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U.S. Southern States

U.S. Southern States

The Southern United States or the South constitute a distinctive region covering a large portion of the United States. Due to the region's unique cultural and historic heritage, the South has developed its own customs, literature, musical styles (such as country music and jazz), and cuisine. The South has also been prominently involved in numerous issues faced by the United States as a whole, including the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, slavery, the American Civil War, and Presidential politics (with the majority of the recent Presidents of the United States having come from the region).

The U.S. South
300px The Southern United States Red states show the core of the American South. States shown as pink may or may not be included in the South, with their inclusion or exclusion varying from source to source.
Population:	99,664,761
Total area:	1,481,438 sq/mi, 2,384,143 km²
Largest City (proper):	Houston, Texas 2,009,834
Highest elevation:	Guadalupe Peak 8,750 ft, 2,667 m
Lowest elevation:	New Orleans -8 ft, -2.5 m
Largest state:	Texas 696,241 km²
Smallest state:	Delaware 6,452 km²
Census Bureau Divisions	- East South Central - South Atlantic - West South Central

Geography

As defined by the Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes 16 states, and is split into three smaller units, or divisions: The South Atlantic States, which are Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia (plus the District of Columbia); the East South Central States of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee; and the West South Central States of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. However, not all definitions of the South are based on geographic divisions, with culture and history also playing a large role in defining what is the South. For example, the Deep South is a cultural and geographic subregion of the American South which consists of the South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana (six of the seven original states of the Confederate States of America, the seventh state being Texas). Many Southerners do not consider Kentucky and West Virginia as southern states since they were not part of the Confederacy; though most residents of the two states (excepting the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia and Northern Kentucky bordering Cincinnati) self-identify themselves so. In contrast, the portions of Illinois and Indiana south of Interstate 70 exhibit strong Southern cultural characteristics, as well as large areas of Missouri. The Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas as well as South Florida have retained very little Southern cultural identity over the past century. Historically, the South can also refer to the Old South, which are the Southern States represented in the original thirteen American colonies. The Old South includes South Carolina, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and often Georgia. The Deep South and the Old South used to be known colloquially as Dixie (and is still referred to nostalgically as such). Despite these definitional differences, when most people today refer to the South they mean to the region as designated by the U.S. Census. This region currently contains a number of the twenty-five largest metropolitan areas in the United States. In order of size they are: Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, Washington, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Tampa/St. Petersburg. The Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area would be the largest metropolitan area in the South, but is no longer officially recognized by the census burearu—although it is still in popular use. If Missouri is considered to be part of the South, St. Louis' metro would also be included. While not one of the largest metro areas in the South, San Antonio is notable for being one of only three cities in the South with a city proper population of over a million, the others being Dallas and Houston. The South is a vast region, having numerous climatic zones ranging from temperate, to sub-tropical, to tropical, to arid. Many crops grow easily in its soils and can be grown without frost for at least six months of the year. Some parts of the South, particularly the Southeast, have landscape characterized by the presence of live oaks, magnolia trees, jessamine vines, and flowering dogwoods. Another common environment is the bayous and swampland of the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana, which looms large in American film history. The South is famously a victim of kudzu, a fast-growing vine which covers large amounts of land.

History

While Southern history stretches back to prehistoric times, the unique culture of the South primarily has its origins with the settlement of the region by British colonists in the early 17th century. Many of the immigrants who moved to the South were of European Celtic origins; according to an 1860 census, "three-quarters of white Southerners had surnames that were Scottish, Irish or Welsh in origin." [http://www.americasvoices.org/archives2003/AdamsJ/AdamsJ_061403.htm] These people mixed culturally with the Native Americans who were already in the region (such as the Creek Indians and Cherokees) and with the Africans who were brought in as slaves to support the region's agriculture. Early in its history, the South's economy became focused nearly exclusively on agriculture, with tobacco being the first big cash crop, followed by cotton from the 1790s onward. Because of the large amount of labor required to cultivate cotton, the South saw a surge in the enslavement of Africans and their descendants. Slavery did not only exist in the South - during the 18th century New York City ranked second out of the original American colonies for total number of slaves (Charleston, South Carolina being first [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/protest_reform/slave_island_03.shtml]). However, the explosion of cotton cultivation [http://home.earthlink.net/~gfeldmeth/lec.slavery.html] made this so-called "peculiar institution" of slavery an integral part of the South's early 19th century economy. Due to the South's powerful agricultural success, the region became integral to the political history of the United States, with the South supplying many of the United States' early military and political leaders (including nine of its first twelve presidents). However, by the middle of the 19th century sectional differences surrounding the issues of slavery, taxation, tariffs, and states' rights led to the secession of most of the Southern states after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The Southern states that seceded formed the Confederate States of America with Richmond as its capital. During the four year Civil War which followed, the South found itself as the primary battleground, with almost all of the main battles taking place on Southern soil. Because of this fact, many white Southerners fought in the Confederate army for what they saw as a defense of their homeland from an invading army. Though it is often unrecognized, Black Southerners also served in the Confederate army. Blacks were not subject to the draft until just before the war's end; drafted Blacks never actually served in combat. However, earlier in the war Blacks entered Confederate units in three different ways. First, Black slaves sometimes accompanied their masters into service (these Blacks may have officially been listed as servants rather than soldiers). Second, some free Blacks enlisted individually. Some states, such as Tennessee, officially permitted this. In other states, it was unofficially allowed. Finally, some Black Southerners joined all-Black or predominately-Black army or militia units. (Morett, 2005). The Confederates were eventually defeated by the Union. While casualties for the Union were higher than for the Confederates, as a proportion of their respective populations the South suffered much more than the North did. Overall, the Confederates had 95,000 killed in action and 165,000 who died of other causes, for a total of 260,000 total Confederate dead and/or missing[http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wars19c.htm#ACW], out of a total Southern population at the time of around 9 million (of which 3.5 million were slaves).[http://www.vectorsite.net/twcw02.html] After the Civil War, the South found itself devastated, both in terms of its population, infrastructure, and economy. The South also found itself under Reconstruction, with Union military troops in direct political control of the South. Many white Southerners who had actively supported the Confederacy found themselves without many of the basic rights of citizenship (such as the ability to vote) while, with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (which outlawed slavery), the 14th Amendment (which granted full U.S. citizenship to African Americans) and the 15th amendment (which extended the right to vote to black males), African Americans in the South began to enjoy more rights than they had ever had in the region. By the 1890s, though, a political backlash against these rights had developed in the South. Organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, a clandestine organization sworn to perpetuate white supremacy, used lynchings, cross burnings and other forms of violence and intimidation to keep African Americans from exercising their political rights, while the Jim Crow laws were created to legally do the same thing. It would not be until the late 1960s that these changes would be undone by the American Civil Rights Movement. (For more on racial issues in the South, see the Race relations section below.) It is worth noting, though, that not only African Americans suffered in the South after the Civil War. With the region devastated by its loss and the destruction of its civil infrastructure, much of the South was generally unable to recover economically until World War II (1939 - 1945). The South was noted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the "number one priority" in terms of need of assistance during the Great Depression (1929-1939), the lack of capital investment also contributed to its economic hardship. References Morett, C.W. (2005). Black Soldiers in Grey. United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) Magazine. November, 2005; p.14.

