What were the most "isolationist" and "interventionist" states ca. WWI and WWII

[King of Kensington]

My guess is North Dakota would have been the most isolationist given its dominant Scandinavian/German demographic (highest Harding vote, Lemke vote in 1936 etc.), with Wisconsin next.

Most interventionist is harder. 

Of course the social base of isolationism differend between WWI and WWII. New York for example would have been more interventionist re WWII compared to WWI...

[darklordoftech]

The south was very interventionist for both wars. New England and Great Plains tended to be isolationist.

[mianfei]

My guess is North Dakota would have been the most isolationist given its dominant Scandinavian/German demographic (highest Harding vote, Lemke vote in 1936 etc.), with Wisconsin next.

Most interventionist is harder. 

Of course the social base of isolationism differed between WWI and WWII. New York for example would have been more interventionist re WWII compared to WWI...

The most interventionist states during the World Wars would have to have been the Upper South Atlantic states comprising North Carolina, Virginia, (parts of) Maryland and Delaware. North Carolina showed only a very small swing to the GOP in 1920, and actually swung to FDR against Willkie in 1940. Cox obtained 56.69 percent there in 1920, whereas Wilson who won 15.13 percent more nationally only won 1.41 percent more in North Carolina. In Virginia, Cox lost only 4.99 percent, and in Delaware only 5.16 percent.

In 1940, these trends repeated very strongly. Willkie remains the only Republican to lose Davie County, North Carolina since 1916, and the first to lose Calvert County, Maryland since 1880. The Southwest (Colin Woodard’s “El Norte”) was also highly interventionist.

In both cases, these reflect the fact that semi-feudal social structures meant Southern and Eastern European migrants were (apart from Maryland) practically non-existent in these states, and with the Southwest, fear that nonintervention would lessen or eliminate American control over Latin America. There is a contradiction in the highly interventionist character of these states given their pervasive racial discrimination against not only blacks, but also Native Americans and Mexican Americans. Politically these groups were entirely or almost entirely disfranchised until the 1960s by a combination of statuatory laws, literacy tests and poll taxes – creating a social structure much closer to the racial hierarchies of the Nazis than their more egalitarian battlefield enemies.

In contrast, upper New England was interventionist and logically so because of its strongly English (or French) population and strong democratic traditions.

[King of Kensington]

In contrast, upper New England was interventionist and logically so because of its strongly English (or French) population and strong democratic traditions.

Most of the French in New England were from Quebec.  Were French Canadians in New England pro-intervention?  In Quebec they were strongly opposed to intervention and conscription (the draft).

[mianfei]

In contrast, upper New England was interventionist and logically so because of its strongly English (or French) population and strong democratic traditions.

Most of the French in New England were from Quebec.  Were French Canadians in New England pro-intervention?  In Quebec they were strongly opposed to intervention and conscription (the draft).

Extremely so, at least in World War II. One actually sees counties on the Canadian border giving Willkie a smaller proportion of the vote than Landon. In Aroostook County, Maine, FDR gained over eight percent more in 1940 than in 1936. In longtime bellwether Coös County, New Hampshire, he gained five percent on his 1936 showing, and he took neighbouring Essex County, Vermont for the first time in 104 years.

The same was true among urban French-Canadians further south. Even if devout Catholics, they feared what the Nazis were doing to their homeland and might do to the US, and may have thought that threats from Soviet Russia (although they hated it vehemently) were pragmatically unlikely. To illustrate, isolationist Lemke did not reach one percent in most French-Canadian areas where he was so much as on the ballot. They also feared loss of unions in this heavily unionised industrial areas, e.g. in Androscoggin County, Maine, where FDR won 5 percent more in 1936 than he had in 1940.

[King of Kensington]

Well...fascinating.  I wonder why.  Quebec didn't have such an attachment to France. 

[darklordoftech]

I believe that the south has always had an interventionist culture.

[mianfei]

Well...fascinating.  I wonder why.  Quebec didn't have such an attachment to France. 

It could be because French-Americans are less geographically and culturally united than the Québecois, occurring as they do chiefly in New England and South Louisiana with some other scattered communities such as those in eastern Missouri. With such limited ties as a coherent group, French-Americans would tend to attach themselves much more to France than the Québecois needed to.

Although during World War II French-Americans were extremely interventionist, they were very hostile to Woodrow Wilson because of his vehement disagreement with Georges Clemenceau, which meant that French Louisiana experienced its first “bolt” from the “Solid South” in the presidential elections of 1916 to 1924 and not like the Outer South (which it actually resembled in racial moderation) in 1928.