Editing White trash (section)

===Cultural traditions===
====Child rearing====

In the mid-19th century South, even upper-class parents were extremely indulgent of their children, encouraging both boys and girls to be aggressive. They soon learned that they were expected to grab for what they wanted, wrestle with their siblings in front of their parents, disobey parental orders, make a racket with their toys, and physically attack visitors. Patrician girls would later be taught to be proper young ladies, but boys continued to be unrestrained, lest they become effeminate. These behaviors &ndash; which were also practiced by poorer whites to the extent their circumstances allowed &ndash; propelled young men into gambling, drinking, whoring and fighting, all of which was more or less expected as "manly" behavior. This pattern of child-rearing was predominate in the backwoods, where it was not limited to the upper class, but could be found among yeoman and poor whites alike. For white trash, this method of raising children was combined with violent folkways inherited from their English, Irish, and Scottish progenitors.{{sfnp|Wyatt-Brown|2007|pp=138-144, 166}}{{efn|According to [[Grady McWhiney]] in ''Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South'', the majority of immigrants to the South in the 1800s came from Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, with those from Scotland coming in waves after every unsuccessful rebellion there. The immigrants were emotionally-driven lower-class "crackers" who maintained archaic clan structures, did not follow the [[Protestant work ethic]], valued comfort and hospitality, and had a sense of personal, familial, and clan honor that was easily provoked. While some of these immigrants were able to enter the Southern planter aristocracy, bringing their characteristics to the "cavaliers" in it, many were not able to elevate themselves and blended into the mass of poor Southern whites; thus these characteristics can also be found in that group.<ref>[[Wolfgang Schivelbusch|Schivelbusch, Wolfgang]] (2001) ''The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery''. New York: Picador. {{isbn|0-312-42319-5}} pp.49; 317 n.29; citing [[Grady McWhiney|McWhiney, Grady]] (1988) ''Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South''. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press {{isbn|9780817303280}}</ref>}}

====Proximity to blacks and Native Americans====

According to Wyatt-Brown, the Southern style of child-rearing was seen as paralleling that of the Native Americans who were a constant presence in post-colonial America, especially in the backwoods areas.{{sfnp|Wyatt-Brown|2007|p=143}} Accordingly, another theory for the existence of white trash held that the degraded condition of poor white southerners was the result of living in close proximity to blacks and Native Americans. [[Samuel Stanhope Smith]], a minister and educator who was the seventh president of [[Princeton University|Princeton College]], wrote in 1810 that poor white southerners lived in "a state of absolute savagism", which caused them to resemble Indians in the color of their skin and their clothing, a belief that was endemic in the 18th and early 19th century. Smith saw them as a stumbling block in the evolution of mainstream American whites,{{sfnp|Painter|2010|pp=117–18}} a view that had previously been expressed by [[J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur]] in his 1782 book, ''[[Letters from an American Farmer]]''. Crèvecœur, a French soldier-diplomat who resettled in the United States, considered poor white southerners to be "not ... a very pleasing spectacle" and inferior to the prototypical American he celebrated in his book, but still hoped that the effects of progress would improve the condition of these people whom he considered "the most hideous parts of our society".{{sfnp|Painter|2010|pp=107–109}}

====Celtic heritage====

The [[Brandeis University]] historian [[David Hackett Fischer]] says there is an enduring genetic basis for a "willingness to resort to violence" &ndash; citing especially the finding of high blood levels of [[testosterone]] &ndash; in the four main chapters of his book ''[[Albion's Seed]]''.<ref>Particularly the chapter "Borderlands to the Backcountry: The Flight from Middle Britain and Northern Ireland, 1717-1775".</ref> He proposes that a propensity for violence in the Mid-Atlantic, Southern and Western states is due to genetic changes wrought over generations living in traditional herding societies in [[Northern England]], the [[Scottish Borders]], and Irish [[Border Region]], which were then transferred to other ethnic groups by shared culture.<ref>[[David Hackett Fischer|Fischer, David Hackett]] (1989) ''[[Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America]]''. New York: [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-19-506905-1}}</ref>{{efn|In ''Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and Southern Heritage'', [[Grady McWhiney]] and Perry D. Jamiesen analyze the military behavior of the Confederate Army by comparing it to that of the Celts of Europe and the British Isles, and conclude that the Confederate's over-aggressiveness coupled with a lack of tenacity, among other characteristics, is well-aligned with Celtic battle behavior throughout history. They believe that the Celtic-ness of the South was one of the factors which contributed to its losing the [[American Civil War|Civil War]].<ref>[[Grady McWhiney|McWhiney, Grady]] and Jamiesen, Perry D. (1982) ''Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and Southern Heritage''. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. pp.170-191. {{isbn|0-8173-0229-8}}</ref>}}

