1.
Southern United States
–
The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States, arizona and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, usually, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European, African, and some Native American components. Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, indeed, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, morality, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, however, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization. The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included
Southern United States
–
Texas Hill Country
Southern United States
–
The Southern United States as defined by the
United States Census Bureau. The "South" and its regions are defined in various ways, however. (See
Geography section.)
Southern United States
–
Bluegrass region in Kentucky
Southern United States
–
Glass Mountains at Glass Mountains State Park, Oklahoma
2.
Rednecks
–
The term redneck is a derogatory term chiefly used for a rural poor white person of the Southern United States. Its usage is similar in meaning to cracker, hillbilly, by the 1970s, the term had become offensive slang, and its meaning had expanded to mean bigoted, loutish, and opposed to modern ways. By 1975, say Chapman and Kipfer, the term had expanded in meaning beyond the poor Southerner to refer to a bigoted and conventional person, a loutish ultra-conservative. For example, in 1960 John Barlow Martin felt that Senator John F. Kennedy should not enter the Indiana Democratic presidential primary because the state was redneck conservative country. Indiana, he told Kennedy, was a state suspicious of foreign entanglements, conservative in fiscal policy, William Safire says it is often used to attack white Southern conservatives. The term is used broadly to degrade working class and rural whites that are perceived by urban progressives to be insufficiently liberal. At the same time, some white Southerners have reclaimed the word, using it with pride, the term characterized farmers having a red neck caused by sunburn from hours working in the fields. By 1900, rednecks was in use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South. The same group was often called the wool hat boys. Vardaman—chiefly poor white farmers—began to describe themselves proudly as rednecks, even to the point of wearing red neckerchiefs to political rallies, the term redneck in the early 20th century was occasionally used in reference to American coal miner union members who wore red bandannas for solidarity. The sense of a union man dates at least to the 1910s and was popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the coal-producing regions of West Virginia, Kentucky. It was also used by union strikers to describe poor white strikebreakers, writers Edward Abbey and Dave Foreman also use redneck as a political call to mobilize poor rural white Southerners. In Defense of the Redneck was an essay by Ed Abbey. Bumper sticker was Rednecks for Wilderness, murray Bookchin, an urban leftist and social ecologist, objected strongly to Earth First. s use of the term as at the very least, insensitive. But many members of the Southern community have embraced the term as a self-identifier. Johnny Russell was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1973 for his recording of Rednecks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer, comedian Jeff Foxworthys 1993 comedy album You Might Be a Redneck If. cajoled listeners to evaluate their own behavior in the context of stereotypical redneck behavior. In Scotland in the 1640s, the Covenanters rejected rule by bishops, eventually, the term began to mean simply Presbyterian, especially in communities along the Scottish border. Because of the number of Scottish immigrants in the pre-revolutionary American South
Rednecks
–
Poor white sharecroppers in
Alabama in 1936
Rednecks
–
Coal miners in soda fountain, Kentucky, 1946
3.
Hillbillies
–
Hillbilly is a term for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in Appalachia and the Ozarks. Due to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term can be offensive to those Americans of Appalachian or Ozark heritage, scholars argue this duality is reflective of the split ethnic identities in white America. The Appalachian Mountains were settled in the 18th century by settlers primarily from the Province of Ulster in Ireland, the settlers from Ulster were mainly Protestants who migrated to Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century from Scotland and Northern England. Many further migrated to the American colonies beginning in the 1730s, scholars argue that the term hillbilly originated from Scottish dialect. The term hill-folk referred to people that preferred isolation from the greater society and it is suggested that hill-folk and billie were combined when the Cameronians fled to the Highlands. Others have suggested the term originated in 17th century Ireland, during the Williamite War, some scholars disagree with this theory. … In America hillbilly was first attested only in 1898, which suggests a later, the term hillbilly spread in the years following the American Civil War. At this time, the country was developing both technologically and socially, but the Appalachian region was falling behind, before the war, Appalachia was not distinctively different from other rural areas of the country. Post-war, although the frontier pushed farther west, the region maintained frontier characteristics, Appalachians themselves were perceived as backward, quick to violence and inbred in their isolation. Fueled by news stories of mountain feuds such as that in the 1880s between the Hatfields and McCoys, the hillbilly stereotype developed in the late 19th to early 20th century. The classic hillbilly stereotype reached its current characterization during the years of the Great Depression when many left their homes to find work in other areas of the country. This movement North became known as the Hillbilly Highway, the movement brought these previously isolated communities into mainstream United States culture. Poor white mountaineers became central characters in newspapers, pamphlets and eventually, authors at this time were inspired by historical figures such as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. The mountaineer image transferred over to the 20th century where the hillbilly stereotype emerged, pop culture has perpetuated the hillbilly stereotype. The misrepresentation of Appalachian people in the media has led to great cultural distortion of Appalachian beliefs, practices, scholarly works suggest that the media has exploited both the Appalachian region and people by classifying them as hillbillies. These generalizations do not match the cultural experiences of Appalachians, Appalachians, like many other groups, do not subscribe to a single identity. One of the associated with stereotyping is that it is profitable. When hillbilly became a widely used term, entrepreneurs saw a window for potential revenue and they recycled the image and brought it to life through various forms of media
Hillbillies
–
The
Hatfield clan in 1897.
Hillbillies
–
Migrant family from Arkansas playing hill-billy songs, 1939
4.
Cracker (pejorative)
–
Cracker, sometimes white cracker or cracka, is a usually derogatory and/or offensive term for white people, especially poor rural whites in the Southern United States. In reference to a native of Florida or Georgia, however, benjamin Franklin, in his memoirs, referred to a race of runnagates and crackers, equally wild and savage as the Indians who inhabit the desert woods and mountains. The term cracker could have derived from the Middle English cnac, craic, or crak and it is documented in Shakespeares King John, What cracker is this same that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath. In the above instances, there is no reference to African American slavery and it has been suggested however, that white slave foremen in the antebellum South were called crackers owing to their practice of cracking the whip to drive and punish slaves. Whips were also cracked over pack animals, so cracker may have referred to whip cracking more generally, the whips used by some of these people are called crackers, from their having a piece of buckskin at the end. Hence the people who cracked the whips came to be thus named, Cracker has also been used as a proud or jocular self-description. With the huge influx of new residents from the North, cracker is used informally by some residents of Florida. However, the term cracker is seldom used self-referentially and remains a slur used to demean Caucasians. In 1947, the student body of Florida State University voted on the name of their athletic symbol, from a list of more than 100 choices, Seminoles was selected. The other finalists, in order of finish, were Statesmen, Rebels, Tarpons, Fighting Warriors, before the Milwaukee Braves baseball team moved to Atlanta, the Atlanta minor league baseball team was known as the Atlanta Crackers. The team existed under this name from 1901 until 1965 and they were members of the Southern Association from their inception until 1961, and members of the International League from 1961 until they were moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1965. Singer-songwriter Randy Newman, on his socio-politically themed album Good Old Boys uses the term cracker on the song Kingfish, the songs subject is Huey Long, populist Governor and then Senator for Louisiana. The term is used in Louisiana 1927 from the same album. Crackin Good Snacks has sold crackers similar to Ritz crackers under the name Georgia Crackers and they sometimes were packaged in a red tin with a picture of The Crescent, an antebellum plantation house in Valdosta, Georgia. The Florida Cracker Trail is a route which cuts across southern Florida, in his 1964 speech The Ballot or the Bullet, Malcolm X used the term cracker in reference to white people in a pejorative context. Theres no white man going to tell me anything about my rights, on November 29,1993, in a speech given at Kean College in New Jersey, Nation of Islam spokesman Khallid Abdul Muhammad called Pope John Paul II a no good cracker. In 2012, Michael Dunn shot and killed Jordan Davis in an argument over loud music coming from a car, Dunn claimed he had heard Something, something cracker, I should fucking kill that mother fucker, and saw the barrel of a shotgun. Zimmermans attorney then asked her if creepy ass cracker was an offensive term and that testimony and response brought about both media and public debate about the use of the word cracker
Cracker (pejorative)
–
"A pair of
Georgia crackers " as depicted by
James Wells Champney from The great South by
Edward King, 1873
Cracker (pejorative)
–
A "cracker cowboy" with his
Florida Cracker Horse and dog by
Frederick Remington, 1895
Cracker (pejorative)
–
Georgia Cracker label depicting a boy with peaches
5.
