= Poor_White =

======================================================================
= Poor_White =
======================================================================

Introduction
======================================================================
Poor White is a sociocultural classification used to describe
economically disadvantaged Whites in the English-speaking world,
especially White Americans with low incomes.

In the United States, Poor White is the historical classification for
an American sociocultural group, of generally Western and/or Northern
European descent, with many being in the Southern United States and
Appalachia regions. They were first classified as a social caste in
the Antebellum South, consisting of white, agrarian, economically
disadvantaged laborers or squatters, who usually owned neither land
nor slaves.

In the British Commonwealth, the term was historically used to
describe lower-class whites, notably in the context of the "poor white
problem" in South Africa.

Definition
============
Author Wayne Flynt in his book, 'Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's
Poor Whites' (2004), argues that "one difficulty in defining poor
whites stems from the diverse ways in which the phrase has been used.
It has been applied to economic and social classes as well as to
cultural and ethical values." While other regions of the United States
have 'white people who are poor,' this does not have the same meaning
as 'the Poor White' in the South. In context, 'the Poor White' refers
to a distinct sociocultural group, with members who belong to families
with a history of multi-generational poverty and cultural divergence.

Connotation
=============
Throughout American history the Poor Whites have regularly been
referred to by various terms; the majority of which are often
considered disparaging. They have been known as "rednecks" (especially
in modern context), "hillbillies" in Appalachia, "crackers" in Texas,
Georgia, and Florida, "Hoosier" in St. Louis, Missouri, and "white
trash". The use of the term "Poor White" by the white Southern planter
class, was to distance themselves from elements of society they viewed
as "undesirable", "lesser" or "antisocial."

History
=========
Much of the character and condition of Poor Whites is rooted in the
institution of slavery. Rather than provide wealth as it had for the
Southern planter class, in stark contrast, slavery considerably
hindered progress of whites who did not own enslaved individuals by
exerting a crowding-out effect, eliminating free labor in the region.
This effect, compounded by the area's widespread lack of public
education and its general practice of endogamy, prevented low-income
and low-wealth free laborers from moving to the middle class. The
majority of whites in the Deep South who never owned African-American
slaves were poor.

Many fictional depictions in literature used poor whites as foils in
reflecting the positive traits of the protagonist against their
perceived "savage" traits. In her novel 'Dred,' Harriet Beecher Stowe
illustrates a commonly held stereotype that marriage to them results
in genetic degradation and barbarism of the better class.

During the American Civil War, the Poor White comprised a majority of
the combatants in the Confederate Army; afterwards, many labored in
the rural South as sharecroppers. During the nadir of American race
relations at the turn of the 20th century, intense violence, defense
of honor and white supremacy flourished in a region suffering from a
lack of public education and competition for resources. Southern
politicians of the day built on conflict between Poor Whites and
African Americans in a form of political opportunism. As John T.
Campbell summarizes in 'The Broad Ax' in 1906. The Civil War also
caused poor whites to experience intense dire economic conditions and
was brought into poverty along with enslaved African-Americans.

Further evidence of the hostility of the ruling class towards the Poor
White is found in the enactment by several southern states of a poll
tax, which required an annual payment of $1.00 (1), to vote, in some
cases, or at least payment before voting. The poll tax excluded not
only African Americans, but also the many Poor Whites, from voting, as
they lived in a barter economy and were cash poor.

In the early 20th century, the image of the Poor White was a prominent
stereotype in American media. Sherwood Anderson's novel 'Poor White'
(1920) explored how a poor white youth from Missouri tried to adjust
to a middle-class world by moving to the Midwest. The American
eugenics movement encouraged the legalization of forced
sterilizations. In practice, individuals who came from Poor White
backgrounds were often targeted, particularly institutionalized
individuals and fertile women.

The drafting and recruitment of physically fit individuals in the
First World War revealed the first practical comparisons between the
Appalachian region, the South, and the rest of the country. The Poor
Whites were unequal in terms of income, education, and medical
treatment than other White Americans; only African Americans in the
Southern states fared worse.

New Deal rural life programs such as the Resettlement Administration,
the Farm Security Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority
helped create new jobs for the rural poor during the Great Depression,
especially in the South. In the late 1960s under the President Lyndon
B. Johnson administration, the Appalachian Regional Commission was
founded to deal with persistent poverty in the region. The Second
World War led to new economic opportunities; millions of poor farmers
moved to industrial centers for high paying jobs. As the century
progressed, economic and social conditions for the Poor White
continued to improve. However while many social prejudices have since
been lifted, popularized stereotypes surrounding the Poor White
continued.

Traditional
=============
Historically, especially in Appalachia, Poor Whites lived somewhat
removed from mainstream Southern society. At the turn of the 20th
century, Abbott H. Ernest subdivided the Poor White group into the
Appalachian "mountain whites" and those who live in the flatlands
farther east and west. Affluent whites (known in the South as the
Bourbon class) had little interaction with the poor, oftentimes
limited to no more than, "whom he would wonder see staring at him from
the sides of the highway." The physical and geographic isolation
enabled poor whites in Appalachia to develop their own culture.

