Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/17/21: States of Confusion (Heart of Dixie)

It was very hard to find an image hat illustrated the popularity of the song that wasn’t racist.

Where did the word “Dixie” as a reference to the southern United States come from? Most likely from the Mason-Dixon line, a demarcation used to separate the states where slavery was legal from those where it wasn’t. But it could also refer to a ten dollar note used in pre-Civil War New Orleans with the French word for ten, dix, written on the side.  Either way, the term was used to refer to the American South both during and after the Civil War and through the 20th century as well. Usage was spread through this popular song:

I wish I was in the land of cotton
Old times there are not forgotten,
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land where I was born in
Early on a frosty mornin’
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.

Oh I wish I was in Dixie, hurray, hurray!
In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand,
To live and die in Dixie.

(My parents were amazed to hear it played on a glockenspiel by a German band while on a boat tour of the  Rhine. I can guess the Germans thought it would appeal to American tourists.)

Known by a number of titles, among them I Wish I was in Dixie, Dixieland, and just plain Dixie, the song was commonly performed in minstrel shows by white performers in Blackface as both veneration and nostalgia. That this longing was for a racist, slave-holding society — as was obvious — was not closely examined until two decades into the 21st century, and these days the term is fast becoming a relic of a bygone age. That the country group The Dixie Chicks dropped it from their name, becoming just the The Chicks, says a lot.

Will Dixie be eventually expunged from reruns of Emergency whenever Nurse McCall’s name is mentioned? What about Dixie cups, the cartoon mouse duo Pixie and Dixie, and Dixieland Jazz festivals? Time will tell.

Alternate Names for Southern States

Tennessee is most famous for the city of Memphis, which in turn is most famous for Blues, Rock n’ Roll, and the home of Elvis Presley … the palatial but down-home estate of Graceland. Pictured above, as it appeared when Elvis bought it, and below, the 1970s kitchen, frozen in time, where he prepared his peanut butter and banana sandwiches.