Perry County, Indiana
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  Perry County, Indiana
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Bandit3 the Worker
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« Reply #25 on: February 12, 2013, 12:36:24 PM »

Pretty sure Dubois County is full of conservative Catholics. I thought I heard this years ago. I think they had some very conservative boarding school or something.

It's like some of the areas around Cincinnati.
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Franknburger
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« Reply #26 on: February 12, 2013, 02:51:27 PM »

Did some more checking on religion, using this data.

In 1990, Dubois used to be 70% Catholic, 18% Protestant (mostly mainline, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian), and 12% non-stated- By 2010, with 23% population increase, this had changed to 53% Catholic, 22% Protestants and 25% non-stated. Essentially, the number of Catholics has remained unchanged between 1980 and 2010.

Perry, OTOH,  in 1980 was 33% Catholic, 24$ Protestant (very few Lutherans, but quite some evangelicals), and 43% non-stated. By 2010, with population virtually constant, that had changed to 31% Catholic, 16% Protestant and 53% non-stated.

As such, Perry should be much less "Catholic-German" swingy than Dubois.

Let's look to Spencer in the West.  Religion-wise, it is quite similar.
1980: 27% Catholic, 25% mainline Protestant (few Lutherans), 11% Evangelical, 37% non-stated.
2010 (5% population increase); 21% Catholic,  19% mainline Protestant, 7% Evangelical, 53% non-stated.

The ancestry structure is also not too diferrent, German, American, plus 8% each English and Irish. What is missing is the French ancestry part, instead, the German and American percentages are a bit higher. In spite of these similarities, Spencer voted 13% less Democrat than Perry in 2012, and 12% less in 2008 (when it narrowly went for Obama). The main factor here appears to be the lack of (larger) manufacturing in Spencer county.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #27 on: February 12, 2013, 04:58:28 PM »

The spike in JFK support suggests German Catholic to me. I googled Perry, and could not find anything to explain its relative Dem love myself. The voting block can be quite volatile. They make the Fox River Valley in Wisconsin quite volatile, along with Dubuque in Iowa. German Protestants in general tend to be quitub as others have noted.
It is Dubois County to the northwest and inland from Perry County that is more Catholic, and more German.  It was the strongest county for Al Smith by close to 10%, and had a sharp spike towards JFK.  At the beginning of the 20th Century, Dubois was 15-20% more Democratic than Perry, and now is 15-20% more Republican.

The first church in Tell City was a Catholic Church, followed soon after by a Evangelical Church.  The Methodists did not have a church until 1893.

Tell City did not have a railroad until 1889.  The railroads in Indiana were built mostly east-west, with the the north-south routes from Indianapolis going to Louisville and Evansville.  The eventual rail line to Tell City was sort of a spur line from Evansville and did not go beyond Tell City.

If you look at the presidential maps from the early part of the 20th century, you will notice that it wasn't so much southern Indiana that was Democratic, but streaks going northward, with some linkage along the Ohio River.  These correspond to the lowland areas.  Along the border with Illinois is the Wabash River, until it turns ENE across the north central part of the state.  There is another lowland area going northward from Louisville.   The White River runs perpendicular to this cutting through the uplands east of the Wabash.  Perry is kind of at the southern tip of the uplands.   And there is a smaller area along the Ohio line just west of Cincinnati.

These traditional Democratic areas are visible through the 1950s as lighter blue streaks.  But past that, they have been obliterated, as original settlement patterns are replaced by newer transportation and communication networks.  By 1976, 1992, and 1996 you see a someone different pattern, as the Democratic areas are right along the Ohio and Wabash rivers, and Lake Michigan.  Incidentally, Perry County was Wallace's 3rd weakest county in 1968.  His appeal in the Midwest was more populist than southern.

I did find one possibility why Perry County has remained more Democratic.  The Tell City Chair Company was founded as a cooperative (Chair Makers Union) in 1865.  Until the practice was stopped during the Depression, workmen would take the chairs home and their wives and families would do the cane weaving of the chairs at home.  In 1957, there were 500 factory workers and 60 people in the corporate headquarters.  In 1969, they built their first factory outside Tell City, in Leitchfield, Kentucky.  There was increased industrial strife, including an 8-month strike in 1994, and closure after another strike in 1996.

