Side by Side: Yankees and Southerners

How were they different?

"Our neighbors," wrote New Englander Lucy Maynard, "are principally from Indiana and Kentucky, some from Virginia, all friendly but very different from our people in their manners and language and every other way." These early settlers of Illinois, the Yankees from New England and the Southerners, or Plain Folks, as they called themselves, lived side by side on the fringes of the prairie but had very different values and social patterns.

Find out how these two cultural groups compared in the areas of:

Yankees		Southerners
	Ethnic Background Population Size Why they came Families Housing Communities Beliefs Food Views of each other

© Illinois State Museum 31-Dec-96