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9th Grade Is Kentucky a southern state?

Supporting Questions 1. How do Kentucky demographics compare to southern states? 2. How does Kentucky’s economy compare to southern states? 3. How do Kentucky politics compare to southern states? 4. How does Kentucky culture compare to southern states?

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9th Grade Regions Inquiry

Is Kentucky a southern state? Kentucky Academic SS-HS-4.1.1 Students will use a variety of geographic tools (maps, globes, photographs, models, satellite images, charts, Standards for graphs, databases) to explain and analyze the reasons for distribution of physical and human features on Earth’s surface. Social Studies Staging the Use a blank political map to identify which states are considered southern. Discuss these identifications in relationship Compelling to the article “Where is the South?” Question

Supporting Question 1 Supporting Question 2 Supporting Question 3 Supporting Question 4 How do Kentucky How does Kentucky’s How do Kentucky politics How does Kentucky culture demographics compare to economy compare to compare to southern states? compare to southern states? southern states? southern states? Formative Performance Task Formative Performance Task Formative Performance Task Formative Performance Task Create a Venn diagram that Add to the Venn diagram Add to the Venn diagram Add to the Venn diagram explains how specific information on how information on how information on how the population demographic data Kentucky’s employment, Kentucky politics compare to politics of Kentucky compare compares to southern states. occupation, industry, and Southern states in a local and to southern states in a local Make a two-sentence claim household income compares national context. Make a and national context. Make a supported by evidence that to southern states. Make a two-sentence claim two-sentence claim answers the extent to which two-sentence claim supported by evidence that supported by evidence that Kentucky’s demographics supported by evidence that answers the extent to which answers the extent to which make a southern state. answers the extent to which Kentucky’s politics make it a Kentucky’s culture makes it a Kentucky’s economy make it southern state. southern state. a southern state. Featured Sources Featured Sources Featured Sources Featured Sources Source A: Quick Beta Facts Source A: American Source A: This November, Source A: Is Kentucky a US Census Community Survey US Census Will Kentucky Stop Voting Southern State? Like It’s 1865? NPR Courier-Journal Magazine

Source B: Up in Arms, Tufts Source B: Where Does the Magazine South Begin? The Atlantic

Source C: 270 to Win: Historical Presidential Elections

ARGUMENT Is Kentucky a southern state? Construct an argument (e.g., detailed outline, poster, essay) that addresses Summative the compelling question using specific claims and relevant evidence from contemporary sources while acknowledging Performance competing views. Task EXTENSION Create an infographic that visually displays whether or not Kentucky is a southern state.

UNDERSTAND Research and discuss the implications of being considered a southern state. Taking ASSESS Examine the Kentucky Tourism website and assess the extent to which the website portrays Kentucky as a Informed southern state, and whether or not the depictions are accurate representations of the state. Action ACT Draft a letter to the Kentucky Tourism board that addresses the strengths of the website and suggestions for what needs to be changed to present a more accurate version of Kentucky to the world.

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Overview

Inquiry Description

This inquiry leads students through an investigation of regionalization by studying Kentucky. By investigating the compelling question about whether or not Kentucky is a southern state, students will need to consider how the study of Kentucky provides a unique lens for thinking about the “what” and “where” of the south. In investigating the and cultural characteristics of Kentucky and states more ‘solidly’ recognized as southern, students develop techniques to become more geo-literate, and begin to be able to evaluate the extent to which Kentucky is southern.

Structure of the Inquiry

In addressing the compelling question, “Is Kentucky a southern state?” students will work through a series of supporting questions, performance tasks, and sources in order to construct an argument with evidence and counter evidence from a variety of sources.

Staging the Compelling Question

The inquiry opens with students investigating the where and what of the south. Using a blank political map of the teachers will have students outline the states that they believe are southern. Students should then be prompted to think about what criteria they use in order to delineate whether a state should be considered southern. Next, the teacher would want to prompt a discussion on which states were most and least likely to be considered southern. After the discussion, the teacher may want to have students examine the article “Which States are in the South?” from FiveThirtyEight. This article examines how people who identified as “southern” view other states (only half viewed Kentucky as southern). From this the teacher could name the compelling question as well as have students name ‘solidly’ southern states with which to compare Kentucky. These states identified here should be used as the baseline for comparison during the whole inquiry.

Supporting Question 1

The supporting question, “How do Kentucky demographics compare to southern states?” helps students establish a foundational understanding of Kentucky’s relationship to the south through the lens of population demographics. The formative performance task calls on students to create a Venn diagram that explains how

THIS WORK IS LICENSED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION- NONCOMMERCIAL- SHAREALIKE 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE. 3 KENTUCKY C3 TEACHERS HUB the population compare to southern states. Next, using the Venn diagram students will create a two-sentence claim statement that answers the supporting question. Teachers will want students to keep track of the Venn diagram, as they will be adding to it throughout the inquiry. The demographic data comes from the United States Census Bureau and is accessible to students through the Quick Beta Facts site on Census.gov.

