William Labov October 20, 2008

Yale University

Yankee Cultural Imperialism and the Northern Cities Shift

The argument (1)

• The Northern Cities Shift is a rotation of six vowels which has radically altered the vowel systems of the Great Lakes region.

• The triggering event for this shift took place in western New York during the construction of the Erie Canal, when a variety of dialect differences were leveled in a general raising and fronting of short-a words.

• The direction of the changes that followed can be accounted for by general principles of chain shifting of vowels, as well as by the tendency to maximum dispersion in vowel sub-systems.

• Yet the coincidence of the Northern Cities Shift territory with the Blue States of the last two presidential elections leads us to look further into the cultural patterns of Northern settlement history

.

The argument (2)

• The formative period of the sound changes coincided with the Second Great Awakening, a period of intense evangelical activity with a strong focus on the abolition of slavery.

• Although the cultural style of these Yankee evangelists was similar to that of the New Christian Right today, the region defined by their modern linguistic legacy is now dominated by liberal Democratic voting.

• The reversal of Republican and Democratic voting patterns in the North and South appears to have been motivated by the Democratic Party’s endorsement of civil rights legislation. If so, the same ideological opposition may be associated with the Northern Cities Shift and the sharp linguistic differentiation across the North/ Midland line.

The Northern Cities Shift

Word Phrase Sentence

1. _________ ________________ ___________________________

2. _________ ________________ ___________________________

3. _________ ________________ ___________________________

4. _________ ________________ ___________________________

5. _________ ________________ ___________________________

6. _________ ________________ ___________________________

Project on Cross-Dialectal Comprehension: Gating Experiment

head

desk

boss

busses

block

socks

mat

The Northern Cities Shift

The Northern Cities Shift

o

i

e1

2æ

oh3

4 5

6

cat cot

caught

bet

bit

but

Social factors

A large scale phenomenon

The Northern Cities Shift is found throughout the Inland

North, an area of 88,000 square miles. A population of

over 34,000,000 speakers of American English are

participating in this shift.

The U.S. at night

U.S. at NightThe Inland North

Rochester

Detroit

Syracuse

Buffalo

Cleveland

Chicago

Milwaukee

Toledo

Grand Rapids

Flint

Joliet

Kenoshat

Columbus

IndianapolisCIncinnati

Kansas City

Omaha

St. Louis

Map 11.15. Dialect regions defined by the Atlas of North American English.

Two questions to be resolved

Matters of settlement history. . .

(1) Why is the North/Midland line located where it is?

(2) Why do the cities of the Inland North all follow the Northern Cities Shift, while dialects of Midland cities--Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis -- differ considerably from each other?

The Inland North and the Blue States

Red States and Blue States in U.S. 2004 Presidential election

States for Kerry in 2004 and dialect areas: solid line = Northern dialect region: dashed line = Inland North and Northern Cities Shift

Democratic vs. Republican vote for counties surveyed by dialect in presidential election of

2004.

Inland North Midland New

North England

Kerry majority 20 15 8 12

Bush majority 6 7 13 2

Where did the Northern Cities Shift come from?

Settlement patterns, 1840-1860, as reflected in house construction

--Kniffen & Glassie 1966. Fig. 27

Midland

North

Upland South

The Erie Canal, constructed 1817-1825

The impact of the Erie Canal

The impact on the rest of the State can be seen by looking at a modern map.  With the exception of Binghamton and Elmira, every major city in New York falls along the trade route established by the Erie Canal, from New York City to Albany, through Schenectady, Utica and Syracuse, to Rochester and Buffalo.  Nearly 80% of upstate New York's population lives within 25 miles of the Erie Canal.

The Erie Canal: A Brief History

No established village had ever mushroomed so rapidly [as Rochester], growing from 1507 to 9207 within a ten year span - Blake McKelvey, A Panoramic View of Rochester History. Rochester History 11:2-24.

