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Southern belle

 
Southern Belle

 
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A southern belle (derived from the French belle, 'beautiful') is an archetype
Archetype

An archetype is an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype after which others are copied, patterned, or emulated; a symbol universally recognized by all....
 for a young woman of the American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 Old South
Old South

Geographically, Old South is a subregion of the Southern United States, differentiated from the "Deep South" as being the Southern States represented in the original thirteen American colonies, as well as a way of describing the former lifestyle in the U.S....
's antebellum
Antebellum

"Antebellum" is an expression derived from Latin that means "before war" .In United States history and historiography, "antebellum" is commonly used, in lieu of "pre-Civil War," in reference to the period of increasing sectionalism that led up to the American Civil War....
 upper class.

During the period, Kentuckian Sallie Ward of Louisville was the most noted belle in the South, and her portrait, which hangs in the Speed Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, is often called "The Southern Belle." A Southern belle epitomized Southern hospitality
Southern hospitality

Southern hospitality is a phrase used in American English to describe the stereotype that residents of the Southern United States are particularly warm and welcoming to visitors to their homes, or to the South in general....
, cultivation of beauty and a flirtatious yet chaste demeanor.

The archetype continues to have a powerful aspirational draw for many people, and books like We're Just Like You, Only Prettier, The Southern Belle Primer, and The Southern Belle Handbook are plentiful.






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A southern belle (derived from the French belle, 'beautiful') is an archetype
Archetype

An archetype is an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype after which others are copied, patterned, or emulated; a symbol universally recognized by all....
 for a young woman of the American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 Old South
Old South

Geographically, Old South is a subregion of the Southern United States, differentiated from the "Deep South" as being the Southern States represented in the original thirteen American colonies, as well as a way of describing the former lifestyle in the U.S....
's antebellum
Antebellum

"Antebellum" is an expression derived from Latin that means "before war" .In United States history and historiography, "antebellum" is commonly used, in lieu of "pre-Civil War," in reference to the period of increasing sectionalism that led up to the American Civil War....
 upper class.

During the period, Kentuckian Sallie Ward of Louisville was the most noted belle in the South, and her portrait, which hangs in the Speed Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, is often called "The Southern Belle." A Southern belle epitomized Southern hospitality
Southern hospitality

Southern hospitality is a phrase used in American English to describe the stereotype that residents of the Southern United States are particularly warm and welcoming to visitors to their homes, or to the South in general....
, cultivation of beauty and a flirtatious yet chaste demeanor.

The archetype continues to have a powerful aspirational draw for many people, and books like We're Just Like You, Only Prettier, The Southern Belle Primer, and The Southern Belle Handbook are plentiful. Other current terms in popular culture related to "Southern belles" include "Ya Ya Sisters," "GRITS (Girls Raised In The South)," "Sweet Potato Queens," and "Bulldozers disguised as powder puffs."

To detractors, the southern belle stereotype is a symbol of repressed, "corseted" young women nostalgic for a bygone era.

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