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I completely believe there are plenty of wealthy, well educated farmers. There are plenty of intellectual, granola type farmers across the Northeast, PNW, and Upper Midwest as well.
That was not my point.
The term gentleman farmer, in relation to the South, is a direct reference to plantation owners and their ancestors. The term "Southern Gentleman" arose during the antebellum period to describe such people. Despite the fact that these men were racist, enslaved a whole race of people, and eventually were traitors to the United States these frat boys at SEC schools idolize them. Yes I see this as a severe problem. And no I don't consider these 19 year olds such as those in SAE at Oklahoma WASPS in the true sense. Outside of New England the true wasp is extinct. Even in New England the WASP is endangered simply by the evolution of American values away from the puritans. The P is WASP is for Protestant, but more in the Puritan sense, rather than that of the status conscious caste system of the South. The term was coined to describe the old money families of New England who were descended from the settlers of Plymouth Bay Colony.
The term has since been co-opted by upper middle class Southerners as a way to differentiate themselves as better than others, particularly if their family was not old southern money. Old southern money has conveniently taken up the term in an attempt to put "lipstick on a pig". In today's society, outside of the South WASP sounds much better than gentleman farmer or plantation owner...for good reason.
There was nothing noble or worth celebrating about the antebellum south. The whole institution was awful.
There are gentlemen farmers down South today. Owning slaves is not a requisite of being a gentlemen farmer. The Civil War ended a looooong time ago. I wasn't even alive.
P is for Protestant. It's not White Anglo-Saxon Puritan.
officially it seems to be English Americans, Germans and Dutch Amer too?
scots-irish southerners would perhaps by most be considered WASPS however I think they'd be generally considered Celts though it's debatable what %age of White Englishman are Anglo-Saxon
also WASP to me signifies being well-off etc
Boston Brahmins are the quintessential WASPS
the loosest definition may be NW Euro American Protestants
or even Non-Hispanic Euro Americans (incl Catholics)
I believe this is what Anglo in Socal refers to
In Colorado "Anglo" refers to any white non-Hispanic person.
In New England there is a WASP/ ethnic white political divide with Republicans being WASPS (Weld, Brown, Baker, Swift) while Democrats are usually the ethic whites (Kennedy, Lynch, Tierney, etc) and because Catholics are 50+ percent of Massachusetts or Rhode Island, Democrats tend to win. New Hampshire and Maine are move evenly split so the states are less blue (Maine is a bit odd though)
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