illinois, etc. etc. Only 4 "Southern" states, all of them somewhat marginal - Kentucky, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Florida - have German ancestry percentages in one of the 3 upper quintiles - every single other Southern state, including so-called "heavily German" Texas, are in the lower 2 quintiles. Furthermore, looking at Jefferson County, KY compared to others in terms of percent claiming any German ancestry (numbers from same site):

Jefferson, KY - 18.6%
Jackson County, MO - 17.7%
Marion County, IN - 17.2%
Davidson, TN - 9%
Shelby, TN - 6.1%
Richmond, VA - 14.7%
Henrico County, VA - 5%
Bexar County, TX - 10.2%

In Texas, Hispanic immigration has somewhat diluted the picture - but nobody has ever called Texas cities "Midwestern" in any event, so that's besides the point. You have to look at multiple factors working together, and this is just one of them. Nor is modern-day Jefferson County is only marginally less black compared to typical urban Midwestern counties - Jefferson County is about 19% black, compared to 23.4% in Hamilton County, OH; 24.1% black in Marion County, IN; and 23% black in Jackson County, MO. In truth, this county's demographics would be out of place in either region for various reasons, but I find far, far fewer differences between Louisville's demographics and Kansas City's (500 miles away) than Memphis's (only 385 miles away.)

And distance-wise, let's not forget what the two biggest cities are to Louisville - Cincinnati and Indianapolis, both undeniably Midwestern. You can't ignore the factor that such a proximity plays. I have often, oftentimes heard Louisville referred to as a smaller, slightly-more-Southern version of Cinci.



Louisville's Rust Belt-type industrial development (I'm not talking textile mills here) and consequent population declines for much of the later 20th Century are unquestionably more in line with Midwestern cities than Southern ones. It can't be argued otherwise. Why does Birmingham, Alabama have industry? Simple: It's purely a matter of location, with the area being one of the only places in the country (and world) where all 3 ingredients needed for steel fabrication can be found. In 1998, the Census Bureau issues a document discussing a potential "rebound" in the Rust Belt. They said, among other things, "ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING demographic and economic
trends of the mid-1990s has been the comeback
of the so-called Rust Belt — that swath of
formerly smoke-shrouded Midwestern cities identified
with big factories, big autos and big steel." Which cities did the Census include in the Rust Belt in this report?

Cedar Rapids, Iowa .................................... 7.7 -0.6 13.4 2.9
Sioux City, Iowa-Neb. ................................ 5.1 -2.1 6.6 3.6
Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint, Mich. .................... 4.9 -2.0 6.2 4.5
Louisville, Ky.-Ind. .................................... 4.7 -0.5 10.9 4.4
Jackson, Mich. .......................................... 3.7 -1.1 8.9 5.1
Kokomo, Ind. ........................................... 3.1 -6.5 5.7 3.6
Canton-Massillon, Ohio .............................. 2.2 -2.6 7.9 5.4
Peoria-Pekin, Ill. ....................................... 2.0 -7.3 8.8 6.1
Dubuque, Iowa ......................................... 2.0 -7.8 8.9 5.7
Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, Iowa-Ill. ..... 1.8 -8.8 5.9 4.4
Cleveland-Akron, Ohio ............................... 1.7 -2.7 6.3 5.1
Parkersburg-Marietta, W.Va.-Ohio ................ 1.0 -5.5 6.7 6.2
Saginaw-Bay City-Midland, Mich ................. 0.9 -5.3 8.7 4.9

So apparently, Louisville is the only Dixie-fied "Southern" city to make the cut, in with a list of Northern industrial cities like Cleveland, Detroit, and Canton. Riiiight. It's a good report. Explanation of the numbers and more analysis of the region is available here - http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/cenbr987.pdf



Enough with this myth of Louisville being a "heavy slave" city. Louisville is an old city, and was one of relatively few in the western theater, at the time of the Civil War, to have a very significant population among the slave states. Louisville had a large absolute number of slaves, but it's MUCH MORE important to look at the PERCENTAGES of slaves - and in 1860, slaves made up an incredibly huge 11% of Jefferson County, KY. Some small counties in rural southern Georgia may have had only 200 or 300 slaves, but this may have been out of a total county population of only 450 or 500 - you absolutely cannot look at it simply in terms of absolute numbers. In any event and regardless of the very important slavery issues, Louisville's role in the Civil War was crystal clear. Louisville was host to regular meetings between Sherman and Grant at the old Galt House, including ones that led to the plans for the campaign that burned Atlanta to the ground and "made Georgia howl." Hardly Southern in my book.

Even in terms of Jim Crow, Louisville (and Kentucky) was mixed - certainly not Minnesota, but sure as hell not Alabama, either. I am black and have grandparents who grew up in the area - and know blacks who lived through the horros of Jim Crow in the Deep South - so I know what I'm talking about. This was especially true in the case of suffrage, a most fundamental right that was generally not denied to blacks in Kentucky, as it was in nearly every other non-border state of the South. To quote a few passages from Louis C. Kesselman's scholarly article "Negro Voting in a Border Community: Louisville, Kentucky" published many years ago (1957 in fact) in the Journal of Negro Education: "The Southern system of suffrage barriers is virtually unknown in the Border states...Louisville Negroes have enjoyed freedom to vote and participate in party politics since 1870. The Midwestern influence upon this city has been demonstrated by its success in desegregating its university and private colleges, public and parochial schools, public libraries, parks, swimming pools, and golf courses without incident..." Remember, Missouri, Maryland, etc. also had at least some form of legal or de facto segregation up until the Civil Rights movement - yes, Kentucky was more Southern and thus more stringent in its enforcement, but it is a flat out lie to equate this state's treatment of blacks to states such as Georgia and Alabama in order to try make some kind of a point. Both older blacks raised in Kentucky and those raised under the oppressive hell of unrelenting Jim Crow in the Deep South would resent that, and I know it from personal conversations.

