Poor White

{{Short description|United States social caste and ethnic group}} {{For|the 1920 novel by Sherwood Anderson|Poor White (novel)}} {{For|the specific cultural group in Appalachia|Mountain white}} {{Use American English|date = March 2019}} {{Use mdy dates|date = March 2019}}

{{Infobox ethnic group | group = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | flag =  | flag_caption = | image = File:Cracker kemble.jpg | image_caption = Portrayals of Poor Whites in U.S. state of Georgia, as illustrated by E. W. Kemble, {{circa|1891}} | total =  | total_year =  | total_source =  | total_ref =  | genealogy = | regions = Southern United States  | region1 =  | pop1 =  | ref1 =  | region2 = | pop2 = | ref2 = | region3 = | pop3 = | ref3 =  | region33 = | pop33 = | ref33 = | languages = | related_groups = White Southerners, Mountain white, White Americans | footnotes = }} '''Poor White''' is a sociocultural classification used to describe economically disadvantaged Whites in the English-speaking world, especially White Americans with low incomes.

In the United States, Poor White is the historical classification for an American sociocultural group,<ref name="flynt">Flynt, J. Wayne. ''Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites.'' Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004. Print.</ref> of generally Western and/or Northern European descent, with many being in the Southern United States and Appalachia regions. They were first classified as a social caste<ref name="seabrook">{{cite web|url=https://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=gala;cc=gala;rgn=full%20text;idno=gala0004-6;didno=gala0004-6;view=image;seq=0701;node=gala0004-6%3A5 |title=Seabrook, E. B. "Poor Whites of the South." The Galaxy Volume. p. 681-691 04 Issue 6 (Oct 1867). Web. 10 July 2012 |publisher=Digital.library.cornell.edu |access-date=2013-01-06}}</ref><ref name="dollard">Dollard, John. ''Caste and Class in a Southern Town''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957. Print.</ref> in the Antebellum South,<ref name="prov-don">{{cite web |url=http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/trash/trash3.html |title=Provosty, Laura, and Donovan Douglas. "White Trash in the Twentieth Century." ''White Trash: Transit of an American Icon.'' University of Virginia, n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2012 |publisher=Xroads.virginia.edu |access-date=2013-01-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025002957/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/trash/trash3.html |archive-date=October 25, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> consisting of white, agrarian, economically disadvantaged laborers or squatters, who usually owned neither land nor slaves.<ref name="marx">{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/10/25.htm |title=Marx, Karl. "The North American Civil War." ''Marx/Engels Collected Works''. Vol. 19. Moscow: Progress, 1964. N. pag. ''Articles by Marx in the U.S. Civil War 1861.'' Marxists' Internet Archive, 1999. Web. 16 Nov. 2012 |publisher=Marxists.org |access-date=2013-01-06}}</ref><ref name="weber">Weber, Max. "Ethnic Groups." '' Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology''. Berkeley: University of California, 1968. 391. Print.</ref><ref name="weston" />

In the British Commonwealth, the term was historically used to describe lower-class whites,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=McD. Beckles|first=Hilary|date=1988|title=Black over white: The 'poor-white' problem in Barbados slave society|journal=Immigrants & Minorities|volume=7|issue=1|pages=1–15|doi=10.1080/02619288.1988.9974674|issn=0261-9288}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jackson|first=Will|date=2013|title=Dangers to the Colony: Loose women and the "poor white" problem in Kenya|journal=Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History|language=en|volume=14|issue=2|doi=10.1353/cch.2013.0029|s2cid=144107953|issn=1532-5768}}</ref> notably in the context of the "poor white problem" in South Africa.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fourie|first=Johan|date=2007|editor-last=David|editor-first=Lamond|editor2-last=Rocky|editor2-first=Dwyer|title=The South African poor White problem in the early twentieth century: Lessons for poverty today|journal=Management Decision|volume=45|issue=8|pages=1270–1296|doi=10.1108/00251740710819032|issn=0025-1747}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tayler|first=Judith|date=1992|title='Our poor': the politicisation of the Poor White problem, 1932–1942|journal=Kleio|volume=24|issue=1|pages=40–65|doi=10.1080/00232089285310061|issn=0023-2084}}</ref>