Politics

In the century after the American Civil War and Reconstruction, Southerners often identified with the then-conservative Democratic Party. This lock on power was so strong the region was politically called the Solid South. In the last thirty-five years this has changed because of Democratic Party's support for the civil rights movement and the conservative realignment of the Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan presidencies in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, the Republican Party has benefited from Southern support, in large measure due to the evangelical Christian vote. Although the South as a whole defies stereotyping, it is nonetheless known for entrenched conservatism. Support for such conservative causes is often found in the South, including resistance to same-sex marriage and abortion while in the past there was major resistance to feminism, desegregation, the abolition of slavery and interracial marriage. Constitutional bans prohibiting the recognition of marriages between persons of different races persisted until the 1990s and 2000s (although they generally have not been enforced since the 1970s). The last state to do so was Alabama in 2000, with 41% of voters wanting to keep it in place. See Interracial marriage bans in the southern United States

Presidential history

The South has long been a center of political power in the United States, especially with regards to Presidential elections. During the history of the United States, the South has supplied between sixteen and eighteen of the country's forty-three presidents. This difference in counts depends on whether people consider George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush as Southern. While both were not born in the South, they lived most of their lives in Texas and received their political starts there. A similar argument could be given for Abraham Lincoln, who was born in Kentucky but started his political career in Illinois. Most of the recent Presidents of the United States—Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush—have either come from the region or, like George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, spent most of their lives there. This fact is a result of the renewed political power of the South and the unique nature of the Electoral College, both of which make it difficult for a Presidential contender to win the White House without carrying part of the South.

Other politicians and political movements

In addition to Presidents, the South has also produced numerous other well-known politicians and political movements. Infor President on the American Independent Party ticket. Wallace ran a "law and order" campaign similar to that of Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. While Nixon won, Wallace won a number of Southern states. This inspired Nixon and other Republican leaders to create the Southern Strategy of winning Presidential elections. This strategy focused on securing the electoral votes of the U.S. Southern states by having candidates promote culturally conservative values, such as family issues, religion, and patriotism, which appealed strongly to Southern voters. In 1994, another Southern politician, Newt Gingrich, ushered in a political revolution with his Contract with America. Gingrich, then the Minority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives, created the document to detail what the Republican Party would do if they won the that year's United States Congressional election. The contract mainly dealt with issues of governmental reform (such as requiring all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress). Almost all Republican candidates in the election signed the contract and for the first time in 40 years the Republicans took control of the U.S. Congress. Gingrich became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving in that position from 1995 to 1999. A number of current Congressional leaders are also from the South, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.

Culture

Southern culture has been and remains generally more socially conservative than that of the north. Due to the central role of agriculture in the antebellum economy, society remained stratified according to land ownership. Rural communities developed strong attachment to their churches as the primary community institution.

Religion

The South, perhaps more so than any other industrial culture in the world, is highly religious, resulting in the reference to regions of the South as the "Bible Belt", from its prevalence of evangelical or fundamentalist Protestantism. The region is often stereotyped as being somewhat intolerant to other religious faiths or the non-religious. Southern churches evangelize more than churches in other regions, which many non-Protestants consider hostile, but few southerners question the actual freedom of worship or non-worship. Cities such as Atlanta and Houston have significant Jewish and Islamic communities. In addition, there are significant Catholic populations in most cities in the South—with larger concentrations in cities such as New Orleans—and immigrants from Southeast Asia and South Asia have brought Buddhism and Hinduism to the region as well.

Southern Dialect

Southern American English is a dialect of the English language spoken throughout the South. Southern American English can be divided into different sub-dialects (see American English), with speech differing between, for example, the Appalachian region and the coastal area around Charleston, South Carolina. The South Midlands dialect was influenced by the migration of Southern dialect speakers into the American West. The dialect spoken to various degrees by many African Americans, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), shares many similarities with Southern dialect, unsurprising given that group's strong historical ties to the region. The Southern American English dialect is often stigmatized, as are other American English dialects such as New York-New Jersey English. However, in recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the Southern dialect.

Cuisine

As an important feature of Southern culture, the cuisine of the South is often described as one of its most distinctive traits. The variety of cuisines range from Tex-Mex cuisine, Cajun and Creole, traditional antebellum fare, all types of seafood, and Texas, Carolina & Memphis styles of Barbecue. Non-alcoholic beverages of choice include "sweet tea," and various soft drinks, many of which had their origins in the South (e.g. Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, and Dr Pepper. In many parts of Georgia and Alabama, and other parts of the South, the term "soft drink" is discarded in favor of "Coke"). Lagers and Pilsners are generally preferred to heavier/darker beers due to the predominance of hot climate. Texas is also the center of a burgeoning wine boom, due to its climate and well drained limestone based soils, particularly in the Texas Hill Country. Traditional African-American Southern food is often called "soul food"; in reality there is little difference between the traditional diet of Southerners and the diet in other regions of the U.S. Of course, most Southern cities and even some smaller towns now offer a wide variety of cuisines of other origins such as Chinese, Italian, French, Middle Eastern, as well as restaurants still serving primarily Southern specialties, so-called "home cooking" establishments.