Supporting Question 2

By answering the supporting question, “How does Kentucky’s economy compare to southern states?” students build on their understanding of Kentucky by moving into the study of economic characteristics of the state by analyzing the American Community Survey database. The data from this survey is conducted by the United States Census Bureau and examines economic demographics for states and communities. The formative task for this supporting question asks students to add to their Venn diagram from Supporting Question 1, this time comparing the economy of Kentucky to southern states. Students will then create a two- sentence claim statement that answers the supporting question.

Supporting Question 3

By answering the supporting question, “How do Kentucky politics compare to southern states?” students will work to understand the dominant political ideology that has contributed to Kentucky’s identity. Building on their knowledge of population demographics as well as economic characteristics, this formative task calls on students to examine documents that describe the dominant political ideologies of Kentucky and southern states at state and national scales, and thus represents a rise in complexity as students are examining evidence that is more abstract then the nominal census data used in the first two supporting questions. Students will then add to their Venn diagram from the first two supporting questions, this time comparing the politics of Kentucky to southern states. From this information, student will create a two-sentence claim that answers the supporting question. Featured Source A is an article and video from National Public Radio titled “This November, Will Kentucky Stop Voting Like It’s 1865?” and examines what the dominant political ideology is in Kentucky, as well as how it has and continues to change. The second source is from Tufts Magazine and is titled “Up in Arms.” The article examines how dominant political ideologies of different regions were formed through history and geography. The last source is a set presidential election maps. With the source students will be able to compare voting patterns of Kentucky and Southern states at the national level.

Supporting Question 4

Having examined the demographic, economic, and political characteristics of Kentucky and the south in previous tasks, students will be asked to answer the supporting question “How does Kentucky culture compare to southern states?” The formative task requires students to collect and use a multitude of sources

THIS WORK IS LICENSED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION- NONCOMMERCIAL- SHAREALIKE 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE. 4 KENTUCKY C3 TEACHERS HUB to describe if Kentucky’s culture is southern. Students will add the information to their Venn diagram as they have done in the previous supporting questions. Next, students will create a two-sentence claim that answers the supporting question. Teachers will want to facilitate students in their research, which may include pulling texts from the library for students to examine, or compiling a group of online data that may benefit students. The sources that accompany this supporting question will give students some insight into how geographers and journalists have identified southern culture in the past. The first article is titled “Is Kentucky a Southern State?” and was featured in the Courier Journal. It is a little dated, but can help students see how researchers in the past have tried to if Kentucky is southern. The second is “Where Does the South Begin?” from the Atlantic, and examines different cultural attributes that may delineate membership into the south.

Summative Performance Task

At this point in the students’ inquiry, students have examined the demographic, economic, political and cultural aspects of Kentucky. Students should be expected to demonstrate the breadth of their understandings and their abilities to use evidence from multiple sources to support their distinct claims. In this task, students construct an evidence-based argument responding to the prompt, “Is Kentucky a southern State?” It is important to note that students’ arguments could take a variety of forms, including a detailed outline, poster, or essay. Teachers will want to have students refer back to the Venn diagram they filled out throughout the inquiry as a way to focus their responses.

Students’ arguments likely will vary, but could include any of the following:

• Kentucky is a southern state because it has economic and cultural characteristics that are congruent with states that are considered southern.

• Kentucky is not a southern state because although it shares some economic features, culturally and demographically it is not statistically similar to other states considered southern.

• Kentucky is a southern state based on aspects of the economy, politics, and culture, but demographically Kentucky is less clearly a member of the South.

Students could extend these arguments…

By using their arguments as a foundation, students could develop an infographic based off of the claims they used to answer the Compelling Question, “is Kentucky a Southern state?” Vennage and Piktochart are the two most interface friendly websites I found that could allow for student creation of an infographic. Each website also provides tutorials on using their programs.

Vennage: https://venngage.com

Piktochart: https://magic.piktochart.com/templates

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Using their arguments as a foundation, students can engage in a class discussion in which they present their evidence that was used to answer the compelling question. The teacher would want to have students discuss what they felt were the most important attributes in their determination of whether or not Kentucky is a Southern state.

Students have the opportunity to Take Informed Action by

Students have the opportunity to Take Informed Action by drawing on their understanding of the south and on the . They demonstrate their capacity to understand by researching and discussing the implications of being considered a southern state. Students show their ability to assess by examining the Kentucky Tourism website and assessing to what extent their representations paint Kentucky as a southern state, and whether or not they are accurate representations. Students act by drafting a letter to the Kentucky Tourism board that addresses what was good about their website, and suggestions for what needs to be changed in order to present a more accurate version of Kentucky to the world.

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Staging the Compelling Question

Featured Source Source A: Walt Hickey, “Which States are in the South?” FiveThirtyEight, April 2014

On Tuesday, we published the results of a SurveyMonkey Audience poll about which states people think compose the Midwest. The answer is, essentially, that nobody seems to know — not even self-avowed Midwesterners. So keep arguing.

