You're correct about Chicago. Albert Votaw's classic article, "Hillbillies Invade Chicago", appeared in Harper's Magazine in February 1950. A similar column entitled "Girl Reporter Visits Jungles of Hillbillies," can be found in the Chicago Tribune in 1957. There are numerous other examples I'd love to cite.

Negative stereotypes of Southerners are much older than this and have remained fairly persistent over the years. The survey (which actually was taken in 1951) is simply a recent example. Readers were asked to name people who were "not good to have in the city." As mentioned, more people identified "poor Southern whites" than any other unfavorable group.

Are there other ethnic minorities?

Of course! Other groups, such as "Negroes" and "Jews" appeared in the survey. The people of Detroit struggled long and hard to keep African-Americans and other EMs out of the city's neighborhoods. [Hopefully someone will question me about that!]

None of this has anything to do with the Civil War?

I beg to differ for three reasons --

1) Dispossessed, poverty-stricken Southerners are a legacy of the war. Ancestors of the Chicago "Hillbillies" lost their lands as a result of the war and struggled to survive for generations before leaving the region in search of jobs.

2) Wartime propaganda depicting Southerners in a variety of unflattering ways, reinforcing older stereotypes of Southern whites which go back to the Revolution and earlier.

3) The image of the United States bestowing rights and privileges to people of white European ancestry only has been handed down to us by Mr. Lincoln and his wartime supporters as much or more than anyone else.