How the States got their shapes (Part 6: Culture Clash)

Have you ever wonder how some of our states are shaped the way they are, or why? Well, a one-time documentary series called "How the States got their shapes" on the History Channel tried to answer some of those questions about them.

This is Part 6 of a 7-part wiki series about this documentary where I tell you what was talked about on some of those episodes, and I'll give my own opinion on it, or know what the episodes didn't tell you. In the episode "Culture Clash", Brian goes around the nation talking how some states are shaped because of different cultures in this country sometimes have a hard time getting along, how it effected states like California, Maine, Florida, and \*almost\* got the US a stated called "Jefferson".

## Culture Clash

As the United States is known to welcome anybody want to seek freedom from their own home nation, it also welcomed many different cultures from around the world. Some of the first were from Europe, as people from Britain, France, Spain, The Netherlands, and many others came to colonize America. Throughout America's history, it also has seen its fare-share occasions of "culture clashes", and it had a huge influence on the shape of some of our states.

Brian goes to his alleged home state of California and even asks some people on how they would divide the state.

California is a very long, skinny state and it covers many of America's landscapes as it has mountains and forests in the north, and deserts are in the south, so one can experience the entire US just by being in California. It got its shape entirely on its own because the first settlers wanted the entire Sierra Nevada range (since there was gold in these mountains) and wanted to draw its own borders, it got its way in a rare move by the US Government.

As you can also see in the picture on the right that the "long, skinny state" has a wide density among its people, and most Californians live in the southern part of the state, so where does this leave the north?

This is where Brian goes to a town in northern California called "Yreka". Like many towns in the western US, Yreka was established around the gold rich mountains nearby, and it became a gold boom town in Northern California, but by the late 19th century-early 20th century, the gold has dried up and the town was nearly abandoned, so Yreka along with other Northern Californian towns began to fall behind the rest of the nation. Plus, the roads surrounding these town were also a mess, in fact, so much so that you couldn't get too far out of town, especially in the winter. So as the early 20th century wore on, people in several counties in California and Oregon have formed their own entity; Jefferson.

Hey, if George Washington has a state named after him, why not his best bud Thomas Jefferson? Jefferson was going to be the name of the state of Colorado since Jefferson had the idea of shaping the states the same, so that "all men are created equal" so to say. But in the early 20th century, several counties from California and Oregon wanted to break away from their respective states and form their own state; Jefferson. Though the state didn't get official recognition, but there would be state troopers stopping drivers, giving them a piece of paper, and telling them that they're in the "State of Jefferson".

Now, the US Government didn't recognize the state, but they \*almost\* did. The US Government was going to officially let the Californian and Oregonian counties break away and form their own state. The only problem is that the Government was going to officially announce the state of Jefferson on December 8, 1941, but fate intervened.

The day before, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. So, instead of announcing a new state, the US announces that they've officially entered World War 2, and Jefferson became a fringe on the memories of most Americans.

This didn't fade away from Northern Californians, however. As they still believe that they live in Jefferson.

### Upstate and Downstate

One of the biggest reasons for why a lot of states have culture clashes is because of population density, case in point; New York. We all know that the majority of the population that live in New York state, live in New York City, once you get out of the city and head north, the population gets more sparse, or just concentrated around the cities and the big towns.

Another reason is where a state's big city, and the state's capital are on 2 opposite sides of the state; New York state is again a prime example, because New York City was the state capital, that is until 1797 when the capital moved to Albany.

So, upstate and downstate is basically one old-fashioned culture clash, and that is "city vs. country".

### The "Maine" Event

In this part of the episode, Brian heads to Maine as there is "surprisingly" a huge culture clash happening.

You may not expect a culture clash in Maine since it's one of the sparsely populated states in the country (not even on par with my home state of New Jersey; the most densely populated state in the country) and it also has no major city around for miles.

Maine, however does have one thing in common with my home state of New Jersey, its population is in specific places, namely all of the touristy areas, in Maine's case, the southern region.

