Smyrna, Delaware - the south starts there? (Wilmington, Middletown: fit in, construction)

[henrynash]

So I know some say that Delaware is a northern, Yankee state but is that really true?? Two of its three counties are rural, more republican, farm based, people have a southern accent and are more culturally in line with the south than the north. "Below the ditch" is an expression a lot of Delawareans use to describe southern Delaware. (For you newcomers that's below the C and D canal near Middletown/Smyrna). It also means you are heading to an area that is more "southern". Anyway, I think Smyrna really could be "where the south starts" in the United States. Thoughts?

[longnecker]

Originally Posted by henrynash

So I know some say that Delaware is a northern, Yankee state but is that really true?? Two of its three counties are rural, more republican, farm based, people have a southern accent and are more culturally in line with the south than the north. "Below the ditch" is an expression a lot of Delawareans use to describe southern Delaware. (For you newcomers that's below the C and D canal near Middletown/Smyrna). It also means you are heading to an area that is more "southern". Anyway, I think Smyrna really could be "where the south starts" in the United States. Thoughts?

Rural,farm based?? That depends on where in Southern Delaware you are. Oh yeah.. If y'all can't understand us it's because YOU have an accent not us.

[rdlr]

Much controversy on that subject. My parents, aunts & uncles often mentioned that we were blessed to be considered southerners, if even by a hair. I was born & raised in Delaware on grits, ham hocks, and a multitude of southern dishes. Whether we're really southern or not, will always be disputed; I just know I'm not a northerner, can relate to the southern culture's slow and simple living, and am forever unimpressed by much of today's goings on. Of course, I believe those feelings were even more instilled in me, because I was raised in Kent County around the Amish.

There will always be the educators who will, again, reference the exact locations of the Mason-Dixon line and how Delaware can no way be a southern state. Whatever bit of southern many natives my age clutch to is rapidly changing as the multitudes of northerners have come to live here, and those of my demeanor die off. In my opinion, I believe the Delaware southern/northern controversy will eventually die with us, as Delaware is proclaimed "northern". The signs are already here, as NY'ers search for New York style pizza and bagels, and Pennsylvanians search for Philly cheese steaks - in Delaware.

[doctorjef]

There's an entire, very long thread you can dig up on this topic, called something like "Is Delaware in the Soooouuuth?" The majority opinion rejected the notion that any of DE is part of the South. However, historically - prior to the early 20th Century - I think there is good evidence that Kent and Sussex counties, at least, were viewed as being within the American South (the Upper South, of course). You could even arguably extend that into lower New Castle County, up to the area around Middletown, with the vast peach orchards and "peach mansions" that covered much of the area (the former are all gone, but examples of the latter survive). Yet, nowhere in Delaware is as Southern - IMO - as present-day Kentucky -- that state has arguably become more culturally Southern in the 150 years since the Civil War, while Delaware has become less culturally Southern. The one part of DE that never seems to have shared the culture of the American South is upper New Castle County, with its early industrial economy, Irish workforce dating to the early 19th Century, strong Quaker and abolitionist influences, and de facto abolition of slavery throughout New Castle Co. by the time the Civil War started (in contrast to the two lower counties, where an enslaved population of about 1,600 persons total still worked the plantations and farms of Kent and Sussex). I'd suggest a review of the old thread on this topic for anyone interested in the arguments pro and con.

[jimmyev]

Easy test - Were the lower counties Democrats that suddenly changed to Republican after LBJ? That's the hallmark of all Southern states. Even Rick Perry was a Democrat before LBJ...

[doctorjef]

Actually, Rick Perry remained a Democrat long after LBJ. Take it from a long-time resident of Texas, the switch in dominance of Texas state government from Democratic to Republican didn't take place until years after LBJ left the White House. It's true that Bill Clements was elected to the governorship in the early-mid 1980s, being the first Republican governor since the end of Reconstruction. However, the legislature and other organs of state government were still majority Democratic and Clements was succeeded by a Democratic governor, Ann Richards. It wasn't really until the 1980s that Texas began to be a true two-party state, and not until the 1990s when the Republicans finally became dominant. Hence, I don't think the argument that Lower Delaware could be regionally classified based on a post-LBJ switch in party affiliation quite holds water. What is true, however, is that Lower DE - esp. Sussex - still have some extremely conservative Democratic legislators who don't fit in with the social views and voting patterns of the Democrats of New Castle County, and one would think it quite possible that these old conservative Democratic fossils in southern DE may be succeeded by Republican legislators. At the same time, demographic changes in eastern Sussex Co. may ultimately make that area more solidly Democratic. However, I think all this is likely confounded with long-term trends in voting patterns and party ascendencies, with the likelihood that the Republican ascendency at the national level has just about peaked and will recede - either gradually or in a sudden collapse - within the next couple of election cycles after the current one.

