American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, Colin Woodard (Viking, 2011). We once lived for a few years in another part of the country. It was nice in a lot of ways — I have fond memories of that time, and not just because two of my babies were born there — but it was also
Wonderful and rich as always. I spent a few hours diving into the Burned-over district. (The Patriot War right on near my doorstep.) I live in rural western NY and much of the culture here is still traditional yankeedom. Farm stands with money boxes, doors mostly left unlocked, car keys left on the console (in case someone has to move the car in the driveway shuffle.) Neighbors whom I cherish. I can't help but think it has something to do with the number of people involved. The town I live in is ~50 sq. miles and pop. of 2k, biggest village is ~500 people. I grew up in small town USA, about 10k people. And I can still recall the summer when there was a rash of bicycle thefts, (we lived on our bikes in the summer) and all of a sudden you had to worry about your bike being stolen. So bike locks and it sucked, you couldn't just jump on your bike anymore. And of course cities are the worst for crime.
It's interesting what stands out when you leave your cultural niche. When I left my (Canadian Appalachia/Acadian) hometown, it was the (lack of) egalitarianism that got to me the most, and closely related status signalling. I have now become someone that "checks my calendar" before making plans to hang out, but the first few times someone did that to me my reaction was eye rolling and mocking their arrogance and self importance at how "busy" everyone seemed to be.
Another post blaming the descendants of Puritans for wokism--sad! As I have written elsewhere: as a genealogical descendant of Puritans, I am extremely skeptical of this idea. Family reunions on that side make it clear to me that mostly everyone votes Republican. I took a class on critical race theory in law school, meanwhile, and everyone we read was either black or Jewish. Remember, places like Vermont voted solidly Republican until demographic change made it liberal. Old stock Yankee Americans did not change their voting habits. Wisconsin voted for socialists in the early 20th c. because of German immigrants--not because of Yankees.
If you can prove that genealogical descendants of Puritans vote for/adopt progressive ideas more than the typical American, then I am wrong. But I would bet if you investigated it, you would find that the 10 million or so descendants of the Puritans tend to vote Republican and are generally more conservative than the typical American. In fact, I would bet they are a lot more conservative than the typical American. This is borne out by the data presented by Noah Carl in this post: https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/who-are-the-most-right-wing-americans. Americans of English descent are among the most right-wing groups in the United States.
A response I have heard from what I stated above is that while the genetic descendants of Yankees may be conservative, their cultural descendants are not. This is nuts. Plenty of Americans actually take the ideas of the Puritans seriously: we call them Christians (of the Calvinist/Evangelical variety). For example, Jonathan Edwards's books are still read by Evangelical and Reformed Christians. You could read his sermons in many churches, and, aside from the language differences, they would fit right in. We're talking about at least tens of millions of people--the true ideological/cultural descendants of Yankeedom. Jonathan Edwards is especially an interesting example, since he defended emotional reactions in the First Great Awakening--the kind of stuff you only encounter in Evangelical churches today. I guess my simple point would be that Jonathan Edwards was a Christian minister and theologian. He continues to be read by Protestant ministers to this day. Edwards's primary contributions/ideas related to specific branches of Christianity, and tens of millions of people still practice in this tradition. His ideas did not give rise to racialist-Marxists (i.e., wokism)--unless you squint really hard and make the influence extremely indirect.
Attributing wokism to Puritanism and their descendants in any significant sense seems silly. Having said that, it is true (from what I have heard) that Unitarian churches (~150,000 old people) still organize themselves like Congregationalist churches. A couple of the Supreme Court justices whose rulings helped aid the rise of the present non-sense--looking at you Earl Warren and William Douglas--did grow up Presbyterian in Yankeedom... But they rejected the faith of their fathers. Most of the justices of that era appear to be Episcopalian. Blaming Puritans for the actions of Episcopalians seems unfair to say the least!
"Tidewater stopped serving a practical purpose and died" and "Yankees are the origin of woke, which we hate and no longer serves a practical purpose" to "Oh no, what happens if immigrants dilute or change our dominant Yankee culture?"
To the extent that the law of first settlement is real and you're concerned about woke, your main concern about immigration should be *ruining the immigrants.* To the extent culture is actually malleable, you should see modulating immigrants as a potential to undermine the vices of Yankeedom and instill new balancing virtues. It's strange to both hate what the ruling stock of America has become and *also* be a nativist fearful of cultural change from those foreigners over there.
