Why is Missouri so southern? (Kansas City, St. Louis: neighborhood, buy, living in)

[zz4guy]

Yes Missouri IS southern. At least from a Cedar Rapids, IA perspective.

A few days ago I went to St Francis, MO (on the IA/MO border) and saw a very stark difference in the way people dressed, acted, talked, gossiped , etc. I was shocked at how much things changed just 2 hours south of CR. Felt like I was visiting Tennesee again. It all depends where you're coming from I guess.

Being from northern Iowa I'd say MO is defintely southern. I dont think that a state needed to have slaves to be considered southern.

[Miami305Kid]

It's not southern and I'm from the north. Southern doesn't mean poor or rural, Kentucky is not southern either. South Florida is not southern and neither is Northern Virginia/Washington DC.

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by zz4guy

Yes Missouri IS southern. At least from a Cedar Rapids, IA perspective.

A few days ago I went to St Francis, MO (on the IA/MO border) and saw a very stark difference in the way people dressed, acted, talked, gossiped , etc. I was shocked at how much things changed just 2 hours south of CR. Felt like I was visiting Tennesee again. It all depends where you're coming from I guess.

Being from northern Iowa I'd say MO is defintely southern. I dont think that a state needed to have slaves to be considered southern.

Aside from your statement about slaves, which I agree with, and which was also something Missouri's economy did not depend on, I don't agree about Missouri feeling even remotely like Tennessee in St. Francis or throughout most of the state. I agree that compared to Iowa it does feel Southern, but it still feels more Midwestern than Southern almost throughout the entire state. You are from the Upper Midwest. Interstate 80 has long been considered as the dividing line between the Upper and Lower Midwest. So while I agree there is a difference between Missouri and Iowa, it's not the difference between the Midwest and South. Like the Upper South is drastically different from the Deep South, so is the Lower Midwest different from the Upper Midwest.

[J1ndo]

Springfield feels a little Southern to me. However, most of the state, especially Kansas City, feels Midwestern to me, while Saint Louis seems like an Eastern city with a Midwestern accent.

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by Miami305Kid

It's not southern and I'm from the north. Southern doesn't mean poor or rural, Kentucky is not southern either. South Florida is not southern and neither is Northern Virginia/Washington DC.

I disagree about Kentucky. Kentucky is definitely Southern culturally, demographically, where most of its landscape is concerned, and in terms of its accent.

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by J1ndo

Springfield feels a little Southern to me. However, most of the state, especially Kansas City, feels Midwestern to me, while Saint Louis seems like an Eastern city with a Midwestern accent.

St. Louis I agree feels like an Eastern city, while KC feels like a Western one, however both are Midwestern cities. Springfield while it does feel quite Southern in attitude and culture compared to most of the Midwest actually still felt pretty Midwestern to me. Most of the cities in Southern Missouri have more in common culturally and in terms of dialect with the major cities of Little Egypt in Southern Illinois, such as Carbondale, Marion, etc.

[w00lyb00ger]

Missouri southern? Hahahaha! You obviously have never been to the south.

Missouri is actually a very peculiar place. It's like somebody slammed the north, south, east, and west all together. Kansas City, St. Louis, and Columbia are about as far from being southern as you can get. K.C. is much like the cities out west, St. Louis more like the cities to the east, and Columbia the large hippie commune caught in between. Any of those cities would seem far less southern like ideologically than even cities to the north like Omaha and Des Moines.

Northern Missouri and it's inhabitants, for the most part, are much like the rural areas of Iowa or northern Illinois.

The deep southern part of Missouri is about as close to being in the south as you will find. Even that area could, at the most, be coined as 'The South Light". Ask somebody from Arkansas, which really is in the south, if they think southern Missourians are southerners and they'd laugh in your face. They'd call people from Springfield a bunch of damn yankees.

The slavery issue in Missouri is largely misquoted and misunderstood. Slaves were allowed in Missouri but the majority of Missourians did not own, or approve of owning, slaves. That was part of the Missouri compromise. Missouri had no choice but to be admitted as such. However, when the civil war came about, Missouri fought on the union side of the war rather than secede.