We also asked SurveyMonkey to run a subsequent poll to determine which states are in the South. Despite a lot of debate about that question as well, these results were more conclusive. Although I think the South starts a few miles

THIS WORK IS LICENSED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION- NONCOMMERCIAL- SHAREALIKE 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE. 7 KENTUCKY C3 TEACHERS HUB north of , I am — according to self-identified Southerners — very wrong.

The survey isolated 1,135 respondents who identified “a lot” or “some” as a Southerner and asked them which states are in the South. To get this sample, SurveyMonkey Audience polled 2,528 individuals, about half from a national sample and about half from states considered regionally South, according to the Census Bureau (, , , , , , , , , Kentucky, , , , , and .)

Again, there are several takeaways.

First, the Southerners were considerably more certain of which states are their own. While the top few Midwest states barely pulled 80 percent of the vote, nearly 90 percent of respondents identified Georgia and Alabama as Southern, and more than 80 percent placed Mississippi and Louisiana in the South. South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida and North Carolina all garnered above 60 percent.

Southerners seem remarkably content to mess with Texas, giving it 57 percent support. Virginia, Arkansas and Kentucky hovered at about 50 percent.

Also, Maryland — well and truly — is not a Southern state, according to actual Southerners. It pulled a pathetic 6 percent of the vote. That’s worse than and . Walter White is more Southern than a Marylander. Allow me to welcome you to the North, Maryland. I’ve always loved your well-appointed Interstate 95 rest stops!

Consistent with a tradition of skepticism of the federal government, the South further disagrees with the census designation of what’s in the South. In addition to Maryland, Oklahoma and West Virginia both pulled less than 25 percent support, despite the fact that the census says they’re the South. Take that, big government.

So, what have we learned? Judging by some of the feedback on Tuesday’s blog post, people don’t know exactly where these places are, but they’re certainly passionate about it. Also, does anyone know what’s going on with ? Mostly excluded from the South and Midwest, it appears to be the geographic equivalent of the last kid picked during dodgeball.

Source: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/which-states-are-in-the-south/

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Supporting Question 1

Featured Source Source A: Quick Beta Facts, United States Census Bureau

*Based on comparisons to Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia

Kentucky Alabama Mississippi Georgia Population Population est. July 4,413,457 4,849,377 2,994,079 10,097,343 2014 Population, Census 4,339,367 4,779,736 2,967,297 9,687,653 2010 Age and Sex Persons under 5 6.3% 6.1% 6.5% 6.6% years, July 2014 Persons under 5 6.5% 6.4% 7.1% 7.1% years, April 2010 Persons under 18 22.9% 22.8% 24.4% 24.7% years, July 2014 Persons under 18 23.6% 23.7% 25.5% 25.7% years, April 2010 Persons 65 years and 14.8% 15.3% 14.3% 12.4% over, July 2014 Persons 65 years and 13.3% 13.8% 12.8% 10.7% over, July 2014 Female Persons, July 50.8% 51.5% 51.4% 51.2% 2014 Female Persons, April 50.8% 51.5% 51.4% 51.2% 2010 Race and Hispanic Origin White alone, July 88.3% 69.7% 59.7% 62.1% 2014 White alone, April 87.8% 68.5% 59.1% 59.7% 2010 Black or African 8.2% 26.7% 37.5% 31.5% American Alone, July 2014 Black or African 7.8% 26.2% 37.0% 30.5% American Alone, April 2010 American Indian 0.3% 0.7% 0.6% 0.5%

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alone, July 2014 American Indian 0.2% 0.6% 0.5% 0.3% alone, April 2010 Asian alone, July 1.4% 1.3% 1.0% 2.8% 2014 Asian alone, April 1.1% 1.1% 0.9% 3.2% 2010 Native Hawaiian, 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% Pacific Islander Alone, July 2014 Native Hawaiian, 0.1% 0.1% N/A 0.1% Pacific Islander Alone, April 2010 Two or More Races, 1.8% 1.5% 1.2% 2.0% July 2014

Two or More Races, 1.7% 1.5% 1.1% 2.1% April 2010

Hispanic or Latino, 3.4% 4.1% 3.0% 9.3% July 2014

Hispanic or Latino, 3.1% 3.9% 2.7% 8.8% April 2010

Source: http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045214/21,01,28,13,47

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Featured Source Source A: American Community Survey, United States Census Bureau

*Kentucky economic data will need to be compared to states more solidly identified as southern.