== United States == {{Refimprove|section|date=July 2024}} ===Definition=== Author Wayne Flynt in his book, ''Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites'' (2004), argues that "one difficulty in defining poor whites stems from the diverse ways in which the phrase has been used. It has been applied to economic and social classes as well as to cultural and ethical values."<ref name="flynt" /> While other regions of the United States have ''white people who are poor,'' this does not have the same meaning as ''the Poor White'' in the South. In context, ''the Poor White'' refers to a distinct sociocultural group, with members who belong to families with a history of multi-generational poverty and cultural divergence.{{cn|date=October 2024}}

=== Connotation === [[File:'North Carolina Emigrants; Poor White Folks' by James Henry Beard.JPG|right|thumb|300px|''North Carolina Emigrants: Poor White Folks'', by James Henry Beard, 1845, Cincinnati Art Museum]] Throughout American history the Poor Whites have regularly been referred to by various terms;<ref name="angel">{{cite web |url=http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma97/price/open.htm |title=Price, Angel. ''White Trash: The Construction of An American Scapegoat.'' University of Virginia, 2004. Web. 25 July 2012. |publisher=Xroads.virginia.edu |access-date=2013-01-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130113012226/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma97/price/open.htm |archive-date=January 13, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> the majority of which are often considered disparaging. They have been known as "rednecks" (especially in modern context), "hillbillies" in Appalachia, "crackers" in Texas, Georgia, and Florida, "Hoosier" in St. Louis, Missouri, and "white trash". The use of the term "Poor White" by the white Southern planter class, was to distance themselves from elements of society they viewed as "undesirable", "lesser" or "antisocial."

=== History === {{Further|Scotch-Irish Americans|Indentured servitude in Virginia}} Much of the character and condition of Poor Whites is rooted in the institution of slavery. Rather than provide wealth as it had for the Southern planter class, in stark contrast, slavery considerably hindered progress of whites who did not own enslaved individuals 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. The majority of whites in the Deep South who never owned African-American slaves were poor.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://bittersoutherner.com/from-the-southern-perspective/miscellany/what-you-dont-know-about-the-south#:~:text=Poor%20whites%2C%20who%20owned%20neither,their%20bargaining%20power%20as%20laborers.|title=Keeping Poor Whites & Blacks Apart: a Southern Tradition }}</ref>

Many fictional depictions in literature used poor whites as foils in reflecting the positive traits of the protagonist against their perceived "savage" traits.<ref name=hubbs>Hubbs, Jolene. "William Faulkner's Rural Modernism." ''Mississippi Quarterly'' 61.3 (2008): 461-75. ''Academic Search Complete.'' Web. 29 Sept. 2012.</ref><ref name=hurst>Hurst, Allison L. "Beyond the Pale: Poor Whites as Uncontrolled Social Contagion in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred." ''Mississippi Quarterly'' 63.3/4 (2010): 635-53. ''Academic Search Complete''. Web. 10 July 2012.</ref> In her novel ''Dred,'' Harriet Beecher Stowe illustrates a commonly held stereotype that marriage to them results in genetic degradation and barbarism of the better class.<ref name=hurst />

During the American Civil War, the Poor White comprised a majority of the combatants in the Confederate Army; afterwards, many labored in the rural South as sharecroppers. During the nadir of American race relations at the turn of the 20th century, intense violence, defense of honor and white supremacy flourished<ref name="forret">Forret, Jeff. "Slave-Poor White Violence in the Antebellum Carolinas." ''North Carolina Historical Review'' 81.2 (2004): 139-67. ''Academic Search Complete.'' Web. 10 Dec. 2012.</ref> in a region suffering from a lack of public education and competition for resources. Southern politicians of the day built on conflict between Poor Whites and African Americans in a form of political opportunism.<ref name="angel" /><ref name="broadax">{{cite news|url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024055/1906-12-29/ed-1/seq-4/ |title=Campbell, John T. "John T. Campbell Sets Forth In a Very Convincing Manner, His Views on the Race Problem in America." ''The Broad Ax'' (Salt Lake City) 29 Dec. 1906: 4. Print |publisher=Chroniclingamerica.loc.gov |date=1906-12-29 |access-date=2013-01-06}}</ref><ref name="seattlerep">The Seattle Republican. "Afro-American Observations." ''The Seattle Republican'' 29 May 1903: 7. Print.</ref> As John T. Campbell summarizes in ''The Broad Ax'' in 1906. The Civil War also caused poor whites to experience intense dire economic conditions and was brought into poverty along with enslaved African-Americans.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Poor Whites |url=https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/poor-whites/ |access-date=2024-03-30 |website=New Georgia Encyclopedia |language=en-US}}</ref>

