Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
.I live in St. Louis and I consider myself living in the Midwest.If I lived in Springfield, Caruthersville, Benton, West Plains, Fredericktown or Cabool I'd consider myself living in the South.
Benton? Why Benton?
As far as Springfield being considered southern, I have never understood this. I grew up in Springfield. No one I knew from the area ever thought of themselves as being part of the South. True southerners were always outsiders, to a certain extent; we would laugh at their accents. No one ever said "Y'all". Grits were never served in local cafes. As late as 1990 I had to warn my daughter about ordering iced tea in Mississippi; if you grew up here you knew nothing of southern "Sweet Tea". We do not serve rice and gravy here. Fried Okra only arrived here when it popped up everywhere. When Orval Faubus was making headlines standing on the courthouse steps down in Little Rock, Springfield quietly moved the black students over to Springfield High School (where Linda Brown, of Brown vs. the Board of Education fame, was graduated.)
This goes back to the Civil War, at least. All the local influences came from St. Louis or points east and north. First the telegraph - the wire road. Then the railroad. Then the highways. For over 100 years it was far easier and faster to travel to Chicago than to Little Rock, Ark. To this day you cannot fly direct from Springfield to Little Rock. I do not believe you can fly direct from Springfield to any true southern city (I do not consider Dallas to be southern either), but someone may correct me on this.
When I try to seek southern influences in Springfield, I just do not see them.
Well arby I guess you disagree with most on here because even the hard core Missouri is Midwestern posters admit Springfield has southern influences. The dialects maps agree religion maps agree as well. So I guess you consider Branson and table rock to be Midwestern too then. Brad Pitt is from Springfield and he even said the Mason Dixon line basically runs right though springfield. Also st Louisan a well respected poster who had family from Joplin says Joplin has southern influences even though it's a hybrid city with strong Midwestern influence as well. If table rock lake nixa republic and Ozark and Branson are not southern then I don't know what is because pretty much everyone will agree with that here.
Also st Louisan a well respected poster who had family from Joplin says Joplin has southern influences even though it's a hybrid city with strong Midwestern influence as well.
If by well respected you mean he hasn't been banned from this forum as many times as you - then you would be right.
I will decline to accept Brad Pitt as an authority on, well, anything whatsoever outside the movie business.
Lines are drawn on maps by people who draw lines on maps. Often they are laughable for their misconceptions.
Neither Joplin nor Branson are Springfield.
To the extent we discuss Ozark or even Branson in the context of historical influences it is useful to distinguish between those whose antecedents go back a couple of generations, and those who have located there these last, say, 30 years or so. Going back in time, Stone, Taney, and Christian counties were at best border areas. Commonly the old timers were from Tenn. or Kentucky. They did not whistle Dixie, or salute the Confederate flag; quite the contrary. If they had a culture it was transplanted from Appalachia. As for the more recent transplants, (Q.) where are they from? (A.) Everywhere.
And just where are those southern influences to be found in Springfield? Where is the Daughters of the Confederacy Hall? The streets named for Lee, Hood, Stuart, or Davis? Somewhere near Grant Ave. and Sherman St.? Where is the pan fried chicken, the purple-hull peas, turnip greens, the buttermilk biscuits? Why is UA-Fayetteville the closest thing to a southern college our students attend?
Frankly, I could not care less for myself, but someone who moves here from Atlanta thinking Springfield is a southern town is going to be in for a terrific shock.
I will decline to accept Brad Pitt as an authority on, well, anything whatsoever outside the movie business.
Lines are drawn on maps by people who draw lines on maps. Often they are laughable for their misconceptions.
Neither Joplin nor Branson are Springfield.
To the extent we discuss Ozark or even Branson in the context of historical influences it is useful to distinguish between those whose antecedents go back a couple of generations, and those who have located there these last, say, 30 years or so. Going back in time, Stone, Taney, and Christian counties were at best border areas. Commonly the old timers were from Tenn. or Kentucky. They did not whistle Dixie, or salute the Confederate flag; quite the contrary. If they had a culture it was transplanted from Appalachia. As for the more recent transplants, (Q.) where are they from? (A.) Everywhere.
And just where are those southern influences to be found in Springfield? Where is the Daughters of the Confederacy Hall? The streets named for Lee, Hood, Stuart, or Davis? Somewhere near Grant Ave. and Sherman St.? Where is the pan fried chicken, the purple-hull peas, turnip greens, the buttermilk biscuits? Why is UA-Fayetteville the closest thing to a southern college our students attend?
Frankly, I could not care less for myself, but someone who moves here from Atlanta thinking Springfield is a southern town is going to be in for a terrific shock.