.

Whoa. You just completely ignored and marginalized the fact that both Louisville and Kansas City - both situated in border states - have something major in common there. Why? Because Kansas City is a quintessential Midwestern city and yet, religiously, it's profile is VERY similar to Louisville's. From the ARDA, the numbers are:

Jefferson, KY - 156,949 Catholics, compared to 108,354 Southern Baptists (a ratio of roughly 1.45 Catholics for every SBC member)

Jackson, MO - 101,207 Catholics, compared to 75,521 Southern Baptists (a ratio of roughly 1.34 Catholics for every SBC member)

So, per capita, the chief county of Louisville's MSA is MORE heavily Catholic than the chief county in Kansas City's MSA. Therefore, by your logic, Kansas City must be boiling over with Southern culture. It is hardly a coincidence that these two cities in border states share this characteristic. It also shows that major Midwestern cities can have a substantial Baptist component, though I'll be the first to admit that these is a phenomenon of the Lower Midwest only. In the Spring 1978 edition of the Journal of Popular Culture, Stephen W. Tweedie, in the study "Viewing the Bible Belt" did NOT include Louisville in the Bible Belt. His litmus test (agree with or not) was based on the popularity of television-based religious shows. He stated that "nearly half of the Southern ADIs have high viewing rates, with only 6 of its 29 large television markets falling in the low viewing rate. These six "exceptions" are all in peripheral locations with regard to the South - Baltimore and Washington, Louisville, San Antonio, Houston, and Miami." Houston was sort of a surprise there, to me at least, but the rest made sense.

I will concede your point that Louisville's loss of blacks during the Great Migration is indeed a Southern element of the city. That's undeniable, but regardless, just one element out of many.



When it is present, Kentucky's accent is most certainly not vintage Southern, and in many parts of Louisville (especially near downtown and on the east side) the accent is rare to sporadic at best. Some neighbors may have it, some may not. Linguists group the South Midland/Lower Midland accent in different ways - for a varying example : . Furthermore, one of the studies that you normally include with your list of links - the LAVIS study - includes Bowling Green, KY, of all places, in a group of Northern cities linguistically, whereas Nashville and points South were labeled Southern. This was done based on user judgments from a lower Midwestern city - overall, college-educated Bowling Green residents ranked in this study as haven a "more Northern" accent than some residents of Michigan, at least to the untrained ear - quite a shocker. The study is accessible here - http://www.msu.edu/~preston/LAVIS.pdf Check out pages 7-9 specifically. Anybody from Louisville KNOWS that there are plenty, plenty of us who do not have a Southern accent, or traces of it. I'm not saying that's a good thing or bad, but it is a fact. And it's not due to immigration either, as Louisville is not booming like Atlanta or Charlotte. We are not drawing in outside citizens to water down the accent, as is happening in Sunbelt cities further South.

Of course, I completely disagree with the one gentlemen's anecdotal analysis of the city, but that hardly matters.

And lastly, a note on climate. Technically, Louisville is located in the transition area between the humid continental (typically Midwestern) and humid subtropical (typically Southern) climate zones, but it is often included in the former. According to highly popular weather site Weatherbase (Weatherbase, Louisville receives more snow annually on average than Cinci - Louisville with 16.2 inches compared to Cinci with 14.2 inches. Very Southern, ha. Hardiness lists, relating to plant environments, are important to consider also, and you'll notice that in this important ecological measure, Louisville is grouped in with lower Midwestern area - lower Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, etc. -




The saying "from coal to corn" is quite accurate, as much of Kentucky lies squarely in the Midwest Corn Belt. Not true of any other so-called "Southern" city.




And on a last somewhat "sentimental" note - that world famous Southern magnolia, one of the South's most famous and iconic plants? Not in Kentucky -



PLANTS Profile for Magnolia grandiflora (southern magnolia) | USDA PLANTS

So yes, I can understand how some Louisvillians may travel to Milwaukee and feel out of place. But many of us also feel FAR more out of place when in Mobile, AL or Beaumont, TX. We drink "soda" or "pop", we speak with a plain accent, we identify as Northerners or Midwesterners, not Southerners, but we think it's GREAT to live in a city that can, in truth, claim either region, and generally has the best of both, while avoiding the extremes of either. Really though, I couldn't disagree more strongly (but respectfully) with claims that Louisville is merely a Catholicized "Diet Nashville" or something. I've never seen the city in that light, and I never will. It often comes up in professional articles - one of my favorite examples is at SIX THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW about: KENTUCKY. This city is multifaceted, diverse, and has a very hard to define identity. Just my view, though.
*Steps down.

As I said before, as someone who lives in Southwest jefferson county I disagree. I know many more Baptists than Catholics. There are PLETY of magnolia trees and there are more accents than none around here so perhaps it just depends on where you are in the county.

[missymomof3]

I origianally posted this on the USA forum and when it was there the majority said Southern. Now that it has been moved, it's the other way around. Interesting.