So you may have had a home-town industry, with a craft element, which gradually became non-competitive with southern workers and more industrialized production, which eventually shut down after repeated strikes.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #28 on: February 12, 2013, 06:27:08 PM »

The region with the greatest percentage of rural German Protestants is the Great Plains, and I'm pretty sure that those are (and have been) some of the most Republican states, period. Tongue

Do you have any maps on this?  From the Wikipedia map below, the largest concentration of rural German Americans seems to be in the Mid-West (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa) plus the Dakotas and Eastern Nebraska. Except for Nebraska (which, however, appears to be predominantly Catholic), these States are rather known as solid Democrat, or pontential swing states (Dakotas)....

The Dakotas are not "potential swing states". They are and will be still pretty solidly Republican (especially North Dakota with the growth from the oil boom). Nebraska has a large Catholic population, but at about 27 percent, that's still a minority, outnumbered by Protestants ( mainline and evangelical). And you forgot Kansas, too, which is a heavily German state (mainly Protestant, but some Catholics too) that is very conservative/Republican. Missouri is yet another state with some heavily German rural areas (particularly the northern part of the state) that are quite Republican to this day.

Iowa is not very "solidly Democratic, and neither is Wisconsin either....
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Torie
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« Reply #29 on: February 12, 2013, 11:31:39 PM »

This is one of the best threads ever on the Atlas that I have seen. So much thought, so much knowledge, so much research, about a little county ignored everywhere but here, that is an interesting outlier. Thanks. It is almost worth a white paper.

I just felt the "need" to say this.
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Franknburger
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« Reply #30 on: February 13, 2013, 04:33:48 AM »

The Dakotas are not "potential swing states". They are and will be still pretty solidly Republican (especially North Dakota with the growth from the oil boom).

Yeah, this has become obvious in the 2012 Senate election Cool.

Seriously - I am operating here on the base of instinct and by interfering certain German 'homeland' patterns on German Americans, which may lead to completely wrong results - but I feel  that Protestant German Americans could be among the best targets for Democrat vote gains among the white population, because they should traditionally reject any attempts to 'moralise' politics (for a more detailed assessment of likely political attitudes see my longer contribution in this thread).

There is little doubt that Protestant German Americans have historically been strongly Republican. Whether this is still the case, seems less clear to me, and requires definitely analysis that goes beyond mere state-level assessment. In any case, as with other ancestry groups, e.g. Irish Americans, there should some 'tribalist' voting be present among (Protestant) German Americans. As the Democrats have not yet had their Hoover, Eisenhower or Kissinger, this 'tribalist' element is still working in favour of the Republicans. However I feel - instinct, again, and therefore argueable - that the 'tribalist' element is among the last things that still keep Protestant German Americans in the Republican camp. Put a Heitkanp, Schweitzer or Loebsack at the top of the Democrat ticket, and you have them.

But maybe this discussion should be continued in a thread of its own ..
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Benj
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« Reply #31 on: February 13, 2013, 09:27:55 AM »

The Dakotas are not "potential swing states". They are and will be still pretty solidly Republican (especially North Dakota with the growth from the oil boom).

Yeah, this has become obvious in the 2012 Senate election Cool.

Seriously - I am operating here on the base of instinct and by interfering certain German 'homeland' patterns on German Americans, which may lead to completely wrong results - but I feel  that Protestant German Americans could be among the best targets for Democrat vote gains among the white population, because they should traditionally reject any attempts to 'moralise' politics (for a more detailed assessment of likely political attitudes see my longer contribution in this thread).

Only because all of the moralizing Protestants left Germany for the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Franknburger
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« Reply #32 on: February 13, 2013, 11:59:14 AM »

The Dakotas are not "potential swing states". They are and will be still pretty solidly Republican (especially North Dakota with the growth from the oil boom).

Yeah, this has become obvious in the 2012 Senate election Cool.

Seriously - I am operating here on the base of instinct and by interfering certain German 'homeland' patterns on German Americans, which may lead to completely wrong results - but I feel  that Protestant German Americans could be among the best targets for Democrat vote gains among the white population, because they should traditionally reject any attempts to 'moralise' politics (for a more detailed assessment of likely political attitudes see my longer contribution in this thread).