Literature

The South has a strong literary history. Characteristics of southern literature including a focus on a common southern history, the significance of family, a sense of community and one’s role within it, the community's dominating religion and the burden religion often brings, issues of racial tension, land and the promise it brings, and the use of southern dialect. Perhaps the most famous southern writer is William Faulkner, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. Faulkner brought new techniques such as stream of consciousness and complex narrative techniques to American writings (such as in his novel As I Lay Dying). Other well-known Southern writers include Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, James Dickey, and Walker Percy. One of the most famous southern novels of the 20th century, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, won the Pulitzer Prize when it was published in 1960.

Music

The South is by far the richest area of music in the United States. The musical heritage of the South was developed by both whites and blacks, both influencing each other directly and indirectly. The South's musical history actually starts before the Civil War, with the songs of the African slaves and the highlands folk music brought from Europe. Blues was developed in the rural South by Blacks at the beginning of the 20th century. In addition, gospel music, spirituals, country music, rhythm and blues, soul music, bluegrass, jazz, and Appalachian folk music all were either born in the South or developed in the region. Rock n' roll began in the south as well. Early rock n' roll musicians from the south include Johnny Cash (Arkansas), Buddy Holly (Texas), Bo Diddley (Mississippi), Ray Charles (Georgia), Carl Perkins (Tennessee), Elvis Presley (born in Mississippi, alhough lived in Memphis, Tennessee during his career), and Jerry Lee Lewis (Louisiana) among others. Chuck Berry, the most important early rock n' roll figure along with Elvis, is from St. Louis, Missouri, a state that is sometimes considered Southern, and a city with an undeniable Southern influence, largely due to its large African American population and location on the Mississippi River. Many who got their start in show business in the South eventually banked on mainstream success as well: Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton are two such examples. Recently, the spread of rap music (which is arguably the only major American music not started in the South) has lead to the rise of the sub-genre Dirty South, among others.

Sports

The South is known for its love of football. While the South has had a number of Super Bowl winning National Football League teams (such as the Dallas Cowboys, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Washington Redskins and Baltimore Ravens), the region is noted for the intensity with which people follow high school and college football teams -- especially the Southeastern Conference and in Texas where high school football, especially in smaller communities, is elevated to near-religion status. Baseball is also very popular in the South, with Major League Baseball teams like the Atlanta Braves and Florida Marlins being recent World Series victors. Minor league baseball is also closely followed in the South (with the South being home to more minor league teams than any other region of the United States). The South is also the birthplace of NASCAR auto racing. Other popular sports in the South include golf (which can be played year-round because of the South's mild climate) and fishing. Ironically, the hot-weather Tampa Bay Lightning are the defending National Hockey League champions. Atlanta was the host of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

Film

The South has contributed to some of the most-loved and financially successful movies of all time, including Gone with the Wind (1939) and Smokey and the Bandit (1977). The Dukes of Hazzard remains a very popular television show nearly thirty years after its inception. All were filmed in Georgia with other places in the South also featured prominently.

