Trend or rebound?

[pbrower2a]

We can look at Presidential elections from 1904 on to see themes. Before 1904 the splits in America were heavily linked to the American Civil War, with political reality largely based on whether one's family was on the Union side (Republican) or the Confederate side (Democratic), the exception being the largely-Irish urban machines that served oppressed and exploited industrial workers.

We are also discussing the rise of high-speed mass media, if only newspapers in the earliest part of the 20th century and the rise of the automobile. Newspaper reporters heavily used telephones and the telegraph, which made newspapers relatively fast media. That might not be as swift as motion pictures and radio that emerged in the not-so-early part of the 20th century. Note also that the statewide orientation of the Parties in Presidential elections is almost inverted between 1908 and 2008 for a contrast between Presidential winners who got similar shares of the popular and electoral vote. Obama (D, 2008) heavily won the Taft (R, 1908) states and McCain (R, 2008) heavily won the Bryan (D, 1908) states. OK, several of the Southern states did not have free elections; blacks were then heavily Republican (the Party of Lincoln and thus an anathema in "Ku Kluxistan") and were there excluded systematically from politics and relegated to great suffering and subjection in all other aspects of life.  

(Note well: people who either cannot vote or cannot make choices in voting get the shaft in economics and other aspects of personal life, whether one is an African-American in "Ku Kluxistan" or non-white in Apartheid-era South Africa and is denied the vote altogether or is a serf-in-all-but-name in Hitlerland or Stalinland and has one's vote commanded).

Having a ballot with these choices available while someone watches over your shoulder and will report your vote to the 'authorities' who are expert at making life miserable for any dissident.



(referendum on the incorporation of Austria into Germany in 1938)

The text: "Do you agree with the reunification of Austria with the German Reich that was enacted on 13 March 1938, and do you vote for the party of our leader Adolf Hitler?" The large circle is labelled "Yes", the smaller "No", and if one is being watched it is easy for the watcher to identify for police and other harassment who voted "No!" when it is so much easier to vote "Yes!"

OK, so people have much more formal education, communications are even faster and more complete, people have more economic and geographic mobility, the consumer economy is for people other than the WASP elites, the Hispanic population has grown extensively, the American population has trended strongly toward the West, child labor is no longer the norm in mining and manufacturing, technologies are far more advanced, gutter racism is largely discredited as the preserve of fanatics and fools, and blacks have the vote (Civil Rights Act of 1964, effectively the legislation ratified in "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation" as expressed in the final sections of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

1908-2008 contrast. Ignore electoral votes, and assume that Maine and Nebraska voted much the same way throughout the states in 1908.

medium blue -- Taft (R), McCain (R)
pale blue -- not voting 1908, McCain (R)
medium red -- Bryan (D), Obama (D)
pale red -- not voting 2008, Obama (D)  
white -- Taft (R), Obama (D)
green -- Bryan (D), McCain (R)
yellow -- Nebraska -- Bryan (D); NE-02 went for Obama (D) but the other four electoral votes went for McCain (R)

Only four states went Democratic both times, and only nine states went Republican both times, with the oddity of Nebraska splitting its electoral votes in 2008. Obviously the Parties of 1908 and 2008 have very different constituencies in recent years than they had a century ago.

The states that went for the same Party's nominee in 2008 as in 1908 split their electoral votes 37-34 R in 1908 and  65-32 D in 2008.

[pbrower2a]

In his book Albion's Seed, the historian David Hackett Fischer suggested that regional divides in America relate heavily to patterns of early settlement even if newer immigrants (such as French-Canadian, Irish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, or Puerto Rican Catholics -- and east-European Jews) have largely supplanted the progeny of the original settlers. I will start by coloring in the New England states... white.

English Puritans largely from the southeast of England settled these states, and they established institutions and economic patterns (democratic government, yeoman farming, high regard for formal learning for all, reliance upon courts of law instead of personal 'honor', and general support for free enterprise -- and no slavery). New England was the definitive 'settler' colony; it offered at most modest rewards to those who actually did the work. The rocky soil and harsh winters made plantation  farming impossible. There were no precious metals to mine; the most desirable mineral in the region was granite for building. Commerce was attractive. Fisheries supplanted the meager productivity of the land. Universities such as Harvard and Yale sprouted soon after the colonies were established. This area was the wrong place to be if one was a violent or lazy person. One could drink, but one could not easily engage in drunken revelry. Such was the way of the 'Puritan' wave of American settlement.

