Southerners Aren’t Lazy and Dumb, They Just Had Hookworm

Southerners Aren’t Lazy and Dumb, They Just Had Hookworm Fotosearch/Getty Images

There was a time when the lower classes of the American South were considered lazy and dimwitted, a stereotype that still somewhat survives today. But this stereotype was rooted in fact. Hookworms, it turns out, were sapping Southerners’ life force.