Notably, when I think about the unusual traits of Americanism most worth preserving and emulating, it's like "brusque honesty and fair play and yeomanry not taking shit or charity from anyone." This seems like not an entirely Yankee set of virtues, and notably most of even the cardinal Yankee virtues are now gone from their cultural descendants (fecundity, concern for education as such).
I feel like the initial map isn't quite right (though I skipped down here to comment, so forgive me if this is addressed within the essay/review) — at least, *my perception is* that here in West Texas (grew up in & then returned to the area just to the east of that right angle with NM there, + also some way to the north-east; Lubbock and Midessa, that is) the culture has merged to great extent with "El Norte", and this merged culture is a) certainly now "its own thing", and b) drops off sharply once you get too much farther toward Ohio or Tennessee.
That is, by the metric mentioned at the beginning — the feeling of familiarity and comfort (which was an excellent illustration of the idea behind the book, btw! it was immediately evocative and comprehensible to me; I just couldn't quite feel at home anywhere else in the U.S.) — (West) Virginia isn't in the same "nation" as WTX at all, to my mind. Not enough Hispanics, not enough breakfast tamales...
It's hard for me to be sure, given my limited time spent living in other places (moved about once a year all over the country till coming back home; the Northeast is what I hated the most, heh), but my impression is that there IS validity to the "Greater Appalachia" outlined in the map: feel quite comfortable with people from Oklahoma and Arkansas.
The second-place spot goes to states like Wyoming or Montana; not sure how much historical continuity they share with us down here, but they feel much more familiar than anywhere else I've been (aside from Greater Appalachia, of course, esp. the more southwestern parts).
Interestingly, though the very eastern bits of NM are nearly indistinguishable from the local culture IME (e.g. Hobbs), the most of the state is more unlike us than, say, Kentucky. Same with CO, I think, on the whole. The book got that right, for my money!
Just my anecdata... so to speak! Great Substack, the only one that's really grabbed me since following Scott "Alexanderkind" here.
I am no good at remembering titles of books I've read, but I'm pretty sure that it was called "Heaven's Ditch" by Jack Kelly and it didn't turn out to be that focused on the Erie Canal - but was eye-opening to me about oddball religious fads and fervors that had a certain influence on the nation. At any rate, it made me realize it wasn't all sober Yanks and Dutchmen up there.
ETA: just read your footnotes and see that you alluded to this strain.
"The present wave of immigration is largely from places that are not WEIRD at all, at the same time as the indoctrination efforts have vanished entirely"
Have they though? My impression is that today's Yankeedom values a superficial multiculturalism with a variety of clothing, food, and holidays, while still trying very hard to get everyone to think, talk, and behave a certain way.
I agree with other commenters though that "woke" ideology ≠ modern puritanism, exactly. Wokeness has a lot of sources and roots that are very distant from old school yankeedom; they resonate with it in some ways, but there's also a ton of complicated internal tension.
Surprised you guys haven't done Albion's Seed yet, tbqh
Also, when the newest little Psmith arrives and you guys are going crazy, you should do something fun focusing on little kids books. "The Collected Works of Sandra Boynton, a joint review"
Very nice summary. I'm struck by wars and non-wars of dominant culture implicit in these regional groupings, and the implicit but repressed subsumption of European-based social organizations in the regions other than El Norte and New France. Islamic societies were noted for their naming and explicit separate governance of non-Islamic religious groupings such as Coptics, Christians, and Jews. The old Soviet Union had a similar tradition in its republics. Switzerland has reserved jobs for Catholics and Protestants, had French, German, and Jewish parts of the area around Zuerich, and historical subsidies from Protestant to Catholic cantons. Central and Latin America still have many areas and sectors that are dominated by one or another ethnicity. But the USA didn't name and split states by social organization, except for Indian reservations, which were incessantly violated and penetrated. An exception is NYC which historically had business sectors split by ethnicity and different neighborhoods governed by ethnicity, in ways similar to religious-business networks in the Netherlands and Belgium. Europe used to have such divisions widespread, but the wave of ethnic cleansings in the 19th and 20th centuries often destroyed them. Why have peaceful and regulated divisions rarely been respected or stable in most of the USA? Are oligarchies in the US just too rapacious to settle, or is there an enduring tradition of breaking agreements that started with agreements with Indians?
It's just for humor that you say Tidewater only exists today in weird hunting societies, right? Seems to still exist through GMU, Cato, the Federalist Society, gray tribe, e/acc, etc., and a streak of elitist libertarianism definitely still runs throughout American culture.