This was definitive 'Yankee' country. Although its population is no longer largely of English stock, the Catholic and Jewish immigrants of later times adopted most of the folkways of the original English settlers -- including attitudes toward law, education, commerce, and civil life. Catholics and Jews largely took over Puritan institutions except for the Congregational Church.

Note that Maine was a part of the Massachusetts colony.
 

Now let us discuss some other settlers. The Dutch established a colony, New Netherland, comprising the Hudson Valley of what are now New York and northeastern New Jersey. The Swedish Crown established a short-lived colony in Delaware that it sold to the Netherlands before the Dutch turned over their colonies to the English in 1674, roughly 100 years before the American Revolution. The Dutch and the Swedes contested the lower Delaware Valley in Delaware, southern New Jersey, and a bit of Pennsylvania (but including Philadelphia).  The Dutch gave up their claim on the lower Delaware Valley in 1664 and what remained of New Sweden got absorbed into the new English colony of Delaware and into Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The Dutch colonies were not as Dutch as the New English colonies were English. Both Dutch colonies had large numbers of Huguenots (French Protestants identical in religion to the Dutch Reformed Church), Germans (the line between Dutch and German nationality was weak in the 17th century) often hired as soldiers, Scandinavians (settlers in Delaware and southern New Jersey, but also ship's crews in the  northern colony), dissidents from the Puritan colony of New England, African slaves (the Dutch had more 'tolerance' for slavery than did Puritans in New England or later Puritans in Pennsylvania), and Jews -- especially Sephardic refugees from the Inquisition in Spain, Portugal, and parts of Italy. The latter were especially welcome in New Netherland as sharing an enmity with Holland's nemesis Spain.

New York City has been one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world -- since it was a Dutch colony. We can color New Jersey and Delaware in full orange because they were taken over by a different set of English settlers than was New York. New York State gets colored in pale orange because New England settles always had Long Island except for Brooklyn -- and came to dominate New York north and west of the Hudson of the Hudson Valley. The English fully assimilated the Dutch in New York State and New Jersey around the time of the American Revolution, as shown in the transformation of Dutch surnames (like "Brouwer" to "Brower") and the disappearance of Dutch given  names, especially nicknames. 

   

Cavalier settlement began with the Virginia settlement in Jamestown, where a bunch of third sons of aristocratic families from southwestern England tried to establish themselves as having the same advantages as their older brothers by getting wealth that they were never going to inherit. Unlike the Puritans, they were Episcopalian. They sought to establish their view of paradise -- an aristocratic wonderland for themselves but a nightmare for anyone unfortunate enough to end up under their domain. They could not attract peasants from southwestern England to endure the same inequality that they knew in England only to face the harsh heat of summer anywhere south of about New York City -- with toil as landless peasants. The Cavaliers could entice bondsmen under contract: for a few years of labor As indentured servants they might get their own plots of land and start off with something once the term of indenture was over. But this was itself a shaky proposition. They would be worked like slaves, and they would face subtropical diseases such as malaria that would decimate them.

As planters they would have their councils of fellow planters -- 'common' people excluded. Virginia would have its legislature known as the House of Burgesses, recognizing that some people were more equal than others. Indeed , some people would be much more 'equal' than others -- the slaves that the Cavaliers would import as a means of dealing with their predictable shortage of labor. Color the Tidewater colonies from Virginia to Georgia dark red. Maryland, less well defined in this aspect, is medium red. West Virginia was part of Virginia until 1863, but it is definitely not Cavalier. Leave West Virginia alone for now. 