The formation of a koine among settlers of western

New York State

Nasal short-a system of Diane S., 37 [1996], Providence, RI

back bag

asklaugh

cash

Short-a/broad-a system of Denise L., 21[1995], Boston MA, TS 427

General raising of /æ/ for Sharon K., 35 [1995], Rochester, NY, TS 359

The general raising of short-a as a koine formation is not a theory but a summary of the

facts

• none of the input dialects have a general raising of short-a

• the general raising is consistent throughout the central and western New York State

• the general raising is consistent in all the speech communities created by the westward expansion from New York State

The westward expansion

The North/Midland lexical isogloss

Coincidence of the North/Midland lexical line and NCS isoglosses

hot

socktalk

mat

handy

Three stages of the NCS for Martha F., 28 [1992], Kenosha, WI TS 3

Yankee and Midland settlement patterns

Settlement patterns, 1840-1860, as reflected in house construction

Kniffen & Glassie 1966. Fig. 27

Midland

North

Upland South

The Upland South Contiguous area in which persons of German, African, French, or Hispanic ancestry do NOT constitute majorities or pluralities, 1980

Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov, The Upland South 2003, p. 13.

Community movement in the migration from New England

Mass migrations were indeed congenial to the Puritan tradition. Whole parishes, parson and all, had sometimes migrated from Old England. Lois Kimball Mathews mentioned 22 colonies in Illinois alone, all of which originated in New England or in New York, most of them planted between 1830 and 1840.

--Richard L. Power, Planting Corn Belt Culture: The Impress of the Upland Southerner and Yankee in the old Northwest, 1953. P. 14.

The individualism of the Upland Southerner

The Upland Southerners left behind a loose social structure of rural “neighborhoods” based on kinship; when Upland Southerners migrated--as individuals or in individual families--the neighborhood was left behind.

Tim Frazer, “Heartland” English., ed. T. Frazer, U. of Alabama Press, 1993. p. 63.

Migration patterns of Yankees and Midlanders

Yankee Midland/Upland South

Settlement Towns Isolated clusters

House location Roadside Creek & spring

Internal migration Low Very high

David Hackett Fischer 1989. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 814.

Yankee and Midland cultural styles

“The Yankee Confession”

• Life is a struggle, a test of will.

• The individual, not the government or any other social unit, is responsible for his or her own well-being.

• Success is a measure of character.

• The righteous are responsible for the welfare of the community. While conversion of the sinner to the higher path was the preferable means of reform, it was sometimes necessary to use the legal authority of the state by making immoral activities illegal.

--Morain, Thomas J. 1988. Prairie Grass Roots: An Iowa Small Town in the Early Twentieth century. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. P. 45

The meddling Yankee

Taxed with being busybodies and meddlers, apologists own that the instinct for meddling, as divine as that of self-preservation, runs in the Yankee blood; that the typical New Englander was entirely unable, when there were wrongs to be corrected, to mind his own business.

--Richard L. Power, Planting Corn Belt Culture: The Impress of the Upland Southerner and Yankee in the old Northwest, 1953, P. 6.

A Yankee view of the Midland

In McLean County, Illinois, “the Northerner thought of the Southerner as a lean, lank, lazy creature, burrowing in a hut, and rioting in whiskey, dirt and ignorance”

--History of McLean County 1879:97

The Yankee historian’s view

Along with their crackers, their codfish, and their theology, they carried their peculiar ideas of government and managed, in spite of Kentucky statutes in Illinois, to impose their township system throughout the state . . . [T]hey did the same to or for Michigan, and also established the whipping post, in words taken from Vermont’s original laws.

Stewart H. Holbrook 1950. The Yankee Exodus: An account of migration from New England New York: MacMillan.

Correcting Midland speech patterns

At Greensburg in southeastern Indiana, the Reverend J. R. Wheelock advised his eastern sponsors that his wife had opened a school of 20 or 30 scholars in which she would use “the most approved N.E. school books,” to be obtained by a local merchant from Philadelphia. “She makes defining a distinct branch of study and this gives her a very favorable oppy. of correcting the children & thro’ them, the parents of ‘a heap’ of Kentuckyisms.”

--Richard L. Power, Planting Corn Belt Culture: The Impress of the Upland Southerner and Yankee in the old Northwest, 1953, p. 114.

“The language of Yankee Cultural Imperialism”

...we must learn what led to the establishment of Inland Northern as a prestige dialect in the Great Lakes region; we need to understand as well why scholars like Kenyon, George Phillip Krapp and Hans Kurath . . . embraced the concept of Inland Northern as a General American.”

Perhaps the language of “Yankee cultural imperialism” was appropriate for a century of corporate expansion, leveraged buyouts, and American military intervention in the Philippines, Central America, the Caribbean, Vietnam, and the Middle East.

