This first episode offers and overview of what makes up the state’s identity with someone who has spent her career looking at questions like this.
Anne Boylan is Professor Emerita of History and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware.
She spent 30 years teaching at UD, and as a social historian of the United States has researched and written about women’s history, social and cultural history, voluntary associations, and religion. She has specifically spent a significant time examining women’s suffrage and its history here in the First State.
The podcast is brought to you by Delaware Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its mission is to strengthen communities by encouraging all Delawareans to be inspired, informed, and engaged through exploring the diversity of human experience.
We thank The National Endowment for the Humanities for its support as part of its A More Perfect Union initiative - designed to demonstrate and enhance the critical role the humanities play in our nation, while supporting projects commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.
The A More Perfect Union podcast is produced by Delaware Public Media.
Full transcript of Episode 1:
The First State, the Diamond State, home of President Joe Biden, the world's corporate capital. Delaware is known for a lot of things but its identity can't be painted with a broad brush. There are three counties, each with its own unique character, and within each towns, neighborhoods and individuals with their own ideas about what it means to be a Delawarean. This season the Delaware Humanities podcast, A More Perfect Union, explores the concept of identity. What draws us together as a state, what keeps us apart, and how we can ensure all perspectives are heard.
This podcast is brought to you by Delaware Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its mission is to strengthen communities by encouraging all Delawareans to be inspired, informed, and engaged through exploring the diversity of human experience.
We thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for its support as part of its A More Perfect Union initiative designed to demonstrate and enhance the critical role that humanities play in our nation, while supporting projects that help Americans commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. A More Perfect Union is produced by Delaware Public Media, Delaware's source for NPR News.
Thanks for joining us on the A More Perfect Union podcast. I'm your host, Tom Byrne. In this our first episode, we begin our examination of what it means to be a Delaware with an overview of what makes up the state identity and to do that we welcome someone who has spent her career looking at questions like this: Anne Boylan is Professor Emeritus of History and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware. She spent 30 years teaching at UD and as a social historian of the United States, has researched and written about women's history, social and cultural history, voluntary associations, and religion. She has specifically spent a significant amount of time examining women's suffrage and its history here in the First State. Anne Boylan, thank you so much for joining us on the A More Perfect Union podcast. We appreciate you taking your time to chat with us.
Very glad to be here, Tom, thanks for asking me.
So let's start with: How would you describe Delaware's identity today? I know it's a pretty broad question. But are there some things we can say big picture that we have in common as people in this state?
Well, of course, I approach this kind of question as a historian. And so very quickly, Delaware has a history of different kinds of identities, some of which stuck, some of which didn't. The most long sticking one, I guess, would be the identity of Delaware as “The First State”, which is not very precise. It means that Delaware was the first of the original 13 states to ratify the US Constitution. That doesn't fit on a license plate as I tell my students, and so a lot of times people would say, “Oh, you were the first state” and if I'm in that sort of nitpicky historian mood, I'll say “there was no first state. There were 13 original states.” So in any case, I think that identity is probably stuck the longest. And historically, its identity that is rooted in the colonial and revolutionarily and post-revolution era of American history. Nowadays, of course, people think of Delaware when they think of our President, Joe Biden, they know that Biden is
from Delaware, they may not know too much else about the state but they know where Biden is from.
I moved here in 1985 and at that point, Delaware was still the company state, as Ralph Nader called it, because of the enormous role of the DuPont Company in Delaware. Its name being everywhere, the large number of employees, and so on. So the DuPont name and now of course, what DuPont was associated with - nylon and fertilizers and herbicides and so on - is completely gone. DuPont has moved out of the chemical business entirely and it's moving in - It's broken up of course - and it has moved into I guess, mostly electronics, but I actually kind of liked the description that Alice Dunbar Nelson used back in the 1920s. She may know was a very polymathic poet, writer, journalist, teacher at Howard High School, political activist, suffragist - and she described Delaware in an important essay as a "Jewel of contradictions.” That is, the jewel refers to the kind of diamond shape of the state and then there's the many contradictions of the state. In her mind, of course, some of those had to do with the history of Delaware as a border state between North and South. East, the Mason Dixon Line, if you can think of that and of course a state that held on to slavery, even though it remained with the Union during the Civil War, and didn't get rid of slavery until the 13th Amendment was ratified in December of 1865. So and then, of course, the 1897 constitution removed many of the restrictions on Black men voting, but insisted that Delaware schools the segregated. So that kind of self contradictions struck down by Nelson strongly and I think that's not a bad way even today to think about Delaware.
I was gonna say, I mean, when you talk about being a state of contradictions, in some ways that does that also give a sense that the state's identity is still changing and evolving over time? And I guess that's probably something that happens with any state or any group. But is that maybe was another way of describing that?