Cultural Variations

There continues to be debate about what constitutes the basics elements of Southern culture.[http://www.storysouth.com/summer2002/wheresouth.html] This debate is influenced, in part, by the fact that the South is such a large region. As a result, there are a number of cultural variations on display in the region. Among the variations found in Southern culture are:
- Areas having an influx of outsiders may be less likely to hold onto a distinctly Southern identity and cultural influences. For this reason, urban areas during the Civil War were less likely to favor secession than agricultural areas. Today, due in part to continuing population migration patterns between urban areas in the North and South, even historically "Southern" cities like Atlanta, Richmond, and Charleston, have assimilated regional identities distinct from a "Southern" one.
- In many ways Texas has one foot in the South, and one in the Southwest, though most Texans would probably claim that both feet are planted firmly in their own boots. Its major cities have a very culturally diverse population, including Hispanic and Asian Americans. Many Americans from other parts of the U.S. have also moved to the state in the last four decades. Generally, east Texas maintains a southern influence, while the rest of the state tends to be influenced by the southwest. In terms of regional identity, however, a vast majority of residents would identify themselves as Texans rather than Southerners or Westerners.
- Also, prior to its statehood in 1907, the eastern part of Oklahoma was "Indian Territory." The majority of the Native American tribes in Indian Territory sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Similar to Texas in that it has a Southwestern influence, Oklahoma holds strong ties to Southern culture, evidenced by dialect, religion, politics, cuisine, etc. It is geographically often grouped with the Midwest, but culturally is truly more Southern, especially in the eastern part of the state.
- Southern Louisiana, having been colonized by France and Spain rather than Great Britain, has different cultural traditions, especially within the Cajun, Creole, Latin American and Caribbean influenced culture of southern Louisiana. Importantly, the Gulf Coast regions of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and northern Florida also share a similar French/Spanish colonial history, but lack the heavy concentration of French influences present in Louisiana.
- Florida has had rapid population growth due to retirees from the North and immigrants from Latin America. Miami, Florida has become more a part of the culture of the Caribbean, with a large influx of immigrants from Cuba, and also Brazil, Haiti and other parts of Latin America. Orlando has also been a magnet to Hispanics, owning large Puerto Rican and Dominican communities. Often, non-Hispanic whites and native-born African Americans have migrated north from Miami to find higher wages, lower costs of living, and cultures where they feel more comfortable. While southern and central Florida are seen by many as not truly part of the South in terms of culture, the Florida Panhandle, northeastern areas, North Central Florida, and the Nature Coast of Florida remain culturally tied to the South. An unofficial "Southern line" can be drawn at or just south of Tampa, Florida on the state's west coast and stretching through Lakeland, Florida over to Melbourne, Florida on the state's east coast; below this line, the culture of the areas can be described as much more "Northern." (but not completely; in virtually any part of the state outside of the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metroplex, southern accents can still be heard and the culture can still be described as more "Southern" than any region of the U.S. not in the "Deep South").
- While West Virginia is often defined as a southern state, its peculiar geographic shape means that the northernmost tip is at about the same latitude as central New Jersey. This has caused the northernmost part of the state, which is about an hour's drive from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to increasingly become an exurb of the city, resulting in a less "Southern" culture. The easternmost tip of the state is close enough to Baltimore and Washington, DC that it too has started to become an exurb of these areas with a unique North-South "hybrid" culture (in fact, the two easternmost counties, Berkeley and Jefferson, are considered part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area by the Census Bureau). A visitor to Huntington, near the state's boundary with Ohio and Kentucky, would likely identify the area as part of the Rust Belt. Also, West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the Civil War and remained loyal to the Union; thus, purists do not consider West Virginia to be part of the South.
- Many do not consider Maryland and Delaware to be culturally Southern states, despite those lands being largely colonised by the relatively same people in Virginia; their cultural designation is disputed due to their proximity to both North and South. Those who view them as Southern cite the fact that although neither state joined the Confederacy, slavery remained legal in them until ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, and that the Mason-Dixon line, long considered to be the border between North and South, is in fact the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. Today, they are sometimes grouped with Southern states for corporate and governmental administrative regions. However, Baltimore, Maryland, Wilmington, Delaware, and Newark, Delaware are located within the BosWash megalopolis, which further separates them from the South, and ties them to a culture that has little in common with Southern culture. Most of the northern third of Delaware consists of bedroom communities to Philadelphia and Wilmington, which are definitely not Southern cities culturally. In addition, they are much more liberal than any other region in the defined South, sharing political trends with the Northeastern states (for example, both states voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992).
- The District of Columbia itself is almost never considered to be culturally Southern. By definition as the seat of the Union's government it could not be part of the Confederate States of America, though strictly-speaking it was part of the South (which in itself produced pressure for Maryland to remain with the Union, thus preventing the U.S. Capitol from being completely surrounded by Confederate territory). Politically, its populace is more liberal than any U.S. state and even any major U.S. city except perhaps San Francisco. Nonetheless, it has some Southern characteristics, including a muggy heat in the summer and neo-classical Federalist architecture reminiscent of Southern plantations (many of the Founding Fathers were Virginia planters). John F. Kennedy once famously described D.C. as a city of "Northern charm and Southern efficiency."
- Northern Virginia has been largely settled by Northerners attracted to job opportunities resulting from expansion of the federal government during and after World War II. Still more expansion resulted from the Internet boom around the turn of the 21st century. Economically linked to Washington, D.C., residents of the region tend to consider its culture more Northern, as do Southerners (although most Northerners consider them Southern) mainly due to its proximity to Washington D.C. However, it remains politically somewhat more conservative, as opposed to Washington's suburbs across the Potomac River in Maryland, which are generally politically quite liberal.
- The most recent shift in "Southern" cultural influence and demographics has occurred in North Carolina. As recently as the mid-1980s, this was a very entrenched "Southern" state culturally and demographically (for example, the prominence of extremely conservative politicians such as former Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC). However, many newcomers have transformed the landscape since then. Surprisingly many are from the Northeast and especially from the New York metropolitan area. Three regions have seen the bulk of this migration: the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham areas due to economic growth (banking/finance in Charlotte's case, high-tech in Raleigh-Durham's); and the Asheville area/western North Carolina by retirees who a generation ago might have moved to Florida but prefer the climatic balance produced by the combination of a relatively high elevation and a southerly latitude. The most extreme example of this is found in Cary, North Carolina, a suburb in the Raleigh-Durham area that has exploded in population since 1980 almost exclusively with Northern transplants to the region. Politically the state is still conservative (the 2004 presidential election was easily won by George W. Bush, though early exit polling had the race much closer than initially expected), but in the Raleigh-Durham area and to a lesser extent the Charlotte area, "Southern" accents are becoming less common; and urban areas in central North Carolina (like Raleigh-Durham and the Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point "Piedmont Triad" area) have experienced the fastest rise in Latino and Asian American population of any part of the Southeast during recent years. To a much lesser degree, the same effect is occurring in the Atlanta metropolitan area.
- Southern Illinois, notably (Little Egypt and Buda), is more Southern than it is Midwestern. It forms a coherent cultural region with the Missouri Bootheel, northeast Arkansas, Kentucky's Purchase, and West Tennessee.

Race relations

African Americans have a long history in the South, stretching back to the first settlements in the region. While some Blacks came to the South on their own and lived as free people, most were brought to work as agricultural slaves (for more information, see History of slavery in the United States). Slavery ended with the South's defeat in the American Civil War. During the Reconstruction period that followed, African Americans saw major advancements in the civil rights and politcal power in the South. However, as Reconstruction ended, Southern states moved to prevent black people from voting. Since most blacks still worked for whites, this could usually be done by threatening economic coercion. In addition, organized militias like the first Ku Klux Klan also threatened black voters with violence. (Current, pp. 457-458) As Senator Ben Tillman of South Carolina proudly proclaimed in 1900, "We have done our level best [to prevent blacks from voting]...we have scratched our heads to find out how we could eliminate the last one of them. We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it." (Logan, p. 91) With no voting rights and no voice in government, blacks were subjected to what was known as the Jim Crow laws, a brutal system of segregation and discrimination. Blacks could not go to the same schools as whites; they could not eat in the same restaurants, travel on the same train cars, live in the same neighborhoods, shop in the same stores. Nor could they serve on juries, which meant that they had little if any legal recourse. During the first half of the 20th century, Southern Whites could beat, rob, or murder Blacks at will for minor infractions (Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me, pp. 160-165). In Black Boy, an autobiographical account of life during this time, Richard Wright writes about being struck with a bottle and knocked from a moving truck for failing to call a white man "sir" (Wright, Chapter Nine). Between 1889 and 1922, the NAACP calculates that lynchings reached their worst level in history, with almost 3,500 people, almost all of them black men, murdered.http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/estes_i.html In response to this treatment, the South witnessed two major events in the lives of 20th century African Americans: the Great Migration and the American Civil Rights Movement. The Great Migration began during World War I, hitting its high point during World War II. During this migration, Black people left the racism and lack of opportunities in the South and settled in northern cities like Chicago, where they found work in factories and other sectors of the economy. (Katzman, 1996) This migration produced a new sense of independence in the Black community and contributed to the vibrant Black urban culture seen during the Harlem Renaissance. The migration also empowered the growing American Civil Rights Movement. While the Civil Rights movement existed in all parts of the United States, its focus was against the Jim Crow laws in the South. Most of the major events in the movement occurred in the South, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the March on Selma, Alabama, and the assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr.. In addition, some of the most important writings to come out of the movement were written in the South, such as King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail". As a result of the Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow laws across the South were dropped. Today, while some people believe race relations in the South to still be a contested issue, many others now believe the region leads the country in working to end racial strife. It cannot be ignored that the south has a significantly larger black population than any other region of the country. As proof of this, some people cite the fact that a second Great Migration appears to be underway, with African Americans whose parents left the South two generations ago moving back to the region in record numbers. Other examples of the improving racial situation in the South are the successful 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia and the fact that there have been few race riots in the South since the 1960s (whereas there have been a number in both the Northern United States and the Western United States, the most recent examples of which were the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 2001 Cincinnati riots).