Wonderful and rich as always. I spent a few hours diving into the Burned-over district. (The Patriot War right on near my doorstep.) I live in rural western NY and much of the culture here is still traditional yankeedom. Farm stands with money boxes, doors mostly left unlocked, car keys left on the console (in case someone has to move the car in the driveway shuffle.) Neighbors whom I cherish. I can't help but think it has something to do with the number of people involved. The town I live in is ~50 sq. miles and pop. of 2k, biggest village is ~500 people. I grew up in small town USA, about 10k people. And I can still recall the summer when there was a rash of bicycle thefts, (we lived on our bikes in the summer) and all of a sudden you had to worry about your bike being stolen. So bike locks and it sucked, you couldn't just jump on your bike anymore. And of course cities are the worst for crime.
It's interesting what stands out when you leave your cultural niche. When I left my (Canadian Appalachia/Acadian) hometown, it was the (lack of) egalitarianism that got to me the most, and closely related status signalling. I have now become someone that "checks my calendar" before making plans to hang out, but the first few times someone did that to me my reaction was eye rolling and mocking their arrogance and self importance at how "busy" everyone seemed to be.
Another post blaming the descendants of Puritans for wokism--sad! As I have written elsewhere: as a genealogical descendant of Puritans, I am extremely skeptical of this idea. Family reunions on that side make it clear to me that mostly everyone votes Republican. I took a class on critical race theory in law school, meanwhile, and everyone we read was either black or Jewish. Remember, places like Vermont voted solidly Republican until demographic change made it liberal. Old stock Yankee Americans did not change their voting habits. Wisconsin voted for socialists in the early 20th c. because of German immigrants--not because of Yankees.
If you can prove that genealogical descendants of Puritans vote for/adopt progressive ideas more than the typical American, then I am wrong. But I would bet if you investigated it, you would find that the 10 million or so descendants of the Puritans tend to vote Republican and are generally more conservative than the typical American. In fact, I would bet they are a lot more conservative than the typical American. This is borne out by the data presented by Noah Carl in this post: https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/who-are-the-most-right-wing-americans. Americans of English descent are among the most right-wing groups in the United States.
A response I have heard from what I stated above is that while the genetic descendants of Yankees may be conservative, their cultural descendants are not. This is nuts. Plenty of Americans actually take the ideas of the Puritans seriously: we call them Christians (of the Calvinist/Evangelical variety). For example, Jonathan Edwards's books are still read by Evangelical and Reformed Christians. You could read his sermons in many churches, and, aside from the language differences, they would fit right in. We're talking about at least tens of millions of people--the true ideological/cultural descendants of Yankeedom. Jonathan Edwards is especially an interesting example, since he defended emotional reactions in the First Great Awakening--the kind of stuff you only encounter in Evangelical churches today. I guess my simple point would be that Jonathan Edwards was a Christian minister and theologian. He continues to be read by Protestant ministers to this day. Edwards's primary contributions/ideas related to specific branches of Christianity, and tens of millions of people still practice in this tradition. His ideas did not give rise to racialist-Marxists (i.e., wokism)--unless you squint really hard and make the influence extremely indirect.
Attributing wokism to Puritanism and their descendants in any significant sense seems silly. Having said that, it is true (from what I have heard) that Unitarian churches (~150,000 old people) still organize themselves like Congregationalist churches. A couple of the Supreme Court justices whose rulings helped aid the rise of the present non-sense--looking at you Earl Warren and William Douglas--did grow up Presbyterian in Yankeedom... But they rejected the faith of their fathers. Most of the justices of that era appear to be Episcopalian. Blaming Puritans for the actions of Episcopalians seems unfair to say the least!
I find it kind of interesting that you went from
"Tidewater stopped serving a practical purpose and died" and "Yankees are the origin of woke, which we hate and no longer serves a practical purpose" to "Oh no, what happens if immigrants dilute or change our dominant Yankee culture?"
To the extent that the law of first settlement is real and you're concerned about woke, your main concern about immigration should be *ruining the immigrants.* To the extent culture is actually malleable, you should see modulating immigrants as a potential to undermine the vices of Yankeedom and instill new balancing virtues. It's strange to both hate what the ruling stock of America has become and *also* be a nativist fearful of cultural change from those foreigners over there.