KENTUCKY

Subject Estimate Margin of Error Percent Percent Margin of Error EMPLOYMENT STATUS In labor force 3,454,107 +/-1,519 3,454,107 (X) Population 16 years and over 2,076,555 +/-6,647 60.1% +/-0.2 Civilian labor force 2,059,754 +/-6,638 59.6% +/-0.2 Employed 1,857,767 +/-7,196 53.8% +/-0.2 Unemployed 201,987 +/-2,864 5.8% +/-0.1 Armed Forces 16,801 +/-774 0.5% +/-0.2 Not in labor force 1,377,552 +/-6,638 39.9% +/-0.2

Civilian labor force 2,059,754 +/-6,638 2,059,754 (X) Percent Unemployed (X) (X) 9.8% +/-0.1

Females 16 years and over 1,773,215 +/-1,191 1,773,215 (X) In labor force 981,900 +/-4,294 55.4% +/-0.2 Civilian labor force 980,546 +/-4,274 55.3% +/-0.2 Employed 891,267 +/-4,290 50.3% +/-0.2

Own children under 6 years 317,070 +/-2,001 317,070 (X) All parents in family in labor force 204,945 +/-2,841 64.6% +/-0.8

Own children 6 to 17 years 632,809 +/-2,407 632, 809 (X) All parents in family in labor force 435,534 +/-4,347 68.8% +/-0.6 COMMUTING TO WORK Workers 16 years and over 1,832,657 +/-7,120 1,832,657 (X) Car, truck, or van – drive alone 1,512,405 +/-7,088 82.5% +/-0.2 Car, truck, or van - carpooled 183,845 +/-3,641 10.0% +/-0.2 Public Transportation (excluding 20,249 +/-1,004 1.1% +/-0.1 taxicab) Walked 39,557 +/-1,568 2.2% +/-0.1 Other means 20,421 +/-1,087 1.1% +/-0.1 Worked at home 56,180 +/-1,574 3.1% +/-0.1

Mean travel time to work (mins.) 22.8 +/-0.1 (X) (X) INDUSTRY Civilian employed population 16, 1,857,767 +/-7,196 1,857,767 (X) years and over Agriculture, , and 54,251 +/-1,485 2.9% +/-0.1

11 KENTUCKY C3 TEACHERS HUB hunting, and mining Construction 113,206 +/-2,381 6.1% +/-0.1 Manufacturing 252,749 +/-3,302 13.6% +/-0.2 Wholesale trade 49,583 +/-1,550 2.7% +/-0.1 Retail trade 217,950 +/-3,088 11.7% +/-0.2 Transportation and warehousing, 109,244 +/-2,367 5.9% +/-0.1 and utilities Information 31,822 +/-1,358 1.7% +/-0.1 Finance and insurance, and real 101,592 +/-2,147 5.5% +/-0.1 estate and rental and leasing Professional, scientific, and 143,399 +/-2,595 7.7% +/-0.1 management and administrative and waste management Educational services, and health 453,913 +/-4,945 24.4% +/-0.2 care and social assistance Arts, entertainment, and 157,154 +/-3,484 8.5% +/-0.2 recreation, and accommodation and food services Other services, except public 87,796 +/-2,298 4.7% +/-0.1 administration Public administration 85,108 +/-2,098 4.6% +/-0.1 CLASS OF WORKER Civilian employed population 16 1,857,767 +/-7,196 1,857,767 (X) years and over Private wage and salary workers 1,461,453 +/-6,418 78.7% +/-0.2 Government workers 289,479 +/-4,131 15.6% +/-0.2 Self-employed in own not 103,755 +/-1,810 5.6% +/-0.1 incorporated business workers Unpaid family workers 3,080 +/-381 0.2% +/-0.1 INCOME AND BENEFITS (IN 2013 INFLATION-ADJUSTED DOLLARS) Total Households 1,694,996 +/-5,311 1,694,996 (X) Less than $10,000 169,440 +/-2,633 10% +/-0.2 $10,000-$14,999 120,065 +/-2,398 7,1% +/-0.1 $15,000-$24,999 221,896 +/-3,041 13.1% +/-0.2 $25,000-$34,999 196,916 +/-2,411 11.6% +/-0.1 $35,000-$49,999 246,988 +/-2,855 14.6% +/-0.2 $50,000-$74,999 298,895 +/-3,299 17.6% +/-0.2 $75,000-$99,999 186,091 +/-2,537 11.0% +/-0.1 $100,000-$149,000 167,641 +/-2,469 9.9% +/-0.1 $150,000-$199,999 45,920 +/-1,339 2.7% +/-0.1 PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES AND PEOPLE WHOSE INCOME IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS IS BELOW THE POVERTY LEVEL All families (X) (X) 14.4% +/-0.2 With related children under 18 (X) (X) 22.6% +/-0.4 years With related children under 5 (X) (X) 26.1% +/-1.0 years only

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Married couple families (X) (X) 7.3% +/-0.2 With related children under 18 (X) (X) 10.2% +/-0.3 years With related children under 5 (X) (X) 10.9% +/-0.8 years Families with female householder, (X) (X) 38.7% +/-0.8 no husband present With related children under 18 (X) (X) 49.5% +/-1.0 years With related children under 5 (X) (X) 59.3% +/-2.3 years

All people (X) (X) 18.8% +/-0.2 Under 18 years (X) (X) 26.1% +/-0.6 Related children under 18 years (X) (X) 25.7% +/-0.5 Related children under 5 years (X) (X) 30.5% +/-0.8 Related children 5 to 17 years (X) (X) 23.9% +/-0.6 18 years and over (X) (X) 16.6% +/-0.2 18 to 64 years (X) (X) 17.6% +/-0.2 65 years and over (X) (X) 11.7% +/-0.3

People in families (X) (X) 15.8% +/-0.3

Unrelated individuals 15 years and (X) (X) 32.6% +/-0.4 over

Source: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk

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Supporting Question 3

Source A: Ashley Lopez, “This November, Will Kentucky Stop Voting Like Its 1865?” National Public Radio Featured Source 2015

When Kentucky voters elect a new next week, it will be a test of where white, rural voters' allegiances lie. The Democratic Party has been losing their vote for decades, but in Kentucky, that old coalition has stuck around much longer than in its neighbors to the south.