As was typical in general rural society for generations, the Poor
White continued to make many of their necessities by hand. They sewed
their own garments and constructed houses in the fashion of log cabins
or dogtrots. Traditional clothing was simple: for men, jeans and a
collarless, cuffless unbleached-muslin shirt; and for women, a
straight skirt with a bonnet of the same material. The Poor White
survived by small-scale subsistence agriculture, hunter-gathering,
charity, fishing, bartering with enslaved individuals and seeking what
employment they could find. Some moved to take jobs in cotton mills
and factories, which were originally reserved for whites. Many
slaveowners refused to use enslaved individuals for skilled labor
because doing so would both increase owners' dependence on specific
enslaved peoples, and increase the likelihood that those enslaved
would run away in pursuit of self-employment elsewhere.

Contemporary
==============
A broad characterization of the culture, of the descendants of the
Poor Whites, includes such elements as strong kinship ties,
non-hierarchical religious affiliations, emphasis on manual labor,
connection to rural living and nature, and inclination toward
self-reliance. In addition, individuals from backgrounds historically
rooted among the Poor Whites still carry much of the culture and often
continue many of the practices of their forefathers. Hunting and
fishing, while practiced by their ancestors as a method of survival,
is now seen as a means of recreation. Variations on folk music,
particularly Country, still have strong resonance among their
descendants. Traditional country music still uses the banjo, dulcimer
and fiddle.

19.5 million white Americans have lived below the poverty line in the
year 2022. White men without college degrees had their earnings
decrease between the years 1970 and 2017. This has led to liver
disease, drug overdoses and suicides among white males in the United
states.

South Africa
======================================================================
South Africa's Apartheid system created a massive racial wealth gap
and widespread poverty among Black South Africans. This inequality
continues to this day, with White South Africans still controlling the
majority of the country's wealth. Post-Apartheid ANC governments have
instituted affirmative action policies to provide greater
opportunities for Blacks, but this has had the side-effect of forcing
some working-class whites out of employment, creating a small,
impoverished and often homeless white underclass.

See also
======================================================================
*Country (identity)
*Cracker (term)
*Culture of the Southern United States
*Hillbilly
*Peckerwood
*Plain Folk of the Old South
*Poor Whites in South Africa
*Redleg
*Redneck
*Social and economic stratification in Appalachia
*White trash
*Yokel
*Poverty in the United States

References
======================================================================
Notes

Further reading
======================================================================
* Bolton, Charles C. 'Poor Whites of the Antebellum South: Tenants and
Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast Mississippi' (Duke
University Press, 1993).
* Boney, F. Nash. 'Southerners All' (2nd ed. 1990).
* Canning, Charlotte, et al. "White trash fetish: representations of
poor white southern women and constructions of class, gender, race and
region, 1920-1941." (PhD Dissertation, U Texas, 2005).
[https://web.archive.org/web/20160303184759/https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2005/hesterj60419/hesterj60419.pdf
online], with bibliography pp 225-36
* Carr, Duane. 'A question of class: The redneck stereotype in
southern fiction' (1996).
* Cook, Sylvia Jenkins. 'From Tobacco Road to Route 66: The Southern
Poor White in Fiction' (University of North Carolina Press, 1976)
* Flynt, J. Wayne. 'Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites'
(Indiana UP, 2004).
* Forret, Jeff. 'Race Relations at the Margins: Slaves and Poor Whites
in the Antebellum Southern Countryside' (LSU Press, 2006).
* Glossner, Jeffrey. "Poor Whites in the Antebellum U.S. South
(Topical Guide)," H-Slavery, July 2019
[https://networks.h-net.org/node/11465/pages/4372893/poor-whites-antebellum-us-south-topical-guide
online]
* Harkins, Anthony. 'Hillbilly: A cultural history of an American
icon' (Oxford University Press, 2003).
* Huber, Patrick. "A Short History of Redneck: The Fashioning of a
Southern White Masculine Identity," 'Southern Cultures' 1#2 (1995)
[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/425942 online]
* Jones, Jacqueline. "Encounters, likely and Unlikely between Black
and Poor White Women in the Rural South, 1865-1940." 'Georgia
Historical Quarterly' vol. 76 pp 333-353.
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/40582539 online]

* Kirby, Jack Temple. 'Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American
Imagination' (Louisiana State UP, 1978)
* McIlwaine, Shields. 'The Southern Poor-White: From Lubberland to
Tobacco Road' (1939)
[http://agris.fao.org/agris-search/search.do?recordID=US201300721388
online]
* Mell, R. Mildred. "Poor Whites of the South" 'Social Forces' (1938),
vol.17 pp 153-167 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2570919 online]
* Reed, John Shelton. 'Southern Folks, Plain & Fancy: Native White
Social Types' (U of Georgia Press, 1986), pp 34-47

* Roach, Jack L. “The Effects of Race and Socio-Economic Status on
Family Planning.” 'Journal of Health and Social Behavior', vol. 8, no.
1, 1967, pp. 40-45. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2948490 online]

* Wray, Matt. 'Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of
Whiteness' (2006)
[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Not_Quite_White/cEVeQhqJM5gC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=intitle:white+inauthor:Wray&printsec=frontcover
online]
** Wray, Matthew Taylor. "Not quite white: Poor rural whites in the
Southern United States, 1877-1927" (PhD dissertation, University of
California, Berkeley|ProQuest Dissertations & Theses,
2000. 9979864).

License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_White