Cowboy
–
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of special significance. A subtype, called a wrangler, specifically tends the horses used to work cattle, in addition to ranch work, some cowboys work for or participate in rodeos. There are also cattle handlers in many parts of the world, particularly South America and Australia. The cowboy has deep historic roots tracing back to Spain and the earliest European settlers of the Americas, over the centuries, differences in terrain, climate and the influence of cattle-handling traditions from multiple cultures created several distinct styles of equipment, clothing and animal handling. As the ever-practical cowboy adapted to the world, the cowboys equipment and techniques also adapted to some degree. The English word cowboy has an origin from several earlier terms that referred to both age and to cattle or cattle-tending work, the word cowboy appeared in the English language by 1725. It appears to be a direct English translation of vaquero, a Spanish word for an individual who managed cattle while mounted on horseback and it was derived from vaca, meaning cow, which came from the Latin word vacca. Another English word for a cowboy, buckaroo, is an anglicization of vaquero, originally, the term may have been intended literally—a boy who tends cows. By 1849 it had developed its sense as an adult cattle handler of the American West. Variations on the word cowboy appeared later, cowhand appeared in 1852, and cowpoke in 1881, originally restricted to the individuals who prodded cattle with long poles to load them onto railroad cars for shipping. Names for a cowboy in American English include buckaroo, cowpoke, cowhand, the word cowboy also had English language roots beyond simply being a translation from Spanish. Originally, the English word cowherd was used to describe a cattle herder, and often referred to a preadolescent or early adolescent boy and this word is very old in the English language, originating prior to the year 1000. In antiquity, herding of sheep, cattle and goats was often the job of minors, on western ranches today, the working cowboy is usually an adult. Responsibility for herding cattle or other livestock is no longer considered a job suitable for children or early adolescents. However, both boys and girls growing up in a ranch environment often learn to ride horses and perform basic ranch skills as soon as they are physically able, such youths, by their late teens, are often given responsibilities for cowboy work on the ranch. The term cowboy was used during the American Revolution to describe American fighters who opposed the movement for independence, in the same period, a number of guerilla bands operated in Westchester County, which marked the dividing line between the British and American forces. These groups were made up of local farmhands who would ambush convoys, there were two separate groups, the skinners fought for the pro-independence side, the cowboys supported the British
Cowboy
–
A classic image of the American cowboy, as portrayed by
C.M. Russell
Cowboy
–
American cowboy, 1887
Cowboy
–
King of the Plains (Cowboys) (postcard, 1898-1924)
Cowboy
–
18th century soldier in colonial Mexico
6.
United States of America
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States of America
–
Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States of America
–
Flag
United States of America
–
The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States of America
–
The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
7.
European Americans
–
European Americans are Americans with ancestry from Europe. The Spanish were the first Europeans to establish a presence in what is now the United States. Martín de Argüelles born 1566, St. Augustine, Spanish Florida, was the first known person of European descent born in what is now the United States. Twenty-one years later, Virginia Dare, born in 1587 on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina, was the first child born in the Thirteen Colonies to English parents. 8% of the total population, European Americans are included in the category of White. White is defined by the United States Census Bureau as a person having origins in any of the peoples of Europe. According to the US Census, European Americans are a subset of White Americans, the term Non-Hispanic White is often used as a proxy for European Americans, although that also includes a small fraction of peoples of Middle Eastern descent. In 1995, as part of a review of the Office of Management,15, a survey was conducted of census recipients to determine their preferred terminology for the racial/ethnic groups defined in the Directive. For the White group, European American came third, preferred by 2. 35% of panel interviewees, the term is used interchangeably with Caucasian American, White American, and Anglo American in many places around the United States. Also, whereas the terms White American and Caucasian American carry somewhat ambiguous definitions, depending on the speaker, European American has a specific definition. According to linguist Janet Bing, the term European American has increased a little in use, the term is used by some to emphasize the European cultural and geographical ancestral origins of Americans, in the same way as is done for African Americans and Asian Americans. A European American awareness is still notable because 90% of the classified as white in the U. S. Census knew their European ancestry. Historically, the concept of an American originated in the United States as a person of European ancestry, thus excluding African Americans, as a linguistic concern, the term is sometimes meant to discourage a dichotomous view of the racial landscape between the white category and everyone else. Margo Adair suggests that the recognition of specific European American ancestries allows certain Americans to become aware that they come from a variety of different cultures, since 1607, some 57 million immigrants have come to the United States from other lands. Approximately 10 million passed through on their way to other place or returned to their original homelands. Prior to 1960, the majority came from Europe or European descent from Canada. In 1960 for example,75. 0% of foreign-born population in the United States came from the region of Europe. Before 1881, the vast majority of immigrants, almost 86% of the total, arrived from northwest Europe, principally Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, the years between 1881 and 1893 the pattern shifted, in the sources of U. S. Between 1894 and 1914, immigrants from southern, central, some people of colonial stock, especially in the Mid-Atlantic states, are also of Dutch, German and Flemish descent
European Americans
–
The
New York City Metropolitan Area is home to the largest European population in the United States.
European Americans
–
Ancestry map
European Americans
–
American cultural icons,
apple pie,
baseball, and the
American flag. All have European influence (primarily British).
European Americans
–
Mount Rushmore was sculpted by
Danish American Gutzon Borglum. Sculptures of the heads of former
U.S presidents (from left to right)
Washington,
Jefferson,
Roosevelt and
Lincoln.
8.
Appalachia
–
Appalachia is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. As of the 2010 United States Census, the region was home to approximately 25 million people, sociological studies in the 1960s and 1970s helped to re-examine and dispel these stereotypes. While endowed with abundant natural resources, Appalachia has long struggled, by 1990, Appalachia had largely joined the economic mainstream, but still lagged behind the rest of the nation in most economic indicators. Since Appalachia lacks definite physiographical or topographical boundaries, there has been disagreement over what exactly the region encompasses. The most commonly used definition of Appalachia is the one initially defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1965. When the Commission was established, counties were added based on economic need, in 1921, John C. Campbell published The Southern Highlander and His Homeland in which he modified Frosts map to include 254 counties in 9 states. A landmark survey of the region in the decade by the United States Department of Agriculture defined the region as consisting of 206 counties in 6 states. In 1984, Karl Raitz and Richard Ulack expanded the ARCs definition to include 445 counties in 13 states, although they removed all counties in Mississippi and added two in New Jersey. The name was altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe. Pánfilo de Narváezs expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15,1528, now spelled Appalachian, it is the fourth oldest surviving European place-name in the U. S. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutiérrez map of 1562, le Moyne was also the first European to apply Apalachen specifically to a mountain range as opposed to a village, native tribe, or a southeastern region of North America. The name was not commonly used for the mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the Allegheny Mountains, Alleghenies, in the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania. In northern U. S. dialects, the mountains are pronounced /æpəˈleɪtʃənz/ or /æpəˈleɪʃənz/, the cultural region of Appalachia is pronounced /æpəˈleɪʃə/, also /æpəˈleɪtʃə/, all with a third syllable like lay. In southern U. S. dialects, the mountains are called the /æpəˈlætʃənz/, and this pronunciation is favored in the core region in central and southern parts of the Appalachian range. The occasional use of the sh sound for the ch in the last syllable in northern dialects was popularized by Appalachian Trail organizations in New England in the early 20th century, Native American hunter-gatherers first arrived in what is now Appalachia over 16,000 years ago. The earliest discovered site is the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Washington County, several other Archaic period archaeological sites have been identified in the region, such as the St. Albans site in West Virginia and the Icehouse Bottom site in Tennessee
Appalachia
–
William G. Frost
Appalachia
–
Areas included under the
Appalachian Regional Commission 's charter.