Only because all of the moralizing Protestants left Germany for the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Never said that German Protestants are not moralizing - they just prefer it being done in the pub, not in the political arena ..
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #33 on: February 13, 2013, 03:21:25 PM »

The descendants of German Protestants in the USA are going to be so heavily intermarried with WASPs and in the Upper Midwest with Scandinavians, and are just such a milquetoast ethnicity, as to be almost unspottable even though actually one of the largest population groups in the US. They have no cohesion as a group.
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« Reply #34 on: February 13, 2013, 03:46:45 PM »

As a half-German/half-Scandinavian who grew up in the heart of that territory, I completely agree with Lewis. There's a few regions where the Germans were so heavily concentrated the culture remains (like New Ulm and a lot of the area around St. Cloud, or certain rural counties in North Dakota), but it's not something you'll find in most areas and certainly not any urban ones. I spoke on this before as a big factor as to why "cultural Catholicism" isn't really a big thing in the Upper Midwest.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #35 on: February 13, 2013, 07:05:28 PM »
« Edited: February 13, 2013, 07:12:45 PM by Progressive Realist »

The descendants of German Protestants in the USA are going to be so heavily intermarried with WASPs and in the Upper Midwest with Scandinavians, and are just such a milquetoast ethnicity, as to be almost unspottable even though actually one of the largest population groups in the US. They have no cohesion as a group.

This.^^^^ Also, this is true even of many Catholics of Irish, German, Italian ancestry, etc. Like on my mother's side, my aunt (her sister) is a Catholic of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry while her husband is Italian (and Catholic). So my cousins have Italian, Irish, English, and Scottish in them.

Or even myself and my own immediate family-I have the same English and Scottish WASPy Protestant ancestries in me through my mom's side (as well as good deal of Irish Catholic), but my dad's side is German, French, Swiss, Luxemburger, etc. And they are heavily Protestant.

In other words, "German Protestants" or "English Americans" or "Scottish Americans", etc. are so assimilated into the White Mainstream Culture (TM) of the United States, that talking about them as individual voting groups nowadays is pretty silly. Tongue 

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Linus Van Pelt
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« Reply #36 on: February 13, 2013, 09:06:20 PM »

The first church in Tell City was a Catholic Church, followed soon after by a Evangelical Church.  The Methodists did not have a church until 1893.

Perry, OTOH,  in 1980 was 33% Catholic, 24$ Protestant (very few Lutherans

In the rural Midwest the combination of German or Swiss ancestry with Protestant denominations that are non-Lutheran and would appear from the outside to be WASP churches usually indicates a history of Evangelical or Reformed settlement. What "Evangelical" refers to in the 19th Century German and German-American context is a movement to unify the Lutheran and Reformed (i.e. Calvinist) churches. Now the history of denominational mergers and splits gets a bit bewildering due to a combination of ecumenical commitment with schismatic practice, but basically - in the late 19C in the US the bulk of Evangelicals in this sense merged with the bulk of Reformed (i.e. Dutch and German Calvinists) to form the Evangelical and Reformed Synod. But some in each category stayed out. The ERS, meanwhile, later merged with the Congregationalists to form the United Church of Christ, while the Evangelicals who didn't merge eventually made it into the United Methodist Church.

The point of all this though is that all this crowd, just like the Yankees in New England, were into combining Protestantism with respect for education and personal uplift in a way that has meant that their descendants have ended up pretty liberal. In small towns in the Midwest the UCC is (unlike in New England) a mostly German church but still liberal, even more than the ELCA (and definitely more than Lutherans in general). And this often shows up particularly in Swiss areas. Just southwest of Madison for example Green County WI is a big outlier for both Swiss ancestry and UCC affiliation, and it is strongly Dem.

Perry County IN, compared to the surrounding area, shows up in the ARDA as higher UCC, higher Methodist, and lower in most other Protestant denominations. And various other points in this thread point to it having a likely history of this tradition. Now, the religious figures aren't that high, and it's still by far plurality Catholic, so I don't want to overstate this. But I do suspect that this may be a factor as Frankenburger is suggesting, even though I think he is wrong about the broader German case. (And perhaps in an indirect way - even if the factory workers don't themselves have a liberal-Protestant moralistic outlook, they might be less pulled away from economic voting if social conservatism isn't in the air so much).
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« Reply #37 on: February 13, 2013, 11:05:00 PM »
« Edited: February 14, 2013, 02:24:46 PM by a Departure »

The descendants of German Protestants in the USA are going to be so heavily intermarried with WASPs and in the Upper Midwest with Scandinavians, and are just such a milquetoast ethnicity, as to be almost unspottable even though actually one of the largest population groups in the US. They have no cohesion as a group.