Symbolism of the South

The "Rebel Flag" of the Confederacy has become a highly contentious image throughout the USA. Although it and other reminders of the Old South can sometimes be found on automobile bumper stickers, on tee shirts, and flown from homes, restrictions (notably on public buildings) have been imposed as a result of numerous legal cases. Groups including the League of the South continue to promote secession from the United States, citing a desire to protect and defend the heritage of the South. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) - a civil rights group - has added the League of the South to its list of watched hate groups. It is worth noting that most people in the South do not believe in either of these extremes. They instead value their heritage while also recognizing the need to continue improving race relations while also embracing the changing nature of the South.

Today's South: "The New South"

In the last two generations, the South has changed dramatically. After two centuries in which the region's main economic engine was agriculture, the South has in recent decades seen a boom in its service economy, manufacturing base, and high technology industries. Examples of this include the surge in tourism in Florida and along the Gulf Coast, numerous new automobile production plants in places like Alabama and a BMW production plant in Spartanburg, SC, and the creation of computer programming and communications companies (such as the Cable News Network, which is based in Atlanta). This economic expansion has enabled parts of the South to boast some of the lowest unemployment rates in the United States.[http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/050819/jobless.shtml]

GDP

3.53 trillion USD

External links

- [http://docsouth.unc.edu/index.html DocSouth: Documenting the American South] - numerous online text, image, and audio collections.
- http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/spr97/south.html
- http://www.columbia.edu/~hah15/H_2004_Poetics.pdf

References

- Richard N. Current, et. al, American History: A Survey, 7th ed., New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
- David M. Katzman, "Black Migration," in The Reader's Companion to American History, Houghton Mifflin Co. (accessed July 6, 2005); James Grossman, "Chicago and the 'Great Migration'," Illinois History Te

Region

Region can be used to mean either:
- any more or less well-defined geographical area of a country or continent, defined by geography, culture or history
- in political geography, an administrative subdivision of a country or of the European Union. It is a common English translation of the Russian and Ukrainian administrative subdivision область (oblast) It is worth noting that regions are found in the minds of humans and so regions can be of any size and that each region is unique in its own way. The term also has a more specific use in relation to DVDs; see also regional lockout. For the place-name Region in the works of JRR Tolkien, see Region (Middle-earth).

Administrative regions

The word "region" is taken from the Latin regio, and a number of countries have borrowed the term as the formal name for a type of subnational entity (eg, the región, used in Chile). In English, the word is also used as the conventional translation for equivalent terms in other languages (eg, the область (oblast), used in Russia alongside with a broader term регион).
Countries using administrative regions
The following countries use the term "region" (or its cognate) as the name of a type of subnational entity:
- Belgium (in French, région; in German, Region; the term gewest is used in Dutch)
- Chile (región)
- Congo (région)
- Côte d'Ivoire (région)
- Denmark (effective from 2007)
- France (région)
- Ghana
- Hungary (régió)
- Italy (regione)
- Mali (région)
- Namibia
- New Zealand
- Peru (región)
- Tanzania
- Togo (région) The Canadian province of Québec also uses the "administrative region" (région administrative). Prior to 1996, Scotland was also divided into regions. The government of the Philippines uses the region (in Filipino, rehiyon) when it's necessary to group provinces, the primary administrative subdivision of the country. this is also the case in Brazil which groups its primary administrative divisions (estados; "states") into grandes regiões (≈"greater regions") for statistical purposes, while Russia uses экономические районы ("economic regions") in a similar way. The government of Singapore makes use of regions for its own administrative purposes. Similarly, the British government also makes limited use of regions for England. The following countries use an administrative subdivision conventionally referred to as a region in English:
- Russia, which uses the область (oblast).
- Ukraine, which uses the область (oblast). China has five 自治区 (zìzhìqū) and two 特別行政區 (or 特别行政区; tèbiéxíngzhèngqū) which are conventionally translated as "autonomous region" and "special administrative region", respectively.
Geographical regions
A region can also be used for a geographical area; with this usage, there is an implied distinctiveness about the area that defines it. Such a distinction is often made on the basis of a historical, political, or cultural cohesiveness that separates the region from its neighbours. Geographical regions can be found within a country (eg, the Midlands, in England), or transnationally (eg, the Middle-East).
Examples of geographical regions

- Geographical regions in Serbia and Montenegro
- Historical regions of Central Europe
- Historical regions of the Balkan Peninsula
- List of regions in Australia
- List of regions of Canada
- List of regions of the United States
- List of traditional regions of Slovakia
- Regions of Japan
See also

- Autonomous region
- Committee of the Regions
- Euroregion
- Latin names of regions
- Regional district
- Regional municipality Category:Regions ja:地方

