What states do you personally consider "yankee"? (compare, metro, live)

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by Spade

That was just Texas A&M. Texas A&M and the SEC wanted to happen but they wanted Texas and Texas did not want anything to do with the SEC. Texas wanted to go to the Big 10 or the Pac 10 and came VERY close to going to the Pac 10 if it wasn't for Stanford. In fact, it was all but done except that hurdle and the other hurdle being the Texas legislature.

In an important way you are right (according to all I have read on the subject), Spade. As in that Texas A&M was more "openly" involved in "negotions" with the SEC than was Texas (UT..University of Texas at Austin). BUT...the way I read it (have you ever read the book? If not, it is VERY good), things fell apart with the SEC and UT when Frank Erwin (the longtime powerful president of the Board of Regents) died. Otherwise, it was projected that Texas would have gone to the SEC without hesitation once the breakup of the old Southwest Conference was a certainty.

Another bit of trivia though. How many know that back in the early 60's (this too was mentioned in the book) that the "flagship" schools of the Southern states (Texas, Ole Miss, Alabama, LSU, U.of Georgia, etc) ALMOST formed a conference of their own, to be called the "Super Conference"? It would have, in effect, combined the largest schools of the SEC and old SWC into one. Hense, the "Super Conference"

[LexusNexus]

Check the map of the last election in which the red states were for Bush. Blue states are all yankee states.

Me? 3rd generation northerner from Illinois (Chicago). A yankee and proud of it. Currently live in Northern CA. Wife is from Pittsburgh. If we were to leave this area, its northeast/new england baby!

[ajf131]

If Texas is to be considered Southern, so is Oklahoma. Just remember that folks. I personally consider them both Southwestern and Southern.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by ajf131

If Texas is to be considered Southern, so is Oklahoma. Just remember that folks. I personally consider them both Southwestern and Southern.

There is a LOT of truth in this point, AJF, but the difference between the two states is that Southern history, traditions, etc, were much more entrenched in Texas than in Oklahoma (which didn't become a state until 1907). Still, I DO agree that, overall, it has more in common with the South than it does with the desert SW or plains Midwest.

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by TexasReb

There is a LOT of truth in this point, AJF, but the difference between the two states is that Southern history, traditions, etc, were much more entrenched in Texas than in Oklahoma (which didn't become a state until 1907). Still, I DO agree that, overall, it has more in common with the South than it does with the desert SW or plains Midwest.

There is some truth there. The interesting thing to be noted however is that the Indians inhabiting Oklahoma during the Civil War were on the side of the Confederacy. Oklahoma, like Texas, has a heavy Southern Baptist population, the accents sound pretty Southern to me in a lot of it, the weather seems to favor a more Southern type pattern. However, there is no question that Oklahoma has many Southwestern characteristics and even a few Midwestern ones (for example, NE Oklahoma has dairy farms and cornfields that you typically find in the Midwest, and I have not seen any trees common to the South growing there. Oklahoma is harder I guess to settle than Texas given it borders on more regions, but there is no question at least in my mind that Oklahoma and Texas share more in common with each other than they do with any other states they border on. Texas clearly has more Southern influence than Oklahoma however, there is no questioning that one. Houston and Dallas are undeniably Southern cities. Does Texas offer sweet tea in pretty much the whole state or not? I have been unable to find restaurants regularly offering sweet tea in Oklahoma other than Cracker Barrels or McDonald's

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by ajf131

Does Texas offer sweet tea in pretty much the whole state or not? I have been unable to find restaurants regularly offering sweet tea in Oklahoma other than Cracker Barrels or McDonald's

Now THIS question is a good one! That of sweet tea. And further, to me, a sort of... curltural contradiction, maybe...?

Here is why I say that, and I am betting that most native Texans will agree here.

My OWN eperience is that, in the larger restaurants, that ordering tea in Texas, like in the Southeast, means HEAVILY iced by default. BUT...usually it comes unsweetened, but there are sugarglasses on the table to sweeten as one sees fit.

In many of the smaller "mon and pop" type cafes in more rural areas of the state? I notice that both (sweet and unsweet) are avilable.

FINALLY, and maybe this is the most important observation of all. In all my native years in Texas, regardless of what the restaurants do, EVERY native Texan I have ever known, when they brew their OWN tea, make it "sweet."

Hells bells, there is a friend of mine who, when he and his wife make it, pour a five pound bag of sugar into the pitcher, then wet it down with the freshly brewed tea and serve it with lemon. Wellllll, that IS a bit of an exageration, but not by much!

[vasinger]

Originally Posted by buckfush

Check the map of the last election in which the red states were for Bush. Blue states are all yankee states.

Me? 3rd generation northerner from Illinois (Chicago). A yankee and proud of it. Currently live in Northern CA. Wife is from Pittsburgh. If we were to leave this area, its northeast/new england baby!

There were a lot of red states that weren't in the cultural South that voted for Bush: Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, and a lot of other states were red.

Maryland went blue, and thats sometimes considered a Southern state.

Can't always go by the elections.

North Carolina and Virginia are really purple.

[freeroad80]

Growing up in Wisconsin and Illinois, nobody thought of themselves as Yankee whatsoever. The term in my mind always meant north-east. To me its a ridiculous out-dated term that has no value at this point but the image that comes to mind for me are WASPs in New England, New York, NJ, urban Del. and the Philly area, thats it. I could understand the argument for Baltimore and maybe even DC but to me those places have southern influences. In its purest form to me Yankee means New England or NYC, but I will go as far south as the Maryland state line area.

Not AT ALL does Yankee apply to the industrial rust/belt in the north central part of the country, especially the midwest. Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago those are more Eastern European/German influenced cities who experienced later growth and significance than did powerhouses in the 19th century like Philly Boston and NY who were more central to the happenings of the Civil War. And certainly for Gods sake not Colorado California etc, those are just simply western states that are out of the discussion all together.

[Scraper Enthusiast]

I'm from Georgia

Let's see:

Yankee:

Maine
Massachusetts
Vermont
New Hamsphire
Rhode Island
Connecticut
New York
New Jersey (doesn't really apply to south Jersey)
Pennsylvania
Michigan
Wisconsin
Minnesota

I really don't think of Ohio or Indiana as yankee, nor the "border" areas of Maryland, Delaware, or West Virginia. Missouri is just as much southern as it is "northern". Illinois is much like Indiana and Ohio, however, I suppose you could include northern Illinois in the "yankee" category. North Dakota seems "yankee-like", considering the accents, but it's really too far west. Iowa seems more like Illinois, too, and perhaps the northern portion could be considered "yankee". Regarding Michigan, the southern areas of the lower peninsula don't sound all that "yankee", perhaps it isn't far north enough, or perhaps there's a lot of former southerners in the area considering the migrations in the fifties and sixties.

[jonjj]

Yankee---any place within 200 miles of NYC and New England.