Does Yankee/WASP culture still exist?

[darklordoftech]

Does it?

[libertpaulian]

If we're talking affluent suburban Episcopalians who vote centrist Republican, not quite as much anymore.

[Mr. Smith]

Yes, it's Utah....albeit without the Protestant part. But the attitudes are there otherwise.

[darklordoftech]

If I'm not mistaken, Massechusettes still values education a lot, which has always been an aspect of Yankee/WASP culture.

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

Yes, it's Utah....albeit without the Protestant part. But the attitudes are there otherwise.

[Thunderbird is the word]

in rural northern new england to a large extent though the politics are probably considerably different then what they once were. Calvin Coolidge type Yankee/WASPS are probably an extreme rarity nowadays.

[King Lear]

It depends on what you mean by WASP culture, if your talking about highly educated, wealthy, Northeastern, Mainline Protestants of English ancestry that vote for Liberal Rockafellar Republicans, that's sadly extinct in this country, However if you mean uneducated, Racist, Lower-class, southern, Evangelical Protestants of English ancestry that put Trump in the White House last year, that's sadly alive and well.

[RINO Tom]

If I'm not mistaken, Massechusettes still values education a lot, which has always been an aspect of Yankee/WASP culture.

Yes, but that was at a time when college was basically a who's who of affluent WASP families ... Massachusetts' liberal education policies are hardly comparable across decades like that.

Anyway, "WASP culture" doesn't really exist in the literal sense anymore, but it has more or less incorporated American citizens of Western European descent under that umbrella, IMO.  The "feel" of being a WASP in the 1920s seems similar to the feel of being a White American of Western European descent in 2017.

[Tintrlvr]

Visit Lexington, Massachusetts and similar places on the Route 2 corridor and you'll find it alive. Also some towns in Westchester County, New York. Definitely dwindling, though.

[darklordoftech]

If I'm not mistaken, Massechusettes still values education a lot, which has always been an aspect of Yankee/WASP culture.

Yes, but that was at a time when college was basically a who's who of affluent WASP families ... Massachusetts' liberal education policies are hardly comparable across decades like that.

They also valued public and compulsory K-12 educatiom more than the rest of America.

[All Along The Watchtower]

If I'm not mistaken, Massechusettes still values education a lot, which has always been an aspect of Yankee/WASP culture.

Yes, but that was at a time when college was basically a who's who of affluent WASP families ... Massachusetts' liberal education policies are hardly comparable across decades like that.

They also valued public and compulsory K-12 educatiom more than the rest of America.

Which was not at all related to the fact that the Papist Hibernians were at the gates of WASP Yankeedom during that period!

[tallguy23]

It's become Abercrombie & Fitch.

[All Along The Watchtower]

FWIW a majority of white Protestants in the "mainline" denominations continue to vote Republican (albeit a smaller majority than in the past ofc) and I'm certain that said majority increases when you examine those among this population who are actively religious (attend services every Sunday, actively participate in church ministries, donate to the church ministries, etc.).

Now, this is also certainly skewed by white mainline Protestants in the South, whom are almost as conservative as non-mainline white Southern Protestants (ie. your classic Bible Belt, neo-fundamentalist/right-wing evangelical types) but note that church attendance and overall religiosity in general remains a lot higher in the South than elsewhere, and that since white (and overall) Southern Christianity is mostly evangelical Protestant in nature (regardless of mainline or non-mainline denomination - or indeed, if they're very much non-denominational, which is obviously a huge thing among evangelicals of all kinds everywhere), and that among white voters regular church attendance is increasingly correlated with voting Republican, this is all understandable.

Really, the conservative-liberal divide among white Protestants is if anything, more significant within mainline Protestant denominations than it is between mainline Protestants and "evangelicals" (who FTR, can be readily found within many mainline denominations - particularly, shocker, in the South), and it's reflected in the fact that regular involvement in a church community and adherence to some form of strict religious doctrine in both belief and practice has become a marker of conservative views and Republican voting habits among white people in ways that it wasn't in the past. Note that this same trend is also evident among white Catholics in the US.