Country music

Country music, also called country and western music or country-western, is an amalgam of popular musical forms developed in the Southern United States, with roots in traditional folk music, Celtic Music, Blues, Gospel music, and Old-time music. However, country music is actually a catch-all category that embraces several different genres of music: Nashville sound (the pop-like music very popular in the 1960s); bluegrass, a fast mandolin, banjo and fiddle-based music popularized by Bill Monroe and by the Foggy Mountain Boys; Western which encompasses traditional Western ballads and Hollywood Cowboy Music, Western swing, a sophisticated dance music popularized by Bob Wills; Bakersfield sound (popularized by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard); Outlaw country; Cajun; Zydeco; gospel; oldtime (generally pre-1930 folk music); honky tonk; Appalachian; rockabilly; neotraditional country and jug band. Each style is unique in its execution, its use of rhythms, and its chord structures, though many songs have been adapted to the different country styles. One example is the tune Milk Cow Blues, an early blues tune by Kokomo Arnold that has been performed in a wide variety of country styles by everyone from Aerosmith to Bob Wills to Willie Nelson, George Strait to Ricky Nelson and Elvis Presley. Vernon Dalhart was the first country singer to have a nationwide hit (May 1924, with "The Wreck of Old '97") (see External Links below). Other important early recording artists were Riley Puckett, Don Richardson, Fiddling John Carson, Ernest Stoneman, Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, and The Skillet Lickers. Some trace the origins of modern country music to two seminal influences and a remarkable coincidence. Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family are widely considered to be the founders of country music, and their songs were first captured at an historic recording session in Bristol, Tennessee on August 1, 1927, where Ralph Peer was the talent scout and sound recordist. It is possible to categorize many country singers as being either from the Jimmie Rodgers strand or the Carter Family strand of country music.

Jimmie Rodgers' influence

Jimmie Rodgers' gift to country music was country folk. Building on the traditional ballads and musical influences of the South, Jimmie wrote and sang songs that ordinary people could relate to. He took the experiences of his own life in the Meridian, Mississippi, area and those of the people he met on the railroad, in bars and on the streets to create his lyrics. He used the musical influences of the traditional ballads and the folk to create his tunes. A annual festival has been held in Meridian for over 30 years. Pathos, humor, women, whiskey, murder, death, disease and destitution are all present in his lyrics and these themes have been carried forward and developed by his followers. People like Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Townes van Zandt, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash have also suffered, and shared their suffering, bringing added dimensions to those themes. It would be fair to say that Jimmie Rodgers sang about life and death from a male perspective, and this viewpoint has dominated some areas of country music. It would also be fair to credit his influence for the development of honky tonk, rockabilly and the Bakersfield sound.

Hank Williams

Jimmie Rodgers is a major foundation stone in the structure of country music, but the most influential artist from the Jimmie Rodgers strand is undoubtedly Hank Williams, Sr. In his short career (he was only 29 when he died), he dominated the country scene and his songs have been covered by practically every other country artist, male and female. Some have even included him in their compositions (for example, Waylon Jennings and Alan Jackson). Hank had two personas: as Hank Williams he was a singer-songwriter and entertainer; as "Luke the Drifter", he was a songwriting crusader. The complexity of his character was reflected in the introspective songs he wrote about heartbreak, happiness and love (e.g., "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"), and the more upbeat numbers about Cajun food ("Jambalaya") or barbershop Indians ("Kaw-Liga"). He took the music to a different level and a wider audience. Both Hank Williams, Jr. and his son Hank Williams III have been innovators within country music as well, Hank Jr. leading towards rock fusion and "outlaw country", and Hank III going much further in reaching out to death metal and psychobilly soul

The Carter Family's influence

The other Ralph Peer discovery, the Carter family, consisted of A.P. Carter, his wife Sara and their sister-in-law Maybelle. They built a long recording career based on the sonorous bass of A.P., the beautiful singing of Sara and the unique guitar playing of Maybelle. A.P.'s main contribution was the collection of songs and ballads that he picked up in his expeditions into the hill country around their home in Maces Springs, Virginia. In addition, being a man, he made it possible for Sara and Maybelle to perform without stigma at that time. These two women were the musical talent. They arranged the songs that A.P. collected and wrote their own songs. They were the precursors of a line of talented female country singers like Kitty Wells, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Skeeter Davis, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and June Carter Cash, the daughter of Maybelle and the wife of Johnny Cash.

Bluegrass

Bluegrass carries on the tradition of the old String Band Music and was invented, in its pure form, by Bill Monroe. The name "Bluegrass" was simply taken from Monroe's band, the "Bluegrass Boys. The first recording in the classic line-up was made in 1945: Bill Monroe on Mandolin and Vocals, Lester Flatt on Guitar and Vocals, Earl Scruggs on 5-String Banjo, Chubby Wise on Fiddle and Cedric Rainwater on Upright Bass. This band set the standard for all bluegrass bands to follow, most of the famous early Bluegrass musicians were one-time band members of the Bluegrass Boys, like Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, Jimmy Martin and Del McCoury, or played with Monroe occasionally, like Sonny Osborne, Ralph & Carter Stanley and Don Reno. Monroe also influenced people like Ricky Skaggs, Alison Krauss and Rhonda Vincent, who carry on the folk and ballad tradition in the bluegrass style.

Other influences

Country music has had only a handful of Black stars Charley Pride and Deford Bailey being the most notable. Pride endured much open racism early in his career with some radio programmers refusing to play a "nigger". Many TV audiences were shocked to realize that the songs they enjoyed were performed by a black man. Pride became the first black member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1993. He is considered a major influence on traditionalists today. Country music has also influenced the work of many black musicians such as Ray Charles and Keb' Mo'.

The Nashville sound

During the 1960s, country music became a multimillion-dollar industry centered on Nashville, Tennessee. Under the direction of Chet Atkins, the Nashville sound brought country music to a diverse audience. Although country music has great stylistic diversity, this diversity was strangled somewhat by the formulaic approach of the record producers like Chet Atkins. They played safe to protect sales. Even today the variety of country music is not usually well reflected in radio airplay and the popular perception of country music is still influenced by the maudlin ballads and whining steel guitars that many people still associate with the genre.

