5. Region p.276

When Americans refer to various parts of the country, the way in which they divide the country and the terms they use may be confusing to foreign visitors. When referring to the part of the United States that lies between Canada and Mexico, citizens of Alaska speak of “the Lower Forty-Eight.” Citizen of “the Lower Forty-Eight” have long referred to this same territory as “the United States.” People living in the state of Hawaii refer to the rest of the country as “the Mainland” and refer to their own state as “the islands.”

People in “the Lower Forty-Eight” carve up that part of the United States in ways that are partly political, partly geographical. New England is that section of the country north and east of New York states, settled 300 years ago by the English. The south is that area of the country east of the Mississippi River and south of the Ohio River. It consists of that part of the country which seceded from the United States before or during the Civil War. The Midwest is defined differently by different dictionaries. Perhaps the most accepted definition is the area between the Appalachian Mountains on the east and the Rocky Mountains on the west and north of the Ohio and Missouri Rivers. It is roughly the country in the upper Mississippi River drainage basin.

Americans speak too of the Southwest, which includes particularly Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas. This is an area where early Spanish settlement, heavy Mexican immigration, and the native Indian population have stamped the area, with Spanish and Indian culture. The Northwest is clearly the states of Washington and Oregon. The state of California is often referred to as the West Coast.

“How did the United States get all its territory?” asked a foreign student who was looking at a large map on the wall of Ted’s apartment. “'Weren’t there areas that were claimed by France and Spain?" “Yes, there were," said Ted. “But the territory that was originally theirs was added to the original British territory soon after the American Revolution.” “How much was British?" asked the student. “Well, the 13 colonies that revolted against England claimed land extending all the way to the Mississippi River,” replied Ted. “After the war the British ceded it to them. The ceded area was called the Northwest Territory. It’s this area here on the map,” he said, pointing. “Then we got land belonging to France through purchase, and we purchased some land from Spain too.” “You don’t mean that the United States bought part of its territory, do you?” said the surprised student.

“Certainly. The biggest purchase was Louisiana.” Ted replied. “President Thomas Jefferson paid Napoleon $15 million for it in 1803.” “That was pretty cheap, wasn’t it?” the student asked. “It certainly was! Look at how much land it covers - the whole area between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, nearly one-fourth of the country today. That’s an area about as large as French. and Napoleon had to raise enough money to pay his country’s debts. Then in 1819. the Spanish, who were having problems with some discontented colonists in Florida, sold that area to us.” “Texas was Spanish too, wasn’t it?” “It belonged to Mexico， But a lot of Americans settled there. People whose interests were tied to the United States revolted against Mexico and formed an independent country.” “Didn’t the Mexicans object?” “Yes, they did. And Mexico and the United States went to war over it. As a result, in 1848 the United States got the area from the Rockies to the Pacific. But we paid Mexico $15 million. In 1846, while the United States and Mexico were fighting, the United States and Britain made a treaty that gave us the Oregon Territory north of California. Then in 1867 we bought the territory of Alaska from the Russians.”

“Did you buy Hawaii too?” “No. Americans settled there in the 19th century, and Hawaii applied for territorial status in 1900. In 1950 both the territories of Alaska and Hawaii asked to become states, and were accepted as the forty-ninth and fiftieth states, respectively.” The New England Region The New England Region includes the Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, nearly all Connecticut, upstate New York, and a narrow strip of northern Pennsylvania. This is the area occupied by New Englanders in 1800 and stamped with their particular culture. Originally defined by an intense Protestant Christianity, the majority of the people are now Roman Catholics, except in certain rural areas. However, as the immigrant groups came into the region, they were, in a cultural sense, often “converted.”

As a result the regional emphasis on education intellectual life has continued to be fostered; today several of the country’s greatest universities and many of its finest colleges are concentrated in the region. Politics continues to be seen in highly moralistic terms, and the region responds more than others to liberal and internationalist appeals. Its elite continues to have a sense of mission and to represent the idealism of the country. However, the fierce democratic attitudes of its first effective settlement were swept away in the urban culture that succeeded the colonial. period. Today all three East Coast regional cultures have a more European or English class system than the other parts of the country. The New York Metropolitan Region The New York Metropolitan Region is restricted to New York City and its environs, but at eighteen million this small area is larger in population than many other regions, and almost as populous as New England. This is characteristically a society of recent immigrants, as generations of newcomers continue to use New York City as the gateway to America. Because of the density of their numbers(numerous) religious and ethnic groups, such as orthodox Jews, Puerto Ricans, and Italians, continue to follow their life styles with relatively little notice of the general American patterns, unless of course members of such groups wish to “melt” into the larger society.