And in the race to replace retiring Democratic Gov. this November, Republicans hope to finally win over that portion of the electorate.

To understand current-day political branding in Kentucky, you have to go back to the Civil War.

"A lot of people here, they are of the same their parents were — and their parents. And back in the day, shortly after the Civil War, people used to just go around saying, 'Vote the way you shot,' " said Thomas Lawhon, chairman of his local Republican Party in Owen . Just as with a lot of people around here, his politics are a lot like his ancestors'.

"My mother was a county chairwoman. My grandmother was a county chairwoman. My great-grandfather was county chairman — at different times. So that covers probably close to a hundred years," he said.

Owen County is a lot like much of the Bluegrass State — it's rural, and it's very conservative and majority Democrat, which makes Lawhon's job a little tricky.

Kentucky-brand Democrats have kept the party in power for decades. There's been only one Republican governor in the past 40 years. But the last time the state's voters backed a Democrat for president was in 1996, when was on the ballot.

Republican operative thinks this may be the year Kentucky Republicans take the governor's mansion. "We are trying to see if Republicans can break through and get those rural Democrats to vote Republican in the constitutional races — governor all the way down," he said.

Kentucky's gubernatorial race this year is among Democrat , Republican and independent Drew Curtis. It's pretty much a tossup.

There are a lot of reasons why Republicans haven't managed to take control of the state yet, said Al Cross, who runs the Institute for Rural Journalism at the .

"It has the smallest African-American population of any former slave state. Only about 7.5 percent," he said, which means civil rights issues didn't divide conservative Democrats in Kentucky the way they did throughout the rest of the South.

But other social issues have been splintering Kentucky's Democrats lately.

"I believe a Kentucky Democrat is one who has strong conservative fiscal values, but tends to be moderate when it comes to social values and tolerant to a great degree with the exception of a couple of hot button issues," said Herb McKee, a Democratic activist and farmer in Henderson County — another rural county in Kentucky that's also majority

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Democrat. Those exceptions, McKee said, are issues such as and same-sex marriage. They're also issues that the national Democratic Party has embraced." I believe the Republicans have done a great job of driving that wedge into the heads of the Democrats around those two issues," he said.

Those wedge issues have been hurting Kentucky Democrats. Fifteen years ago, Democrats made up two-thirds of the state's registered voters. Now, they're only slightly more than half.

Both Democratic and Republican activists argue, though, a lot of this hinges on turnout. This governor's race has been pretty sleepy.

Back in Owen County, Republican activist Lawhon said his big fear is that "if we have a lackluster election, if people are registered Democrat they will tend somewhat to vote for a Democrat as a default."

Lawhon says besides registering rural Democrats as Republicans, he's working on simply getting Kentuckians to care about the election.

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/29/452587715/this-november-will-kentucky- stop-voting-like-its-1865

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Featured Source Source B: Colin Woodard, Brian Stauffer (illustration), “Up in Arms” Tufts Magazine

THE BATTLE LINES OF TODAY’S DEBATES OVER GUN CONTROL, STAND-YOUR-GROUND LAWS, AND OTHER VIOLENCE- RELATED ISSUES WERE DRAWN CENTURIES AGO BY AMERICA’S EARLY SETTLERS

BY COLIN WOODARD, A91

ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN STAUFFER

Last December, when Adam Lanza stormed into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, , with a rifle and killed twenty children and six adult staff members, the United States found itself immersed in debates about gun control. Another flash point occurred this July, when George Zimmerman, who saw himself as a guardian of his community, was exonerated in the killing of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Florida. That time, talk turned to stand-your-ground laws and the proper use of deadly force. The gun debate was refreshed in September by the shooting deaths of twelve people at the Navy Yard, apparently at the hands of an IT contractor who was mentally ill.

Such episodes remind that our country as a whole is marked by staggering levels of deadly violence. Our death rate from is many times higher than that of highly urbanized countries like the Netherlands or Germany, sparsely populated nations with plenty of forests and game hunters like , Sweden, Finland, or New Zealand, and large, populous ones like the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. State-sponsored violence, too—in the form of —sets our country apart. Last year we executed more than ten times as many prisoners as other advanced industrialized nations combined—not surprising given that Japan is the only other such country that allows the practice. Our violent streak has become almost a part of our national identity.