{{Quote|text=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 the poor white 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<ref name="broadax" />}}

[[File:Elvis Presley 1970.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Elvis Presley, an icon of 20th century America, was born into a Poor White family in Tupelo, Mississippi.]]

Further evidence of the hostility of the ruling class towards the Poor White is found in the enactment by several southern states of a poll tax, which required an annual payment of $1.00 ({{Inflation|US|1|1890|r=0|fmt=eq|cursign=$}}),{{Inflation-fn|US}} to vote, in some cases, or at least payment before voting. The poll tax excluded not only African Americans, but also the many Poor Whites, from voting, as they lived in a barter economy and were cash poor.

In the early 20th century, the image of the Poor White was a prominent stereotype in American media. Sherwood Anderson's novel ''Poor White'' (1920) explored how a poor white youth from Missouri tried to adjust to a middle-class world by moving to the Midwest.<ref>"Poor White" by Sherwood Anderson (1920) in {{cite book|author1=Jan Pinkerton|author2=Randolph H. Hudson, eds.|title=Encyclopedia of the Chicago Literary Renaissance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iyy_uf6NqfYC&pg=PA263|date= 2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|page=263|isbn=9781438109145}}</ref> The American eugenics movement encouraged the legalization of forced sterilizations. In practice, individuals who came from Poor White backgrounds were often targeted,<ref name="wray">Wray, Matt, and Annalee Newitz. ''White Trash: Race and Class in America.'' New York: Routledge, 1997.</ref> particularly institutionalized individuals and fertile women.<ref name="whisnant">{{cite web |url=http://toto.lib.unca.edu/sr_papers/history_sr/srhistory_2004/whisnant_heather.pdf |title=Whisnant, Heather. "Poor White Trash: The Legacy of Carrie Buck and Eugenical Sterilization in the United States." ''University of North Carolina at Asheville.'' 22 Nov 2004. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. |access-date=2013-01-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140307143019/http://toto.lib.unca.edu/sr_papers/history_sr/srhistory_2004/whisnant_heather.pdf |archive-date=March 7, 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The drafting and recruitment of physically fit individuals in the First World War revealed the first practical comparisons between the Appalachian region, the South, and the rest of the country. The Poor Whites were unequal in terms of income, education, and medical treatment than other White Americans; only African Americans in the Southern states fared worse.<ref name="newgeorgia">[http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/poor-whites Boney, F. N. "Poor Whites." ''New Georgia Encyclopedia.'' University of Georgia, 06 Feb. 2004. Web. 13 May 2014.]</ref>

New Deal rural life programs such as the Resettlement Administration, the Farm Security Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority helped create new jobs for the rural poor during the Great Depression, especially in the South. In the late 1960s under the President Lyndon B. Johnson administration, the Appalachian Regional Commission was founded to deal with persistent poverty in the region.<ref>Paul E. Mertz, ''New Deal Policy and Southern Rural Poverty'' (1978).</ref> The Second World War led to new economic opportunities; millions of poor farmers moved to industrial centers for high paying jobs. As the century progressed, economic and social conditions for the Poor White continued to improve. However while many social prejudices have since been lifted, popularized stereotypes surrounding the Poor White continued.<ref>Ann R. Tickamyer and Cynthia M. Duncan, "Poverty and opportunity structure in rural America." ''Annual Review of Sociology'' (1990): 67-86.</ref>