[King of Kensington]

I take data on how Episcopalians vote is pretty hard to come by nowadays.

[libertpaulian]

I take data on how Episcopalians vote is pretty hard to come by nowadays.

I'd say they're close to 50/50, with Dems having the advantage. 

[Tintrlvr]

FWIW a majority of white Protestants in the "mainline" denominations continue to vote Republican (albeit a smaller majority than in the past ofc) and I'm certain that said majority increases when you examine those among this population who are actively religious (attend services every Sunday, actively participate in church ministries, donate to the church ministries, etc.).

Now, this is also certainly skewed by white mainline Protestants in the South, whom are almost as conservative as non-mainline white Southern Protestants (ie. your classic Bible Belt, neo-fundamentalist/right-wing evangelical types) but note that church attendance and overall religiosity in general remains a lot higher in the South than elsewhere, and that since white (and overall) Southern Christianity is mostly evangelical Protestant in nature (regardless of mainline or non-mainline denomination - or indeed, if they're very much non-denominational, which is obviously a huge thing among evangelicals of all kinds everywhere), and that among white voters regular church attendance is increasingly correlated with voting Republican, this is all understandable.

Really, the conservative-liberal divide among white Protestants is if anything, more significant within mainline Protestant denominations than it is between mainline Protestants and "evangelicals" (who FTR, can be readily found within many mainline denominations - particularly, shocker, in the South), and it's reflected in the fact that regular involvement in a church community and adherence to some form of strict religious doctrine in both belief and practice has become a marker of conservative views and Republican voting habits among white people in ways that it wasn't in the past. Note that this same trend is also evident among white Catholics in the US.

The thing is, "white mainline Protestants" still includes a lot of large groups of people who are not WASPs -- essentially all Lutherans, for example, as well as some quite conservative groups like the Dutch Reform churches. A real measurement of WASP votes would have to be limited to only Episcopalians, UCC-ers and Presbyterians, not all white mainline Protestants.

[King of Kensington]

[The thing is, "white mainline Protestants" still includes a lot of large groups of people who are not WASPs -- essentially all Lutherans, for example, as well as some quite conservative groups like the Dutch Reform churches. A real measurement of WASP votes would have to be limited to only Episcopalians, UCC-ers and Presbyterians, not all white mainline Protestants.

Thought Dutch Reform were evangelical.

But yes, Episcopalians, Congregationalists and Presbyterians are the classic "WASP" denominations.  Lutherans are too German-Scandinavian, and Methodists I guess are too mixed a bag in terms of class and social outlook.

[libertpaulian]

[The thing is, "white mainline Protestants" still includes a lot of large groups of people who are not WASPs -- essentially all Lutherans, for example, as well as some quite conservative groups like the Dutch Reform churches. A real measurement of WASP votes would have to be limited to only Episcopalians, UCC-ers and Presbyterians, not all white mainline Protestants.

Thought Dutch Reform were evangelical.

But yes, Episcopalians, Congregationalists and Presbyterians are the classic "WASP" denominations.  Lutherans are too German-Scandinavian, and Methodists I guess are too mixed a bag in terms of class and social outlook.

The Reformed Church in America is Dutch Mainline.  The Christian Reformed Church (North America) is Dutch Evangelical.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Obviously there’s no way to statistically measure this in any meaningful way. Too much mixing of ancestries and way too many denominational mergers, splinters, realignments and such among “WASPs” over multiple generations for that.

And I would be very wary of claims that there’s much pure “WASP” ancestry even among the most stereotypically WASP denominations themselves; for example, one of the most well-known liberal Episcopalian figures of the mid-20th century (whose name escapes me unfortunately) was...a convert from an Irish Catholic family. There is certainly a lot more of that in the 21st century, as BRTD loves to remind me and others.