[OA 5599]

Originally Posted by w00lyb00ger

Missouri southern? Hahahaha! You obviously have never been to the south.

Missouri is actually a very peculiar place. It's like somebody slammed the north, south, east, and west all together. Kansas City, St. Louis, and Columbia are about as far from being southern as you can get. K.C. is much like the cities out west, St. Louis more like the cities to the east, and Columbia the large hippie commune caught in between. Any of those cities would seem far less southern like ideologically than even cities to the north like Omaha and Des Moines.

Northern Missouri and it's inhabitants, for the most part, are much like the rural areas of Iowa or northern Illinois.

The deep southern part of Missouri is about as close to being in the south as you will find. Even that area could, at the most, be coined as 'The South Light". Ask somebody from Arkansas, which really is in the south, if they think southern Missourians are southerners and they'd laugh in your face. They'd call people from Springfield a bunch of damn yankees.

The slavery issue in Missouri is largely misquoted and misunderstood. Slaves were allowed in Missouri but the majority of Missourians did not own, or approve of owning, slaves. That was part of the Missouri compromise. Missouri had no choice but to be admitted as such. However, when the civil war came about, Missouri fought on the union side of the war rather than secede.

Actually, Missouri had two competing state governments for awhile, the "real" one, which did not secede in Jefferson City, and a competing government established in Neosho during the Civil War which favored secession. Both claimed to be the legitimate government of the state of Missouri. Missouri was a border state, like Kentucky or Maryland, which did not secede but did have slaves. I believe as far as troops went, Missouri sent more to the Union than the Confederacy, but some definitely did fight for the South during the war.

You are 100% right about slavery in Missouri. Missouri had some slaves, but was nothing like counties in Mississippi or Alabama where 70% of the population was composed of slaves. Most slaves in Missouri were kept by a household for chores, cooking, ect, and generally not used for agriculture. Missouri just wasn't developed enough agriculturally at the time, and lacked the type of land, to make having large numbers of slaves needed at all.

As far as the poster who commented on northern Missouri being like Tennessee....wow, have you ever been to Tennessee? The accent and culture are completely different than northern Missouri. The Ozarks are more like Tennessee than northern Missouri, but still VERY different in terms of accent, culture, ect. I was raised deep in the Ozarks and still feel like a Yankee when I visit Tennessee, and even more so in Mississippi, Louisiana, or Alabama (on another note I feel like a Yankee in rural Texas, but not in Austin). Missouri has some southern influences, yes, but it is not the south.

On another note, Oklahoma is even more difficult to classify than Missouri. What is it? The Midwest, South, Southwest, or the West? It has influences and geography resembling all of those places!

[OA 5599]

Originally Posted by ajf131

Aside from your statement about slaves, which I agree with, and which was also something Missouri's economy did not depend on, I don't agree about Missouri feeling even remotely like Tennessee in St. Francis or throughout most of the state. I agree that compared to Iowa it does feel Southern, but it still feels more Midwestern than Southern almost throughout the entire state. You are from the Upper Midwest. Interstate 80 has long been considered as the dividing line between the Upper and Lower Midwest. So while I agree there is a difference between Missouri and Iowa, it's not the difference between the Midwest and South. Like the Upper South is drastically different from the Deep South, so is the Lower Midwest different from the Upper Midwest.

The Midwest in general has a LOT of variety, culturally, States like Ohio are densely populated with many urban centers, and are lumped in the Midwest. On the other hand, states like North and South Dakota are also lumped in the same category, but are drastically different in nearly every way. The Midwest encompasses a lot of land...from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the semi-desert high plains of Kansas and Nebraska. Accents are also very different, a Michigan accent sounds very little like someone from central Illinois, and cities like Chicago have their own accent.

[northbound74]

Originally Posted by w00lyb00ger

Ask somebody from Arkansas, which really is in the south, if they think southern Missourians are southerners and they'd laugh in your face.

That might be true for people in southern Arkansas, but in northern Arkansas, where I'm originally from, people viewed Missourians (at least the ones in the southern part of MO) as equals, generally speaking... especially if you take state rivalries out of the equation.
Because of it's location, and the heritage of the people who moved here, Missouri is everything at once, I'm convinced. North, South, East, West....