Label used by analysts largely to identify the area between the South and New England
influenced by cultural migrations through Philadelphia, New York, and Chesapeake ports
of entry. Some refer to the area as the “Midland.” Its historical influence on the
development of American culture has been great since central paths of migration through
the Middle Atlantic states of New York, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania influenced the formation of Midwest and Upland South traditions. Yet, as
cultural geographers such as Wilbur Zelinsky have noted, it is the least conspicuous of
America’s regions, either to outsiders or its inhabitants. Examining the regional names
that enterprises use to identify themselves, for example, Zelinsky found that Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, was the only metropolis in which inhabitants significantly used the Middle
Atlantic label.
Several factors account for the vagueness of the region. European development of the
Middle Atlantic area largely occurred a generation or more after other regions of the
South and New England. The seaboard area had more of an urban character than regions
to the north and south. It also contained far more inner diversity of religions and ethnic
groups than the other regions. In addition to Finns and Swedes in the Delaware Valley,
and Dutch in the Hudson Valley who began colonies that turned out to be unsuccessful in
the area, English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, Cornish, French, Africans, and Germans entered the
varied Middle Atlantic landscape. New York state presents a special problem because of
its strong connection to New England (Zelinsky categorized it as a separate “New
England Extended” Region), but with a noticeable difference because of Dutch place
names and architecture along with strong Irish and some German influence. The most
distinctive cultural formation in the Middle Atlantic states is probably the PennsylvaniaGerman area of settlement extending from central Pennsylvania into western Maryland
and Virginia, referred to as the Pennsylvania Culture Region, because it persisted with a
shared ethnicity and agricultural base.
The Pennsylvania Culture Region is at the heart of the “Midland” speech area
identified by linguistic geographer Hans Kurath in 1949. Cultural geographer Terry
Jordan in 1985 also used the Midland label to describe the preponderance of log buildings
stretching from Pennsylvania into the Midwest and Upland South. In addition, Henry
Glassie in 1968 described a distinctive material culture located in southeastern
Pennsylvania and made the claim that it was the most important of all material folk
culture regions, because both North and South were influenced by practices that had their
New World source in the Pennsylvania Culture Region. He noted that the mix of British
traditions in the Delaware Valley and Chesapeake along with the special German
influence in south-central Pennsylvania fostered Middle Atlantic material-culture forms
such as the “Middle Atlantic farmhouse.” This common house contained a symmetrical
exterior reminiscent of British Georgian design along with interior features taken largely
from German house plans. The distribution of the house extended well beyond the
Pennsylvania core to Maryland, New Jersey, western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West
Virginia. Another point of cultural intersection that influenced the formation of a Middle
Atlantic material culture is in foodways, where versions of “mush” and “pot pie”
characteristic of the Midland represent combinations of German and British traditions.
Some observers have offered that the Middle Atlantic’s lack of visibility ironically
owes to the Midland contribution to many cultural patterns considered national or
“general American.” Zelinsky speculates that its very success in projecting its image
upon the remainder of the country rendered the source area less conspicuous. Few
cultural organizations are devoted to the Middle Atlantic Region, although the
Pennsylvania German Society covers Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, and Virginia in
addition to its central Pennsylvania home base. The contents of state folklore journals in
New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania frequently cover traditions extending over
state boundaries, but, significantly to the cultural formation of the region, the largest
circulation is claimed by Pennsylvania Folklife. The Middle Atlantic Folklife
Association, which sponsored the first “Middle States Folklore Conference” in
Harrisburg in 1967, and continues to hold annual meetings, represents separate
professional state efforts in Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and
West Virginia. Although not constituting a “vernacular” region representing cultural selfperception, the Middle Adantic has an impact on scholarship as an analytical term to
describe cultural formations between New England and the South extending west, north,
and south from Pennsylvania.
Simon J.Bronner
References
Gastil, Raymond D. 1975. Cultural Regions of the United States. Seattle: University of Washington
Press.
Glassie, Henry. 1968. Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Jordan, Terry. 1985. American Log Buildings: An Old World Legacy. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press.
Kurath, Hans. 1949. A Word Geography of the Eastern United States. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Zelinsky, Wilbur. 1973. The Cultural Geography of the United States. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
——. 1980. North America’s Vernacular Regions. Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 70:3–16.