What’s less well appreciated is how much the incidence of violence, like so many salient issues in American life, varies by . Beyond a vague awareness that supporters of violent retaliation and easy access to guns are concentrated in the states of the former Confederacy and, to a lesser extent, the western interior, most people cannot tell you much about regional differences on such matters. Our conventional way of defining regions—dividing the country along state boundaries into a Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest—masks the cultural lines along which attitudes toward violence fall. These lines don’t respect state boundaries. To understand violence or practically any other divisive issue, you need to understand historical settlement patterns and the lasting cultural fissures they established.

The original North American colonies were settled by people from distinct regions of the British Isles—and from France, the Netherlands, and —each with its own religious, political, and ethnographic traits. For generations, these Euro- American cultures developed in isolation from one another, consolidating their cherished religious and political principles and fundamental values, and expanding across the eastern half of the in nearly exclusive settlement bands. Throughout the colonial period and the Early Republic, they saw themselves as competitors—for land, capital, and other settlers—and even as enemies, taking opposing sides in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.

There’s never been an America, but rather several —each a distinct nation. There are eleven nations today. Each looks at violence, as well as everything else, in its own way.

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The borders of my eleven American nations are reflected in many different types of maps—including maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown of voting in virtually every hotly contested presidential race in our history. Our continent’s famed mobility has been reinforcing, not dissolving, regional differences, as people increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities, a phenomenon analyzed by Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing in The Big Sort (2008). Even waves of immigrants did not fundamentally alter these nations, because the children and grandchildren of immigrants assimilated into whichever culture surrounded them.

Before I describe the nations, I should underscore that my observations refer to the dominant culture, not the individual inhabitants, of each region. In every town, city, and state you’ll likely find a full range of political opinions and social preferences. Even in the reddest of red counties and bluest of ones, twenty to forty percent of voters cast ballots for the “wrong” team.

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GREATER . Founded in the early eighteenth century by wave upon wave of settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands, Appalachia has been lampooned by writers and screenwriters as the home of hillbillies and rednecks. It transplanted a culture formed in a state of near constant danger and upheaval, characterized by a warrior ethic and a commitment to personal sovereignty and individual liberty. Intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers alike, Greater Appalachia has shifted alliances depending on who appeared to be the greatest threat to their freedom. It was with the Union in the Civil War. Since Reconstruction, and especially since the upheavals of the 1960s, it has joined with to counter federal overrides of local preference.

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DEEP SOUTH. Established by English slave lords from Barbados, Deep South was meant as a –style slave society. This nation offered a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was the privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. Its caste systems smashed by outside intervention, it continues to fight against expanded federal powers, taxes on capital and the wealthy, and environmental, labor, and consumer regulations.

If you understand the United States as a patchwork of separate nations, each with its own origins and prevailing values, you would hardly expect attitudes toward violence to be uniformly distributed. You would instead be prepared to discover that some parts of the country experience more violence, have a greater tolerance for violent solutions to conflict, and are more protective of the instruments of violence than other parts of the country. That is exactly what the data on violence reveal about the modern United States.

Most scholarly research on violence has collected data at the state level, rather than the county level (where the boundaries of the eleven nations are delineated). Still, the trends are clear. The same handful of nations show up again and again at the top and the bottom of state-level figures on deadly violence, capital punishment, and promotion of gun ownership.

Consider assault deaths. Kieran Healy, a Duke University sociologist, broke down the per capita, age-adjusted deadly assault rate for 2010. In the northeastern states—almost entirely dominated by Yankeedom, New Netherland, and the Midlands—just over 4 people per 100,000 died in assaults. By contrast, southern states—largely monopolized by Deep South, Tidewater, and Greater Appalachia—had a rate of more than 7 per 100,000. The three deadliest states— Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, where the rate of killings topped 10 per 100,000—were all in Deep South territory. Meanwhile, the three safest states—, , and , with rates of about 2 killings per 100,000—were all part of Yankeedom.

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Not surprisingly, black Americans have it worse than whites. Countrywide, according to Healy, blacks die from assaults at the bewildering rate of about 20 per 100,000, while the rate for whites is less than 6. But does that mean racial differences might be skewing the homicide data for nations with larger African-American populations? Apparently not. A classic 1993 study by the social psychologist Richard Nisbett, of the University of , found that homicide rates in small predominantly white cities were three times higher in the South than in . Nisbett and a colleague, Andrew Reaves, went on to show that southern rural counties had white homicide rates more than four times those of counties in New England, Middle Atlantic, and Midwestern states.

Stand-your-ground laws are another dividing line between American nations. Such laws waive a citizen’s duty to try and retreat from a threatening individual before killing the person. Of the twenty-three states to pass stand-your-ground laws, only one, New Hampshire, is part of Yankeedom, and only one, , is in the Midlands. By contrast, each of the six Deep South–dominated states has passed such a law, and almost all the other states with similar laws are in the Far West or Greater Appalachia.

