Dixie

Geographically, Dixie usually means the eleven Southern states that seceded from the United States of America in late 1860 and early 1861 to form the Confederate States of America. They are listed below in order of secession:[lower-alpha 1]

Although Maryland is rarely considered part of Dixie today,[2][3] it is below the Mason–Dixon line. If the origin of the term Dixie is accepted as referring to the region south and west of that line, Maryland lies within Dixie. It can be argued that Maryland was part of Dixie before the Civil War, especially culturally.[4] In this sense, it would remain so into the 1970s, until an influx of people from the Northeast made the state and its culture significantly less Southern (especially Baltimore and the suburbs of Washington, D.C.).[3] However, the southern part of the state and Maryland's Eastern Shore still remain, culturally, Southern and continue to share many common traits associated with Dixie.[5]

Bayou Navigation in Dixie, engraving of a Louisiana Steamboat, 1863

As for the nation's capital itself: "Whether Washington should be defined as a Southern city has been a debate since the Civil War, when it was the seat of the Northern government but a hotbed of rebel sympathy," the Washington Post wrote in 2011. "The Washington area's 'Southernness' has fallen into steep decline, part of a trend away from strongly held regional identities. In the 150th anniversary year of the start of the Civil War, the region at the heart of the conflict has little left of its historic bond with Dixie."[6]

The Florida Big Bend includes a Dixie County. Certain parts of Oklahoma and Missouri that are considered more culturally Southern than the rest of these two states have been nicknamed Little Dixie (Oklahoma) and Little Dixie (Missouri), respectively.

The location and boundaries of Dixie have, over time, become increasingly subjective and mercurial.[7] Today, it is most often associated with parts of the Southern United States where traditions and legacies of the Confederate era and the Antebellum South live most strongly.[2] The concept of Dixie as the location of a certain set of cultural assumptions, mindsets, and traditions was explored in the book The Nine Nations of North America (1981).[8]

Ten-dollar note from Banque des citoyens de la Louisiane, 1860

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origin of this nickname remains obscure. The most common theories, according to A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (1951) by Mitford M. Mathews include the following:

• Dixie may be derived from Jeremiah Dixon, one of the surveyors of the Mason–Dixon line, which defined the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania, separating free and slave states subsequent to the Missouri Compromise.[9] Jonathan Lighter, the editor of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, connects the terms Mason–Dixon line and Dixie via a children's game played in nineteenth century New York City.[10]
• Dixie may have originally referred to currency issued first by the Citizens State Bank in the French Quarter of New Orleans and then by other banks in Louisiana.[11] These banks issued ten-dollar notes[12] labeled Dix on the reverse side, French for ten (French pronunciation: [dis], DEECE). The notes were known as Dixies by Southerners, and the area around New Orleans and the French-speaking parts of Louisiana came to be known as Dixieland.[1] Eventually, usage of the term broadened to refer to the Southern states in general.
• Another suggestion is that Dixie preserves the name of Johan Dixie (sometimes spelled Dixy), a slave owner on Manhattan Island. According to a story recounted in Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends (2008), Dixie's slaves were later sold in the South, where they spoke of better treatment while working on Dixie's land. There is no evidence that this story is true.[13][14]

C.D. Blake's I Was Gwine Back To Dixie and other similar songs included the usage of Dixie nostalgically.

During the Jazz Age and the American folk music revival, "Dixie" was used widely in popular music such as Swanee, Are You From Dixie?, Is It True What They Say About Dixie? and, more contemporaneously, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and Dixieland Delight. The first popular song to contain "Dixie" in its name was I Wish I Was In Dixie, composed in 1859 and incorporated as an unofficial anthem of the Confederate States of America.[15]

In terms of self-identification and appeal, the popularity of the word Dixie is declining. A 1976 study revealed that in an area of the South covering about 350,000 square miles (all of Mississippi and Alabama; almost all of Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina; and around half of Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Florida) the term reached 25% of the popularity of the term American in names of commercial business entities.[16] A 1999 analysis found that between 1976 and 1999, in 19% of U.S. cities sampled, there was an increase of relative use of Dixie; in 48% of cities sampled, there was a decline; and no change was recorded in 32% of cities.[17] A 2010 study found that in the course of 40 years, the area in question shrank to just 40,000 square miles (100,000 km²), to the area where Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida meet.[18] In 1976, at about 600,000 square miles (1,600,000 km²)[lower-alpha 2] Dixie reached at least 6% of the popularity of American; in 2010, the corresponding area was a 500,000-square-mile (1,300,000 km²).[19]

Southern United States by Christopher A. Cooper and H. Gibbs Knotts

Sociologists Christopher A. Cooper and H. Gibbs Knotts surveyed all 50 states and the District of Columbia for the use of the words "Dixie" and "Southern" in business names. Unlike the survey conducted by John Shelton Reed, who concentrated on cities, Cooper & Knotts surveyed entire states using modern technology rather than the physical search of telephone books that were available to Reed. They excluded the chain Winn-Dixie from the study. Their data, within these parameters, resulted in a 13-state region which they divided into three tiers, from high to low scores. In the first tier were Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. The second tier was Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The third tier was Florida, Oklahoma, Virginia, and West Virginia.[20]

In 1965, the Washington Redskins football team removed from the team song the word "Dixie" and a musical quotation from the song of the name after a Black fan wrote to the owner of the team, describing the racial unrest that "Dixie" caused and asking for it to be stopped.[21]

In the 21st century, several groups or organizations removed "Dixie" from their names so as not to glorify the Confederacy. They included Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede,[22] the music group Dixie Chicks,[23] and the Dixie Classic Fair. The board of trustees at Dixie State University in Utah voted unanimously in December 2020 to change the name of the institution, with the Utah Legislature putting "Utah Tech University" into effect in 2022 to distance the university from the "Dixie" term.[24][25]

• Bible Belt
• Deep South
• "Dixie" (song)
• Dixie (Utah)
• Dixie Alley, a nickname for a portion of the southern United States that sees frequent tornadoes
• Dixiecrat
• Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials

• Reed, John Shelton (with J. Kohl and C. Hanchette) (1990). The Shrinking South and the Dissolution of Dixie. Social Forces. pp. 69, 221–233.
• Sacks, Howard L.; Rose, Judith (1993). Way Up North In Dixie. Smithsonian Institution Press.