Tag search result for: John Shelton Reed

A working definition of the Southeast

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:37:00 -0400

We've arrived at something of a definition of the "Southeast."

Lew Powell argued the term was a Yankee invention, which John Shelton Reed backed up. The Census Bureau was no help, giving us "East South Central" and "South Atlantic" regions that might be useful if they didn't stupidly include Delaware and Maryland.

Census Bureau's southern comforts

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:49:02 -0400

The U.S. Census Bureau does not define the Southeast.

Still, it does define the "East South Central" and "South Atlantic" regions.

The "East South Central" region includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. The "South Atlantic" includes Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C.

Powell's anti-Southeastern essay

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:37:03 -0400

Lew Powell argued in 1985 that the South had vanished.

The culprits come from points North. Where Yankees in blue uniforms failed — in wiping out the South — Yankees in blue Hickey Freemans have now succeeded.

"When I mention the South to these people," says UNCC geographer Al Stuart, "they get a funny little expression on their face. They don't know what I'm talking about. I immediately have to qualify it as the Southeastern United States."

An academic look at 'Southeast'

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:03:10 -0400

Is the "Southeast" a Yankee creation?

In a noted essay in the Charlotte Observer in the early 1980s, editor Lew Powell suggested that the use of the term "Southeastern" was an attempt by Northern transplants to re-identify their new surroundings.

Now retired UNC-Chapel Hill professor John Shelton Reed responded to the article in a piece (under the pseudonym J.R. Vanover) for Southern Partisan magazine that attacked the term as a historical dodge (quoted here):

Professor: Southeast is a concept

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:02:32 -0400

John Shelton Reed says the Southeast is a concept, not a region.

The retired UNC-Chapel Hill sociology professor said that the Southeastern United States is a loosely defined "post-historical region" centered around Atlanta.