French was the popular language of choice throughout the 18th and beginning part of the 19th century, even during the Spanish colonial period (1762-1802). After the Americans bought Louisiana in 1803, the official language of the the state shifted from Spanish to English, but most of the Creole and Cajun population retained French as their primary language. The antagonism between the Latin and Anglo-American residents has been well documented (it even extended to the slave communities), but Americans eventually won the cultural war by bolstering their numbers with other English-speaking immigrants, notably the Irish, and by gaining economic and political control over the state. In New Orleans, the Creoles held out and established their own sociocultural world in the Vieux Carre and Fabourg Marigny until the 20th century, but in order to "survive" industrialization and keep up with the progressive changes, they began to adapt to the American way of life, however begrudgingly. And since Americans ran most of the social and educational programs for the poor in cities like New Orleans (other than religious-based charities), the lower classes who couldn't isolate themselves like the wealthier Creoles adapted more quickly than the upper classes. The exception would be the Cajuns, who tended to live in more rural areas and were a more insular group from the start.