Appalachia
–
Detail of Gutierrez' 1562 map showing the first known cartographic appearance of a variant of the name "Appalachia"
Appalachia
–
Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the
Cumberland Gap (
George Caleb Bingham, oil on canvas, 1851–52)
9.
Social caste
–
Its paradigmatic ethnographic example is the division of Indian society into rigid social groups, with roots in Indias ancient history and persisting until today. However, the significance of the caste system in India has been declining as a result of urbanization. The term is applied to non-human populations like ants and bees. The English word caste derives from the Spanish and Portuguese casta, when the Spanish colonized the New World, they used the word to mean a clan or lineage. The use of the caste, with this latter meaning, is first attested to in English in 1613. Modern Indias caste system is based on the social groupings called jāti, the system of varnas appears in Hindu texts dating back to 1000 BCE and envisages the society divided into four classes, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. The texts do not mention any separate, untouchable category in varna classification, scholars believe that the system of varnas was a theoretical classification envisioned by the Brahmins, but never truly operational in the society. The practical division of the society had always been in terms of jātis, which are not based on any specific principle, but could vary from ethnic origins to occupations. The jātis have been endogamous groups without any fixed hierarchy but subject to vague notions of rank articulated over time based on lifestyle, starting with the British colonial Census of 1901 led by Herbert Hope Risley, all the jātis were grouped under the theoretical varnas categories. The classical authors scarcely speak of anything other than the varnas, as it provided a convenient shorthand, upon independence from Britain, the Indian Constitution listed 1,108 castes across the country as Scheduled Castes in 1950, for positive discrimination. The Untouchable communities are sometimes called Scheduled Castes, Dalit or Harijan in contemporary literature, in 2001, Dalits were 16. 2% of Indias population. Most of the 15 million bonded child workers are from the lowest castes, independent India has witnessed caste-related violence. Indias National Crime Records Bureau records crimes against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes – the most disadvantaged groups - in a separate category, the socio-economic limitations of the caste system are reduced due to urbanization and affirmative action. Nevertheless, the system still exists in endogamy and patrimony, and thrives in the politics of democracy. The globalization and economic opportunities from foreign businesses has influenced the growth of Indias middle-class population, some members of the Chhattisgarh Potter Caste Community are middle-class urban professionals and no longer potters unlike the remaining majority of traditional rural potter members. The co-existence of the middle-class and traditional members in the CPCC has created intersectionality between caste and class, there is persistence of caste in Indian politics. Caste associations have evolved into caste-based political parties, political parties and the state perceive caste as an important factor for mobilization of people and policy development. It is not politics that gets caste-ridden, it is caste that gets politicized, the Nepalese caste system resembles that of the Indian jāti system with numerous jāti divisions with a varna system superimposed for a rough equivalence
Social caste
–
The
Basor weaving bamboo baskets in a 1916 book. The Basor are a
Hindu caste found in the state of
Uttar Pradesh in India.
Social caste
–
A page from the manuscript Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India, which consists of 72 full-color hand-painted images of men and women of various religions, occupations and ethnic groups found in
Madura, India in 1837, which confirms the popular perception and nature of caste, before the British made it applicable only to Hindus grouped under the
varna categories from the 1901 census on wards.
Social caste
–
A Sudra caste man from
Bali. Photo from 1870, courtesy of
Tropenmuseum,
Netherlands.
Social caste
–
Japanese
samurai of importance and servant.
10.
Antebellum South
–
The history of the Southern United States reaches back hundreds of years and includes the Mississippian people, well known for their mound building. European history in the began in the very earliest days of the exploration and colonization of North America. Spain, France, and England eventually explored and claimed parts of what is now the Southern United States, in Pre-Columbian times, the only inhabitants of what is now the Southern United States were Native Americans. The Mississippian way of life began to develop around the 10th century in the Mississippi River Valley, notable Native American nations that developed in the South after the Mississippians include what are known as the Five Civilized Tribes, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. Spain made frequent exploratory trips to the New World after its discovery in 1492, rumors of natives being decorated with gold and stories of a Fountain of Youth helped hold the interest of many Spanish explorers, and colonization eventually followed. Juan Ponce de León was the first European to come to the South when he landed in Florida in 1513. Hernando de Soto, a Spanish explorer and conquistador led the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day southern United States searching for gold, de Sotos group were the first documented Europeans to cross the Mississippi River, on whose banks de Soto died in 1542. More successful was Pedro Menéndez de Aviléss St. Augustine, founded in 1565, spain also colonized parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Spain issued land grants in the South from Kentucky to Florida, there was also a Spanish colony location near King Powhatans ruling town in the Chesapeake Bay area of what is now Virginia and Maryland. It preceded Jamestown, the English colony, by as much as one hundred years, the first French settlement in what is now the Southern United States was Fort Caroline, located in what is now Jacksonville, Florida, in 1562. It was established as a haven for the Huguenots and was founded under the leadership of René Goulaine de Laudonnière and it was destroyed by the Spanish from the nearby colony of St. Augustine in 1565. Later French arrived from the north, having established agricultural colonies in Canada and built a fur trading network with Indians in the Great Lakes area, they began to explore the Mississippi River. The French called their territory Louisiana, in honor of their King Louis, France claimed Texas and set up several short-lived forts there, such as the one in Red River County, built in 1718. In 1817 the French pirate Jean Lafitte settled on Galveston Island, the most important French settlements were established at New Orleans and Mobile. Only a few came from France directly, with others arriving from Haiti. Just before they defeated the Spanish Armada, the English began exploring the New World, in 1585 an expedition organized by Walter Raleigh established the first English settlement in the New World, on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. The colony failed to prosper, however, and the colonists were retrieved the following year by English supply ships, in 1587, Raleigh again sent out a group of colonists to Roanoke. From this colony, the first recorded European birth in North America and that group of colonists disappeared and is known as the Lost Colony
Antebellum South
–
American Revolutionary War, Battle of Camden, South Carolina
Antebellum South
–
The
siege of Yorktown ended with the surrender of a second British army, marking effective British defeat in the war.
Antebellum South
–
Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas
11.
White American
–
White Americans are Americans who are considered or reported as White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those having origins in any of the peoples of Europe. Like all official U. S. racial categories, White has a not Hispanic or Latino and a Hispanic or Latino component, the term Caucasian is often used interchangeably with White, although the terms are not synonymous. Whites constitute the majority, with a total of about 246,660,710, non-Hispanic Whites totaled about 197,870,516, or 62. 06% of the U. S. population. Definitions of who is White have changed throughout the history of the United States, the term White American can encompass many different ethnic groups. Although the United States Census purports to reflect a social definition of race, the 2000 U. S. census states that racial categories generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country. They do not conform to any biological, anthropological or genetic criteria, the Census Bureau defines White people as follows, White refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race as White or reported entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Arab, Moroccan or Caucasian. In U. S. Hispanic and Latino Americans as a make up a racially diverse group. In cases where individuals do not self-identify, the U. S. census parameters for race give each national origin a racial value. Additionally, people who reported Muslim, Jewish, Zoroastrian, or Caucasian as their race in the Some other race section, the US Census considers the write-in response of Caucasian or Aryan to be a synonym for White in their ancestry code listing. In the contemporary United States, essentially anyone of European descent is considered White, the definition of White has changed significantly over the course of American history. Among Europeans those not considered White at some point in American history include Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, Irish, Swedes, Germans, Finns, Russians, early on in the United States, white generally referred to those of British ancestry or northern and northwestern European descent. David R. Roediger argues that the construction of the race in the United States was an effort to mentally distance slave owners from slaves. The process of officially being defined as white by law came about in court disputes over pursuit of citizenship. Scholars such as David Roediger, Paul Gilroy, and others have based some of their work on this notion, moreover, Whites tend to be disproportionately represented in powerful positions, controlling almost all political, economic, and cultural institutions. Whites made up 79. 8% or 75% of the American population in 2008 and this latter number is sometimes recorded as 77. 1% when it includes about 2% of the population who are identified as white in combination with one or more other races. The largest ethnic groups among White Americans were Germans, followed by Irish and English, White Americans are projected to remain the majority, though with their percentage decreasing to 72% of the total population by 2050
White American
–
President
Abraham Lincoln was descended from
Samuel Lincoln, and was of English and Welsh ancestry.