You're full of it. Now Branson isn't southern lol. So what there are non locals there moving. The local natives would be considered southern. When I was down there the locals had very thick accents, more so than Springfield or Lebanon. Like when I went to the grocery store in Branson and the people I had interactions with at the store had thick accents, and when they got into their cars they had Missouri plates.Atlanta has a lot of non locals from way up north due to all the large corporations. I guess they're not a southern city anymore then!Again all the dialect studies including the Univ of PA which is known to be the most accurate study has the southern quarter of MO within the southern zone. Southern Baptist are the majority in most of southern MO, ancestry a good number of English and Scottish, they vote heavily Republican just like northern AR. and there are a number of businesses in southern MO that use the word Dixie, Southern, South in their names.And the civil war doesn't mean everything weather one is southern or not. The Northern Arkansas Ozarks were neutral or pro union and bitterly divided just like sections of the Missouri Ozarks. Kentucky was pro union and Eastern TN nearly broke away because they were in favor of the union. I guess Eastern TN isn't Southern now because they wanted to break away and not be part of the confederacy because they had no use for slavery. If it had not been for the Confederates acting fast Eastern TN could have been another West Virginia. Sections of northern AL also were against secession. All these places are still southern despite not being really pro confederate. We have discussed this many times on here before.Last year when I stayed at Table Rock for 4 days the owners of the small resort had the southern accents as well and lived in Missouri. Also note this was 3 weeks before the official "season" starts where northerners from up north come down and town wasn't crowded at all so I think I had a pretty good gauge of the locals.I went to Silver Dollar City on a weekday and I'd say nearly 2/3 of the cars in the parking lot were Missouri plates, and the other 1/3 were from Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. I heard tons of thick accents from most of the people there. The only ones that had flatter accents were the younger people I mean like in their 30s and younger, especially the youth. Their parents and the older patrons pretty much all had accents and I saw people with Mizzou, SWMO state shirts, hats that had southern accents.Also I post on some gun forums and have asked people who live in sw MO who are from southern states and they all say there are definatly some culturally traits that are the same as where they were from.Also I have a relative who had a house at Bull Shoals in Missouri about 5 miles from Arkansas and they talk and act the same way on the MO side of Bull Shoals as they do in Arkansas and places like Mt Home, etc. Same with Branson, crossing into AR the people talk and act the same.Even in IN and IL right across the Ohio River it's still pretty southern and those are legit and more Midwestern states than MO is.Also that survey done years back asking people that live in southern and border states if the state is southern and like 23 percent from Missouri said they were in the south. And pretty much everyone on this forum agrees about 25 percent of Missouri is Dixie and the other 25 percent is a transition zone so I think that is a fairly accurate statement.I'm not trying to argue, but I don't know of anyone that wouldn't consider Branson southern. I've been in far southern MO many times and if that's not southern, then northern AR Ozarks are not the south as well then because religion is the same in northern AR, dialect, and voting patterns.To say though the southern quarter of Missouri in the Ozarks is pure Midwestern is a joke. Most on the internet on websites, blogs as well as myself asking people myself all agree around the southern quarter of Missouri there is a strong southern demeanor.
Brad Pitt's family is from Oklahoma but moved to Missouri when he was really young. Here is the interview where he mentions about being right along the Mason Dixon line. Springfield as others have state is literally right along the line of the South and lower Midwest. Most dialect studies also back this up as well about the springfield area. Starting around springfield on west it's really a blur of different cultures due to being close to KS, OK, and AR. I might not agree with his liberal policies, but I think he's accurate on this about all these different cultures in the region. So no it's not totally Midwestern.
Quote:
I had a very supportive family environment that gave me room to explore and discover things about myself," he says. "When I was a boy I would ask about my family history, about my blood lines. We really didn't know that much. We had a little Indian in us from the Oklahoma Trail of Tears. We were situated in southern Missouri, right along the Mason-Dixon Line, between the North and the South, where you have this confluence of different cultures — Texas and Oklahoma from the south, the hillbilly from the Appalachian range to the east, the Midwestern coming down from above. There was all these different influences and ideas and accents coming into this place."
And I don't think anyone will disagree with that.Generally in MO I would say anywhere about 50 miles or less from AR in Missouri is within that 25 percent Dixie area. Which that means most areas within 10-20 miles north of hwy 60 on southwards is southern except for SEMO because HWY 60 down there dips really low near the bootheel.Cultural boundaries between the South and north don't end at states borders though unless you're talking about OK and Kansas.Southern Indiana and Southern IL the southern influence spills over also, but the southern parts of those states are really not fully southern though like the southern quarter of Missouri and the Bootheel are. Except for Cairo IL, and maybe Evansville IN but I would still not really consider those towns to really be in Dixie like the southern quarter of Missouri is.No one will argue though with MO being different than all the other Midwestern states it is the most southern influenced state out of all the Midwestern states culturally. Indiana would be the second most.There are still some old timers who vote Dixiecrat in Southeast Missouri as well even though a lot of the South and southern Missouri is heavily Republican now.Overall Missouri modern time is a MIDWESTERN state overall. However parts of Missouri geographically and culturally are located in the south though. That is why I hate the census maps. You can't say DE is a southern state, and Maryland there are some sections in the Eastern Shore that are still southern, but that state as a whole is even less southern than Missouri is culturally.I live in St. Louis and I consider myself living in the Midwest.If I lived in Springfield, Caruthersville, Benton, West Plains, Fredericktown or Cabool I'd consider myself living in the South.
I have said it before and I will say it again. I have seen Mizzou fans at SEC functions and y'all fit in nicely with us southron folk so in my book your southern. Also y'all were a slave state up until the civil-war. The bootheel area had large cotton plantations and little dixie in the central part of the state also had wealth planters. Saint Louis had an urban slave population with many slaves working as dock workers at the port. Overall Missouri is the south. Overtime German and Catholic Irish immigration changed the character some but that does not mean the state is no longer southern.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
