What was the description of a traditional "Southern belle?" What were the details about her lifestyle?

A southern belle (derived from the French belle, 'beautiful') is an archetype for a young woman of the American Old South's antebellum 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, cultivation of beauty and a flirtatious yet chaste demeanor. The stereotype 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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What was the description of a traditional "Southern belle?" What were the details about her lifestyle?Think Paris Hilton in a hoop skirt.

Southern Belles were occupied with only one thing - themselves.