Missouri...Southern or Midwestern? (St. Louis, Ozark: culture, comparing, percentage)

[stl4man]

Originally Posted by MoPlanner

I haven't read ALL the posts but to tie much of what has been said together, I've always felt that Missouri is the quintessential “transition” state. Why?


- St. Louis has a very eastern attitude to it – Kansas City is more western
- The climate runs from fairly dry in the NW to fairly wet in the SE; and the crops and people somewhat reflect this.
- The Bootheel is very much a Mississippi Delta type region; very southern in attitudes and crops. Poplar Bluff, right on the edge of the area is very much like many towns in Arkansas
- The Ozarks are of course very much like Kentucky and Tennessee. Unglaciated rugged hills, thin soils, lots of trees and clear streams means the crops are more timber, mining, and subsistence farming.
- Northern Missouri is glaciated, rolling hills with deep soils. They are very productive and the crops and people are again reflective of the conditions.
- There is the area often referred to as “Little Dixie” which is generally centered on Moberly. It had very pro-southern leanings in the Civil War and it retains a degree of this today.
- SW Missouri is more like Oklahoma and Kansas. NE Missouri is much more like Illinois or Iowa.
- The plains run across northern and central Missouri but they transition from the dryer short grass plains of Nebraska to Oklahoma into the tall grass plains of Illinois and Indiana.


This is undoubtedly why Missouri has been such a mixed bag politically – we don’t “track well” with any one other state – we’re more a mix of all the states around us. This could also be the root of the Show Me personality. Its not that we’re hard headed so much as we assimilate what others are doing around us – which necessarily happens AFTER someone around us is already doing it!

This is a simple and uncomplex way of looking at it that ignores many obvious factors. First off, Kansas City and St. Louis are both solidly Midwestern cities. The majority of the population resides in these two cities. Second off, "Little Dixie" has minimal Southern influences today. It is unmistakably Midwestern. The only Southern characteristics it retains today may be that of the Bible Belt...the Bible Belt has been moving northward over the past century, and encompasses a decent chunk of the Midwest.
The Ozarks in Missouri at least geographically and culturally may have some ties to Kentucky and Tennessee, but they also are strongly influenced by Midwestern culture. This is evidenced by the cuisine, the fact that southern accents are not in the majority in most of the area. Not to mention, I have family from all over the Ozarks. To call them Southern is a joke...they are as Midwestern as I am. Southern Illinois and Southern Indiana are similar to most of Southern Missouri...noticeably Southern and Midwestern influences...you really can't definitively call these areas Southern or Midwestern. The only truly Southern parts of Missouri are the ones you described..the bootheel and the Mississippi Delta.
All this said, yes, I think Missouri is split in many ways...politically, historically. However, post-1865 Missouri has become a decisively Midwestern state. The best way to classify it is a Midwestern state with a lot of Southern characteristics, just as Kentucky is a Southern state with a lot of Midwestern characteristics. The Ozarks are mere hills compared to the mountainous landscapes of Kentucky and Tennessee, and contain very strong Midwestern influences, as strong at least as the amount of Southern influence. You can find landscapes like the Ozarks in much of Pennsylvania and Upstate New York (even though I will definitively give that Pennsylvania has less Southern influence in those areas, and Upstate New York is in no way Southern). In summary...just because something looks like a duck doesn't necessarily mean it quacks like one or is one.

[DinsdalePirahna]

Originally Posted by stl4man

and Upstate New York is in no way Southern)...

Parts of the lower sections of upstate new york are sometimes regionalized as a part of Appalachia. There are isolated towns and villages in the Catskills and Taconics where the locals make West Virginia hillbillies seems sophisticated, they also speak with distinct southern accents

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by DinsdalePirahna

Parts of the lower sections of upstate new york are sometimes regionalized as a part of Appalachia. There are isolated towns and villages in the Catskills and Taconics where the locals make West Virginia hillbillies seems sophisticated, they also speak with distinct southern accents

Yes, the southern tier counties. This area has seen their economic fortunes improve recently due to the Marcellus Shale deposits. However, controversies over drilling and the depletion of water reserves is a big concern. Some southern tier towns include: Jamestown, Wellsville, Elmira, Olean, Binghamton, etc. Topographically, the area is definitely Appalachian and that extends southward through Pennsylvania through the Allegheny Plateau.

[NEMO jarhead]

I am from Sullivan County, and most of my parents' contemporaries pronounce it Ioway and say you'uns too.

As for the Widwest vs. South question, Missouri was a fringe battleground state that still suffers from a bit of an ID crisis. This surfaces when Mizzou plays Kansas in everything from football to table tennis, and people from North MO gerenally think of folks down south as being from Arkansas, which will probably start a whole new thread!

[limehouse]

Originally Posted by daisymae19

this article will explain JSTOR: Accessing JSTOR (broken link)

The *native* pronounciation is with an uh, the *outsiders ( or those whose parents came from other states)* is with an *ee*... oh and the ss is pronounced as a Z not an S...(btw I am a born and raised Hillbilly from the Ozarks with my Ozark roots going back to the 1830's..my family was original settlers in Osage, Gasconade, Pulaski, Camden and Laclede counties)

Yes, missouruh is the old, traditional pronunciation. You learn it from your family growing up. If you are a newcomer, you mispronounce it because you say it like its written. Kind of like if you moved to England and pronounced the Thames as thams and not tems.

And, thats why people in urban areas pronounce it missouree. They are latecomers to the state.

Unless they are singing the Mizzou fight song, I don't know anybody who says it Mizzou-Rah.