Tim Frazer, in “Heartland” English., ed. T. Frazer, U. of Alabama Pres, 1993, pp. 60, 66.

Yankee ideology and American reform movements

Imbued with the notion that their was a superior vision, Yankees dutifully accepted their responsibility for the moral and intellectual life of the nation, . . . with or without an invitation from the uneducated, the undisciplined, the disinterested, or the unmotivated.

Cultural uplift Yankee style also meant attacking sin and sloth. The initial settlement of Iowa coincided with three very active decades for American reform movements. Health fads, prison reform, women’s rights, crusades for new standards of dress---the northern states teemed with advocates of one cause or another.

Most important among the reform movements of the day were the issues of abolition and temperance.

Morain, Thomas J. 1988. Prairie Grass Roots: An Iowa Small Town in the Early Twentieth century. The Henry A. Wallace Series on Agricultural History and Rural Studies. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.

The evolution of Yankee ideology

Red States and Blue States in U.S. 2004 Presidential election

Presidential elections in which the Northern States [NY, MI, WI, IA, MN] have

been opposed to the Southern States [TX, AK,

LA, MI, AL, GA, FL, SC, NC, KY,TN, VA]

South North1848Fillmore / /1852Pierce (D) D1856Buchanan D R1860Lincoln D R1864Lincoln S R

1868-1876 Reconstruction1880Garfield D R1884Cleveland D (R)1888Harrison D R1892Cleveland D /1896McKinley D R1900McKinley D R1904Roosevelt D R1908Taft D R1912Wilson D (D)1916Wilson D R1920Harding (D) R1924Coolidge D R1928Hoover / R1932Roosevelt D D1936Roosevelt D D1940Roosevelt D (D)1944Roosevelt D /1948Truman / /1952Eisenh’r / R1956Eisenh’r / R1960Kennedy / /1964Johnson / D1968Nixon W /1972Nixon R R1976Carter (D) /1980Reagan (R) (R)1984Reagan R (R)1988Bush R (D)1992Clinton / D1996Clinton / D2000Bush R D2004Bush R D

The role of the Northern States in the history of efforts to abolish the death

penalty

1846-1876 First wave of death penalty abolition

1878-1883 First wave of death penalty abolition receding

1887 Re-abolition of the death penalty in Maine

1897-1915 Second wave of death penalty abolition

1916-1939 Second wave of death penalty restoration

1957-1969 Third wave of death penalty abolition

FURMAN v. GEORGIA

408 U.S. 238 (1972) U. S. SUPREME COURT Decided June 29, 1972

PER CURIAM

The Court holds that the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

1973-1982: Restoration of the death penalty after Furman 1972

Evangelical politics and the anti-slavery movement

The “Burned-Over” Districts of western New York

Entire communities of young New Englanders . . . emigrated to the area of New York west of the Adirondack and Catskill mountains [arriving] in western New York, often by means of the Erie Canal . . . The restless settlers of the “Burned-Over District” readily sought release in millennial and communitarian religion.

--M. Carnes & J. Garrity, Mapping America’s Past: A Historical Atlas. NY: Henry Holt, 1996, P. 90.

Slavery the central issue in the Burned-Over District

Cross, Whitney R. 1950. The Burned-over District: The social and intellecual history of enthusiastic religion in western New York, 1800-1850 Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. P. 224-5

In February 1841, [an interdenominational convention] adopted a totally ultra-ist position, condemning the Baptist Register and all others who acknowledged evil without taking action, and concluded that “the abolition cause. . . must prevail before the halcyon day of millenial glory can dawn upon the world.”No other section of the country would throughout the years before the Civil War prove to be so thoroughly and constantly sensitive to antislavery agitation. As the major issue of the century, furthermore, this crusade attracted more attention than others.

R-correlations between New England origins and county voting for abolitionist parties

Year Ohio Liberty Party

New York Liberty Party

Black Suffrage

Party

1840 0.539 0.349

1842 0.419

1844 0.521 0.521

1846 0.374 0.697

John L. Hammond, The Politics of Benevolence, 90-91

19th century pietists vs. liturgicals

Liturgicals stressed the positive values of the institutionalized formalities of the old orthodoxies.

