Working Class Culture

Shira Notrika

AMH 3403

While the middle and upper classes of the South during the 1950’s prided themselves as being well mannered, educated, and refined; the working classes of the South embraced seemingly derogatory terms such as redneck, hillbilly, and white trash as terms of endearment. The working class of the South also embraced country music, stock car racing and other “unrefined” sources of entertainment that were generally sneered upon by the upper class.

Unlike their wealthy counter parts, the working classmen of the South did not put an emphasis on education. Most of their life skills were passed down from generation to generation. Although racial tensions were high during the 1950’s in the South, both black and white members of the working class found themselves bonding with the fact that their culture made the upper class uncomfortable. While many of the lower class whites worked hard to move up the social ladder and be seen as respectable, there were those who rebelled against what was deemed proper. Southerners were able to channel their rebellious and wild nature through forms of entertainment such as the advent of stock car racing.

World War II brought to many Southerners something they ordinarily did not have much of: money. “Southerners subscribed to the notion that an automobile largely defined its owner, and they modified their cars to reflect their particular vanities” (Daniel, 94). Stock car racing emerged through the rise of moonshine. “Trippin’”, as it was called, was the transport of jugs, bottles, and jars of moonshine liquor. The trippers would customize their cars with pricey parts to make them fast as they would often have to outrun the police. The lifestyle was thrilling for those involved. They enjoyed the wild, freeing feeling of being in charge of their schedule although it came with danger. Trippers had to be fast, as their livelihood depended on it. Making any mistake while in the middle of a transport could cost them their freedom. These Southerners found this lifestyle preferable to the boring city jobs. The mechanics that modified these stock cars were skilled to say the least. Trippers and the mechanics became legends. One such legend was Red Vogt. He was the means behind the speed of bootleggers in Atlanta and had aided the crews in the Indy 500. Vogt is the man who named NASCAR. His cars were coveted by the drivers of the Grand National, as they could not win against a Red Vogt car.

While Vogt may have given NASCAR its name, there was another man responsible for organizing it. Bill France, who had his own service station, saw how disorganized stock car racing was but was fascinated by it and saw an opportunity to bring structure to the sport. In the late 40’s France began talking to drivers, mechanics, and car owners about regulations and rules as well as insurance and prize money. France started the Daytona 500, which is still a huge event in stock car racing today. Bill France was the founding father of NASCAR.

Perhaps as legendary as the drivers and mechanics were, the fans were and are even more so. For many NASCAR fans during this era, the weekend races were a time for them to escape and let loose from their workweek. Many of these fans had made the transition from working in the countryside to having somewhat tame jobs in the city to fulfill the growing consumerism that was taking hold of the United States. The fans saw their lives in the city as bland and humorless and used the races as a way to channel their built up energy. Stock car fans embraced the races by drinking, eating, engaging in lewd and uncivilized behavior. This craze eventually branched out to people other than rural southerners who looked to these races as an escape and they accepted the racing and the music and habits that accompanied it. The NASCAR fans and drivers alike had a reputation for being uneducated, uncivilized, and ill mannered. The fans were animalistic in nature and behavior and perhaps that was part of the attraction to NASCAR events.

Another part of Southern culture that was making waves throughout the nation was Southern music. Country people led hard and laborious lives, which was reflected in their music. As previously stated, Southerners began a migration to the cities to find work. This helped spread the popularity of NASCAR and it did the same for country music. African American music transformed into rhythm and blues and white southerners brought about the transformation of rock and roll. Black and white southerners began an emergence of several styles of music that were prevailing in southern society during the 1950’s. The genres that emerged from the south included blues, gospel, jazz, country, soul, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll.

The emergence of rock and roll was an event of large cultural significance. Rock and roll was targeting a new audience of teens of the baby boom generation during the 1950s. The post WWII economy was relatively prosperous and the entertainment industry would see a shift in marketing, as the baby boom generation was the first to grow up with television as an influential aspect of their lives.