Reaction to the Nashville sound

The "vanilla"-flavored sounds that emanated from Nashville under the influence of Chet Atkins and his fellow producers led to a reaction among musicians outside Nashville, who saw that there was more to the genre than "the same old tunes, fiddle and guitar..." (Waylon Jennings). California produced the Bakersfield sound, promoted by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard and based on the work of the legendary Maddox Brothers and Rose, whose wild eclectic mix of old time country, hillbilly swing and gospel in the 1940s and 1950s was a feature of honky-tonks and dance halls in the state. Texas produced rebels like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Jerry Jeff Walker and others who bucked the Nashville system and created outlaw country. Within Nashville in the 1980s, Randy Travis, Ricky Skaggs and others brought a return to the traditional values. Their musicianship, songwriting and producing skills helped to revive the genre momentarily. However, even they, and such long-time greats as Jones, Cash, and Haggard, fell from popularity as the record companies again imposed their formulas and refused to promote established artists. Capitol Records made an almost wholesale clearance of their country artists in the 1960s.

Country music developments

The two strands of country music have continued to develop. The Jimmie Rodgers influence can be seen in a pronounced "working man" image promoted by singers like Brooks & Dunn and Garth Brooks. On the Carter Family side, singers like Iris Dement and Nanci Griffith have written on more traditional "folk" themes, albeit with a contemporary point of view. In the 1990s a new form of country music emerged, called by some alternative country, or "insurgent country". Performed by generally younger musicians and inspired by traditional country performers and the country reactionaries, it shunned the Nashville-dominated sound of mainstream country and borrowed more from punk and rock groups than the watered-down, pop-oriented sound of Nashville. There are at least three U. S. cable networks devoted to the genre: CMT (owned by Viacom), VH-1 Country (also owned by Viacom), and GAC (owned by The E. W. Scripps Company).

Samples

- Download recording - "Prisoner’s Song" country music from the Library of Congress' [http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Gordon/sideAband8.html Gordon Collection]; performed by Ernest Hilton with banjo accompaniment in Biltmore, North Carolina on November 20, 1925
- Download sample of Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart", one of the best-known Williams songs, covered by numerous other stars, and an excellent representation of the 1950s Nashville music.

External links

- [http://www.artistdevelopmentnetwork.com/ Artist Development Network in Nashville Tennessee]
- [http://www.nashvilletallent.com/ NashvilleTallent - Kicking Down The Doors In Nashville!]
- [http://www.roughstock.com/history/begin.html History of Country Music]
- [http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/ Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum]
- [http://www.cmaworld.com The Country Music Association (America)]
- [http://www.ccma.org The Canadian Country Music Association]
- [http://www.angrycountry.com AngryCountry] Country Music News Magazine
- [http://www.countryweekly.com/ Country Weekly magazine]
- [http://www.opry.com/ Grand Ole Opry website]
- [http://www.luma-electronic.cz/lp/elpe.htm LP Discography-Covers & Lyrics]
- [http://www.countryhall.com/ Traditional Country Hall of Fame]
- [http://www.purecountrymusic.com/ Pure Country Music]
- [http://www.top-country-songs.com/ Top Country Songs]
- [http://www.countryexaminer.com/ Country Examiner] Up to the Minute Country Music News

Tribute sites to early artists

- [http://www.geocities.com/robtmorca/ Vernon Dalhart]
- [http://www.geocities.com/acuvar/carson_robison.html Carson Robison]
- [http://www.geocities.com/Fiddlindon/DON_RICHARDSON.html Don Richardson] Category:Country music Category:Musical genres Category:Radio formats ja:カントリー・ミュージック

Jazz

Jazz is a musical art form originally developed by African Americans from around the turn of the 20th century. It is characterized by blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation sometimes in jam sessions. As the first original art form to emerge from the United States of America, jazz has been described as "America's Classical Music".

History

Roots of jazz

Jazz has roots in African American music traditions, including spirituals, blues and ragtime, stemming ultimately from West Africa, western Sahel, and New England's religious hymns and hillbilly music, as well as in European military band music. After originating in African American communities near the beginning of the 20th century, jazz gained international popularity by the 1920s. Since then, jazz has had a profoundly pervasive influence on other musical styles worldwide. Today, various jazz styles continue to evolve. The word jazz itself is rooted in American slang, probably of sexual origin, although various alternative derivations have been suggested. According to University of Southern California critical studies professor Todd Boyd, the term originated from slang for sexual intercourse because its earliest musicians found employment in New Orleans brothel parlors. Lacking an attentive audience, the musicians began to play for each other and their performances achieved esthetic complexity not evident in ragtime. At the root of jazz is the blues, the folk music of former enslaved Africans in the U.S. South and their descendants, heavily influenced by West African cultural and musical traditions, that evolved as black musicians migrated to the cities. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning African American composer and classical and jazz trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis: Jazz is something Negroes invented, and it said the most profound things -- not only about us and the way we look at things, but about what modern democratic life is really about. It is the nobility of the race put into sound ... jazz has all the elements, from the spare and penetrating to the complex and enveloping. It is the hardest music to play that I know of, and it is the highest rendition of individual emotion in the history of Western music.
Early jazz influences found their first mainstream expression in the marching band and dance band music of the day, which was the standard form of popular concert music at the turn of century. The instruments of these groups became the basic instruments of jazz: brass, reeds, and drums. Black musicians frequently used the melody, structure, and beat of marches as points of departure; but says "North by South, from Charleston to Harlem," a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities: "...a black musical spirit (involving rhythm and melody) was bursting out of the confines of European musical tradition, even though the performers were using European styled instruments. This African-American feel for rephrasing melodies and reshaping rhythm created the embryo from which many great black jazz musicians were to emerge." Many black musicians also made a living playing in small bands hired to lead funeral processions in the New Orleans African-American tradition. These Africanized bands played a seminal role in the articulation and dissemination of early jazz. Traveling throughout black communities in the Deep South and to northern big cities, these musician-pioneers were the Hand helping to fashion the music's howling, raucous, then free-wheeling, "raggedy," ragtime spirit, quickening it to a more eloquent, sophisticated, swing incarnation. For all its genius, early jazz, with its humble, folk roots, was the product of primarily self-taught musicians. But an impressive postbellum network of black-established and -operated institutions, schools, and civic societies in both the North and the South, plus widening mainstream opportunities for education, produced ever-increasing numbers of young, formally trained African-American musicians, some of them schooled in classical European musical forms. Lorenzo Tio and Scott Joplin were among this new wave of musically literate jazz artists. Joplin, the son of a former slave and a free-born woman of color, was largely self-taught until age 11, when he received lessons in the fundamentals of music theory from a classically trained German immigrant in Texarkana, Texas. Also contributing to this trend was a tightening of Jim Crow laws in Louisiana in the 1890s, which caused the expulsion from integrated bands of numbers of talented, formally trained African-American musicians. The ability of these musically literate, black jazzmen to transpose and then read what was in great part an improvisational art form became an invaluable element in the preservation and dissemination of musical innovations that took on added importance in the approaching big-band era.

