Product Code Database
Poor White is a sociocultural classification used to describe economically disadvantaged White people in the English-speaking world, especially White Americans with Poverty.
In the United States, Poor White is the historical classification for an American sociocultural group,Flynt, J. Wayne. Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004. Print. 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 casteDollard, John. Caste and Class in a Southern Town. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957. Print. in the Antebellum South, consisting of white, agrarian, economically disadvantaged laborers or squatters, who usually owned neither land nor slaves.Weber, Max. "Ethnic Groups." Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley: University of California, 1968. 391. Print.
In the British Commonwealth, the term was historically used to describe lower-class whites, notably in the context of the "poor white problem" in South Africa.
Many fictional depictions in literature used poor whites as foils in reflecting the positive traits of the protagonist against their perceived "savage" traits.Hubbs, Jolene. "William Faulkner's Rural Modernism." Mississippi Quarterly 61.3 (2008): 461-75. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Sept. 2012.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. In her novel Dred, Harriet Beecher Stowe illustrates a commonly held stereotype that marriage to them results in genetic degradation and Barbarian of the better class.
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 Sharecropping. During the nadir of American race relations at the turn of the 20th century, intense violence, defense of honor and white supremacy flourishedForret, 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. 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 Opportunism.The Seattle Republican. "Afro-American Observations." The Seattle Republican 29 May 1903: 7. Print. 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.
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 (), 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."Poor White" by Sherwood Anderson (1920) in The American eugenics movement encouraged the legalization of forced sterilizations. In practice, individuals who came from Poor White backgrounds were often targeted,Wray, Matt, and Annalee Newitz. White Trash: Race and Class in America. New York: Routledge, 1997. particularly institutionalized individuals and fertile women.
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. Boney, F. N. "Poor Whites." New Georgia Encyclopedia. University of Georgia, 06 Feb. 2004. Web. 13 May 2014.
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.Paul E. Mertz, New Deal Policy and Southern Rural Poverty (1978). 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.Ann R. Tickamyer and Cynthia M. Duncan, "Poverty and opportunity structure in rural America." Annual Review of Sociology (1990): 67-86.
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 or . 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. The Poor White survived by small-scale subsistence agriculture, , charity,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. fishing, bartering with enslaved individualsForrett, 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. and seeking what employment they could find. Some moved to take jobs in cotton mills and factories, which were originally reserved for whites. Many slaveowners refused to use enslaved individuals for skilled labor because doing so would both increase owners' dependence on specific enslaved peoples, and increase the likelihood that those enslaved would run away in pursuit of self-employment elsewhere.
19.5 million white Americans have lived below the poverty line in the year 2022. 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.
Notes
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> online, with bibliography pp 225–36
|
|
