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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2007) |
Hillbilly is a pejorative term referring to people who dwell in remote, rural, mountainous areas in America. Because of its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory depending on the context in which it is used or the attitude of the user.
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The term "Hill-Billies" is first encountered in documents from 17th century Ireland. Roman Catholic King James II landed at Kinsale in Ireland in 1689 and began to raise a Catholic army in an attempt to regain the British throne. Protestant King William III, Prince of Orange, led an English counterforce into Ireland and defeated James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. A significant portion of William III\'s army was composed of Protestants of Scottish descent (Planters) who had settled in Ulster in northern Ireland. The southern Irish Catholic supporters of James II referred to these northern Protestant supporters of King William as "Hill-Billies"[citation needed] and "Billy Boys" — Billy being an abbreviation of William.
It is believed that the term "hillbilly" in the United States was conferred during the early 18th century by the occupying British soldiers as a carry over from the Irish term, in referring to Scotch-Irish immigrants of mainly Presbyterian origin, dwelling in the frontier areas of the Appalachian Mountains.[citation needed] These Protestant Irish colonists brought their cultural traditions with them when they immigrated. Many of their stories, songs, and ballads dealt with the history of their Ulster and Lowland Scot homelands, especially relating the tale of the Protestant King William III, Prince of Orange.
Yet another explanation for the term comes from the European immigrants to the United States who settled in the Appalachian Mountains. Many of these immigrants were of Germanic origin and were named Wilhelm with the short form Willy, a common Germanic name during that time. Those Wilhelms, who went by Bill or Billy, living in the Appalachian Mountains became known as "hillbillies," i.e., Bills who lived in the hills.
Alternatively, it is also speculated that the term emerged as a derogatory nickname given by the coastal plain-dwelling Anglo-Saxon Southerners to the hill-dwelling settlers of Eastern Tennessee, Western Virginia (including modern West Virginia), and Eastern Kentucky, many of whom were ambivalent to the Confederacy during the American Civil War.[citation needed]
The use of the word was probably most apt (and relatively inoffensive) during the period between the western expansion of the early-to-mid nineteenth century and the post-war period of the 1940s. The advent of the interstate highway system and television brought many previously isolated communities into mainstream United States culture in the 1950s and 1960s. The Internet continues this integration, but many communities with relatively traditional lifestyles remain throughout the region.[citation needed]
Historically, there were conflicts between the mountain-dwelling "hillbillies" and the planters who lived on the coastal plains. During the American Civil War, many residents of western Virginia were pro-Union in that they generally did not own slaves and resented the political dominance of planters who did. The image of the Unionist mountaineer in West Virginia is misleading, however, as the mountainous counties of central, southern, and eastern West Virginia all voted for the Ordinance of Secession on May 23, 1861.Curry, "A House Divided", county votes pgs. 141-47 A total war was waged against the mountaineers in much of West Virginia, whose residents were deemed "savages" by Union military authorities. Braxton and Webster counties were particularly targeted by Gen. George Crook.Kenneth W. Noe essay "Exterminating Savages" pg. 116 in "The Civil War in Appalachia, Collected Essays" "Braxton and Webster are the haunts of the worst Rebel Bushwhackers in the country," wrote Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes.Curry, "A House Divided," pg. 75 After the war, the Wheeling government carved two new counties out of Secessionist counties and named them after Lincoln and Grant.
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The term hillbilly is commonly used in urban and suburban areas, the Chicago area as an example, in what could be more practically referenced as "urban hillbillies." One can view this particular distinction under the basis of technological evolution, as living out the traditional stereotypical Appalachian existence made popular by folklore and media has become less plausible.
Examples of such are present throughout popular culture and televised media.
Country music was originally called "hillbilly music," even by its fans. The term, coined in 1925 by country pianist Al Hopkins,David Sanjek, "All the Memories Money Can Buy: Marketing Authenticity and Manufacturing Authorship", p. 155–172 in Eric Weisbard, ed., This is Pop, Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-674-01321-2 (cloth), ISBN 0-674-01344-1 (paper). p. 156–157. persisted until the 1950s.
Now, the older name is deemed offensive (and inappropriate) and is hardly ever used. However, the term "hillbilly music" is now sometimes used to describe old-time music. An early tune that contained the word "hillbilly" was "Hillbilly Boogie" by the Delmore Brothers in 1946. Earlier, in the 1920s, there were records by a band called the Beverly Hillbillies. In 1927, the Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana, made a recording of black fiddler Jim Booker with other instrumentalists; their recordings were labeled "made for Hillbilly" in the Gennett files, and were marketed to a white audience. Also during the 1920s, an old-time music band known as the Hill Billies featuring Al Hopkins and Fiddlin\' Charlie Bowman, achieved acclaim as recording artists for Columbia Records. By the late forties, radio stations broadcast music described as "hillbilly," originally to describe fiddlers and string bands, but was then used to describe the traditional music of the people of the Appalachian Mountains. The people who actually sang these songs and lived in the Appalachian Mountains never used these terms to describe their own music.
Popular songs whose style bore characteristics of both "hillbilly" and African American music were referred to, in the late 1940s and early 1950s as hillbilly boogie, and in the mid-1950s as "rockabilly." Elvis Presley was a prominent player of the latter genre. When the Country Music Association was founded in 1958, the term "hillbilly music" gradually fell out of use. However, the term "rockabilly" is alive and well.[1]
Later, the music industry merged hillbilly music, Western Swing, and Cowboy music, to form the current category C&W, Country and Western.
The famous bluegrass fiddler Vassar Clements described his style of music as "hillbilly jazz."
In Poland a hillbilly was reference to the people who live in the mountainous south of Poland in the part once occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
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Hillbillies have often been characterized as naïve or ignorant hicks.
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