“The prosperity of the 1950s gave these young people an unprecedented collective purchasing power, as the allowances of millions of kids went toward leisure and entertainment products geared especially to this generation’s tastes and sense of identity. What resulted was an increasingly volatile give-and-take between, on the one hand, products and trends that were prefabricated for teens by the adult commercial culture, and on the other hand, products and trends chosen and developed unpredictably by the members of the new generation themselves” (Starr & Waterman, 199).

Memphis, Tennessee was the birthplace of much of the musical power of the South during the 50s. “A surprising number of performers recognized immediately anywhere in the world came from Memphis and its environs” (Daniel, 147). Arguably, the most influential Rock ‘n’ Roll musician to emerge from the South was of course The King himself, Elvis Presley. Young Presley had paid a visit to Sam Phillips’s recording studio, Sun Studio, where musicians hoping to make a name for themselves could pay to record their songs. Phillips set up a session for Presley to record with Scotty Moore, a guitarist, and Bill Black, a bassist. The trio did not initially hit it off as neither Moore nor Black were that smitten with Presley’s musical abilities. However, during one session, the crew starting messing around with Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right Mama” and Phillip’s was stunned to say the least. Presley’s listeners were unsure of his race when listening to his voice, until a high school photo of him was released. Presley and his music were truly unique as it encompassed both white and black musical themes from the south and sort of represented a union between the two races. Presley made waves not only because of his talent, but also because of his then controversial pelvic thrusting way of dancing. For most televised performances, he had to be filmed from the waist up. When contrasted with the forms of dancing and the clothes many musicians wear and do today, Elvis Presley seems relatively tame and tasteful.

Sam Phillips was responsible for getting the names of many influential southern musicians out there. Other than Presley, Phillips helped launch the careers of many hopefuls including Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Roy Orbison to name a few.

Southern working class culture played a large role in creating new styles of music and entertainment with the emergence of NASCAR and the musical styles of the rural south, the working class people challenged social norms and refused to conform to a society despite the pressure from the elite. The rural Southerners were untamed, wild, and vulgar and they viewed that as a way of expressing themselves and as a release from the boring workweek in a growing consumer based industry. Despite some of the backlash they received from their behavior, there is no doubt that their influences took the 1950s by storm and can still be seen today with certain forms of entertainment. NASCAR and its fans embodied the rural working class as stock car racing stemmed from the illegal transport of moonshine. Like previously stated, perhaps as legendary as the drivers and mechanics were, the fans were and are even more so. The fans saw NASCAR as a form of entertainment that allowed them to be uninhibited, wild, and loose and they didn’t care who frowned upon it, they were not going to conform to societal pressures as to what was considered acceptable behavior. They simply didn’t care what the Southern elite or anyone for that matter said about their lifestyle or behaviors. The musicians were no exception to this attitude. Elvis had half of society in an uproar with his controversial and obscene pelvic thrusts. But he remained The King and is perhaps one of the most legendary musicians to ever have emerged from the working class.

Works Cited

1. Joyner, Charles. "A Region In Harmony: Southern Music And The Sound Track Of Freedom." Journal Of Southern History 72.1 (2006): 3-38. America: History & Life. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.

2. Hall, Randal L. "Carnival Of Speed: The Auto Racing Business In The Emerging South, 1930-1950." North Carolina Historical Review 84.3 (2007): 245-275. America: History & Life. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.

3. Frederick, Jeff. "NASCAR Nation: A History Of Stock Car Racing In The United States." Journal Of Southern History 78.1 (2012): 203-204. America: History & Life. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.

4. Daniel, Pete. "Rhythms of the Land." Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina for Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C., 2000. 121-47. Print.

5. Daniel, Pete. "Fast and Furious." Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina for Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C., 2000. 91-120. Print.

6. Starr, Larry, and Christopher Alan Waterman. "Rock Around the Clock." American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. 199-222. Print.

7. "Florida Memory." Florida Memory. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. .

DMU Timestamp: April 10, 2012 21:42