This.^^^^ Also, this is true even of many Catholics of Irish, German, Italian ancestry, etc. Like on my mother's side, my aunt (her sister) is a Catholic of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry while her husband is Italian (and Catholic). So my cousins have Italian, Irish, English, and Scottish in them.

Or even myself and my own immediate family-I have the same English and Scottish WASPy Protestant ancestries in me through my mom's side (as well as good deal of Irish Catholic), but my dad's side is German, French, Swiss, Luxemburger, etc. And they are heavily Protestant.

In other words, "German Protestants" or "English Americans" or "Scottish Americans", etc. are so assimilated into the White Mainstream Culture (TM) of the United States, that talking about them as individual voting groups nowadays is pretty silly. Tongue  

Now do you see my point about why we don't have a whole lot of "cultural Catholicism" here? Tongue
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Torie
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« Reply #38 on: February 13, 2013, 11:20:16 PM »
« Edited: February 13, 2013, 11:44:47 PM by Torie »

The descendants of German Protestants in the USA are going to be so heavily intermarried with WASPs and in the Upper Midwest with Scandinavians, and are just such a milquetoast ethnicity, as to be almost unspottable even though actually one of the largest population groups in the US. They have no cohesion as a group.

WWII did a lot to kill German qua German identity in the US. After the films came out about the death camps, German bars, and so forth closed, so said a client of mine who was of German ancestry from Milwaukee. Many he said in his conservative Germanic circles in Wisconsin, were rather pro Hitler behind closed doors, until it was impossible to deny the horrific genocide, and that something in German culture itself needed needed to be seriously pondered.  It is unimaginable to me, that even early in the Hitler years, when he was shooting folks right and left who were political opponents, and bragging about it, the German establishment appreciated the ends of a more "orderly" society, rather than the means of a total abandonment of the rule of law, in favor of the rule of a madman. I just can't imagine that would have happened in a common law Anglosphere nation. Maybe I am naive.

But long after one loses a sense of ethnicity, or jettisons it in the manner described above, the attitudes carry on without an ethnic label. Attitudes have long half lives.
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Franknburger
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« Reply #39 on: February 14, 2013, 11:30:15 AM »

Alright
The descendants of German Protestants in the USA are going to be so heavily intermarried with WASPs and in the Upper Midwest with Scandinavians, and are just such a milquetoast ethnicity, as to be almost unspottable even though actually one of the largest population groups in the US. They have no cohesion as a group.

But long after one loses a sense of ethnicity, or jettisons it in the manner described above, the attitudes carry on without an ethnic label. Attitudes have long half lives.

My original thesis was that Proitestant German ancestry may (with or without any such self-definition of the people concerned) express itself in a different attitude towards 'moralistic'' policies, especially as concerns abortion.

There is a great way to test this hypothesis, namely on the results of the 2012 Senate races in Indiana and Missouri. Looking at Indiana, aside from Perry, a lot of counties in the Ohio valley voted for Donelly. In Missouri, there are two east-west belts of rural counties in the north, one starting in Clark, and the other one in Pike county, that went for McCaskill and, from a first look at the Wikipedia map I posted above, appear to have strong German ancestry population.

Before going further into any speculation: Has anybody yet done swing maps for the Senate races in question, or maps that compare the 2012 Senate and Presidentiak results?
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Franknburger
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« Reply #40 on: February 14, 2013, 03:13:09 PM »

And you forgot Kansas, too, which is a heavily German state (mainly Protestant, but some Catholics too) that is very conservative/Republican.