Even before there was any scientific investigation into the roots of the poor white people of the South, social critic [[H. L. Mencken]], in his 1919 essay "Sahara of the Bozart", challenged the prevailing myth at the time that "poor white trash", and most of the South's population, were primarily of Anglo-Saxon stock, suggesting most were Celtic, with lesser elements of French, Spanish, German and African American heritage.{{efn|Mencken wrote: "The chief strain down there, I believe, is Celtic rather than Saxon, particularly in the hill country French blood, too, shows itself here and there, and so does Spanish, and so does German. The last-named entered from the northward, by way of the limestone belt just east of the Alleghenies. Again, it is very likely that in some parts of the South a good many of the plebeian whites have more than a trace of Negro blood. Interbreeding under concubinage produced some very light half-breeds at an early day, and no doubt appreciable numbers of them went over into the white race by the simple process of changing their abode."<ref>[[H. L. Mencken|Mencken, H. L.]] (1919) [http://writing2.richmond.edu/jessid/eng423/restricted/mencken.pdf "Sahara of the Bozart"] in Cairns, Huntington, editor (1977) ''The American Scene: A Reader''. New York: Knopf. pp.157-168</ref>}} According to historian [[Jack Temple Kirby]], Mencken was "woefully ignorant of even the basics of southern history", and was a "captive of the tradition that Old South society consisted only of planter aristocrats, slaves, and poor white trash".<ref>[[Jack Temple Kirby|Kirby, Jack Temple]] (1986) [1976] ''Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American Imagination''. Atlanta: University of Georgia Press. p.66. {{isbn|0-8203-0885-4}}</ref>

====As a legacy of slavery====

In his classic study, ''[[Democracy in America]]'' (1835), French aristocrat [[Alexis de Tocqueville]] sees the state of poor white southerners as being one of the effects of the slave system, which made them ignorant, idle, prideful, self-indulgent, and weak. He writes:

{{blockquote |From birth, the southern American is invested with a kind of domestic dictatorship ... and the first habit he learns is that of effortless domination ... [which turns] the southern American into a haughty, hasty, irascible, violent man, passionate in his desires and irritated by obstacles. But he is easily discouraged if he fails to succeed at his first attempt.{{sfnp|Painter|2010|pp=126-27}}}}

Poor whites were restricted from holding political office due to property qualifications, and their ability to vote was at the mercy of courts controlled by the slave-holding planters, meaning they had few advocates. Many were tenant farmers or day laborers, while others were forced to live as scavengers, thieves and vagrants, but all were socially ostracized by "proper" white society. Even slaves looked down on them.{{sfnp|Isenberg|2016|pp=149–50}} Despite poor whites being looked down on by both the planters and the yeoman farmers, they held the Blacks of the South in deep contempt. Cash writes that the slave system "bred [in common whites] a savage and ignoble hate for the Negro, which required only opportunity to break forth in relentless ferocity".{{sfnp|Cash|1991|page=83}}

====Roistering among the British working class====

Poor Southern whites in the 19th century were often casual about male sexual activity outside of marriage, in spite of evangelical revivalism and increasing church discipline. Wyatt-Brown suggests that this was part of a roistering tradition with roots in the class' British origins, and differentiated white trash from both the yeoman class and landed gentry of the plantations, where church proscriptions and social inhibitions held sway, respectively.{{sfnp|Wyatt-Brown|2007|pp=298-298}} For poor white women, there was generally a double standard: girls who broke the code of chastity and bore children outside of wedlock were often subject to public humiliation. In some deep mountain backwoods, however, such girls were seen as fertile rather than shameful.{{sfnp|Wyatt-Brown|2007|pp=448-449}}