White American
–
The countries from which White Americans claim their ancestry.
White American
–
Actress
Raquel Welch of Spanish (via Bolivia) and English ancestry back to the
Mayflower.
White American
–
Three members of the Kennedy political dynasty,
John,
Robert and
Edward. All eight of their great-grandparents emigrated from
Ireland.
12.
Oxymoron
–
An oxymoron is a rhetorical device that uses an ostensible self-contradiction to illustrate a rhetorical point or to reveal a paradox. A more general meaning of contradiction in terms is recorded by the OED for 1902. e and it is itself an example of an oxymoron. The most common form of oxymoron involves a combination of two words. To give an example from English poetry, the line from Tennysons Idylls of the King contains two oxymorons, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. Oxymorons are not always a pair of words, they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases, richard Lederer assembled a taxonomy of oxymorons in an article in Word Ways in 1990, running from single-word oxymorons such as pianoforte through doublespeak oxymorons and opinion oxymorons. A good example of use of oxymorons is found in Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet. Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, in Henry James novella The Lesson of the Master, a character is described as dressed in a manner conventionally unconventional, suggesting a tortuous spontaneity. In this way James highlights the contradiction between the desire to appear spontaneous, and the efforts she makes to appear so. Voltaire we might call, by an oxymoron which has plenty of truth in it, J. R. R. Tolkien interpreted his own surname as derived from the Low German equivalent of dull-keen which would be a literal equivalent of Greek oxy-moron. Comical oxymoron is a term for the claim, for comical effect, the humour derives from implying that an assumption is so obvious as to be part of the lexicon. Garry Wills accused William F. Buckley of popularising this trend, examples popularized by comedian George Carlin include military intelligence and business ethics. Similarly, the civil war is sometimes jokingly as an oxymoron. Other examples include healthful Mexican food, affordable caviar, Microsoft Works. Listing of antonyms, as in good and evil, male and female, great and small, etc. are not oxymorons, in some languages, it is not necessary to place a conjunction like and between the two antonyms, such compounds are known as dvandvas. For example, in Chinese, compounds like 男女, 陰陽, 善悪 are used to indicate couples, ranges, auto-antonym Colorless green ideas sleep furiously Paradox Performative contradiction Pleonasm Tautology Retronym. Self refuting idea Meinongs jungle Principle of contradiction Shen, Yeshayahu, on the structure and understanding of poetic oxymoron
Oxymoron
–
Oxymoron by Acke Hydén (sv), Landskrona konsthall (sv)
13.
Crowding-out effect
–
One type frequently discussed is when expansionary fiscal policy reduces investment spending by the private sector. The idea of the crowding out effect, though not the term itself, has been discussed since at least the 18th century, one channel of crowding out is a reduction in private investment that occurs because of an increase in government borrowing. The extent to which crowding out depends on the economic situation. Thus the effect of the stimulus is offset by the effect of crowding out, in this scenario, the stimulus program would be much more effective. In sum, changing the governments budget deficit has an impact on GDP when the economy is below capacity. The macroeconomic theory behind crowding out provides some useful intuition, what happens is that an increase in the demand for loanable funds by the government shifts the loanable funds demand curve rightwards and upwards, increasing the real interest rate. A higher real interest rate increases the opportunity cost of borrowing money, decreasing the amount of interest-sensitive expenditures such as investment, thus, the government has crowded out investment. Income increases less than interest rates if the IS curve is flatter. Income and interest rates increase more the larger the multiplier, thus, in each case, the extent of crowding out is greater the more interest rate increases when government spending rises. Economist Laura DAndrea Tyson wrote in June 2012, By itself an increase in the deficit, but how this affects output, employment and growth depends on what happens to interest rates. When the economy is operating near capacity, government borrowing to finance an increase in the deficit causes interest rates to rise, higher interest rates reduce or “crowd out” private investment, and this reduces growth. The “crowding out” argument explains why large and sustained government deficits take a toll on growth, but this argument rests on how government deficits affect interest rates, and the relationship between government deficits and interest rates varies. When there is considerable excess capacity, an increase in government borrowing to finance an increase in the deficit does not lead to higher interest rates and does not crowd out private investment, the crowding-in argument is the right one for current economic conditions. If the economy is in a liquidity trap, the Liquidity-Money curve is horizontal. There is no change in the interest associated with the change in government spending, therefore, no dampening of the effects of increased government spending on income. So, if the LM curve is horizontal, monetary policy has no impact on the equilibrium of the economy, if the LM curve is vertical, then an increase in government spending has no effect on the equilibrium income and only increases the interest rates. If the demand for money is not related to the interest rate, as the vertical LM curve implies, thus, with vertical LM curve, an increase in government spending cannot change the equilibrium income and only raises the equilibrium interest rates. But if government spending is higher and the output is unchanged, in this case, the increase in interest rates crowds out an amount of private spending equal to increase in government spending
Crowding-out effect
–
World GDP (PPP) per capita by country (2014)
14.
Economic mobility
–
Economic mobility is the ability of an individual, family or some other group to improve their economic status—usually measured in income. Economic mobility is often measured by movement between income quintiles, Economic mobility may be considered a type of social mobility, which is often measured in change in income. There are many different ideas in the literature as to what constitutes a good measure of mobility, each with their own advantages. Mobility may be between generations or within a person or groups lifetime and it may be absolute or relative. Inter-generational mobility compares a person’s income to that of her/his/their parents, intra-generational mobility, in contrast, refers to movement up or down over the course of a working career. Absolute mobility involves widespread economic growth and answers the question “To what extent do families improve their incomes over a generation. ”Relative mobility is specific to individuals or groups and it answers the question, how closely are the economic fortunes of children tied to that of their parents. Relative mobility is a game, absolute is not. Exchange mobility is the mobility that results from a reshuffling of incomes among the economic agents, for example, in the case of two agents, a change in income distribution might be ->. This is a case of pure exchange mobility, since they have simply exchanged incomes, more generally, for a set of incomes xi, any permutation of the xi will yield a pure exchange mobility. Measures of inequality will not change under pure exchange mobility, structural mobility is mobility that results from a change in the income distribution function without regard to the identity of the agents. For two agents, a change in income distribution might be -> and this case may involve some exchange mobility, depending on ones definition, but there is certainly some structural mobility since it does not involve a simple reshuffling of incomes. Growth mobility is mobility that results from an increase in total income, for two agents, a change in income distribution might be -> or perhaps ->. Growth mobility is certainly positive in these cases, since the sum of the incomes increases, how much economic mobility really exists has been studied. This challenges the notion of America as the land of opportunity, other research places the U. S. among the least economically mobile countries. Another 2007 study found significant upward absolute mobility from the late 1960s to 2007, however, in terms of relative mobility it stated, contrary to American beliefs about equality of opportunity, a child’s economic position is heavily influenced by that of his or her parents. 42% of children born to parents in the fifth of the income distribution remain in the bottom. Only half of the generation studied exceeded their parents economic standing by moving up one or more quintiles, moving between quintiles is more frequent in the middle quintiles than in the lowest and highest quintiles. Of those in one of the quintiles 2-4 in 1996, approximately 35% stayed in the same quintile, 39% of those who were born into the top quintile as children in 1968 are likely to stay there, and 23% end up in the fourth quintile
Economic mobility
–
Illustration from a 1916 advertisement for a vocational school in the back of a US magazine. Education has been seen as a key to economic mobility, and this advertisement appealed to Americans' belief in the possibility of self-betterment, as well as threatening the consequences of downward mobility in the great
income inequality existing during the
Industrial Revolution.