I guess if you want to know how it was originally pronounced you'd have to dig up a Ouemessourit Native American and ask him.

My great-great grandfather was born in Missouri in 1820 and I imagine the missoura pronunciation goes back that far. Spelling in those days was not as standardized as it is today.

limehouse

[kshe95girl]

Originally Posted by limehouse

Yes, missouruh is the old, traditional pronunciation. You learn it from your family growing up. If you are a newcomer, you mispronounce it because you say it like its written. Kind of like if you moved to England and pronounced the Thames as thams and not tems.

And, thats why people in urban areas pronounce it missouree. They are latecomers to the state.

Unless they are singing the Mizzou fight song, I don't know anybody who says it Mizzou-Rah.

I guess if you want to know how it was originally pronounced you'd have to dig up a Ouemessourit Native American and ask him.

My great-great grandfather was born in Missouri in 1820 and I imagine the missoura pronunciation goes back that far. Spelling in those days was not as standardized as it is today.

limehouse

um, with all due respect, my family has been in the area south of STL since 1699, ever since they began speaking English, and the territory was named, they have been pronouncing it missouree.

[3240Redo]

I grew up in SE Mo, have lived in SW Mo and St. L., and have traveled all through the state - and have never heard anyone say Missouruh unless they were clowning around.

[jackhitts]

After living here for more than a year, I think I have come to the conclusion that Missouri is a Midwestern state. Even the Ozarks.

Mostly, I look at Springfield. Springfield, compared to cities of similar size in both the Midwest and the South, feels more like Midwestern cities of the same size than it does Southern cities of the same size (around cities with more than 100k people but less than 200k).

It has a crumbling (yet rebuilding) downtown district— one that's unmitakably Midwestern rather than Southern—, plenty of factories (smell that mustard? Ahhh, French's!) and only minimal sprawl/ development.

Now, just as a comparison, I recently visited a friend in kentucky. He lives about 15 miles from Clarksville, TN, so he's obviously firmly in the South. Anyway, Clarksville is around the same size as Springfield (a little smaller— around 120k), but I get an overwhelmingly Southern feeling from Clarksville. Both SGF and C'Ville have fairly large state universities (C'ville has Austin Peay State) as well as some private colleges, which adds to their similarity.

Now, in Clarksville, I noticed how much "development" there was— very characteristic of the New South. Springfield has a bit of it (just drive along Battlefield or Glenstone Road by the mall and you'll know what I mean), but it still has a bit of older character. Homes in Springfield don't seem brand brand new like they did here.

Downtown Clarksville is in a bit better shape than Downtown SGF, but the downtown is just laid out differently than normal downtowns I'm used to. I don't know if that's a Southern thing or just the fact that I was in an unfamiliar city, but when I am in SGF I find the downtown to have a certain feel characteristic to most Midwestern cities, big and small. This might not be significant to some but for some reason it speaks volumes to me. Plus, the whole fact that downtown Springfield isn't well-kept as it could be reminds me lots of mid-sized Rust Belt cities like Indianapolis or Akron or Springfield, IL.

Just think about smaller cities (populations of 100k-200k) in the Mid-South (Clarksville, Little Rock, Chattanooga, Lexington) and then contrast those with similar Midwestern cities (think Ceder Rapids, Topeka, Peoria, Evansville... might as well just think about the entire Missouri Valley Conference ), I think you'll find Springfield fitting in way more with the latter group of cities than with the former.

Obviously that doesn't necessarily mean all of Missouri is Midwestern, but I think whoever said that Highway 60 is the dividing line is right on the money. I do think that once you get east of Laclede County and North of I-44, it's not even a debate. I mean, go from Rolla up to Jeff City on Highway 63 (or from Waynesville to JC on Highway 17) and tell me that towns like Vienna, Eugene, Iberia and Westphalia aren't Midwestern. The landscape, too, flattens out and you see less mountain and more farm. The, BAM! Jeff City, and past that it's basically Iowa ( just kidding).

Anyhow, no matter what you call yourselves, Missourians are great people either way, I'm glad to live here.

[imperialmog]

In some ways an argument could be established its both and neither. Maybe something like Texas but less along the way of establishing its own unique culture.

The biggest knock on it being purely Midwestern is the presence of Evangelical Protestants and numbers of which. Comparing Springfield to Midwestern cities of similar size ignores that culturally that part of the state is very much a part of the Bible Belt. *actually most of the state is barring an area around St. Louis which is Catholic dominated*

In terms of the Rust Belt issue and St. Louis, it looks like the last few years the area is diverging from places like Detroit, Cleveland, and Toledo in terms of economic issues since it didn't get nailed as hard. Also take any stats about St. Louis City with a major caveat emptor since the city is artifically constrained boundarys dating back to the 19th century so extrapolating the city to the whole metro is very risky at best.

My summary is Missouri was founded as a Southern State, became Midwestern after the Civil War and a result has a unique version of Midwest. *look at both number of evangelicals and barbeque traditions* A real question is will it stay the same this century? What do people here think the cultural trend for the state will be in the future? My guess is maybe the mishmash of different areas congeal into a new culture that is distinct along the lines of what a Texan culture is.

[jackhitts]

Originally Posted by imperialmog

My summary is Missouri was founded as a Southern State, became Midwestern after the Civil War and a result has a unique version of Midwest.

I like this very much. Good summary.

Now, my question: Is Kentucky Midwest? They seem to have an opposite problem. They (technically...I guess maybe some did, much like in MO it was contentious) never seceded from the Union, but almost always seem to self-identify as Southern and not Midwestern. Interesting.