Sure. Absolutely. I think that's kind of puts your finger on the main point. Whatever identity Delaware has, is going to be changing constantly. And it's also going to vary in terms of where one lives in the state. There are different identities whether you live in Newcastle, or Kent, or Sussex. Those change a great deal. We certainly have seen enormous amounts of change in Sussex County in the past 10 or 20 years, moving away from a fundamentally agricultural county toward one that's largely - not entirely - but heavily encouraging tourism, senior living facilities and so on. And then there's also you know, there are economic identities, political identities, and there are cultural or artistic identities and those are also constantly changing in the state.
And I want to try and touch on a few of those, and the one that you brought up is probably a great place to start, which is this kind of traditional geographic divide the upstate versus downstate divide. From what I'm hearing from you as it sounds like perhaps while that still exists, that perhaps maybe that may not be as pronounced in some ways as it used to be but then perhaps others like to say politically, it may be even more so.
Exactly. I mean, it's upstate downstate, but a lot of people say it's above the canal and below the canal. And politically, it has become a great deal more evident that Sussex County is just different from Kent and Newcastle is particularly in the dominance of the Republican Party, which in many ways has a long history, but the different Republican party today and the kind of resistance to older practices. I’m thinking of Return Day, which has been a longtime practice in Delaware. Where, as you know, after an election, usually every two or four years, winning and losing candidates meet in Georgetown, they ride around the circle, and they bury the hatchet Well, in I think it was 2018, one of the losing candidates simply refused to participate and that's considered not to be to use another phrase, “The Delaware Way.” In politics. we have for a long time talked about ourselves as a state that is moderate in politics, that follows the kind of idea that one compromises on issues, rather than being in one's heels, and for a very long time, the state had, you know, a Republican governor and then a Democratic governor, one Republican senator, one Democratic senator. The legislature was often divided in the house versus the Senate and of course, in recent times, the state has moved more to now both of our senators, our representative in the House, our governor - they're all Democrats, yet there's a strong Republican presence in Sussex County. So that's an example of some of these things that end up changing over time where they will go in the future who can say, but you can certainly pinpoint some of those changes politically.
I was gonna say even in Sussex County, I mean, there seems to be a kind of a divide as well that when you get more toward the beach areas, you may see some more pockets of, you know, progressive Democratic residents versus more conservative on the western side of Sussex County. And it does seem like it is a very evolving, at least in terms of the political piece of it, where it's become maybe it is a little less above and below the canal and it is more just a philosophical rather than geographical divide.
Yeah, that I think is a key point to keep in mind, that Sussex is not a uniform county. And there are lots of different voting patterns and voters and lots of new voters coming into the state, particularly retirees as we know in Sussex, but also people who migrate to Sussex for the jobs that are there in the chicken industry, who are obviously going to be a good bit younger than the retirees and so, those kinds of demographic patterns will have an impact on the changing identity of let's say that one county anyway,
You are, as you mentioned, a historian and you look at a lot of things through the historical lens. I'm curious about beyond kind of the first state piece of Delaware's history, are there some other kind of historical key stones that define the state? I mean, you know, obviously going all the way back to the Swedes being the group that settled in Delaware. Are there some things that we look at historically that maybe helped define Delaware? Maybe not today, but have helped that kind of continuum toward what the identity is today?
Right. Sure. Delaware, of course, was originally part of Pennsylvania. So you can talk about Swedes landing in Delaware, which gets celebrated every 100 years or so 150 years, 350 years and so on. There's a brief period when there are there's a Dutch presence, particularly in New Castle. Then Delaware's role, of course, during the American Revolution. And then I would say Delaware's position in the Civil War makes it a particularly interesting moment in our history, where we are talking about the country being ripped apart and Delaware, a slave state which has very, very few slaves by 1860. Still having to make a decision in which direction is the state's going to go is it going to be union or confederate, decided to stay with the union but in 1862, refuses the offer of compensation compensated emancipation for the small number of slave owners and small number of slaves, and then waits until December 1865 To finally emancipate this small number of enslaved people in the state. Then you get into the era of industrialization and corporatization and I think Delaware's economy and its economic role, really changes at the end of the 19th century into the beginning of the 20th century, particularly with the rise of the DuPont corporation. Which had been relatively focused and smallish and family run, and then becomes very big in chemicals and ammunitions during World War I and also World War II. So that’s a single moment in our history. And of course, Delaware became known as a state and the corporate capital, one of the terms that my colleague Carol Huffaker used to describe Wilmington in the 20th century because of our easy incorporation laws. Most people if they know something about Delaware, know that you can incorporate rather easily here - you get a postbox in Wilmington and off you go. And then, if we look at the postwar era, the terrific importance of Dover Air Force Base, because of the growth of a kind of a defense industry, which for which Delaware benefited, and then Delaware's position when it came to school desegregation in the early 50s. First, a lawsuit that ended segregation of the University of Delaware, but then more significantly, Delaware’s place in the Brown vs Board of Education decision because there were two Delaware cases there that were appealed in Supreme Court. And the unusual thing about the Delaware cases was that the judge, a Delaware judge had ordered the schools to desegregate the board of education challenged that and wanted to keep the segregated part of the Constitution. And then of course, that became part of the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education decision which has had a dramatic impact on the state and the state's politics, no question about that.