The result of this demographic or ethnic situation is that New York City is in many ways “more European,” more varied, and for many Americans more exciting than other regions of the country. It is the center of the communications industry, whether it be newspapers, radio, television, or book publishing, and to an increasing extent movies. It is America’s business and financial capital, although not of course its political center. New Yorkers have the reputation of being cold and distant, with little sense of community, but their expectations are high, for New Yorkers measure themselves against national and international rather. than regional standards. The Southern Region As a cultural region the South begins. in southern Delaware and Maryland. Its hypothetical border moves west over Virginia and West Virginia, crossing southern Ohio into Indiana· and southern Illinois. It includes most of Missouri and Oklahoma and nearly all of Texas. The South is thus the largest region geographically in the US, and it has well over one-fourth of the total population of the country.

In many ways the South is the most distinctive of our regions. Its dialects are more widely recognized and more “different” than other regional dialects. This is particularly true when we remember that “black English” is a southern dialect, although no longer one defined along geographical lines. The South has produced not only a variety of Negro song styles, such as the “blues,” but a “hillbilly” music of a previous generation is now better known as “country.” The cowboy music of the frontier was in large part derived from the South. Today the two have been largely integrated as “country western.” The “music capital” of this development is Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville is also a center of the development of popular religion. However, the capital of the Southern Baptist denomination, the fastest growing of the major Protestant sects in the country, is Dallas, Texas, in the western south subdivision of the region. In many ways the borders of the South can be determined by noting the boundaries of Southern Baptist predominance in religious affiliation. Incidentally, the south is the only major region without a large Catholic presence.

Among American regions the south has been noted for its hospitality and friendliness, and also far its relatively relaxed and unhurried way of life. Alongside these traits there has been Southern emphasis on personal honor and valor that is not characteristically American. These elements may partially explain an emphasis on military service among Southerners, a tendency perhaps reinforced by the location of so many military facilities in the South. Another characteristic of the South is a relatively high homicide rate in comparison with the North: this historical variant, already reported in the nineteenth century by Redifield and others, is partly responsible for the high homicide rate of the United States as compared to other developed countries. Although the South was a distinct region before the Civil War, it has been defined to a degree after by the Civil War experience. This particularly was reinforced for both whites and blacks by the racial relationships that developed under slavery and its aftermath. Still, there are border areas of the South, for example in Texas and Kentucky that were and are Southern, but have never had considerable black populations and opposed the Civil War. The South is well known for its hostile and oppressive race relations in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Today, however, many feel that racial relationships in the South are often as satisfactory as those in the North. On the local level blacks have been elected to many political positions, although this is still largely confined to those areas where they are in the majority. (Contrary to the image some have of the South, blacks are not in a majority in any Southern state.) The Southern disadvantage in education and industry has also been particularly overcome, although regional traditions do tend to cast long shadows. Certainly the Southern literary tradition has been one of the most prolific and imaginative in modern America. The Midwestern Regions From a political and social viewpoint the Midwest is centered on Chicago. The section maintains the continuing and special viewpoint of the interior. However, culturally the area varies so greatly from north to south that it is necessary to distinguish between Upper Midwest and Central Midwest cultural regions. The Upper Midwest includes Michigan, the northern edge of Ohio, Illinois and Iowa, and the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North and South Dakota. It is an area of strong Scandinavian, German, Swiss, Dutch, and New England influence.

The attitude toward politics in the region “moralistic.” Here politics is regarded as equally the concern of all. Ideas and ideals should determine policies, it is felt, not the balance of interests common to the “professional” politics of the South. This region spawned the Farmer-Labor and Progressive parties that added a new dimension to the politics of the first half of the twentieth century. The educational standards and aspirations of the region have been high from the beginning, and the tradition continues today. The Central Midwest Region is a transitional area, with strands of all three East Coast traditions, yet most strongly rooted in that of the Mid Atlantic. It has been influenced by the South and New England, and its later immigrant population is a representative mixture of all those new European peoples who entered the country after the Civil War. Of course, unlike the entry areas of New York, Miami, or California, the Central Midwest has not attracted large numbers of recent immigrants.

It is in many ways a city-dominated area, with the “culture” of Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City determining much of its life. Yet it quintessentially American, the area to which the news media refer when they speak of the “heartland.” It is the only region with significant sections in which the protestant sects most identified with the country-groups like the Methodists, Presbyterians, northern Baptists, or Church of God - actually dominated religious affiliation. The region includes central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, most of Iowa and Nebraska, northern Missouri, western Colorado, and the state of Kansas. The Rocky Mountain Region The Rocky Mountain Region is the least well-defined of the cultural regions. The people of its three states – Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana - are much more interested in their own identity than in the development of a regional sense. Its population density is perhaps the lowest in the continental United States, and the mixture of the peoples that make up the region is as representative of the nation as a whole as that of the central Midwest.

The attitudes of the people in the Rocky Mountain Region have always reflected its extreme topography and climate. The attention of the area is focused on its mineral and environmental resources and their exploitation. It is a frontier area, the true home of the cowboy and the sheepherder, of the skier, the hiker, and the climber. The Mormon Region The Mormon Region of southeast Idaho and Utah illustrates most vividly the difference between defining regions by physical geography or economic criteria, and defining them in cultural terms. Utah was established in the middle of the nineteenth century in the New England tradition as a model state based on a particular religious vision. This time it was the revelations ostensibly received by Joseph Smith, a young man of New England background.