   
The Quakers chose to establish their religious ideal in southeastern Pennsylvania and most of southwestern New Jersey. Theirs was a world of working-class tradesmen and yeoman farmers who disdained titles and ornamentation. They came largely from the English Midlands. Soon after they got to Pennsylvania, so did a large number of German and Swiss pietists, largely Mennonites, who had much the same religious values as the Quakers.  If they were largely pacifist in their beliefs, they were repressive about sex. Faith was to come before indulgence of any kind. Slavery was an abomination to them. Very early they would dominate Pennsylvania culturally, economically, and politically. Southeastern Pennsylvania is an agrarian paradise with warm summers and real winters (which kept away the delicate-but-deadly tropical and subtropical diseases of the Tidewater region). They did not like or trust the Backwoods. They did spread into Maryland and even  northern Virginia (the Shenandoah Valley). Color this area medium blue.

The last area of colonial settlement in British America was the backwoods by the not-so-tame people of the English North, southern Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Many were herdsmen, and for them livestock was more the measure of property than was land. The Backwoods gave them privacy, and there they would establish a world in Appalachia in which 'honor' and the ability to fight mattered far more than did any well-honed intellect. Their culture would develop from the Appalachians of Pennsylvania (never the majority of the population of Pennsylvania) through northern Georgia. Assign deep green to West Virginia, which had yet to develop a legal distinction from Virginia and would not do so until the American Civil War.  But it was already showing signs of economic divergence from the Cavalier South.  The British got a hold of Florida in 1763, but would not hold it. The Colonial Congress didn't really want it at the time. Spanish influence would remain, only to vanish soon after American annexation in 1819. For now it is yellow.  That is how America was on the brink of the  American Revolution. 

       

Please do not begin discussion of this thread; I am not yet through with its preliminaries.

[pbrower2a]

Fast forward to 1812.

'Western settlement' originally meant inside Appalachia. The new Republic had no desire for Florida. The first three states west of the Appalachians would be Kentucky (largely backwoods), Tennessee  (at first Backwoods), and Ohio (partly from New York and New England, partly from the Midlands, and partly from the Backwoods. Color Kentucky and Tennessee green for now, and Ohio pink; the Pennsylvania culture would be stronger than anything else. The Louisiana Purchase gives America territory never associated with any of the founding people of the American colonies until Americans started moving in. It had been French until 1763; Spain took it over in 1763 and held it until Napoleon wrested it from Span for a short time. Color it yellow.

On to 1835, on the eve of Texas declaring independence from Mexico.

The War of 1812 is an effective draw, but the United States gets to keep what it got after Independence in the Treaty of Paris and the Louisiana Purchase. America buys Florida from Spain, so color Florida yellow again -- for now. Veterans of the War of 1812 often get land grants on the cheap in the West, and slave-owning planters rapidly take over Alabama, Mississippi, southern Arkansas, southern Missouri, and western Tennessee. The Ozarks are slow to get settled, so Missouri and Arkansas are effectively Cavalier country.  Planters come to dominate Tennessee politics, so Tennessee goes into a reddish shade (pink). Florida joins the South, but it is the least-populous of Southern territories or states. Indiana and Illinois are settled from the backwoods in the South, from the Midlands in the middle, and from New England and New York in the north. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa are settled largely from New York and New England, so they go light orange like New York.

The observation that Indiana is culturally the most Southern of Northern States reflects a comparative strength of the Backwoods in Indiana. Indiana goes light green. Finally, President Jackson's removal of First Peoples from Appalachia and the Deep South to Oklahoma with the Trail of Tears ironically pushes people who have assimilated Southern ways into Oklahoma.

   

[pbrower2a]

Now to the fast-moving time between 1836 and the Civil War.

In 1853, the contiguous United States is settled in current boundaries. Cavaliers had fully consolidated control of Louisiana politics, Texas had seceded from Mexico, established the dubious freedom to own slaves, and let the Cavaliers take over. and Mexico lost precious land  that it could never control. Spanish/Mexican  influence quickly vanished in Texas and quickly was relegated to the southern part of California -- the part that did not then matter so much. Yankee influence asserted itself in northern California during the Gold Rush. Mormon settlers in Utah could have hardly been more "Yankee" even if they settled as far south as St. George. Extreme southwest Utah is today known as "Dixie", but more for heat than any affiliation with Southern politics or folkways. The '49ers went to mine silver in Nevada, and Oregon came to look like a Yankee preserve.   

