Regionalism

The major geographical divisions of the United States—North, South, Midwest and West—reflect different attitudes, dialects, literature, folklore, food, history perspectives, climate and lifestyle that have fostered extensive literary and historical study of each. Still, many scholars argue that the term is too imprecise to be meaningful. Subregions such as Northwest, Southwest, New England, Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes are perhaps more specific markers of culture, social ties and identity. Additionally, differences between inhabitants of a particular region may be greater than similarities.

Los Angelenos may have more in common with New Yorkers than they do with residents of Taos, New Mexico, although both California and New Mexico are considered part of the West. In spite of these complications, regional identities have been and continue to be a significant aspect of American heritages. Stereotypes of “genteel Southerners,” “rednecks,” “reserved New Englanders” and “rugged Westerners” remain as plentiful in contemporary median culture as they were in the nineteenth century when regionalism was first identified. The labels may be adopted by residents, imposed and reproduced in film, television and popular culture, or both.

Throughout history, regional identity has often been constructed in relationship to national identity and has cut across racial, gender and class differences. In the nineteenth century, for example, many white Southerners sublimated class, gender and regional consciousness in order to declare their loyalty to the Confederacy. Obviously, blacks relate differently to this heritage. A strong interest in the study of regionalism permeates scholarship. Regionalism in American literature emerged in the nineteenth century and was manifest in the “local color” movement of the 1880s. In the twentieth century, notions of regionalism were influenced by anthropological, historical and sociological perspectives in works by William Faulkner, Willa Cather and Robert Penn Warren. Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Louise Erdrich and Wallace Stegner invoke region more critically in their discussion of race, class, gender and multiple, changing identities in the late twentieth century.

Historians have “discovered” region in a cyclical fashion throughout the past two hundred years. Recently, studies in the “New Western History” building on earlier work in Southern history have rekindled the regionalist impulse. Scholars attribute this to heightened localism related to environmentalism, preservation of historical monuments, journals and publications, and commemorative occasions. A resurgence in studies of local communities, family history and autobiography contributes as well. Scholars also argue that the resurgence of regionalism is linked to a late twentieth-century disillusionment with national identity. This turning inward towards region is seen as related to larger sociological and political shifts to a more conservative, locally based sense of self amidst great mobility and change.

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