Comparable schisms show up in the gun control debate. In 2011, after the mass shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen others in Tucson, the Pew Research Center asked Americans what was more important, protecting gun ownership or controlling it. The Yankee states of New England went for gun control by a margin of sixty- one to thirty-six, while those in the poll’s “southeast central” region—the Deep South states of Alabama and Mississippi and the Appalachian states of Tennessee and Kentucky—supported gun rights by exactly the same margin. Far Western states backed gun rights by a proportion of fifty-nine to thirty-eight.

Another revealing moment came this past April, in the wake of the Newtown school massacre, when the U.S. Senate failed to pass a bill to close loopholes in federal background checks for would-be gun owners. In the six states dominated by Deep South, the vote was twelve to two against the measure, and most of the Far West and Appalachia followed suit. But Yankee New England voted eleven to one in favor, and the dissenting vote, from Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, was so unpopular in her home state that it caused an immediate dip in her approval rating.

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The pattern for capital punishment laws is equally stark. The states dominated by Deep South, Greater Appalachia, Tidewater, and the Far West have had a virtual monopoly on capital punishment. They account for more than ninety-five percent of the 1,343 executions in the United States since 1976. In the same period, the twelve states definitively controlled by Yankeedom and New Netherland—states that account for almost a quarter of the U.S. population—have executed just one person.

Why is violence—state-sponsored and otherwise—so much more prevalent in some American nations than in others? It all goes back to who settled those regions and where they came from. Nisbett, the social psychologist, noted that regions initially “settled by sober Puritans, Quakers, and Dutch farmer-artisans”—that is, Yankeedom, the Midlands, and New Netherland—were organized around a yeoman agricultural economy that rewarded “quiet, cooperative citizenship, with each individual being capable of uniting for the common good.” The South—and by this he meant the nations I call Tidewater and Deep South—was settled by “swashbuckling Cavaliers of noble or landed gentry status, who took their values . . . from the knightly, medieval standards of manly honor and virtue.”

Continuing to treat the South as a single entity, Nisbett argued that the violent streak in the culture the Cavaliers established was intensified by the “major subsequent wave of immigration . . . from the borderlands of Scotland and Ireland.” These immigrants, who populated what I call Greater Appalachia, came from “an economy based on herding,” which, as anthropologists have shown, predisposes people to belligerent stances because the animals on which their wealth depends are so vulnerable to theft. Drawing on the work of the historian David Hackett Fisher, Nisbett maintained that “southern” violence stems partly from a “culture-of-honor tradition,” in which males are raised to

18 KENTUCKY C3 TEACHERS HUB create reputations for ferocity—as a deterrent to rustling—rather than relying on official legal intervention.

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With such sharp regional differences, the idea that the United States would ever reach consensus on any issue having to do with violence seems far-fetched. The cultural gulf between Appalachia and Yankeedom, Deep South and New Netherland is simply too large. But it’s conceivable that some new alliance could form to tip the balance.

Among the eleven regional cultures, there are two superpowers, nations with the identity, , and numbers to shape continental debate: Yankeedom and Deep South. For more than two hundred years, they’ve fought for control of the federal government and, in a sense, the nation’s soul. Over the decades, Deep South has become strongly allied with Greater Appalachia and Tidewater, and more tenuously with the Far West. Their combined agenda—to slash taxes, regulations, social services, and federal powers—is opposed by a Yankee-led bloc that includes New Netherland and the . Other nations, especially the Midlands and El Norte, often hold the swing vote, whether in a presidential election or a congressional battle over health care reform. Those swing nations stand to play a decisive role on violence- related issues as well.

For now, the country will remain split on how best to make its citizens safer, with Deep South and its allies bent on deterrence through armament and the threat of capital punishment, and Yankeedom and its allies determined to bring peace through constraints such as gun control. The deadlock will persist until one of these camps modifies its message and policy platform to draw in the swing nations. Only then can that camp seize full control over the levers of federal power—the White House, the House, and a -proof Senate majority—to force its will on the opposing nations. Until then, expect continuing frustration and .

Source: http://emerald.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2013/features/up-in-arms.html

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Featured Source Source C: Collection of Interactive maps depicting Presidential Elections 1789-2012, 270towin.com

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21 KENTUCKY C3 TEACHERS HUB Supporting Question 4

Featured Source Source A: Vince Staten, “Is Kentucky A Southern State?” Courier Journal Magazine

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Supporting Question 4

Featured Source Source B: Patrick Ottenhoff, “Where does the South Begin?” The Atlantic

The Post had an interesting article last weekend about how the Washington, D.C. region has lost most of its southern identity in recent decades as northerners move in and the federal capital's culture, food, and dialect became more standardized. The article raised the inevitable question: Was D.C. ever a southern city? And if so, where does the South begin?

Most Americans would agree that Richmond is a southern town, but how far north above the capital of the Confederacy does the South extend? Is Fredericksburg a southern town? Annapolis? Harper's Ferry? Louisville?

In some sense it's a ham-handed question, since "the South" has many sub-cultures. Charleston is very different than ; the Great Smokies look nothing like the Delta; and -style is sacrilegious in Memphis. But at the same time, most Americans, southern and otherwise, have a psychological concept of the South. The question is the geography of it.