The Mormon community that developed around this faith was driven out of several areas because of its beliefs and practices. The leader of the community finally moved his people to the distant frontier, built the famous Mormon Temple in what is now Salt Lake City, and through discipline and hard work also constructed an exemplary society. Aside from the region’s overwhelming adherence to the Mormon religion, it is notable for very high educational and health standards. The emphasis on family and community has also led to a high birthrate. Mormons are now prospering in all pars of the country and in many foreign countries, but the heart of the movement remains Salt Lake City and its environs in Utah. The Interior Southwest Region The Interior Southwest Region is confined largely to the states of Arizona and New Mexico. For along formative period the basic pattern here was one of coexistence among Spanish-Americans, Texans, tourists, and several persistent American Indian peoples. Although the inflow of people from. all parts of the country has been heavy in recent years, the original patterns are still important, and much of the region remains. in the hands of Indian groups that are also rapidly growing in numbers.

The climate is harsh, but less so than that to the north. The topography is dramatic, and variations from one part to another may be extreme in temperature, precipitation, elevation, and vegetation. This is a new frontier of settlement for many people, yet the oldest cultures in America, the Indian and Spanish， give the region a feeling different from the rest of the West with its more garish newness. The Pacific Southwest Region The Pacific Southwest Region is primarily California; indeed， for many people “the West” is California. In the peopling of the state settlers from the Northeast tended to settle in the San Francisco area and those from the Midwest in Southern California. The especially desirable climate of California’s coastal areas, however, has continued to pull in people from the entire country for over a hundred years, including many of the country’s most progressive and best educated. The result is that modern movements and modern industries often originate or are fostered particularly well in the state.

The California system of higher education has long been the envy of the entire country, and California was the frist major state to make higher education easily available to all its citizens. Several of the country’s leading research universities are now also in California, making it certainly the rival of New England in this regard. The attitude and faith of the people have been highly democratic and optimistic, and its wealth has made it possible to meet the needs of its general citizenry more adequately than elsewhere. California agriculture feeds the country in many specialty crops and provides a large percentage of its fruits and vegetables. The new computer industry is concentrated here, as was the movie industry in its heyday. Like the Interior Southwest, the geography of the region is extremely varied, with very hot and very cold areas within a few miles' distance. The region has become a favorite tourist area for all Americans. The Pacific Northwest Region The Pacific Northwest is in many respects a continuation and meeting place of the Rocky Mountain and Pacific southwest regional cultures; however, the environment has produced a different attitude than elsewhere in the country. The western, costal part of this region - which comprises the states of Oregon, Washington, and the greater part of Idaho - is more populated and much milder than the interior. The countryside is also more extensively forested, and it enjoys a generally heavier rainfall. East of a string of inland mountains most of the region is a high, relatively flat and undifferentiated plateau.

The Pacific Northwest has a sparse population and has developed slowly. Compared to neighboring regions its population has received a larger contribution from the people of the Upper Midwest and New England, as 'Well as from Scandinavia, Germany, and Great Britain. It is a Protestant area and one with few recent immigrants. In keeping with these population origins, the politics of the region has tended to be moderate and liberal. The society is homogeneous, largely white, and interested in the environment and wilderness that surrounds it. Because of the weather and the fact that none of its major cities is near the open ocean, the region’s beautiful beaches remain uncrowded, One does not find here the beach-and-Hollywood culture of California.

The Alaskan Region The two remaining regions are small in population, yet highly distintive. Alaska is both a state and a region, or group of proto regions. It is still a frontier area with low percentage of nativeborn – aside from the Indians and Eskimos. The latter have profited recently form a settlement I the courts concerning their mineral and oil rights. They now have enough wealth to become a permanent force in the area.

Nevertheless, the culture of Alaska is an amalgam of that of the forty-eight states of he continental United States. It does not yet have a positive image that goes beyond subsisting in adversity for the exploitation of natural resources. Because of its climate and the high cost of living it seems unlikely to soon become stable cultural are. The Hawaiian Region The Hawaiian Region is a particularly desirable place for most Americans. Aside from extreme southern Florida it is the only tropical part of the United States, It is also the only region where nonwhites dominate life. The largest single ethnic group in Hawaii is of Japanese background, but Filipinos, Chinese, Samoans, people of native Hawaiian ancestry, and mainland Americans join in the mixture. The Islands, which were granted statehood only in 1959, were originally settled and brought into the union as agricultural lands, especially for crops such as sugar or pineapples.

Later the Islands became an important American naval base, but the economy of the area is now overwhelmingly dominated by tourism. By and large the tourists are mainland American Orientals, particularly Japanese. The Hawaiians traditionally have been characterized as a relaxed people, cut off from the striving that affects much of the country and luxuriating in a beautiful environment. Their lifestyle appears threatened more than anything else by the shift to tourism and the cutting up of the country for settlement.