 

On the brink of the Civil War, the first arguable battles were in Kansas to determine whether legislation establishing Kansas and Nebraska territories would be Free or Slave states would hold. Free- Soil Republicans prevailed. Kansas was about as far west as Midlands influence would go. Nebraska would establish itself as the Western state with the most boring history. How boring? Have you ever seen a Western set in Nebraska? New England and New York ways came to prevail in Nebraska. With the frontier comes the sheriff, the lawyer, and the judge before anyone can do any lynchings.

But Florida went full-bore Cavalier as talk of secession began.

 
 

[pbrower2a]

Post-Civil War.

It's easy to imagine that Arizona and New Mexico would have become "slave" territories had the Confederacy prevailed. West Virginia did its own secession in 1863 -- from Virginia and back into the Union. The Confederacy tried to incorporate Kentucky, a mistake because the Backwoods was hostile to the plantation way. The Backwoodsmen may not have liked the planter, but they hated slaves even more. The Confederacy tried to incorporate Missouri, too -- and failed. Within a couple of years Missourians seem to have fully disavowed the Confederacy.

As I see it, General William Tecumseh Sherman took whatever viability the South had as his army "marched through Georgia". He would have been unable to do so had the Confederacy had strong support in eastern Tennessee. Tennessee had had a vote on whether to secede or to stay within the Union. Western Tennessee voted to defend slavery, and eastern Tennessee wanted no part of any defense of slavery.

Ordinarily, mountain fighting offers a nightmare for an advancing army because it offers defensive positions for an army resisting the advance. Of course, if the local populace is on the side of the advancing army, mountain warfare is not so difficult. The Union Army was practically seen as liberators in eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia.

Beyond this -- Colorado became Yankee territory as ranchers, miners, and railmen came to dominate the territorial and eventually state economy.  The '1890' states could only become 'Yankee' territory even if the settlers were Scandinavian (and they assimilated fast). It's hard to explain Alaska. The Americans taking over Hawaii through salami tactics were undeniably from New England. Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Tennessee became more Backwoods than Cavalier. Texas became a strange mix of regional influences. So things were around 1900.

If you dispute how I see Texas, a state neither a region unto itself nor a part of any region, then ask yourself whether LBJ was a Southerner or a Westerner.

     

 

     
   

[pbrower2a]

I forgot to tell people to start commenting on this if they so wish.

The idea that I have is that although the agendas of Parties change, the predominant constituencies in a state change even more slowly, and that such relates to the people who settled earliest and established the institutions in a state.

It could be that Mormonism is a major religion in its own right in the sense that Jews are recognized as a major religion and Zoroastrians used to be. (Mormons may be considered non-Christians in some circles because they accept the Book of Mormon as canon. Contrast, for example, Lutheranism, which has never sanctified any writings of Martin Luther as Holy Writ even if it dissents with the Roman Catholicism whence it broke. I am not judging Mormons here.

Because of the French influence upon early institutions Louisiana has its own uniqueness even if the percentage of people of French origin is larger in Maine. French-Canadians (as Acadians) established institutions in Louisiana and encountered those already in place in Maine.

Now what of Irish Catholics? Numerous as they were in all parts of America, they did not create any distinct colonies in any part of America as did the Germans who get credit for shaping Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas.

African slaves originally fit roles that the Cavalier Establishment defined for them. The planters destroyed any cultural ties to Africa in religion, language, and even music, as any of those would have unified them as possible rebels against their masters. What we see as African-American culture is something created in America by people with no ties to Africa except for genes. Even the "Afro" hairstyle that so defies white norms that went into vogue in America as a statement of "blackness"  was completely alien to Africa. If you are thinking of ragtime as "African-American" -- Scott Joplin uses rich counterpoint characteristic of European composers like Beethoven and had a European Jewish teacher who obviously loved Chopin. Jazz and the Blues are similarly 100% American.  "African-American" culture is anything but African, having developed entirely under the influence of white people under circumstances very different from those under which white people lived at the time.   I am giving Hispanics much of the credit for shaping cultures in the American Southwest (San Francisco and Sacramento to Dallas and Houston) and Florida. In the future I expect much Anglo-Hispanic fusion, and it is not always certain whether the assimilation goes from Hispanic to Anglo or from Anglo to Hispanic.