The town of Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley was the base to legendary southerners such as Harry Byrd and Stonewall Jackson, yet it is north of Washington, was settled by Quakers, and has the feel of a mill town. Not surprisingly, Winchester changed hands 72 times during the Civil War.

The border is obviously hazy, as anyone familiar with the events of 1861-65 can attest. The five most widely used borders are the Rappahannock River, the Potomac River, the River, the Mason-Dixon Line, and U.S. Route 40. Each of these can seem equally logical and preposterous depending on what kind of metric you're using. Here are some of the best ways decide:

Surveys and Censuses

The Mason-Dixon Line is the most traditional border between North and South, and to some extent the line made sense in its time. Maryland was a slave state, home to the likes of Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman, and Lincoln had to send federal troops into Baltimore to quell secessionist riots -- all suggesting Maryland was a southern state.

The Line endures today and the U.S. Census still lists Maryland and D.C. as part of the South. In fact, the Census even calls Delaware southern, which seems a bit misguided. The concept of the Mason-Dixon Line today is outdated, as few people would describe Baltimore, with its ethnic neighborhoods and industrial tradition, as southern.

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Many historians and sociologists decided long ago that the Mason-Dixon Line was too clumsy and that U.S. Route 40 -- the old National Road -- was a more accurate border. The road extends from Baltimore to Frederick to Cumberland, through Wheeling, across southern Ohio, through Columbus and , across , and out to St. Louis.

In the "Nine Nations of ," Joel Garreau noted that there are "substantial differences in food, architecture, the layout of towns, and music to either side of that highway." Southern , he wrote, "is definitely part of , and has been ever since the Coppherheads (those Northerners who sympathized with the Confederates in the 1860s)."

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Rivers

Gen. George McClellan could never cross the swampy Chickahominy River outside Richmond, and so everything south of there is clearly property of Dixie. But a more frequently-used border is the Rappahannock, which is about halfway between Washington and Richmond. Most neighborhoods north of the Rap feel metropolitan while counties south are rural.

The Potomac was also the effective border between the USA and CSA. The Feds' decision to coin the Army of the Potomac was symbolic, as it hinted at the central point. Similarly, the Army of the Ohio suggested that the was the western border between North and South, which seems reasonable if you consider Kentucky southern and Ohio northern.

Religion

If you look at the Kentucky/Ohio and Kentucky/Indiana borders, you'll also see that the southern state is overwhelmingly Baptist while the northern one is a mix of Catholics, Methodists, and Presbyterians. Not surprisingly, the Baptist counties in southern Illinois supported Stephen A. Douglas (who founded a Baptist seminary) over Lincoln, who was a Presbyterian.

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The divide roughly follows the Ohio River, but it cuts across West Virginia, where the is Baptist and speaks will a drawl and the northern tier is ethnic and for the Steelers. Maryland was a colony founded by Catholics, while Virginia is mostly Baptist with a strong Methodist following in the hills.

Language

If religion is voluntary, dialect is involuntary. Every American knows what a southern accent sounds like, thanks in no small part to southern caricatures from Boss Hogg to Larry the Cable Guy. The reality of course is that the South consists of a fabric of dialects from the mountain twang of Johnson City to the smooth drawl of Panama City.

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What those accents have in common, according to Rick Aschmann's research of regional dialects, is that the South is defined by areas where people pronounce "pen" as "pin." The region he defined as "the South" roughly followed the Baptist/Ohio/Potomac border, with differences between Lowland and Inland and distinct pockets in the towns of Charleston, Savannah, and .

Food

It's tough to think about towns like New Orleans without thinking about food and drink, and really no beverage is more southern than sweet tea. The Post article notes that McDonald's went national with sweet tea in 2008, but prior to that decision, one of the best ways to measure a location's southerness was whether or not Mickey D's served sweet tea.

The map below shows the so-called Sweet Tea Line of McDonald's that served the tasty drink in 2004. It's a surprisingly southern border, below Richmond even. The second map is the Slaw Line of West Virginia shows the geographic dispersion of HDJ's (hot dog joints) that serve with slaw and without (h/t Strange Maps). Again, the map is similar to the Baptist Line.

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Politics

Lastly, no discussion of the South could be complete without an understanding of its politics. Chuck Todd has said that 2006 was the year that "Virginia seceded from the Confederacy," and sure enough the Old Dominion and neighboring North Carolina voted for in 2008. For this reason, we can't simply look at the recent electoral map. The best way to measure the South through politics is by examining the "" of the Wilbur Mills/Sam Rayburn/Willie Talos days in the century following Appamattox. As recently as 1982, Democrats controlled a near monopoly in states like Alabama (105-4 split in House; 35-0 in Senate), Georgia (157-23, 51-5), and South Carolina (107- 17, 41-5).

So Where is the Border? It begins with an imaginary line from Cambridge, Md. to Fredericksburg, Va., follows the Rappahannock River up into the Piedmont, across the Baptist Line in West Virginia, along the Ohio River, and along the Baptist Line in southern Illinois.

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/where-does-the-south-begin/70052/

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