And does that kind of also, can you draw a line with to the riots in Wilmington, and the National Guard occupation of the city from that? How much do you feel like that kind of also started to play a role in shaping Delaware's identity, particularly in its largest city?
Yeah, well, the uprising and willing to the course took place in the aftermath of Martin Luther King's assassination. That took place during the period when Delaware was trying, was working to implement the Brown decision. It certainly had an impact on Wilmington and Wilmington’s Black community. Anybody who lived through that remembers very well the occupation by the National Guard. And although I'm certainly I'm not all that knowledgeable about it, I imagine it had an enormous impact in the development of the efforts to desegregate the New Castle County schools in the 1970s and then to lead to an effort to lift that desegregation order which of course came under Governor Carper in the late 1990s. So, I think Delawareans who live here, particularly Wilmingtonians, have a memory whether it's their own personal memory or a general memory of the uprising and the occupation. Absolutely, yeah. And its certainly worth reminding ourselves that you know, Delaware today, Delawareans - that's those who are born and raised here constitute only 45% of the state's population. So we are a state that has to somehow provide an identity to people who weren't born and raised here.
I was gonna say that was going right where I wanted to go, which is the fact that Delaware has particularly during that that era - where the MBNA and the credit card companies like that kind of came here and blossomed - they brought a lot of people into the state and there is that kind of odd kind of like, Are you a true Delawarean and were you were you born and raised here? Or do you identify by your neighborhood vs people who come into the state? I guess that that's also kind of an interesting piece of the evolution too because it does leave some people searching for a Delaware identity as they come in here.
Right. Absolutely. You know, I don't think anybody has ever done what Colorado has done and that is to put together a license plate that says “Delaware Native.” Colorado has the license plate this thing Colorado native, maybe you're leaving the first date on the license plate is just about we want to do and that's just fine. So yeah, I mean, one of the things to think about is how do people learn about Delaware when they move here? And what are the ways in which we encounter the Delaware story? Now people might say, “well, you know, we don't have any sales tax. That's who we are. We have a president of the United States are easy incorporation laws.” But I think going more deeply we need to think about how people encounter the Delaware story. Now, of course, children learn Delaware history in fifth grade. There's a very nice textbook that Carol Huffaker, our wonderful state historian, has written but as in other states, most people encounter Delaware's story, Delaware’s history, by going to museums and historic sites. Doing what I do, which is to read historic markers, attend commemorations which gets discussed in newspapers so on or even just looking at the names of streets and buildings, and schools and other such items. And there, I would say Delaware as a whole, and the public archives which is the curator of our history, has for a long time emphasized an earlier past as something that sort of maybe holds us together. You know, there's old New Castle, there's the John Dickinson plantation, there's the importance of the Green in Dover, the legislative and judicial buildings that are there, the judicial buildings in Georgetown, and so on. I think that's changing. Public Archives has done I think a wonderful job of finding new ways to commemorate the state's history. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in Wilmington, at the dedication of a historic marker to the Shad family. A very storied Delaware family with a long history of involvement in the abolitionist movement. A Black family that moved out of the state because of the role of slavery in the state in the 1830s 40s and 50s. So I think that's changing but back to my point - if you learn some of your history by attending commemorations or going to museums or reading historic markers - I think that's a more likely place to learn them in even a fifth-grade classroom or a college classroom or anything else. That's why I think it's really important. I've been involved in getting together some historic markers for Delaware suffrage leaders. And let's see, this is a program that was put together by a foundation from New York, The Pomeroy Foundation, we have eight markers that they have eight that they have approved and seven already up. And the public archives, they have erected me two historic markers in New Castle County for Delaware suffragists, one in Dover, one in Georgetown, and a really striking monument right outside Legislative Hall in Dover, of course these honor not only white suffragists but Black suffragists as well, we're learning a great deal more about their role. And I think in general, we're starting to sort of redress the balance, shall we say, by doing more to acknowledge the role of Black Delawareans in the state's history. So that we, again, as we teach with a monument or a marker or a commemoration, you get a fuller story than perhaps was once taught.
Is that a big piece of evolving the state's identity - going back and looking at these things that perhaps have not been discussed have not been taught and in some ways maybe have not even been revealed to people, whether its Black history, women's suffrage? How important you feel like that is in in the next 2, 3, or 5 years to try and get people to just be more aware of, as you said, not just the kind of basic colonial history of the state, but all these other interesting nuances to what built this state and how it connects to the larger American story?