Notably, when I think about the unusual traits of Americanism most worth preserving and emulating, it's like "brusque honesty and fair play and yeomanry not taking shit or charity from anyone." This seems like not an entirely Yankee set of virtues, and notably most of even the cardinal Yankee virtues are now gone from their cultural descendants (fecundity, concern for education as such).
I feel like the initial map isn't quite right (though I skipped down here to comment, so forgive me if this is addressed within the essay/review) — at least, *my perception is* that here in West Texas (grew up in & then returned to the area just to the east of that right angle with NM there, + also some way to the north-east; Lubbock and Midessa, that is) the culture has merged to great extent with "El Norte", and this merged culture is a) certainly now "its own thing", and b) drops off sharply once you get too much farther toward Ohio or Tennessee.
That is, by the metric mentioned at the beginning — the feeling of familiarity and comfort (which was an excellent illustration of the idea behind the book, btw! it was immediately evocative and comprehensible to me; I just couldn't quite feel at home anywhere else in the U.S.) — (West) Virginia isn't in the same "nation" as WTX at all, to my mind. Not enough Hispanics, not enough breakfast tamales...
It's hard for me to be sure, given my limited time spent living in other places (moved about once a year all over the country till coming back home; the Northeast is what I hated the most, heh), but my impression is that there IS validity to the "Greater Appalachia" outlined in the map: feel quite comfortable with people from Oklahoma and Arkansas.
The second-place spot goes to states like Wyoming or Montana; not sure how much historical continuity they share with us down here, but they feel much more familiar than anywhere else I've been (aside from Greater Appalachia, of course, esp. the more southwestern parts).
Interestingly, though the very eastern bits of NM are nearly indistinguishable from the local culture IME (e.g. Hobbs), the most of the state is more unlike us than, say, Kentucky. Same with CO, I think, on the whole. The book got that right, for my money!
Just my anecdata... so to speak! Great Substack, the only one that's really grabbed me since following Scott "Alexanderkind" here.
I am no good at remembering titles of books I've read, but I'm pretty sure that it was called "Heaven's Ditch" by Jack Kelly and it didn't turn out to be that focused on the Erie Canal - but was eye-opening to me about oddball religious fads and fervors that had a certain influence on the nation. At any rate, it made me realize it wasn't all sober Yanks and Dutchmen up there.
ETA: just read your footnotes and see that you alluded to this strain.
Great piece, I love this kind of stuff.
"The present wave of immigration is largely from places that are not WEIRD at all, at the same time as the indoctrination efforts have vanished entirely"
Have they though? My impression is that today's Yankeedom values a superficial multiculturalism with a variety of clothing, food, and holidays, while still trying very hard to get everyone to think, talk, and behave a certain way.
I agree with other commenters though that "woke" ideology ≠ modern puritanism, exactly. Wokeness has a lot of sources and roots that are very distant from old school yankeedom; they resonate with it in some ways, but there's also a ton of complicated internal tension.
Surprised you guys haven't done Albion's Seed yet, tbqh
Also, when the newest little Psmith arrives and you guys are going crazy, you should do something fun focusing on little kids books. "The Collected Works of Sandra Boynton, a joint review"
Very nice summary. I'm struck by wars and non-wars of dominant culture implicit in these regional groupings, and the implicit but repressed subsumption of European-based social organizations in the regions other than El Norte and New France. Islamic societies were noted for their naming and explicit separate governance of non-Islamic religious groupings such as Coptics, Christians, and Jews. The old Soviet Union had a similar tradition in its republics. Switzerland has reserved jobs for Catholics and Protestants, had French, German, and Jewish parts of the area around Zuerich, and historical subsidies from Protestant to Catholic cantons. Central and Latin America still have many areas and sectors that are dominated by one or another ethnicity. But the USA didn't name and split states by social organization, except for Indian reservations, which were incessantly violated and penetrated. An exception is NYC which historically had business sectors split by ethnicity and different neighborhoods governed by ethnicity, in ways similar to religious-business networks in the Netherlands and Belgium. Europe used to have such divisions widespread, but the wave of ethnic cleansings in the 19th and 20th centuries often destroyed them. Why have peaceful and regulated divisions rarely been respected or stable in most of the USA? Are oligarchies in the US just too rapacious to settle, or is there an enduring tradition of breaking agreements that started with agreements with Indians?
It's just for humor that you say Tidewater only exists today in weird hunting societies, right? Seems to still exist through GMU, Cato, the Federalist Society, gray tribe, e/acc, etc., and a streak of elitist libertarianism definitely still runs throughout American culture.