Gov. Matt Blunt opened the three-day Southern Growth Conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Union Station yesterday with a presentation on Southern workforce challenges. Blunt is the current chairman of the Southern Growth Policies Board.
That begs the question, “When did Missouri become a Southern state?”
According to the organization’s website, there are 13 state members — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia — plus the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (which is convenient since nearly 50 state legislators are heading there next week on the the state’s dime, but more on that later).
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June 4th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I think it all started when Southern Living magazine wanted to expand their subscription base…
From the current Missouri wiki:
“Missouri is also occasionally and historically considered a Southern state, the institution of slavery in the state contributing in no small part to this. Residents of cities father north and the state’s large metropolitan areas, including those where most of the state’s population resides (Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbia), typically consider themselves Midwestern, while in rural areas and cities farther south (Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff, Springfield, and Sikeston), people typically consider themselves more Southern.”
June 4th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Memo to Poplar Bluff: The Civil War is over. You lost.
June 4th, 2007 at 9:30 am
And to follow on to this, there was the famous Missouri Compromise of 1820.
Let’s see: there also Joel Garreau’s famous book The Nine Nations of North America. Here is a sort of summary by the author. that speaks about North American regions from a cultural point of view rather than one that gives exaggerated importance to political boundaries or even to military outcomes. Southern Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri are all a part of the Nation of Dixie. St. Louis about the northernmost southern city; Garreau makes St. Louis a border town of sorts. Indianapolis similarly qualifies.
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June 4th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
St. Louis might be a southern city when you factor in the might as well be a republican mayor and the reactionary legislators from St. Louis county.
Don’t include jefferson county. Senator McKenna is part of a long tradition of democratic representation, and our public schools educated not only Blunt’s likely challenger—hopefully with strong democratic coattails—but also a man who would have made a hell of a lot better president than George Bush, (or Gore or Kerry, for that matter).
June 4th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
where to start on this one? ok, we can dissect the politics of segregation and whatever it means to be southern. but don’t leave us hanging on the latest in wasteful/buying influence (for Blunt) spending taking place here. were you about to say he’s sending all the members on planes and putting them up in hotels on limited MO-tax dollars? i can understand your patience, that would drive a lot of bloggers up the wall…
June 5th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
what is the story with legislators going to Puerto Rico?
June 7th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Missourians often are ridiculed in other “northern and eastern states” because of the strong southern drawl. The Beverly Hillbillies are supposed to be from Missouri and they certainly are portrayed as southern. We cannot discount the similarity in the “country grammar” of Herrr, therrre, etc and Them therrre hills…
Yes…Missouri is southern and country.