Dixie is a nickname for the Southern United States.
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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origins of this nickname remain obscure. According to A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (1951), by Mitford M. Mathews, three theories most commonly attempt to explain the term:
As a definite geographic location within the United States, "Dixie" is usually defined as the 11 Southern states that seceded to form the Confederate States of America. They are (in order of secession): South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. This definition is strongly correlated with history and, in the minds of many Southerners, remains the traditional South.
In other ways however, the location and boundaries of Dixie have become, over time, more limited, vernacular, and/or mercurial. In popular mindset today, it is most often associated with those parts of the Southern United States where traditions and legacies of the Antebellum South live most strongly.
In this particular contemporary realm, there are no hard and fast lines. Roughly, however, it might be an area which begins in the Eastern Shore of Maryland (and the southern parts of West Virginia), then extends south into Central Florida. On the northern boundary it sweeps west to take in Tennessee and southern parts of Kentucky, then continues through Arkansas, possibly taking in southern Missouri and also Oklahoma. On the southern end it would run through the Gulf states until the northern and southern boundary lines connect to include East Texas. For a more detailed description and delineation, see The Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau.
Many businesses in the South contain "Dixie" in their name as an identifier, e.g. "Dixie Produce". One of the more famous is supermarket chain Winn-Dixie.
Related to this fact, cultural sociologist and "Southernologist" Dr. John Shelton Reed has attempted to locate Dixie by a criterion measuring the ratio of business listings containing the term as compared to those utilizing "American". First published in a 1976 article in Social Forces, this particular study was updated in 1988. In contrasting the two, the delineating lines measuring over 6% of Dixie to American remained fairly constant in covering the Old Confederate States, with the exception being in Texas where, in both surveys, it was fairly well limited to eastern parts of the state.
Anomalies were the inclusion of, and later even slight extension into, parts of the lower Midwest, particularly southern Indiana and southwestern Ohio. Neither of these areas can be properly considered a part of the South, so one explanation could be the extent of the "Dixie Highway" into those locales and therefore into the names of businesses there. The red areas in Utah are explained by the locals' choice of the nickname Dixie for the low-lying and thus very warm areas in the southwestern part of the state.
In using a yardstick of 15%, all but a tiny slice of northeast Texas drops out of the picture. Also losing considerable ground were Virginia and most of Florida save the panhandle. Notable losses also occurred in North Carolina and Kentucky. As Reed stated, Dixie "dissolves as a coherent region" when the even more demanding standard of 25% was applied. In 1988, with the exception of small and isolated parts of adjoining states, only in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina were large areas still recorded on the data map.
"I Wish I Was in Dixie" is a popular song about the South. It was allegedly written by composer Daniel Emmett, a Northerner from Ohio, and published in 1859. Emmet's claims of the origin of the song were many and varied. According to one such version, Emmett was taught the song by the Snowden family of African American musicians, then freemen of color, with the lyrics coming from a letter written longingly of life in the south by Evelyn Snowden to her father. Emmett's blackface minstrel-show troupe debuted the song that same year in New York City when they needed a song to lengthen their presentation and it became an immediate hit. As with other minstrel show numbers, the song was performed in blackface and in exaggerated Black English vernacular. The song proved extremely popular and became widely known simply as "Dixie". The song has also been published as "Dixie's Land".
The song became the unofficial anthem of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. The tune's minstrel-show origins have created a strong association of "Dixie" with the Old South, despite the fact that it was written in the North. As a result, some today perceive the song as offensive and racist while many see it as an honorable part of Southern heritage. Abraham Lincoln, upon hearing of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, asked the military band to play Dixie.[6][7]