A corollary to this is the notably large number of conservatives who have left the mainline denominations over the past half-century. These really aren’t necessarily the same kinds of people when you’re comparing across different eras (always a perilous thing to do).

[All Along The Watchtower]

Also the notably more liberal-than-other-Lutherans ECLA is the only Lutheran denomination considered “mainline”, and the aforementioned RCA is pretty liberal too - especially compared to most non-mainline Reformed churches. The more uniformly conservative Lutheran and Reformed denominations are not part of the Republican electoral majority among white mainline Protestants that I had mentioned.

[Torie]

I think the culture does really exist. The thing is though, is that one can be a reasonable facsimile of the culture these days, without being, obviously, Anglo Saxon, nor Protestant (I am an atheist more or less), nor even these days white. It is a cultural style, that is becoming divorced from the meaning of the letters that created it, and in fact is far more influential than the influence wielded by actual self identifying Protestant, white Anglo Saxons, which is rapidly waning.

I identify as a WASP in short.  And folks of other religions and race effect the same cultural style. And WASP literally incorporating the meaning of each letter of the acronym, is just ludicrous. It probably always was, and certainly is now.

Oh, I think very few cultural WASPS as I define it, voted for Trump, but I digress.

[darklordoftech]

I always thought that Yankee/WASP meant a wealthy person descended from the Puritans.

[All Along The Watchtower]

As (relatively) recently as 80-90 years ago, the Ivy League bastions of WASP Yankeedom were doing their best to control the number and percentage of Jews admitted to their schools. And Irish and especially Italian, Polish, and other Catholics fared hardly better (to the extent that there were any recently naturalized Catholics from Southern or Eastern Europe eligible to attend elite academies and colleges in the first place, regardless of active discrimination and restrictions....). And the WASP elites certainly weren't about to let Catholics or Jews enter their Social Register-dominated country clubs - regardless of how wealthy they were!

Nowadays, there are almost certainly more Catholics, Jews, and their intermarried descendants attending the Ivies and such than "pure" old-stock WASPS. Two to three or more generations ago,
that was quite simply unthinkable, and would have been a scandal of the highest order among polite society. Also note the number of black students, immigrants, etc. at many of these schools today.

The institutions that the Yankee/WASPs founded may have survived, but "pure" WASP/Yankee elite culture is dead and buried, replaced by a considerably more diverse elite (well on paper, at least). Though admittedly, this "new" elite isn't really much more open or diverse (socially, educationally, economically, and to an extent, politically) than the old one, even if they like to pretend to be a "meritocracy."

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The short answer is no.

Obviously there’s no way to statistically measure this in any meaningful way. Too much mixing of ancestries and way too many denominational mergers, splinters, realignments and such among “WASPs” over multiple generations for that.

And I would be very wary of claims that there’s much pure “WASP” ancestry even among the most stereotypically WASP denominations themselves; for example, one of the most well-known liberal Episcopalian figures of the mid-20th century (whose name escapes me unfortunately) was...a convert from an Irish Catholic family. There is certainly a lot more of that in the 21st century, as BRTD loves to remind me and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_Roman_Catholics

On there? Jog any memories?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Both terms are subject to varying definition and both have evolved over time, but I would consider these to be two different groups, though with some overlap. For one thing WASP typically implies someone high end. Yankee is a term derived from the Dutch phrase for "white trash"

Yankees encompass a whole range of incomes, and are defined chiefly as decedents of English Calvinists who first came to America in New England and then spread across the Northern Tier from Maine to Oregon. Now a lot of them are no longer practicing Calvinists. But you can certainly find them in that band of states, typically it is easier to do so in the rural areas of those states.


I would say WASP culture has become more inclusive, and Yankees still exist. A number of them still probably eating the same New England inspired diet and still attending one of a number of Calvinist churches. I would wager such church attendance is higher among the Yankee exodus in the Midwestern states then among those that never left New England.