Why is Missouri so southern? (Kansas City, St. Louis: showing, home, title)

[MimzyMusic]

Is it because it was a slave state?

[Versatile]

I have lived here all my life and i seriously doubt it has anything to do with being southern. Northern people call me southern and those to the south call me a Yankee. My family never had slaves and i don't know anyone whose families did either.That stuff is just history overall. As you read here. There are people from everywhere in Mo.

[aragx6]

MO is kind of a border state. Some areas feel very rust-belt-ish (St. Louis) and other, more ural areas feel positively southern (esp. down near the bootheel)

[Versatile]

I heard once that it is because; at one time a very large pipeline was coming from Arkansas into Kansas City and after the line was done and buried the Arky's couldn't find their way home! lol

[MrsMo]

My family kept moving north from the south and this is as far north as they got! Maybe that is why, so many families just made it so far north. I know I have family in Pennsylvania and they tease us about our southern accent, but I can get the Pittsburgh accent going again once I've been around them for a while. I thought MO was considered Midwest?! I know some of my grandpa's family came from Arkansas in the late 1800's. Why do you feel MO is southern?

[ShadowCaver]

Originally Posted by MimzyMusic

Why is Missouri so southern?

As if there is something wrong with being Southern?

Originally Posted by MimzyMusic

Is it because it was a slave state?

Nope - Missouri was not a "slave" state, in the sense of having many many slaves. Note that the "Missouri Compromise" of 1820 allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, and Maine as a free state, thus keeping the balance of slave and free states - even though MO was for the most part a Union state, although it was very terrible bloody battle within her borders. Another part of history that might want to consider is that in 1865 Missouri became the first slave state to free its slaves.

[STLCardsBlues1989]

Parts of Missouri are pretty southern. This part is pretty southern, I think.

Missouri was a Union state which allowed slavery, but I saw a map showing that there really weren't many slaves here. A lot of southerners couldn't afford slaves anyway.

[Northwoods Voyager]

I have a splendid and thoroughly fascinating little book titled, 'Tom Beveridge's Ozarks'. This softcover 85 page informative publication contains many chapters describing this man's love and dedication to the Missouri Ozarks. It was edited by Nancy L. Beveridge with photos by George C. Miller. The Boxwood Press is responsible for publishing the book.

Okay, in this book, one will find many descriptions of the first settlers of this state, especially the Ozark region. Most came from the Appalachian Region of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and what was then Virginia. These transplanted southern Appalachian peoples representing a group which was and still is neither North nor South in culture.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone wanting to experience this man's historical and personal outlook and definition of Missouri and Missouri Ozarks. It really is priceless. may someday pass the prize to a son. Or may have to find another one for both that would be interested in this.

Missouri was not a 'slave state'.

[ajf131]

Why is Missouri so southern? I'll give you an answer...it's not. I was just in Rolla today and I did not sense an incredibly drastic change in culture, nor did I hear any Southern accents really. All that changed was the landscape, and all that really changed was the soil type and it was much more hilly and rocky and cliffy. The prairie grass and trees and greenness of the landscape was still identical to any other area of the Midwest I've been to. Today it is not very Southern at all in my opinion. Religion and maybe the soil type are about the best arguments that can be made for it being Southern, and neither of those to me really do enough to justify it being definitively Southern. The state is prairie even in the Ozarks, and has wineries that compare more to the Midwest than the South. I also have heard very few Southern accents except in Southeast Missouri. Southeast Missouri and the extreme Southern Missouri to me are the only parts of Missouri that are "so Southern." Southern Missouri I think really leans as Midwestern as Southern. The Northern half however is not Southern at all. While Missouri did have a lot of Southern settlers, this is not a big enough characteristic to say that it's Southern, especially when slavery was not really practical in a state whose economy did not depend on it, and also because it had a lot of Northern settlers and German settlers who settled in Missouri and other Union states. And it did remain on the Union side during the Civil War and it has a more Midwestern economy, industry, climate, and landscape characteristics. All of its history after the Civil War is definitely that of a Midwestern state, not a Southern one in the least bit. That's my take of things. It is the Southern Midwest in my opinion. It is an overall Midwestern state with Southern influence and some Southern leanings.

[OA 5599]

Well put. I grew up about 40 miles north of the Arkansas border in south central Missouri and I really don't consider that part to be southern, but it definitely has some southern influences. A lot of people do fly rebel flags, wear rebel flag belt buckles, ect, in that part of MO though, but it is nothing like Mississippi or Alabama, which is definitely the south. Southern Midwest is a good way to put it.