An Odd Map Of American State Nicknames From 1884

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The states of America are more divided now than they've been in a really long time, and people have been representing their state and talking trash about other states on social media since the election.

But these generalizations, misconceptions and stereotypes about the states (and the people who live in each state) are nothing new, as you can see on this Nicknames of the States map from 1884.

This colorful map was created by the livestock supply company H.W. Hill & Co. as a promotional item, hence the pigs representing each state, and some of the nicknames on the map are not very pleasant.

Something tells me H.W. Hill didn't do much business in states like "puke" (Missouri) or "corn cracker", a less than affectionate nickname for Kentucky that was later shortened to "cracker".

See enlarged map here

Read more about An Odd And Obsolete 19th-Century Nickname Map Of The American States here


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That got me to look at Google N-grams. Based on https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=beehive+state%2BBeehive+State%2BBeehive+state&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%28beehive%20state%20%2B%20Beehive%20State%20%2B%20Beehive%20state%29%3B%2Cc0 it looks like "beehive state" didn't really take off until the 1920s or 1930s.

I used to live in NM, but had not heard of "greaser". Oh, my. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greaser_(derogatory) says it "was a derogatory term for a Mexican in what is now the U.S. Southwest in the 19th century." California's "Greaser Act" was a racist anti-Mexican law. This map is no longer that humorous.
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The Mormons used a beehive symbol for the proposed state of Deseret (bigger version of Utah) in 1849, and it looks like a beehive ended up on the coat of arms from the start of the Utah territory in 1850.

The map just skips over nicknames for most of the territories (except Idaho and New Mexico).
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