Pietists were revivalists, emphasizing the experience of personal conversion, and flatly rejecting ritualism. Pietists worked for Sunday blue laws, the abolition of saloons, and before the Civil War, a check to the growth of slavery, or even its abolition.

When American political parties re-formed to an opposition between Republicans and Democrats, around 1850, “the great majority of . . . pietists entered the Republican Party, while the great majority of liturgicals became Democrats”

-- Carwardine, Richard J. 1993. Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America New Haven: Yale University Press.p. 69.

The Democratic position

[was designed to appeal to] lower-class rural folk, particularly but not exclusively in the rural South . . . who deeply resented the imperialism of the Yankee missionaries, their schemes for temperance, Sunday Schools and other reforms.

--Carwardine 1993:111-12

The Republican position

The emergence and ultimate success of the Republicans were dependent on a particular understanding of politics, one which evangelicals had played a major role in shaping. That political ethic was rooted in the . . . theology of the Second Great Awakening, marked by an optimistic postmillennialism and an urgent appeal to disinterested action.

--Carwardine 1993: 320

Continuity

Behind this change in regional alignments lay a striking continuity in their environing cultures. Walter Dean Burnham. . . found that [in the New York election returns of 1964] the counties which voted Democratic and supported civil rights were the same as those which had voted Republican and opposed slavery in the mid-nineteenth century.

David Hackett Fischer 1989, p. 882

Presidential elections in which the Northern States [NY, MI, WI, IA, MN] have

been opposed to the Southern States [TX, AK,

LA, MI, AL, GA, FL, SC, NC, KY,TN, VA]

South North1848Fillmore / /1852Pierce (D) D1856Buchanan D R1860Lincoln D R1864Lincoln S R

1868-1876 Reconstruction1880Garfield D R1884Cleveland D (R)1888Harrison D R1892Cleveland D /1896McKinley D R1900McKinley D R1904Roosevelt D R1908Taft D R1912Wilson D (D)1916Wilson D R1920Harding (D) R1924Coolidge D R1928Hoover / R1932Roosevelt D D1936Roosevelt D D1940Roosevelt D (D)1944Roosevelt D /1948Truman / /1952Eisenh’r / R1956Eisenh’r / R1960Kennedy / /1964Johnson / D1968Nixon W /1972Nixon R R1976Carter (D) /1980Reagan (R) (R)1984Reagan R (R)1988Bush R (D)1992Clinton / D1996Clinton / D2000Bush R D2004Bush R D

Political opinions ascribed to an Inland North (Detroit) and Midland (Indianapolis) speaker by students at U. of Indiana, Bloomington [N=90]

3.5

3.7

3.9

4.1

4.3

4.5

4.7

Abortion Affirmative action Gun control

Ap

pro

va

l ->

Inland NorthMidland

p < .03 p < .003

No significant difference in judgments of intelligence, trustworthiness, education;

Midland speaker judged more friendly (p < .00001)

The argument (1)

• The triggering event for the Northern Cities Shift took place in western New York during the construction of the Erie Canal, when a variety of dialect differences were leveled in a general tensing of short-a words.

• The direction of the changes that followed can be accounted for by • general principles of chain shifting of vowels and

• the tendency to maximum dispersion of members of vowel sub-systems.

The argument (2)

• The coincidence of the Northern Cities Shift territory with the Blue States of the last two presidential elections leads us to look further into the cultural patterns of Northern settlement history.

• The formative period of Northern Cities Shift coincided with a period of intense evangelical activity with a strong focus on the abolition of slavery.

• Counties with high concentrations of Yankee settlers have shown consistent opposition to slavery and racial inequality.

• The reversal of Republican and Democratic voting patterns in the North and South appears to have been motivated by the promotion of civil rights legislation by the Democratic Party. If so, the same ideological opposition may be associated with the Northern Cities Shift and the sharp linguistic differentiation across the North/Midland line.

Ideological, political and linguistic developments, 1817-2008

Expansion in western NY Evangelical

movement

Opposition to racial inequality

Switch of political allegiance

1825-50 Raising of short-a

1817-1825

1830-1860Westward expansion

Party of racial equality

1960-1995

2000-2008

1860-1956

Blue States /Red States redefined

Perfectionism

1967 Fronting of /o/ first reported

1960 Democratic1986 Backing

of /ʌ/ first reported

1856 Republican

No’n Cities Shift

Yankee ideology

Yankee settlement