Economic mobility
15.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
–
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. She came from the Beecher family, a religious family. It depicts the life for African Americans under slavery. It reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and it energized anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. She wrote 30 books, including novels, three memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stands on issues of the day. Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14,1811 and she was the seventh of 13 children born to outspoken Calvinist preacher Lyman Beecher and Roxana, a deeply religious woman who died when Stowe was only five years old. Roxanas maternal grandfather was General Andrew Ward of the Revolutionary War, among her classmates was Sarah P. Willis, who later wrote under the pseudonym Fanny Fern. In 1832, at the age of 21, Harriet Beecher moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to join her father, who had become the president of Lane Theological Seminary. There, she joined the Semi-Colon Club, a literary salon and social club whose members included the Beecher sisters, Caroline Lee Hentz, Salmon P. Chase, Emily Blackwell. Areas of the city had been wrecked in the Cincinnati riots of 1829, Beecher met a number of African Americans who had suffered in those attacks, and their experience contributed to her later writing about slavery. Riots took place again in 1836 and 1841, driven also by native-born anti-abolitionists and it was in the literary club that she met Calvin Ellis Stowe, a widower who was a professor at the seminary. The two married on January 6,1836 and he was an ardent critic of slavery, and the Stowes supported the Underground Railroad, temporarily housing several fugitive slaves in their home. Most slaves continued north to freedom in Canada. The Stowes had seven children together, including twin daughters, in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, prohibiting assistance to fugitives and strengthening sanctions even in free states. At the time, Stowe had moved with her family to Brunswick, Maine and their home near the campus is protected as a national historic resource in her honor. Stowe claimed to have a vision of a slave during a communion service at the college chapel. However, what more likely allowed her to empathize with slaves was the loss of her eighteen-month-old son and she even stated the following, Having experienced losing someone so close to me, I can sympathize with all the poor, powerless slaves at the unjust auctions
Harriet Beecher Stowe
–
Stowe circa 1852
Harriet Beecher Stowe
–
Portrait of Stowe by Alanson Fisher, 1853 (
National Portrait Gallery)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
–
Portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Francis Holl, 1853
Harriet Beecher Stowe
–
Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati, Ohio
16.
Barbarian
–
A barbarian is a human who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. Alternatively, they may instead be admired and romanticised as noble savages, in idiomatic or figurative usage, a barbarian may also be an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, warlike, insensitive person. The term originates from the Greek, βάρβαρος, in ancient times, the Greeks used it mostly for people of different cultures, but there are examples where one Greek city or state would use the word to attack another. In the early period and sometimes later, Greeks used it for the Turks. Comparable notions are found in non-European civilizations, notably China and Japan, during the Roman Empire, the Romans used the word barbarian for many people, such as the Germanics, Celts, Gauls, Iberians, Thracians, Parthians and Sarmatians. The Ancient Greek name βάρβαρος, barbarian, was an antonym for πολίτης, the earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek
Barbarian
–
19th Century portrayal of the
Huns as barbarians.
Barbarian
–
"
Germanic warriors" as depicted in
Philipp Clüver 's Germania Antiqua (1616)
Barbarian
–
Slaves in chains, relief found at Smyrna (present day
İzmir,
Turkey), 200 AD
Barbarian
–
The Dying Galatian,
Capitoline Museums, Rome
17.
Georgia cracker
–
Georgia Cracker refers to the original American pioneer settlers of the Province of Georgia, and their descendants. In order to get the attention they became very adept at cracking a bullwhip. The term cracker was in use during Elizabethan times to describe braggarts, the original root of this is the Middle English word crack meaning entertaining conversation. This term and the Gaelic spelling craic are still in use in Ireland and Scotland and it is documented in Shakespeares King John, What cracker is this. That deafes our eares / With this abundance of superfluous breath, the word was later associated with the cowboys of Georgia and Florida, many of them descendants of those early frontiersmen. Among some Georgians, the term is used as a proud or jocular self-description, however, other Georgians find the term highly offensive and insulting, Cracker has a murky history but generally describes poor whites. The slur is widely considered an insult among white southerners. for plenty of rural, white southerners, cracker is a demeaning, bill Arp, Georgia’s foremost 19th-century humorist Roy Vincent Harris, a “Cracker Party” boss Lauretta Hannon, Georgia’s Cracker Queen humorist John B
Georgia cracker
–
A pair of "Georgia Crackers", 1873
18.
American Civil War
–
The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
American Civil War
–
New Orleans the largest cotton exporting port for New England and Great Britain textile mills, shipping Mississippi River Valley goods from North, South and Border states.
American Civil War
–
Clockwise from top:
Battle of Gettysburg,
Union Captain John Tidball's artillery,
Confederate prisoners,
ironclad USS Atlanta, ruins of
Richmond, Virginia,
Battle of Franklin
American Civil War
–
Sen. Stephen Douglas, author of the
Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
American Civil War
–
Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860
Crittenden Compromise
19.
Sharecropping
–
Sharecropping is a form of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land. Sharecropping has a history and there are a wide range of different situations. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law, legal contract systems such as the Italian mezzadria, the French métayage, the Spanish mediero, or the Islamic system of muqasat, occur widely. Sharecropping has benefits and costs for both the owners and the tenant and it encourages the cropper to remain on the land, solving the harvest rush problem. At the same time, since the cropper pays in shares of his harvest, owners and croppers share the risks of harvests being large or small and of prices being high or low. Because tenants benefit from larger harvests, they have an incentive to work harder, however, by dividing the working force into many individual workers, large farms no longer benefit from economies of scale. On the whole, sharecropping was not as efficient as the gang agriculture of slave plantations. In the U. S. tenant farmers own their own mules and equipment, and sharecroppers do not, Sharecropping occurred extensively in Scotland, Ireland and colonial Africa, and came into wide use in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era. The South had been devastated by war - planters had ample land, at the same time, most of the former slaves had labor but no money and no land - they rejected the kind of gang labor that typified slavery. A solution was the system focused on cotton, which was the only crop that could generate cash for the croppers, landowners, merchants. Poor white farmers, who previously had done little cotton farming, needed cash as well, jeffery Paige made a distinction between centralized sharecropping found on cotton plantations and the decentralized sharecropping with other crops. The former is characterized by political conservatism and long lasting tenure, tenants are tied to the landlord through the plantation store. Their work is heavily supervised as slave plantations were and this form of tenure tends to be replaced by wage slavery as markets penetrate. Decentralized sharecropping involves virtually no role for the landlord, plots are scattered, peasants manage their own labor, leases are very short which leads to peasant radicalism. This form of tenure becomes more common when markets penetrate, use of the sharecropper system has also been identified in England. It is still used in many poor areas today, notably in Pakistan. It has therefore been seen as an issue of reform in contexts such as the Mexican Revolution. Sharecropping agreements can however be made fairly, as a form of tenant farming or sharefarming that has a variable rental payment, there are three different types of contracts
Sharecropping
–
Agriculture
Sharecropping
–
FSA photo of cropper family chopping the weeds from cotton near
White Plains, in Georgia, USA (1941)
Sharecropping
–
Sharecroppers at roadside after eviction (1936)
Sharecropping
–
An early 20th century Texas sharecropper's home diorama at the
Audie Murphy American Cotton Museum in 2015
20.