=== Culture === ====Traditional==== right|thumb|220px|Poor White sharecroppers in Alabama, 1936 Historically, especially in Appalachia, Poor Whites lived somewhat removed from mainstream Southern society. At the turn of the 20th century, Abbott H. Ernest subdivided the Poor White group into the Appalachian "mountain whites" and those who live in the flatlands farther east and west.<ref name=outlook>{{cite journal|title=Ernest, Abbott H. "The South and the Negro: II. The Confusion of Tongues." ''The Outlook'' (New York) 28 May 1904: 225-230. Print}}</ref> Affluent whites (known in the South as the Bourbon class) had little interaction with the poor, oftentimes limited to no more than, "whom he would wonder see staring at him from the sides of the highway."<ref name="seabrook"/> The physical and geographic isolation enabled poor whites in Appalachia to develop their own culture.<ref name=nyc>{{cite web|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1877/05/13/80645565.pdf |title=Special Correspondent. "Poor Whites in the South, Their Poverty and Principles." ''New York Times,'' 13 May 1877: n. pag. Web. 10 July 2012 |work=New York Times |access-date=2013-01-06}}</ref>

As was typical in general rural society for generations, the Poor White continued to make many of their necessities by hand. They sewed their own garments and constructed houses in the fashion of log cabins or dogtrots.<ref name="flynt"/> Traditional clothing was simple: for men, jeans and a collarless, cuffless unbleached-muslin shirt; and for women, a straight skirt with a bonnet of the same material.<ref name="century" /> The Poor White survived by small-scale subsistence agriculture,<ref name=weston>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/poorwhitesofsout00west |title=Weston, George M. ''Poor Whites of the South''. Washington: Republican Executive Congressional Committee, 1860. Web. 10 July 2012 |date=2001-03-10 |access-date=2013-01-06}}</ref> hunter-gathering,<ref name=weston /> charity,<ref name="lockley">Lockley, Tim. "Survival Strategies of Poor White Women in Savannah, 1800-1860," ''Journal of the Early Republic'' 32.3 (2001): 415-35. ''Academic Search Complete.'' Web. 29 Sept. 2012.</ref> fishing,<ref name=weston /> bartering with enslaved individuals<ref name=weston /><ref name=forrett>Forrett, Jeff. "Slaves, Poor Whites, and the Underground Economy of the Rural Carolinas." ''Journal of Southern History'' 70.4 (2004): 783-824. ''Academic Search Complete''. Web. 10 July 2012.</ref> and seeking what employment they could find.<ref name=weston /> Some moved to take jobs in cotton mills and factories, which were originally reserved for whites.{{clarify|date=June 2021}}<ref name="century">{{cite news|title=De Graffenreid, Clare. "The Georgia Cracker in the Cotton Mills." ''The Century; a Popular Quarterly'' Feb. 1891: 483-98. 10 July 2012}}</ref>

====Contemporary==== A broad characterization of the culture, of the descendants of the Poor Whites, includes such elements as strong kinship ties, non-hierarchical religious affiliations, emphasis on manual labor, connection to rural living and nature, and inclination toward self-reliance. In addition, individuals from backgrounds historically rooted among the Poor Whites still carry much of the culture and often continue many of the practices of their forefathers. Hunting and fishing, while practiced by their ancestors as a method of survival, is now seen as a means of recreation. Variations on folk music, particularly Country, still have strong resonance among their descendants. Traditional country music still uses the banjo, dulcimer and fiddle.{{cn|date=July 2022}}

19.5 million white Americans have lived below the poverty line in the year 2022.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-americas-poverty-rates-differ-by-race/#:~:text=Other%20racial%20groups%20also%20grapple,the%20largest%20of%20all%20groups.|title=How America’s Poverty Rates Differ by Race}}</ref> White men without college degrees had their earnings decrease between the years 1970 and 2017. This has led to liver disease, drug overdoses and suicides among white males in the United states.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2024/11/07/heres-why-white-poverty-should-matter-everyone-column/|title=Here’s why white poverty should matter to everyone}}</ref>

