Poor White - History

History

The character and condition of the Poor White is rooted in the institution of slavery. Rather than provide wealth as it had for the Southern elite, in stark contrast, slavery considerably hindered progress for non-slave holding whites by exerting a crowding-out effect eliminating free labor in the region. This effect, compounded by the area's widespread lack of public education and its general practice of endogamy, prevented low-income and low-wealth free laborers from moving to the middle class. Many fictional depictions in literature used them as foils in reflecting the positive traits of the protagonist against their perceived "savage" traits. In her novel Dred, Harriet Beecher Stowe illustrates a commonly held stereotype that marriage through them results in generic degradation and barbarism of the better class.

“For the sake of dear dependents the will forces the weary muscles to act and knits the relaxed nerves. Surely, fatally, the joy dies out of the eyes of childhood, girlhood is but a flickering shadow, and maturity an enforced decrepitude, a lingering old age, a quenching of the fires of life before they half burn.”

Clare de Graffenreid, "The Georgia Cracker in the Cotton Mills"

During the American Civil War the Poor White comprised a majority of the combatants in the Confederate Army (the Battle Flag, while controversial, is still seen by some as a symbol of Southern as well as their identity); afterwards, many labored as sharecroppers. During the nadir of American race relations intense violence, defense of honor and white supremacy flourished in a region suffering from a lack of public education and competition for resources. Southern politicians of the day motivated conflict between the Poor White and African Americans as a form of Political Opportunism. As John T. Campbell summarizes in The Broad Ax:

In the past, white men have hated white men quite as much as some of them hate the Negro, and have vented their hatred with as much savagery as they ever have against the Negro. The best educated people have the least race prejudice. In the United States the poor white were encouraged to hate the Negroes because they could then be used to help hold the Negroes in slavery. The Negroes were taught to show contempt for poor whites because this would increase the hatred between them and each side could be used by the master to control the other. The real interest of the poor whites and the Negroes were the same, that of resisting the oppression of the master class. But ignorance stood in the way. This race hatred was at first used to perpetuate white supremacy in politics in the South. The poor whites are almost injured by it as are the Negroes. - John T. Campbell

In the early 20th century, the image of the Poor White was a prominent stereotype in American media, despite the fact that poverty and social conditions for them was still a real problem. Worsening matters, the American eugenics movement encouraged the legalization of forced sterilizations. In many states, such laws were passed that allowed for any person deemed "unfit" to be sterilized. In practice, individuals who came from Poor White backgrounds were often targeted, particularly institutionalized individuals and women. (The "trash" in the pejorative "poor white trash" is suggestive of such supposed genetic inferiority.) The mobilization of the able-bodied persons in the First World War brought about the first concrete comparisons between the Appalachian region, the South and the rest of the country. The Poor White had less income, lower education, and fewer medical supplies and were disproportionally worse off than other White Americans. Only African Americans in the Southern states fared worse.

In the 1920s and 1930s, agriculture suffered greatly in the Dust Bowl. Drought brought heavy losses and economic depression worsened the situation overall. Federal programs such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and later the Appalachian Regional Commission helped create new jobs for the rural underprivileged in the Southern states and Appalachia. The Second World War led to an economic upturn in the South as well. As the century progressed, economic and social conditions for the Poor White continued to improved. However while many social prejudices have since been lifted, popularized stereotypes surrounding the Poor White still continue into the 21th Century.