Nadir of American race relations
–
During this period, African Americans lost many civil rights gains made during Reconstruction. Anti-black violence, lynchings, segregation, legal racial discrimination, historian Rayford Logan coined the term in his 1954 book The Negro in American Life and Thought, The Nadir, 1877–1901. Logan tried to determine the year when the Negros status in American society reached its lowest point and he argued for 1901, suggesting that relations improved after then. Others, such as John Hope Franklin and Henry Arthur Callis, the term continues to be used, most notably in the books of James Loewen, but also by other scholars. Loewen chooses later dates, arguing that the era was in fact one of widespread hope for racial equity due to idealistic Northern support for civil rights. In Loewens view the true nadir began only when northern Republicans ceased supporting Southern blacks rights around 1890 and this period followed the financial Panic of 1873 and a continuing decline in cotton prices. It overlapped with both the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, and was characterized by the nationwide sundown town phenomenon, logans focus was exclusively African American and principally the American South. Such scholars generally dismissed the idea that blacks could ever be capable of governing, notable proponents of this view were referred to as the Dunning School, named after influential Columbia historian William Archibald Dunning. Another Columbia professor, John Burgess, famously wrote that black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself, created any civilization of any kind. The Dunning Schools view of Reconstruction held sway for years and it was represented in D. W. Griffiths popular movie The Birth of a Nation and to some extent in Margaret Mitchells novel Gone with the Wind. More recent historians of the period have rejected many of the Dunning Schools conclusions, todays consensus regards Reconstruction as a time of idealism and hope, with some practical achievements. The Radical Republicans who passed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were, for the most part, du Bois put this view forward in 1910, and later historians Kenneth Stampp and Eric Foner expanded it. No Reconstruction state government was dominated by blacks, in fact, for several years after the war, the federal government, pushed by Northern opinion, showed itself willing to intervene to protect the rights of black Americans. In the South, many former Confederates were stripped of the right to vote, James Loewen notes that between 1865 and 1867, when white Democrats controlled the government, whites murdered an average of one black person every day in Hinds County, Mississippi. Black schools were targeted, school buildings were frequently burned and teachers were flogged. Despite these failures, however, blacks continued to vote and attend schools, literacy soared, and many African-Americans were elected to local and statewide offices, with several serving in Congress. Because of the communitys commitment to education, the majority of blacks were literate by 1900. Continued violence in the South, especially heated around electoral campaigns, the financial panic of 1873 disrupted the economy nationwide, causing more difficulties
Nadir of American race relations
–
"And Not This Man?", Harper's Weekly, August 5, 1865.
Thomas Nast drew this cartoon; in 1865 he, like many Northerners, remembered blacks' military service and favored granting them voting rights
Nadir of American race relations
–
Hiram Revels, the first African American
Senator, elected in 1870 from
Mississippi. One other black Senator,
Blanche K. Bruce, was elected from the same state in 1874.
Nadir of American race relations
–
"Colored Rule in a Reconstructed(?) State", Harper's Weekly, March 14, 1874. Nine years later, Nast had given up on racial idealism. He caricatured black legislators as incompetent buffoons
Nadir of American race relations
–
A quote from
Woodrow Wilson used in "Birth of a Nation".
21.
White supremacy
–
White supremacy has roots in scientific racism and often relies on pseudoscientific arguments. The term is typically used to describe a political ideology that perpetuates. Different forms of white supremacism put forth different conceptions of who is considered white, White supremacist groups have typically opposed people of color and Jews. White supremacy was dominant in the United States even after the American Civil War, in large areas of the U. S. this included the holding of non-whites in chattel slavery with four million denied freedom from bondage. The outbreak of the Civil War saw the desire to uphold white supremacy cited as a cause for state secession, in an editorial about Native Americans in 1890, author L. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U. S. citizenship to whites only, the denial of social and political freedom continued into the mid-20th century resulting in the Civil Rights Movement. On the U. S. immigration laws prior to 1965, many U. S. states banned interracial marriage through anti-miscegenation laws until 1967, when these laws were invalidated by the Supreme Court of the United States decision in Loving v. Virginia. Additionally, white leaders often viewed Native Americans as obstacles to economic and political progress with respect to the claims to land. The terms recent rise in popularity among leftist activists has been characterized by some as counterproductive, in an opinion piece in The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf has said that the usage of the term by activists creates confusion because it strays from the common definition. Nazism promoted the idea of a superior Germanic people or Aryan race in Germany during the early 20th century, gobineaus theories, which attracted a strong following in Germany, emphasized the existence of an irreconcilable polarity between Aryan or Germanic peoples and Jewish cultures. Many modern-day white supremacist groups around the world reuse Nazi symbolism, including the swastika, racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times under the Dutch Empire, and continued when the British took over the Cape of Good Hope in 1795. Apartheid as an officially structured policy was introduced by the Afrikaner-dominated National Party after the election of 1948. Legislation divided inhabitants into four racial groups—black, white, coloured, and Indian, in 1970, the Afrikaner-run government abolished non-white political representation, and starting that year black people were deprived of South African citizenship. South Africa abolished apartheid in 1991, in Rhodesia, a predominantly white government issued its own unilateral declaration of independence from the United Kingdom during an unsuccessful attempt to avoid immediate majority rule. Neo-Nazi organisations embracing white-supremacist ideology are present in countries in the world. It has been claimed in 2007, that Russian Neo-Nazis accounted for half of the worlds total, White racial advantages occur both at a collective and an individual level. Legal scholar Frances Lee Ansley explains this definition as follows, By white supremacy I do not mean to allude only to the racism of white supremacist hate groups. Some anti-racist educators, such as Betita Martinez and the Challenging White Supremacy workshop, the term expresses historic continuities between a pre-African-American Civil Rights Movement era of open white supremacism and the current racial power structure of the United States
White supremacy
–
Members of the second
Ku Klux Klan at a rally in 1923.
White supremacy
–
The Good Citizen 1926 Published by
Pillar of Fire Church
22.
Opportunism
–
Opportunism is the conscious policy and practice of taking advantage of circumstances – with little regard for principles, or with what the consequences are for others. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives, the term can be applied to individual humans and living organisms, groups, organizations, styles, behaviours, and trends. Opportunism or opportunistic behavior is an important concept in fields of study as biology, transaction cost economics, game theory, ethics, psychology, sociology. Opportunism is the policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances. Somewhat confusingly, opportunism is sometimes also redefined by businessmen simply as the theory of discovering and pursuing opportunities and these businessmen are motivated by their dislike for the idea that there could ever be anything wrong with capitalizing on opportunities. According to this redefinition, opportunism is a euphemism for entrepreneurship, taking a realistic or practical approach to a problem can involve weak forms of opportunism. In choosing or seizing opportunities, human opportunism is most likely to occur where, relevant internal or external controls on their behaviour are absent. People are pressured to choose and act, criticism of opportunism usually refers to a situation where beliefs and principles are tested or challenged. Human opportunism should not be confused with seeking opportunities as such, the English term opportunism is possibly borrowed originally from the Italian expression opportunismo. In 19th-century Italian politics, it meant exploiting the prevailing circumstances or opportunities to gain advantage for oneself or ones own group. In Latin, opportunus means opportune or favourable, the word itself is a contraction of ob portus or oppositum portus, as a style of human behaviour, opportunism has the connotation of a lack of integrity, or doing something that is out of character. The underlying thought is that the price of the pursuit of selfishness is behavioural inconsistency. Thus, opportunism involves compromising some or other principle normally upheld, however, the boundary between legitimate self-interest and undesirable selfishness can be difficult to define, the definition may depend on ones point of view, or position in life. Some people regard an opportunist stance positively as a legitimate choice and it can also be viewed as a striving to realize or express certain principles. Moralists may have a distaste for opportunism, insofar as opportunism implies the violation of a moral principle. It is often difficult for an outsider to understand why an action or an idea is opportunist, because the outsider does not know the story, or the whole context. The way things appear can give an impression which is different from the real motivation that is behind it. In human behaviour generally, opportunism concerns the relationship between what people do, and their basic principles when faced with opportunities and challenges, hence opportunist behaviour is usually regarded at least as questionable or dubious, and at most as unjustifiable or completely illegitimate
Opportunism
–
Opportunity Seized, Opportunity Missed, engraving by
Theodoor Galle, 1605
23.