I think we must look elsewhere to determine cultural identification within DE. In regard to arguments in the foregoing posts, let us remember that the Midwest is both heavily agricultural and significantly Republican, but certainly not culturally or regionally Southern.

[DelawareLiz]

Agree with doctorjef's post. I don't think upper New Castle was ever "southern" at all, although there are some old Delaware farming families who live up there who have some southern traits and values (my father's family being one of them). My father's family even owned slaves way back when--not something I'm proud of, but it's part of my family history.

I must agree most locations below the ditch tend to have more of a "southern" feel. Like rdlr, I know that I would never consider myself a "northerner" because I just cannot identify with them. I was born in Wilmington and lived there until I was 11, but I was raised on an old family farm on Foulk Road. I often visited my father's family (many who still farmed) and rode ponies and played in the fields chasing butterflies. My family never identified with "city people" and my parents jumped at the opportunity to move us south to the Delaware beaches. It's a choice I am so grateful they made, given I have lived in eastern Sussex for the past 27 years. I despise traveling up north and feel like some out of place bumpkin once I cross that canal. I typically only visit my family in north Wilmington two-three times a year, and getting me to do that is like pulling teeth.

However, that being said....I would never call myself a "southerner" because I was born and raised in Delaware and it's not "technically" a southern state. I can relate to southerners and share many of their traits and hobbies, but you really cannot compare rural Delawareans to people who live in the real south. Half of my husband's family are Irish Appalachian people from extremely rural Tennessee, and THAT is a true southerner . I've really never seen anything like it. Another fact I've noticed since moving to Sussex County--most people who identify extremely with the south actually have family from the south. My husband's family would be a good example. There are actually quite a few families in Kent and Sussex counties who have family roots tracing back to Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and other southern states...probably moreso than what most people realize.

[7 Wishes]

The Wikipedia entry on the "Southern United States" defined the South in the ways most do (i.e. essentially Virginia on south), but also used to note what I'll call "cultural grey areas" which included all of the 'non-metropolitan' parts of Maryland, the lower 2 counties of Delaware, etc. (and of course in reverse it noted how south Florida, Atlanta and many parts of VA and NC have become very "northern"). It's long been edited out though.....

It is tricky because even using history technically Maryland and Delaware are below the Mason-Dixon line, but they also were free Union states during the Civil War (though some argue a lot of that has to do with a combination of parts of those states being in the Northeast Megalopolis and its cultural influence and more so political pressure at the time not to secede so that Washington, DC was not completely surrounded by the Confederacy.....and western Maryland borders West Virginia which was essentially formed at that time because that part of Virgina was pro-Union/anti-Confederacy).

I personally still consider them "northern" because they have been "blue states". A similar but less hotly debated topic is whether the western 1/3 or even western 1/2 of Connecticut is really "New England" because of the influence of New York City on that region.

[Pine to Vine]

Originally Posted by beachliz

I must agree most locations below the ditch tend to have more of a "southern" feel.

North, south, east and west are all relative. By this I mean, they are determined from the respective of where the person is sitting. In my many years in Texas, I can assure you that when I brought a few friends to Sussex County, they felt they were in the heart of "yankeedom." On the other hand, when I lived in Boston, folks thought Wilmington was in the south. Finally, in university, I remember someone from Oregon telling me they attended school "back east" in Iowa. Who's right? Who cares? And why do they care?

The OP considers Smyrna southern because it is "rural, more republican, farm based, people have a southern accent and are more culturally in line with the south than the north." This also describes places such as upstate NY, the UP of Michigan and the panhandle of Idaho.

[jp03]

Originally Posted by jm02

North, south, east and west are all relative. By this I mean, they are determined from the respective of where the person is sitting. In my many years in Texas, I can assure you that when I brought a few friends to Sussex County, they felt they were in the heart of "yankeedom." On the other hand, when I lived in Boston, folks thought Wilmington was in the south. Finally, in university, I remember someone from Oregon telling me they attended school "back east" in Iowa. Who's right? Who cares? And why do they care?

The OP considers Smyrna southern because it is "rural, more republican, farm based, people have a southern accent and are more culturally in line with the south than the north." This also describes places such as upstate NY, the UP of Michigan and the panhandle of Idaho.

Exactly..if you compare rural to urban which is really what this is all about, then many northern farm cities would have to be considered southern. No way is Deleware a southern state geographically in any way shape or form.