Vernacular Areas in Florida

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 22, No. 2, November 1982, pp. 99-109 VERNACULAR AREAS IN FLORIDA* Ary J. Lamme III and Raymond K. Oldakowski This study examines vernacular areas in Florida through a survey of the general population, and reviews findings on vernacular areas in this distinctive and varied cultural setting. One indication of cultural variation in Florida is found in the literature on cultural regions, where a major boundary can be identified extending across the northern part of the peninsula. This identification is based on a review of maps at a national scale depicting cultural boundaries of differing types in the area. When some of these boundaries are placed on a single map, it becomes obvious that a major cultural divide must be there (Fig. 1). Bigelow's analysis of cultural regionalism in the United States is based on ethnicity. (J) Using his own maps as well as others dealing with language, race, national origins, religions, voting behavior, per capita income, and age structure, Bigelow developed a cultural regions map of the United States. His boundary across Florida terms the southern part of the state "North" with the rest being part of the "Gulf Coast." Another example is provided by Reed's study of the use of the term "Dixie" in the South. (2) Analyzing business telephone listings, he found a higher occurrence of "Dixie" usage north of a boundary in die north peninsular area. He describes the use of this term as "a symbol of the region's historic culture." Shortridge's boundary separates "intense, conservatic protestant" religion to the north from "diverse, liberal protestant " farther south. (3) Zelinsky's boundary of religious regions has a slightly different locational orientation. (4) He identifies "peninsular Florida" as a subregion of the "Southern" major religious region. From a more recent work depicting cultural regions, Zelinsky identifies a nationally important cultural boundary extending across the northern part of the state. (5) This boundary can generally be described * The authors acknowledge with appreciation the assistance of the Florida Folklife Program, and the cartographic work of Ms. Gail Rodgers and Mr. Paul Stayert. Dr. Lamme is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Florida , in Gainesville, FL 32611. Mr. Oldakowski is a graduate student in the Department of Geography at the University of Florida, in Gainesville, FL 32611. 100 Southeastern Geographer Cultural Boundaries in North Florida --------------- BlGELOW (Cultural Regions 1980) ***** REED (Dixie) ........ SHORTRIDGE (Religous Regions 1971) ****** ZELINSKY (Major Religous Regions) --------------- ZELINSKY (Cultural Regions) Fig. 1. Cultural boundaries in North Florida. as running southwesterly from the Atlantic coast south of Jacksonville to a point in the middle of the peninsula somewhere north of Orlando. From there the line runs northwest to the Gulf Coast north of Tampa. His key identifies the southern part of the state as one of the "regions of uncertain status or affiliation." In northern and panhandle Florida there are a multitude of cultural elements associated with the Deep South. The settlement history, social patterns, and economic activities ofthat region are relatively well known. (6) The cultural complex ofthe peninsular part ofthe state is more recent in origin. Here is what Zelinsky has to say about it: (7) In the case of peninsular Florida, there is virtually no nineteenth-century residue to be expunged. The great influx of settlers—many, ofcourse, from the South, but a large fraction from the non-South (or the Caribbean )—have been continuously improvising a fresh cultural milieu. We still have no clear picture of the emergent regional culture and subcultures of an area with no genuine raison d'être except the presence of people; but there is little doubt that the many hundreds of thousands Vol. XXII, No. 2 101 of persons pursuing the varied amenities of Florida and their own selfrealization are building something far different from the culture areas of colonial America or premodern Europe. That cultural boundary in the northern part of the Florida peninsula is not necessarily a boundary between vernacular regions. Cultural boundaries have been drawn by scholars studying selected patterns of culture, but the essential element of the vernacular region is that it is a meaningful concept to the people. The fact that there is a perceptible change in...