Elvis Presley
–
Elvis Aaron Presley was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is referred to as the King of Rock and Roll. Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis and his music career began there in 1954, when he recorded a song with producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was a popularizer of rockabilly. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, Presleys first RCA single, Heartbreak Hotel, was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. He was regarded as the figure of rock and roll after a series of successful network television appearances. In November 1956, Presley made his debut in Love Me Tender. In 1958, he was drafted into military service, in 1973, Presley featured in the first globally broadcast concert via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii. Several years of drug abuse severely damaged his health. Presley is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century and he won three Grammys, also receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. Presley was born on January 8,1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Gladys Love and Vernon Elvis Presley, Jesse Garon Presley, his identical twin brother, was delivered stillborn 35 minutes before his own birth. Thus, as a child, Presley became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother. The family attended an Assembly of God, where he found his musical inspiration. Although he was in conflict with the Pentecostal church in his later years, rev. Rex Humbard officiated at his funeral, as Presley had been an admirer of Humbards ministry. Presleys ancestry was primarily a Western European mix, including Scots-Irish, Scottish, German, gladyss great-great-grandmother, Morning Dove White, was possibly a Cherokee Native American. Gladys was regarded by relatives and friends as the dominant member of the small family, Vernon moved from one odd job to the next, evincing little ambition. The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance, the Presleys survived the F5 tornado in the 1936 Tupelo–Gainesville tornado outbreak. In 1938, they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of kiting a check written by the landowner, Orville S. Bean and he was jailed for eight months, and Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives
Elvis Presley
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Presley in a publicity photograph for the 1957 film
Jailhouse Rock
Elvis Presley
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Presley's birthplace in
Tupelo, Mississippi
Elvis Presley
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Presley in a
Sun Records promotional photograph, 1954
Elvis Presley
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The "iconic cover" of
Presley's 1956 debut album featuring a photo taken July 31, 1955, in Tampa, Florida
24.
Poll tax (United States)
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In the United States, payment of a poll tax was a prerequisite to the registration for voting in a number of states until 1966. The tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late 19th century as part of the Jim Crow laws. The laws often included a clause, which allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. Proof of payment of a tax was a prerequisite to voter registration in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia. The Texas poll tax required otherwise eligible voters to pay between $1.50 and $1.75 to register to vote – a lot of money at the time, the poll tax requirements applied to whites as well as blacks, and also adversely affected poor citizens. The laws that allowed the tax did not specify a certain group of people. This meant that anyone, including white women could also be discriminated against when they went to vote, one example is in Alabama where white women were discriminated against and then organized to secure their right to vote. One group of women that did this was Womens Joint Legislative Council of Alabama, African American women also organized in groups against being denied voting rights. One African American woman sued the county with the help of the NAACP and she sued for her right to vote as she was stopped from even registering to vote. As a result of her suing the county the mailman did not deliver her mail for quite some time, many states required payment of the tax at a time separate from the election, and then required voters to bring receipts with them to the polls. If they could not locate such receipts, they could not vote, in addition, many states surrounded registration and voting with complex record-keeping requirements. These were particularly difficult for sharecropper and tenant farmers to comply with, the poll tax was sometimes used alone or together with a literacy qualification. In a kind of grandfather clause, North Carolina in 1900 exempted from the poll tax those men entitled to vote as of January 1,1867 and this excluded all blacks, who did not then have suffrage. Although largely associated with states of the former Confederacy, poll taxes were also in place in northern and western states. For instance, California had a poll tax until 1914 when it was abolished through a popular referendum. In 1937, in Breedlove v. Suttles,302 U. S.277, the case involved the Georgia poll tax of $1. Georgia abolished its tax in 1945. The 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, abolished the use of the tax as a pre-condition for voting in federal elections
Poll tax (United States)
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Receipt for payment of poll tax,
Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, 1917 (the $1 tax would be equal to $18.47 today)
25.
Sherwood Anderson
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Sherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and Elyria, in 1912, Anderson had a nervous breakdown that led him to abandon his business and family to become a writer. At the time, he moved to Chicago and was married three more times. His most enduring work is the short-story sequence Winesburg, Ohio, throughout the 1920s, Anderson published several short story collections, novels, memoirs, books of essays, and a book of poetry. Though his books sold well, Dark Laughter, a novel inspired by Andersons time in New Orleans during the 1920s, was the only bestseller of his career. Sherwood Berton Anderson was born on September 13,1876 in Camden, Ohio and he was the third of seven children born to Emma Jane and former Union soldier and harness-maker Irwin McLain Anderson. Considered reasonably well-off financially—Andersons father was seen as an up-and-comer by his Camden contemporaries, reasons for the departure are uncertain, most biographers note rumors of debts incurred by either Irwin or his brother Benjamin. The Andersons headed north to Caledonia by way of a stay in a village of a few hundred called Independence. Four or five years were spent in Caledonia, years which formed Andersons earliest memories and this period later inspired his semi-autobiographical novel Tar, A Midwest Childhood. In Caledonia Andersons father began drinking excessively, which led to financial difficulties, partly as a result of these misfortunes, young Sherwood became adept at finding various odd jobs to help his family, earning the nickname Jobby. Though he was a decent student, Andersons attendance at school declined as he began picking up work, even in his teens, Andersons talent for selling was evident, a talent he would later draw on it in a successful career in advertising. As a newsboy he was said to have convinced a tired farmer in a saloon to buy two copies of the evening paper. With the exception of work, Andersons childhood resembled that of other boys his age, in addition to participating in local events and spending time with his friends, Anderson was a voracious reader. By Andersons 18th year in 1895, his family was on shaky ground and his father had started to disappear for weeks. Two years earlier, in 1893, Karl, Sherwoods elder brother, had left Clyde for Chicago, on May 10,1895, his mother succumbed to tuberculosis. Sherwood, now essentially on his own, boarded at the Harvey & Yetters livery stable where he worked as an experience that would translate into several of his best-known stories. But his mothers death precipitated the young mans leaving Clyde and he settled in Chicago around late 1896 or spring/summer 1897, having worked a few small-town factory jobs along the way. Finding a place to stay in Chicago was not as difficult for Anderson as it was for many others arriving in Chicago around the same time
Sherwood Anderson
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Anderson in 1933
Sherwood Anderson
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Signature
Sherwood Anderson
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"Roof-Fix carried us to Elyria" wrote Sherwood Anderson's wife, Cornelia Lane, of the product her husband started a company to sell.
Sherwood Anderson
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Advertisement for the Anderson Manufacturing Co., a company owned by Sherwood Anderson from 1907-1913, almost a decade before he became a well-known author.
26.
Eugenics in the United States
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Eugenics was practiced in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany, which were largely inspired by the previous American work. The American eugenics movement was rooted in the biological determinist ideas of Sir Francis Galton, Galton studied the upper classes of Britain, and arrived at the conclusion that their social positions were due to a superior genetic makeup. Early proponents of eugenics believed that, through selective breeding, the species should direct its own evolution. Eugenics was also supported by African Americans intellectuals such as W. E. B. W. E. B, du Bois believed only fit blacks should procreate to eradicate the races heritage of moral iniquity. The American eugenics movement received extensive funding from various foundations including the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation. Kellogg provided funding to found the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek. The Eugenics Record Office was founded in Cold Spring Harbor, New York in 1911 by the renowned biologist Charles B, Davenport, using money from both the Harriman railroad fortune and the Carnegie Institution. As late as the 1920s, the ERO was one of the organizations in the American eugenics movement. In years to come, the ERO collected a mass of family pedigrees, Eugenicists such as Davenport, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard, Harry H. Laughlin, and the conservationist Madison Grant began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the unfit. The Eugenics Record Office later became the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Eugenics was widely accepted in the U. S. academic community. By 1928, there were 376 separate university courses in some of the United States leading schools, enrolling more than 20,000 students, which included eugenics in the curriculum. By 1910, there was a large and dynamic network of scientists, reformers, the American Breeders Association was the first eugenic body in the U. S. established in 1906 under the direction of biologist Charles B. The ABA was formed specifically to investigate and report on heredity in the race, and emphasize the value of superior blood. Membership included Alexander Graham Bell, Stanford president David Starr Jordan, the American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality was one of the first organizations to begin investigating infant mortality rates in terms of eugenics. They promoted government intervention in attempts to promote the health of future citizens, several feminist reformers advocated an agenda of eugenic legal reform. One of the most prominent feminists to champion the eugenic agenda was Margaret Sanger, Margaret Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent unwanted children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and incorporated the language of eugenics to advance the movement. Sanger also sought to discourage the reproduction of persons who, it was believed and she advocated sterilization in cases where the subject was unable to use birth control. For Sanger, it was women and not the state who should determine whether or not to have a child
Eugenics in the United States
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Winning family of a Fitter Family contest stand outside of the Eugenics Building (where contestants register) at the Kansas Free Fair, in Topeka, KS.
