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Concept
Culture of the Southern United States
Summary
The culture of the Southern United States, Southern culture, or Southern heritage, is a subculture of the United States. From its many cultural influences, the South developed its own unique customs, dialects, arts, literature, cuisine, dance, and music. The combination of its unique history and the fact that many Southerners maintain—and even nurture—an identity separate from the rest of the country has led to it being the most studied and written-about region of the U.S.
During the 1600s to mid-1800s, the central role of agriculture and slavery during the colonial period and antebellum era economies made society stratified according to land ownership. This landed gentry made culture in the early Southern United States differ from areas north of the Mason–Dixon line and west of the Appalachians. The upland areas of the South were characterized by yeoman farmers who worked on their small landed property with few or no slaves, while the lower-lying elevations and deep south was a society of more plantations worked by African slave labor. Events such as the First Great Awakening (1730s–1750s), would strengthen Protestantism in the South and United States as a whole. Communities would often develop strong attachment to their churches as the primary community institution.
History of the Southern United States
Starting in the early 1600s and lasting to the mid-1800s, slavery played an outsized role in shaping the culture, politics, and economy of the South. This included its agricultural practices, the outbreak of the American Civil War, and ensuing segregation in the United States. Southern yeoman farmers, subsistence farmers who owned few or no slaves, comprised a large portion of the population during the colonial period and antebellum years, which settled largely in the back country and uplands. Their way of living and culture would differ sharply than that of the planter class. The climate of the region is conducive to growing tobacco, cotton, and other crops, and the red clay in many areas was used for the distinctive red-brick architecture of many commercial buildings.
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