That's another fascinating nugget. The largest German ancestry cluster in Kansas appears to be around Hays - mostly Volga and Bukovina Germans, so a completely different story again.
Anyway, in 1988, Hays voted for Dukakis and in 1992 for Clinton, and the surrounding rural counties - also strongly Volga-German - only went narrowly Republican. Since then, the area has become more and more Republican, indeed.
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« Reply #41 on: February 14, 2013, 10:35:05 PM »

We had a thread about that area: http://www.uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=88339.0
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muon2
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« Reply #42 on: February 17, 2013, 10:14:34 PM »

And you forgot Kansas, too, which is a heavily German state (mainly Protestant, but some Catholics too) that is very conservative/Republican.

That's another fascinating nugget. The largest German ancestry cluster in Kansas appears to be around Hays - mostly Volga and Bukovina Germans, so a completely different story again.
Anyway, in 1988, Hays voted for Dukakis and in 1992 for Clinton, and the surrounding rural counties - also strongly Volga-German - only went narrowly Republican. Since then, the area has become more and more Republican, indeed.


I trace the largest fraction of my ancestry from the Volga Deutsch, and have quite a bit of genealogy. Strangemaps posted this a few years ago.

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jimrtex
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« Reply #43 on: February 17, 2013, 10:49:54 PM »

While the population of Perry County was relatively steady during the 20th century, there was a significant increase in the population of Tell City, and a decline in the rural population.

(1890-1930) by township:

Anderson -40%
Clark -34%
Leopold -30%
Oil -32%
Tobin -40%
Union -45%
Troy (non-city): -23%
Tell City: +133%
Cannelton: +14%
Troy: +1%

In the 1930's, the rural townships had a small uptick in population, while Tell City continued to grow.

Perry County had a significant Belgian population, roughly equivalent to the Swiss population, and apparently of the same vintage:

1900: Foreign-born, Germany 730; Switzerland 149; Belgium 143.
1910: Germany 435, Switzerland 99, Belgium 97.
1920: Germany 187, Switzerland 62, Belgium 57.
1940: Germany 45, Switzerland 7, Belgium 7.

This would suggest a birth around 1840-1860, with emigration around the time of the US Civil War (the longest living may have been children when they migrated).  I don't know whether it was this Belgian population (Walloon?) that has somehow transmogrified into a tradition of being French.

In 1940, 1/3 of the workforce was in agriculture, with about 1/5 involved in furniture manufacturer.  I think the labor strife in the 1990s may be an important factor.  After an 8-month strike in 1994, another strike in 1996 caused the company to go under.

Perry County has an extremely white population (99.9% in 1940).  This is quite different from Evansville and New Albany (opposite Louisville).  So it is possible that Perry County is somewhat dissimilar from other other southern Indiana counties, in not being populated from people coming through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky and then moving north of the Ohio River.  Abraham Lincoln grew up in Spencer County, from ages 7 to 21, just to the west of Perry County.   "Hoosier" may  be derived from the term used for mountain folk in the Cumberland dialect of England (many "Scotch-Irish" actually came from south of the border).  Migrants from Kentucky would favor the better agricultural lands along the Wabash and the lowlands to the east (see Indiana presidential map for 1896, 1916, 1940, and 1952 (if you look closely).  This may have masked Perry County as being distinctive.

Perry County does have a Benedictine Archabbey.  This indicates at least some Catholic presence, but probably not the French-ancestry in the population, unless some of inmates were monkeying around.
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Franknburger
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« Reply #44 on: February 22, 2013, 09:33:01 PM »

Perry County does have a Benedictine Archabbey.  This indicates at least some Catholic presence, but probably not the French-ancestry in the population, unless some of inmates were monkeying around.

The Benedictines are not necessarily Catholic. There are also several Anglican and a few Lutheran Benedictine congregations.
In any case, another interesting puzzle-piece. Even when being Catholic, the Benedictines differed significantly from other congregations. They were egalitarian (i.e. not a congregation where second-born nobility was placed to make career in the clerical hierarchy), with strong focus on education and community work (instead of missionary activities). Their motto 'ora et labora' (pray and work) predates protestant ethics.
Altogether, this fits the emerging picture of Perry county originating as a settlement of industrious low- to middle-class, community-focused, education-minded, 'Rhinish' (the best common denominator of Swiss, Germans and Belgians I could think of) immigrants. Should have been quite distinct from the start, and the relative geographical isolation has preserved this distinctiveness.