Eugenics in the United States
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Eugenics supporters hold signs criticizing various "genetically inferior" groups.
Wall Street, New York, c. 1915.
Eugenics in the United States
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U.S. eugenics poster advocating for the removal of genetic "defectives" such as the insane, "feeble-minded" and criminals, and supporting the selective breeding of "high-grade" individuals, c. 1926
Eugenics in the United States
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Anthropometry demonstrated in an exhibit from a 1921 eugenics conference.
27.
New Deal
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The New Deal was a series of programs, including, most notably, Social Security, that were enacted in the United States between 1933 and 1938, and a few that came later. They included both laws passed by Congress as well as executive orders during the first term of the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Republicans were split, with opposing the entire New Deal as an enemy of business and growth. By 1936 the term liberal typically was used for supporters of the New Deal, from 1934 to 1938, Roosevelt was assisted in his endeavours by a pro-spender majority in Congress. In the 1938 midterm elections, however, Roosevelt and his supporters lost control of Congress to the bipartisan conservative coalition. Many historians distinguish between a First New Deal and a Second New Deal, with the one more liberal. The First New Deal dealt with the banking crises through the Emergency Banking Act. The Securities Act of 1933 was enacted to prevent a repeated stock market crash, the controversial work of the National Recovery Administration was also part of the First New Deal. The economic downturn of 1937–38, and the split between the AFL and CIO labor unions led to major Republican gains in Congress in 1938. Conservative Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined in the informal Conservative Coalition, by 1942–43 they shut down relief programs such as the WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps and blocked major liberal proposals. Roosevelt himself turned his attention to the war effort, and won reelection in 1940 and 1944, the Supreme Court declared the National Recovery Administration and the first version of the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional, however the AAA was rewritten and then upheld. As the first Republican president elected after Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower left the New Deal largely intact, Johnsons Great Society used the New Deal as inspiration for a dramatic expansion of liberal programs, which Republican Richard M. Nixon generally retained. After 1974, however, the call for deregulation of the economy gained bipartisan support, the New Deal regulation of banking was suspended in the 1990s. The largest programs still in existence today are the Social Security System, the phrase New Deal was coined by an adviser to Roosevelt, Stuart Chase. Although the term was used by Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court. From 1929 to 1933 manufacturing output decreased by one third, prices fell by 20%, causing deflation that made repaying debts much harder. Unemployment in the U. S. increased from 4% to 25%, additionally, one-third of all employed persons were downgraded to working part-time on much smaller paychecks. In the aggregate, almost 50% of the nations human work-power was going unused, before the New Deal, there was no insurance on deposits at banks
New Deal
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Top left: The
Tennessee Valley Authority, part of the New Deal, being signed into law in 1933. Top right: President Roosevelt was responsible for initiatives and programs of the New Deal. Bottom: A public mural from one of the artists employed by the Works Progress Administration, part of the New Deal.
New Deal
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USA annual real GDP from 1910 to 1960, with the years of the Great Depression (1929–1939) highlighted.
New Deal
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1935 cartoon by
Vaughn Shoemaker; he parodied the New Deal as a card game with alphabetical agencies.
New Deal
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Roosevelt's ebullient public personality, conveyed through his declaration that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" and his "fireside chats" on the radio did a great deal to help restore the nation's confidence.
28.
Resettlement Administration
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Roosevelt established the RA under Executive Order 7027, as one of the New Deals alphabet agencies, and Tugwell became its first and only head. The new organization had four divisions, Rural Rehabilitation, Rural Resettlement, Land Utilization, however, Tugwells goal of moving 651,000 people from 100,000,000 acres of agriculturally exhausted, worn-out land was unpopular among the majority in Congress. This goal seemed socialistic to some and threatened to deprive influential farm owners of their tenant workforce, the main focus of the RA was to now build relief camps in California for migratory workers, especially refugees from the drought-struck Dust Bowl of the Southwest. This move was resisted by a share of Californians, who did not want destitute migrants to settle in their midst. After facing enormous criticism for his management of the RA. On January 1,1937, with hopes of making the RA more effective, the Weedpatch Camp now on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1936 south of Bakersfield, California, not by the RA but the FSA. The camp inspired John Steinbecks 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, a 1940 film adaptation directed by John Ford, a Tony Award-winning play and an opera. In the face of Congressional criticism, in September 1937 it was folded into a new body, the Farm Security Administration, Farm Security Administration Dust Bowl Meriam, Lewis. Relief and Social Security The Brookings Institution, presented by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center and Mills Music Library Special Collections
Resettlement Administration
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Resettlement Administration poster by
Bernarda Bryson Shahn.
29.
Farm Security Administration
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The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program, 1935–44, that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty. The projects that were combined in 1935 to form the RA started in 1933 as an assortment of programs tried out by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the RA was headed by Rexford Tugwell, an economic advisor to President Roosevelt. However, Tugwells goal moving 650,000 people into 100,000,000 acres of exhausted and this goal seemed socialistic to some and threatened to deprive influential farm owners of their tenant workforce. The main focus of the RA was to now build relief camps in California for migratory workers and this move was resisted by a large share of Californians, who did not want destitute migrants to settle in their midst. After facing enormous criticism for his management of the RA. On January 1,1937, with hopes of making the RA more effective, on July 22,1937, Congress passed the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act. This law authorized a modest credit program to assist tenant farmers to purchase land, following the passage of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act, Congress passed the Farm Security Act into law. The Farm Security Act officially transformed the Resettlement Administration into the Farm Security Administration, the FSA expanded through funds given by the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act. They were not allowed to purchase their farms for fear that they would back into inefficient practices not guided by RA. The Dust Bowl in the Great Plains displaced thousands of tenant farmers, sharecroppers, the FSA operated camps for them, such as Weedpatch Camp as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath. The RA and the FSA gave educational aid to 455,000 farm families during the period 1936-1943, in June,1936, Roosevelt wrote, You are right about the farmers who suffer through their own fault. I wish you would have a talk with Tugwell about what he is doing to educate this type of farmer to become self-sustaining, during the past year his organization has made 104,000 farm families practically self-sustaining by supervision and education along practical lines. That is a pretty good record, the FSAs primary mission was not to aid farm production or prices. Roosevelts agricultural policy had, in fact, been to try to decrease agricultural production in order to increase prices, however, when production was discouraged, the tenant farmers and small holders suffered most by not being able to ship enough to market to pay rents. Many renters wanted money to buy farms, but the Agriculture Department realized there already were too many farmers, instead they used education to help the poor stretch their money further. Congress however demanded that the FSA help tenant farmers purchase farms, and purchase loans of $191 million were made, a much larger program was $778 million in loans to 950,000 tenant farmers. The goal was to make the more efficient so the loans were used for new machinery, trucks, or animals. At all times the borrower was closely advised by a government agent, family needs were on the agenda, as the FSA set up a health insurance program and taught farm wives how to cook and raise children
Farm Security Administration
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Photo by
Walker Evans of Allie Mae Burroughs, a symbol of the
great depression.
Farm Security Administration
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Farm Security Administration logo
Farm Security Administration
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Photo of
sharecropper Floyd Burroughs by Walker Evans.
Farm Security Administration
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Arthur Rothstein picture of a farmer and his two sons during a dust storm in
Cimarron County, 1936.
