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I wish I could find it again but on another site I sw a few people debate Texas AND Louisiana... Texas has too many cowboys they say and Louisiana has that french thing going on... plus they are on the wrong side of the Mississippi..... etc etc etc. I don't get it, is every state in Dixie supposed to be identical?
These are people that have no clue what they're talking about, because if they did they would know that the "French" influences in Louisiana are hardly found outside of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Two small areas in a much larger state.
And as far as cowboys in Texas, not only do a majority of Texans have nothing to do with that lifestyle, but the Texas cowboy is from the southern cowboy. People act as if there aren't cowboys in Georgia or Alabama.
The title asks for "northern states where most people consider themselves southern." In my opinion, Maryland is the opposite of that. It's a "historically" southern state where most people now consider themselves northern. In these discussions, I think a lot of people have a tendency to conflate & confuse the concepts of "southern" and "rural," but that is a mistake. I have relatives up-and-down the eastern seaboard and have lived in and visited various states. My dad was born and raised in rural Maryland, and moved to Philly as a young man when he got out of the Army. He always considered himself a "country boy" but he never considered himself as "southern." My mom was originally from Augusta, GA and moved to Philly as a young woman. She never considered herself as "country" but she definitely considered herself a "southern girl."
Although the South isn't homogeneous and there IS diversity in the South, I believe there are distinct cultural traits that unify most of the TRUE South. It's culture, cuisine, accent, and self identity. The accents of my family in Maryland is COMPLETELY different from the accents of my family in Georgia and South Carolina. Their food is also different. For instance, my mom grew up eating grits almost everyday for breakfast. My dad never had grits in his life until he met my mom. That's just one small example, but there are many other subtle differences that are too much to go into right now.
I think Virginia is definitely the South, but also serves as a cultural-transition zone. Traveling down I-95, once I get into North Carolina, I really feel like I'm truly in the South. You can find stands at gas stations selling things like "boiled peanuts" that you'll never see in Maryland. I think the mid-atlantic/Chesapeake region has its own feel and its own unique types of accents. The Baltimore-Central Maryland accent is its own thing--I can definitely distinguish it when I hear it. Based on accents, I can tell if someone is from the Philly/South Jersey area, the NY/North Jersey area, the Baltimore/Central MD area, etc. But once I get deep into VA and definitely by the time I get into NC, it's definitely a true "Down South" accent, and I can no longer distinguish between states. There is some diversity, such as the geechees around Charleston and Savannah who sound West Indian, and New Orleans has a distinct accent. But I can't distinguish the rest of it.
The title asks for "northern states where most people consider themselves southern." In my opinion, Maryland is the opposite of that. It's a "historically" southern state where most people now consider themselves northern. In these discussions, I think a lot of people have a tendency to conflate & confuse the concepts of "southern" and "rural," but that is a mistake... .
Ironically the OP of this thread posted Maryland as a possible example of a Northern State where people identify as Southern. Be at least he understands that there is a difference with regard to what a state traditionally is, and what it's people identify with. If you want to argue that much of Maryland nowadays has more in common culturally with the North East than with the South, I wouldn't disagree. But then again if you visited certain areas in North Carolina like Charlotte for example, you might think the same thing. But the thing to grasp here is that whether a state is traditionaly considered Southern or Northern, is not affected because of a change in demogrpahics or because the people identify themslves differently. By the same token, Florida will never be a Northern state even if everyone there was originally from New York.
"...much of Maryland nowadays has more in common culturally with the North East than with the South"
my point exactly. It also extends beyond culture as well, as economic, politics, and demographics are far more in line with the North than in the South. Read my previous posts on all 9 of the "border" states. I've been to Charlotte and love it, but it is definitely is a Southern city and will always be that way, unless they bulldoze it and start over . In the South even the cities are "Southern." Baltimore for instance looks totally different from Charlotte or Atlanta, but a lot like Philadelphia.
Miami looks much like San Diego...does that mean Miami is now a West Coast city? I don't think so.
I don't see why it matters which city looks like another one or how an area has progressed and changed over the years. It's still part of the same region.
The South is a very diverse region with very diverse cultures. Some areas are similar to the Southwest, other areas are similar to the Northeast, and still others are similar to the Midwest. Some people in those border regions just don't like being called southern - and that's fine, those people can call themselves whatever they like. But what they really can't do is pick up their state and move it to another region.
ARIZONA IS NOT IN THE NORTH! What school did this person go to? Although it is definately backwards and uneducated.
Arizona is not geographically in the North but anything not considered a Southern state is Yankee and Arizona is not a Southern state. Maybe that is what they meant?
Many areas of Maryland were not even historically southern
Yeah, I agree. By "historically" I mean that it was officially below the Mason Dixon line at the time of the Civil War. But even during that time, most of central/northern Maryland was culturally more similar to central Pennsylvania. Meaning, the rural areas consisted primarily of small, self-sufficient, family farms, and the main urban areas (such as Baltimore) were industrializing and attracting European immigrants. I think the Eastern Shore and southern Maryland were more culturally linked to Virginia, with their system of small plantations and tobacco planters. Those areas, along with Virginia, had also become the center of a very lucrative "domestic slave-trade." That was the system in which the surplus "slaves" in the Chesapeake region--whose labor was no longer in high demand on declining tobacco plantations--were being sold for high profit to the rapidly expanding "Cotton" plantations down in the deep South. So, their wealth was tied up in their "enslaved property," and any threat to that system threatened their livelihood.
So culturally, Maryland was split in half. The allegiance and sympathy of those on the Eastern Shore and southern MD was more on the side of the Confederates; those living in northern and central Maryland were more with the Union culturally and politically. That's why Lincoln had to lock Maryland down so things wouldn't get out of hand.
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