I'm a historian, of course, we need to tell the full story. If the story of any state or any country is just a few highlights, a few statues of you know guys on horseback or whatever, you're not telling a full and complete story. And I think the rise of particularly Black history beginning in the 1950s - I shouldn’t say the rise of because there's been Black history written by historians for 150 years or more - but particularly the teaching of Black history in college and at the high school level, the development of the teaching of women's history, those trends in the historical profession, I think, must make their way out into the public arena, so that we can bring the benefit of this sort of fuller, more complete story to anybody who's interested and anybody who wants to listen. Because otherwise, you're telling something quite partial. Now there are times where it's going to be uncomfortable. There is no question that, you know, it can be very uncomfortable to learn about women who were anti-suffrage, and who said no, no, no, don't give me the vote and made racist arguments against giving Black women the right to vote - that can make people uncomfortable. Well, but that's telling a full and more complete story than perhaps we tell only when we hit a few highlights.
And is that also important to a smaller state like Delaware? To have that full story, that more robust story? Because a lot of times I think, this goes all the way back to Delaware being originally part of Pennsylvania and breaking away, to now being just a lot of people considering it: “the state I drive through on I95.” But there's almost an inferiority complex for Delaware that kind of runs through its history. Do you feel like telling that full, broad, robust history helps a state like Delaware, with what, at times can be a bit of an identity crisis?
Yeah, I think you're right. You know, I think Joe Biden's election helps people at least to locate Delaware. I moved here in 1985. And people where I lived before – in Albuquerque, New Mexico – would say “Oh, Delaware? That’s near New Hampshire, right?” So at the very least, people kind of know where Delaware is and they do know where Delaware is when they drive through and they pay their toll. Thank you very much. And we get you know, the kind of in betweenness, which I think is something that else Alice Dunbar Nelson was talking about. We're still in between Maryland, and New Jersey. We're still in between Baltimore and Philadelphia. We can get our TV stations from Philadelphia, or from Baltimore. So that can contribute to a sense that we're a small state. We have a small population. We have only three electoral votes as compared to California or New York. Something my students used to complain about, we only get three. And so there can be a sense as a small state, perhaps shared by Rhode Island or some other smaller states that people don't make the effort to learn something about Delaware and so I think telling that fuller more of a story is really important. And one of the ways I think that is being done is to talk about Delaware's role for example, in the Underground Railroad. And so when you have Tubman Garrett Park in Wilmington, when you have people understanding that in order to get to freedom, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman passed through Delaware and Thomas Garrett was assisting Tubman in her work. That kind of more general, as you say robust, story helps people to get a kind of a pin they can put into a map and their mind: “Oh, that's Delaware! Okay, that's part of Delaware’s history.” as well as the sales tax and the easy incorporation laws or whatever else people might think of when they think of Delaware.
And I can imagine, as we start to wrap up, that part of that is also not just telling those stories of the history around us which are obviously crucial, but also telling the stories of the people who live here now, and the diversity of people who live here now in a state that is becoming very different looking in terms of its gender, race, and even the age of people who live here.
Right. Yeah. And, as you said, this is something we've been talking about the past a little bit. You know, this is a constantly evolving history, a constantly evolving story, our arts and culture are constantly evolving. People know, I hope, that there it a Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in Wilmington every summer. Maybe more people might know about Firefly and like, “Oh, it's in Delaware and they’re going to have Green Day this year.” it’s one of those things that constantly evolve and it's really crucial that as those notions are those understandings change, that we have the sort of full, complete picture of our population, of the great diversity of the state - geographically, politically, demographically - and so that makes it a fun thing to do as a historian or as a Historical Interpreter because you see these changes and you do the work to try and bring it out to a larger public.
So my final question for you is this - as we continue this conversation throughout this project, what are maybe the one or two questions you think we should be asking or that people should be asking themselves about Delaware's identity to get a better grasp on what it is?
Oh, that's a tough one, Tom. You can do things like, you can ask the sort of “gotcha” questions, you know. “Alright, so who's Alice Dunbar Nelson? If you don't know that, you can’t be a good Delawarean.” or, you know “Where was Joe Biden born? Is he really from Delaware?” I mean, I don't think you want to do that kind of thing. I think it's useful to ask people as we were saying, how do you envision the diversity of the state, geographically, politically, demographically? How do you see the roles that various people play in our arts and culture? Those kinds of questions can perhaps elicit a fuller view than I would have of the interviewees understandings of the state's history and politics and culture and so on.
Anne Boylan, Professor Emeritus of History and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware. Thank you for joining us on the A More Perfect Union podcast. We really appreciate your time, and we appreciate your insight.