The United States music scene at the start of the 20th century

By the turn of the century, American society had begun to shed the heavy-handed, straitlaced formality that had characterized the Victorian era. Strong influence of African American music traditions had already been a part of mainstream popular music in the United States for generations, going back to the 19th century minstrel show tunes and the melodies of Stephen Foster. Public dance halls, clubs, and tea rooms opened in the cities. Curiously named black dances inspired by African dance moves, like the shimmy, turkey trot, buzzard lope, chicken scratch, monkey glide, and the bunny hug eventually were adopted by a white public. The cake walk, developed by slaves as a send-up of their masters' formal dress balls, became the rage. White audiences saw these dances first in vaudeville shows, then performed by exhibition dancers in the clubs. The popular dance music of the time was not jazz, but there were precursor forms along the blues-ragtime continuum of musical experimentation and innovation that soon would blossom into jazz. Popular Tin Pan Alley composers like Irving Berlin incorporated ragtime influence into their compositions, though they seldom used the specific musical devices that were second nature to jazz players—the rhythms, the blue notes. Few things did more to popularize the idea of hot music than Berlin's hit song of 1911,"Alexander's Ragtime Band," which became a craze as far from home as Vienna. Although the song wasn't written in rag time, the lyrics describe a jazz band, right up to jazzing up popular songs, as in the line, "If you want to hear the Swanee River played in ragtime...."

The early New Orleans "jass" style

A number of regional styles contributed to the early development of jazz. Arguably the single most important was that of the New Orleans, Louisiana area, which was the first to be commonly given the name "jazz" (early on often spelled "jass"). The city of New Orleans and the surrounding area had long been a regional music center. People from many different nations of Africa, Europe, and Latin America contributed to New Orleans' rich musical heritage. In the French and Spanish colonial era, slaves had more freedom of cultural expression than in the English colonies of what would become the United States. In the Protestant colonies African music was looked on as inherently "pagan" and was commonly suppressed, while in Louisiana it was allowed. African musical celebrations held at least as late as the 1830s in New Orleans' "Congo Square" were attended by interested whites as well, and some of their melodies and rhythms found their way into the compositions of white Creole composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. In addition to the slave population, New Orleans also had North America's largest community of free people of color, some of whom prided themselves on their education and used European instruments to play both European music and their own folk tunes. According to many New Orleans musicians who remembered the era, the key figures in the development of the new style were flamboyant trumpeter Buddy Bolden and the members of his band. Bolden is remembered as the first to take the blues — hitherto a folk music sung and self-accompanied on string instruments or blues harp (harmonica) — and arrange it for brass instruments. Bolden's band played blues and other tunes, constantly "variating the melody" (improvising) for both dance and brass band settings, creating a sensation in the city and quickly being imitated by many other musicians. By the early years of the 20th century, travelers visiting New Orleans remarked on the local bands' ability to play ragtime with a "pep" not heard elsewhere. Characteristics which set the early New Orleans style apart from the ragtime music played elsewhere included freer rhythmic improvisation. Ragtime musicians elsewhere would "rag" a tune by giving a syncopated rhythm and playing a note twice (at half the time value), while the New Orleans style used more intricate rhythmic improvisation often placing notes far from the implied beat (compare, for example, the piano rolls of Jelly Roll Morton with those of Scott Joplin). The New Orleans style players also adopted much of the vocabulary of the blues, including bent and blue notes and instrumental "growls" and smears otherwise not used on European instruments. Key figures in the early development of the new style were Freddie Keppard, a dark Creole of color who mastered Bolden's style; Joe Oliver, whose style was even more deeply soaked in the blues than Bolden's; and Kid Ory, a trombonist who helped crystallize the style with his band hiring many of the city's best musicians. The new style also spoke to young whites as well, especially the working-class children of immigrants, who took up the style with enthusiasm. Papa Jack Laine led a multi-ethnic band through which passed almost all of two generations of early New Orleans white jazz musicians (and a number of non-whites as well).

Other regional styles

Meanwhile, other regional styles were developing which would influence the development of jazz.
- African-American minister Rev. Daniel J. Jenkins of Charleston, South Carolina, was an unlikely figure of far-reaching importance in the early development of jazz. In 1891, Jenkins established the Jenkins Orphanage for boys and four years later instituted a rigorous music program in which the orphanage's young charges were taught the religious and secular music of the day, including overtures and marches. Precocious orphans and defiant runaways, some of whom had played ragtime in bars and brothels, were delivered to the orphanage for "salvation" and rehabilitation and made their musical contributions, as well. In the fashion of the

U.S. Southern States

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Region

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See also

Country music

Jimmie Rodgers' influence

Hank Williams

The Carter Family's influence

Bluegrass

Other influences

The Nashville sound

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Country music developments

Samples

Further reading

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The Golden Age

Country rock

Contemporary Country Stars 1980-2005

Television and radio shows of note

See also

External links

Tribute sites to early artists

Jazz

History

Roots of jazz

The United States music scene at the start of the 20th century

The early New Orleans "jass" style

Other regional styles