A lot of southern Maine is usually gets a lot of tourists from Massachusetts (much like my Native New Jersey gets tourists from New York, and Pennsylvania), and there is history behind it. Maine was once a colony of Massachusetts, even after the Declaration of Independence declared the United States free in 1776 and after the revolution, Maine was still a part of Massachusetts, it didn't become its own state until 1820 when the Government was trying to balance out the number of free and slave states.

This is when I have to give out my opinion, the show says that Maine became a state after Missouri did. But I did some studying on that.

In my studies on this, it turns out that Maine beat Missouri to statehood by just over a year, Mine got in on March 15, 1820, and Missouri got in on August 10 the following year. But what the show did get correct is that both states were admitted to balance the power in our Government to make sure that the slavery issue would be solved at a time when it can be solved, unfortunately, this act would directly lead to the Civil War.

Anyway, during the show, Brian did some of his own investigation about Maine, and why the north and the south are so different. So, he heads north where it doesn't get a lot of tourists, and it turns out (for Brian, at least) a lot differs both sides of Maine.

For one, Northern Maine doesn't use the Eastern American Power Grid, it uses Quebec's Grid (uh oh, the Quebecois aren't going to like this), and because of this, most of the business owners who do business in northern Maine are very self sufficient, apart from not getting a lot of tourists, and because it's "off the grid", a lot of people's electronics won't work such as Wi-Fi or even GPS maps won't work, the other reason is that there's just as much Moose as there is people in northern Maine. But Brian goes deeper.

Brian goes to a cabin where it used to house loggers back in the early 20th century, and it turns out that Northern Maine's "Maine" business is logging (like in some Pacific Northwest states), and the roads in Northern Maine are for logging trucks, not commuters. Plus, as southern Maine's commodity is mostly seafood (like Lobster), Northern Maine also has its own power food; Potatoes, which are the "Maine" ingredients for New England Clam Chowder.

### What's Florida's original ID?

In the last part of the episode, Brian heads to Central Florida.

Central Florida today is known for it's lavish theme parks such as Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and Sea World. But what about "cattle ranches"?

There was time in Florida's history where there were no theme parks. There were "Cattle Ranches", and they are quite different from the ones that you may see in Texas and the great plains.

Now, I personally been to central Florida, and I don't mean the theme parks either. I have ridden (since I don't drive) with my family on some of the highways and other roads in Central Florida, and you can see Cattle on some of these ranges.

Anyway, Floridian "Cowboys" were America's "original" Cowboys (they prefer the term Cow Man, or Cow Hunter). Their tactics of rounding up their heard of Cattle is quite different than in Texas or the great plains, and to our modern eyes, it looks kinda inhumane too, because these "Cow Men" use a whip to round up the heard, they even use helper dogs to do the job too. This is largely because they were America's original cowboys and haven't learned from anybody in the west.

The reason behind this questionable method of herding livestock is because it was used by the first Spanish Settlers when they first arrived sometime in the 16th century, though the Spanish population in Florida was never large, and a lot of them left when Florida was annexed by the US, but their herding traditions stayed within the state.

But, why the big culture clash in Florida?

As it turns out, by the 1950s, Florida's lands were sold to private companies (such as Disney, Universal, and Anheuser-Busch) and this allowed the state to get in all kinds of people, and thus all kinds of culture, as the latter part of the 20th century wore on, lands for Cattle Ranching slowly declined (especially that by 1948, Florida imposed fencing laws) and gave way for housing development for people who want to move (or even retire) to the Sunshine state.

When the theme parks came in late in the Floridian Game, this problem that Cattle Ranchers were facing only got worse (at least for them), and many of them had to move west as Cattle land declined and causing the price of that land to go up.

The show even went to see how many cultures that are in Florida, a lot of Caribbean islanders live in the extreme southern part of the state (where Miami is), in the southern central part is where most of the retirees go, Central Florida is where native Floridians live (where Orlando is), and in the Panhandle is where a lot of southerners are because of Alabama and Georgia. So, in recent years, Florida has become one of the richest states in regards to culture.

Well, that'll do it for this part. In the final part (click here) we will talk about some of the "edges of our Nations map and even some secret "Blank Spots" too. Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.