I start to wonder whether it is just accidentally that Thyssen-Krupp is the county's largest employer, or they have (probably more intuitively than by socio-historical analysis) realised a good cultural fit in terms of work approach and ethics.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #45 on: February 22, 2013, 10:11:00 PM »

Perry County does have a Benedictine Archabbey.  This indicates at least some Catholic presence, but probably not the French-ancestry in the population, unless some of inmates were monkeying around.

The Benedictines are not necessarily Catholic. There are also several Anglican and a few Lutheran Benedictine congregations.
In any case, another interesting puzzle-piece. Even when being Catholic, the Benedictines differed significantly from other congregations. They were egalitarian (i.e. not a congregation where second-born nobility was placed to make career in the clerical hierarchy), with strong focus on education and community work (instead of missionary activities). Their motto 'ora et labora' (pray and work) predates protestant ethics.
Altogether, this fits the emerging picture of Perry county originating as a settlement of industrious low- to middle-class, community-focused, education-minded, 'Rhinish' (the best common denominator of Swiss, Germans and Belgians I could think of) immigrants. Should have been quite distinct from the start, and the relative geographical isolation has preserved this distinctiveness.

I start to wonder whether it is just accidentally that Thyssen-Krupp is the county's largest employer, or they have (probably more intuitively than by socio-historical analysis) realised a good cultural fit in terms of work approach and ethics.

This is pretty interesting.

Saint Meinrad Archabbey monk earns three awards

Saint Meinrad Monastery.

"Saint Meinrad Archabbey was founded in 1854 by monks from Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland. They came to southern Indiana at the request of a local priest who was seeking help to serve the pastoral needs of the growing German-speaking Catholic population and to prepare local men to be priests."

So there is a definite connection to the Swiss/German-speaking community.

Thyssen-Krupp has sold Waupaca Foundry.  Waupaca is named after the city in Wisconsin where it was founded.   Budd Company (Troy Michigan) acquired Waupaca in 1968, Thyssen-Krupp acquired Budd in 1978.   Construction began on the Tell City plant in 1996, and in Etowah, Tennessee in 2000.

KPS Capital PartnersAcquired Waupaca Foundry in 2012 from Thyssen-Krupp.  KPS Capital Partners has this month announced a recapitalization of Waupaca Foundry, so perhaps it will become independent at some time.

So I don't think we can trace a connection between Thyssen-Krupp and politics in Perry County, unless we somehow involve Prescott Bush and the Carlyle Group.
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Franknburger
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« Reply #46 on: February 22, 2013, 11:32:21 PM »

This is pretty interesting.

Saint Meinrad Archabbey monk earns three awards

Saint Meinrad Monastery.

"Saint Meinrad Archabbey was founded in 1854 by monks from Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland. They came to southern Indiana at the request of a local priest who was seeking help to serve the pastoral needs of the growing German-speaking Catholic population and to prepare local men to be priests."

So there is a definite connection to the Swiss/German-speaking community.

Indeed! From the Wikipedia articles on the Swiss Congregation of Benedictine Abbeys, headed by Einsiedeln Abbey, I take that there was more behind St. Meinrad's foundation than just the desire to fulfil a local priest's request:

Quote
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However, St. Meinhard is not located in Perry county, but in neighbouring Spencer county, which is far more Catholic and Republican, so this interesting piece of history does not help to clarify the issue in question.

Thyssen-Krupp has sold Waupaca Foundry.  Waupaca is named after the city in Wisconsin where it was founded.   Budd Company (Troy Michigan) acquired Waupaca in 1968, Thyssen-Krupp acquired Budd in 1978.   Construction began on the Tell City plant in 1996, and in Etowah, Tennessee in 2000.

KPS Capital PartnersAcquired Waupaca Foundry in 2012 from Thyssen-Krupp. 

So I don't think we can trace a connection between Thyssen-Krupp and politics in Perry County, unless we somehow involve Prescott Bush and the Carlyle Group.

