The Poor White (or Poor Whites of the South for clarity) are an American sociocultural group, of European descent, having origins in the Southern United States and Appalachia. They first emerged as a social caste in the Antebellum South, consisting of white, agrarian, economically disadvantaged laborers or squatters often possessing neither land nor slaves. In contemporary context the term is still used to pertain to their descendants; regardless of present economic status. While similar to other White Americans in ancestry, the Poor White differ notably in regards to their history and culture.
Famous quotes containing the words poor and/or white:
“... It may be Prester Johns balloon
Or an old battered lantern hung aloft
To light poor travellers to their distress.
She then: How you digress!”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“My age fallen away like white swaddling
Floats in the middle distance, becomes
An inhabited cloud.”
—Philip Larkin (19221986)