==South Africa== South Africa's Apartheid system created a massive racial wealth gap and widespread poverty among Black South Africans. This inequality continues to this day, with White South Africans still controlling the majority of the country's wealth.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/business/south-africa-economy-apartheid.html |title=End of Apartheid in South Africa? Not in Economic Terms |last=Goodman |first=Peter S. |date=October 24, 2017 |website=The New York Times |access-date=August 1, 2022}}</ref> Post-Apartheid ANC governments have instituted affirmative action policies to provide greater opportunities for Blacks, but this has had the side-effect of forcing some working-class whites out of employment, creating a small, impoverished and often homeless white underclass.<ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba3E-Ha5Efc |title=White Slums of South Africa |date=December 26, 2020 |type=Video |language=English |location=YouTube |access-date=August 1, 2022 |people=Reggie Yates}}</ref>

== References == '''Notes ''' {{Reflist}} ==Further reading== * Bolton, Charles C. ''Poor Whites of the Antebellum South: Tenants and Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast Mississippi'' (Duke University Press, 1993). * Boney, F. Nash. ''Southerners All'' (2nd ed. 1990). * Canning, Charlotte, et al. "White trash fetish: representations of poor white southern women and constructions of class, gender, race and region, 1920-1941." (PhD Dissertation, U Texas, 2005). [https://web.archive.org/web/20160303184759/https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2005/hesterj60419/hesterj60419.pdf online], with bibliography pp 225–36 * Carr, Duane. ''A question of class: The redneck stereotype in southern fiction'' (1996). * Cook, Sylvia Jenkins. ''From Tobacco Road to Route 66: The Southern Poor White in Fiction'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1976) * Flynt, J. Wayne. ''Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites'' (Indiana UP, 2004). * Forret, Jeff. ''Race Relations at the Margins: Slaves and Poor Whites in the Antebellum Southern Countryside'' (LSU Press, 2006). * Glossner, Jeffrey. "Poor Whites in the Antebellum U.S. South (Topical Guide)," H-Slavery, July 2019 [https://networks.h-net.org/node/11465/pages/4372893/poor-whites-antebellum-us-south-topical-guide online] * Harkins, Anthony. ''Hillbilly: A cultural history of an American icon'' (Oxford University Press, 2003). * Huber, Patrick. "A Short History of Redneck: The Fashioning of a Southern White Masculine Identity," ''Southern Cultures'' 1#2 (1995) [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/425942 online] * Jones, Jacqueline. "Encounters, likely and Unlikely between Black and Poor White Women in the Rural South, 1865-1940." ''Georgia Historical Quarterly'' vol. 76 pp 333-353. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40582539 online]

* Kirby, Jack Temple. ''Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American Imagination'' (Louisiana State UP, 1978) * McIlwaine, Shields. ''The Southern Poor-White: From Lubberland to Tobacco Road'' (1939) [http://agris.fao.org/agris-search/search.do?recordID=US201300721388 online] * Mell, R. Mildred. "Poor Whites of the South" ''Social Forces'' (1938), vol.17 pp 153-167 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2570919 online] * Reed, John Shelton. ''Southern Folks, Plain & Fancy: Native White Social Types'' (U of Georgia Press, 1986), pp 34–47

* Roach, Jack L. “The Effects of Race and Socio-Economic Status on Family Planning.” ''Journal of Health and Social Behavior'', vol. 8, no. 1, 1967, pp. 40–45. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2948490 online]

* Wray, Matt. ''Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness'' (2006) [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Not_Quite_White/cEVeQhqJM5gC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=intitle:white+inauthor:Wray&printsec=frontcover online] ** Wray, Matthew Taylor. "Not quite white: Poor rural whites in the Southern United States, 1877–1927" (PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley|ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2000. 9979864).

==External links== *{{Commonscatinline|Poverty in the United States}}

Category:Culture of the Southern United States Category:European-American culture in Appalachia Category:Poverty in the United States Category:Rural culture in the United States Category:Stereotypes of the working class Category:Race and society Category:Social classes Category:Working class in the United States Category:White Americans Category:Antebellum South