Well, maybe there is a connection (though not the one I was originally thinking of): Investment into your town, 15 years of entrepreneurial continuity, and suddenly the plant is sold off to a financial investor. Should create quite some uncertainty about the future, which could affect sympathy for financial investment companies in general, and Mitt Romney - as exponent of the business - in particular.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #47 on: February 23, 2013, 02:48:44 AM »

However, St. Meinhard is not located in Perry county, but in neighbouring Spencer county, which is far more Catholic and Republican, so this interesting piece of history does not help to clarify the issue in question.
But just barely (1/2 a mile or so).   Saint Meinrad besides the monastery, has a seminary, and casket manufacturer.  It appears that at one time, they operated high school, college, and seminary programs, though it was intended that for at least some students it would be a 12-year program (high school+college+seminary).  Now it appears to only be the seminary plus auxiliary programs for religiously-inclined lay people.

Thyssen-Krupp has sold Waupaca Foundry.  Waupaca is named after the city in Wisconsin where it was founded.   Budd Company (Troy Michigan) acquired Waupaca in 1968, Thyssen-Krupp acquired Budd in 1978.   Construction began on the Tell City plant in 1996, and in Etowah, Tennessee in 2000.

KPS Capital PartnersAcquired Waupaca Foundry in 2012 from Thyssen-Krupp. 

So I don't think we can trace a connection between Thyssen-Krupp and politics in Perry County, unless we somehow involve Prescott Bush and the Carlyle Group.

Well, maybe there is a connection (though not the one I was originally thinking of): Investment into your town, 15 years of entrepreneurial continuity, and suddenly the plant is sold off to a financial investor. Should create quite some uncertainty about the future, which could affect sympathy for financial investment companies in general, and Mitt Romney - as exponent of the business - in particular.
It should be that Thyssen acquired Budd in 1978, and Thyssen and Krupp merged in 1999.

ThyssenKrupp still owns Budd, so this was a divestiture (KPS claims that they specialize in the acquisition of non-core industries).  I'm guessing that iron casting is seeing a lot of competition with other materials for the automotive industry, where there is an emphasis on cutting weight to improve fuel consumption.

KPS claims that it is union-friendly The Friendly Barbarian   But the acquisition by KPS Capital only happened last summer.  The foundry in Tell City had layoffs during the recession.  If you are working at a company that has 6 plants at 4 locations in 3 states that is owned by a subsidiary of subsidiary of a foreign company you are always going to be worried about consolidations.  And it is reasonable to assume that KPS is no different than Bain Capital.
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jimrtex
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« Reply #48 on: February 26, 2013, 10:47:56 PM »

I've made it through the 1950 and 1960 censuses.

One thing of particular interest was the low educational attainment of Perry County adults, which was 8.8 grades in 1960, among the bottom half-dozen counties in the state.  This may have been exacerbated by a lack of adults in their 20s and 30s who would have been of high school age at the time that a high school education was becoming more typical.  If a person with a high school education moves away, the education level of those who remain is lowered.  In 1950, it was particularly noticeable that girls were much more likely to have completed 4 years of high school, while boys more commonly had completed 1-3 years.

By 1960, electrical equipment workers had surpassed furniture manufacturing workers, so there must have been other manufacturers than the chair company.

In general, the population continued the decrease in population of the rural townships, and concentration in Troy township, which includes not only Tell City, but the towns of Cannelton and Troy.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #49 on: February 27, 2013, 12:33:37 AM »

One thing of particular interest was the low educational attainment of Perry County adults, which was 8.8 grades in 1960, among the bottom half-dozen counties in the state.  This may have been exacerbated by a lack of adults in their 20s and 30s who would have been of high school age at the time that a high school education was becoming more typical.  If a person with a high school education moves away, the education level of those who remain is lowered.  In 1950, it was particularly noticeable that girls were much more likely to have completed 4 years of high school, while boys more commonly had completed 1-3 years.

This is true even today. The percentage of adults (aged 25+) who have completed high school in Perry, Dubois, and Crawford Counties (to name just three for comparison) is roughly the same (around 80-85%) for 2007-2011 (Census figures), but the number of adults (aged 25+) who have graduated from college is significantly lower in  Perry (8.9%) than in Dubois (19.7%), and somewhat lower than in Crawford (12.5%) for 2007-2011.

Perhaps the very small number of people over the age of 25 with a Bachelor's degree (or higher) means there's less of a strong local business, professional, or more broadly white-collar community in Perry that would be not just influential in providing some Republican votes, but also in influencing the political culture of the rest of the county?

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