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The “American Century” has been built on high technology, whether in images of material progress, technological fixes for problems of the environment, health, technology itself or the volatility of tech stocks and e-commerce at the turn of the millennium. Nonetheless, technology has also met with resistance and rejection.
Motivated by values of a simpler life, for example, groups as diverse as hippies and the Amish have publicly rejected some technologies; extreme survivalists have also sought to escape dependency on technology and its global connections. More often, resistance seems embodied in everyday ignorance of how technology works: standard American humor about people’s inability to control a computer, VCR or electronic device. This is sometimes contrasted with the seemingly more comprehensible and remediable automobiles and machines of the 1950s, which evoked their own technological specters at the time. Resistance also pits images of high tech fashion and design against history and comfort, or highlights relations of gender and technology (where men are expected to be fixers) and differences of age, as generations raised on computers and video games replace skills valued by their elders.
Industry:Culture
Typical Main Street emporia, offering cheap notions, cosmetics and gifts—the name referred to the initial prices. F.W. Woolworth (founded in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1879) later constructed a skyscraper in New York and claimed to be the largest retailer in the world, while Kresge, McCrory’s and others were immortalized in songs and movies.
In the 1950s, Southern “five-and-tens” became sites of civil-rights battles when blacks fought to integrate their lunch-counters. In the 1960s, these spun off discount retailers Woolco and K-Mart, which by the 1980s effectively overwhelmed their parents and eventually even replaced them on downtown avenues.
Industry:Culture
The notion of an Italian American immigration is to some extent anachronistic. When immigration began from southern Europe in the 1880s, Italy was only newly formed into a single republic, and the regionally and linguistically diverse population making their way to the United States identified themselves according to the town or village from which they came. This tendency was accentuated by the fact that many of the early immigrants were seasonal migrants, returning to their home-towns frequently moving back and forth between their homes and the United States and Argentina. Once Italians began to settle down in the United States and confronted the high degree of nativism among native-born Americans, this local identification began to change.
By 1972, 8.8 million Americans claimed Italian origin, while a further 14 million had Italian heritage. Most came in waves between 1880 and the First World War, and from 1919 until the terminating of large-scale immigration in the 1920s. They concentrated in areas where there were jobs, primarily Northeastern cities, though a few rural communities of Italians were established like Tontitown, Arkansas, Asti, California (where a number of winegrowers from Italy established themselves), and Roseto, Pennsylvania. As the formerly cyclical migrants began to settle, marrying in the United States, or more commonly bringing their families from Italy Italian enclaves (commonly referred to as “Little Italy”) emerged in Boston, MA, New Haven, New York City, NY, Philadelphia, PA in the northeast, Chicago, IL and Pittsburgh, PA in the Midwest and San Francisco, CA, Los Angeles, CA and San José in California.
Italians arrived in the US at a time when the Irish already controlled local politics through machines like Tammany Hall, and had established themselves through patronage networks on police forces. Stereotypes quickly emerged of the Irish cop and the Italian mobster, which were common in 1930s movies down to Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Italians have endeavored to combat this stereotype, focusing on the success of police commissioners like Frank Rizzo in Philadelphia and noting other ethnic groups’ connections with organized crime, but the task has been made difficult by the fact that the best-known novel by an Italian American is Mario Puzo’s The Godfather (1969) and by Frank Sinatra’s well-known connections with the underworld.
Italians witnessed considerable upward mobility after the Second World War, like other European ethnic groups using the GI Bill to finance their moves out of cities and into expanding suburbs. Italian neighborhoods survived in cities, however, often tied to the Catholic parishes which remained in place, when Protestant churches had sold out to incoming African American migrants. Considerable animosity was noted between Italians and blacks in cities, partly because they were in close proximity on the social hierarchy but also because Italian Catholics were more reluctant to leave their congregations than were Jews and Protestants.
Politically Italian Americans voted Democrat like other Catholic immigrants. Fiorella La Guardia was the first Italian to rise through this party to be elected to Congress in 1916, before becoming mayor of New York City and John Pastore became the first Italian to be elected a governor (of Rhode Island). By 1950 all three candidates in the mayoral election for New York City were of Italian origin. Mario Cuomo, governor of New York between 1983 and 1995, was for many years the best known Italian American politician.
The 1970s economic downswing brought a period of turmoil for many Italian Americans. This was captured in the popular 1977 disco movie, Saturday Night Fever, and more recently by Spike Lee in Summer of Sam (1999). During the 1970s, Italian Americans moved towards the Republican Party, part of Nixon’s “Silent Majority,” remaining economically liberal but becoming increasingly socially conservative in the wake of the sexual revolution and abortion. Italian immigrants had been noted for being more restrictive towards women than other immigrant groups, and with the continuation of strong communities and allegiance to the Catholic church, these became the foundation of more conservative voting patterns. Following the Reagan era, the best known Italian American in politics may be the Republican mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani.
Industry:Culture
Widely known as the woman who, tired after a long day’s work, refused to give up her seat when ordered to do so by a Montgomery, Alabama bus driver. In fact, prior to her defiance on December 1, 1954, Parks was a local secretary for the NAACP and had heard Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermons saying that segregation needed to be challenged. She was not the first African American to challenge segregated buses, but E.D. Nixon, head of the local NAACP, believed she could withstand the threats and pressures and so organized a boycott of Montgomery’s buses. The Montgomery Improvement Association formed quickly with King appointed as the leader, and within a year the bus company was forced to desegregate. Rosa Parks was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor by Bill Clinton.
Industry:Culture
The word alone metonymically evokes fear. To many cancer means pain, debilitating treatments, body mutilation, hair loss, the “silent killer”—the human body sabotaging itself; for many a death-row sentence lived in hospital wards. Despite intensive research into causes and treatments, cancer remains a constant threat and topic for discussion for many Americans.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US, killing over 1,500 people daily.
Anyone is at risk, more so with age. Some segments of the population—such as women with a family history of breast cancer, smokers and individuals with inherited mutations—are at a higher relative risk. Over the years, work on identifying and controlling risk factors has been a primary thrust in cancer information—campaigns for breast cancer awareness have been taken up by many women’s organizations and mass media, while celebrities have sparked conversation of prostate, lung and testicular cancer among men.
Treatment options have expanded from the conventionally medical, such as surgery radiation and chemotherapy (an aggressive treatment to destroy cancer cells), to the alternative and holistic, like bodywork. The power of faith and human support during treatment has also drawn attention to the mind/body connection. Many movements have encouraged those with cancer to take charge of their own treatment through knowledge and choices among these alternatives. Recovery is declared if cancer patients are still alive five years after diagnosis, though not necessarily cancer-free.
While the vocabulary of medicine claims privileged access to the “true” description of the etiology and treatment of cancer, its intelligibility—or ability to speak to the ontology of the disease—is generated, constrained and supported within everyday language. As Sontag (1978) has argued, scientific discourse is both structured by and structuring of the metaphors of the “popular,” themselves culturally and historically contingent. As with the once incurable tuberculosis and syphilis, cancer—still largely incurable—is identified with the deepest of social dreads (corruption, rebellion, decay), and is itself a metaphor used to impose horror on other things. AIDS was once described as a “cancer” of certain populations—the perfect example of the moral role of medical discourse in social condemnation. In the US, for example, cancer is metaphorically understood as a war: we speak of an “invasion,” of mutant cells “colonizing” healthy organs and not of patients but of “survivors.” The human body as Douglas (1966) demonstrated, is the organizing metaphor for society; social ills are expressed in terms of infection and disease. “Cancer” is an aberration of the natural order, which the search for causes and for placing blame (as defiance of preventive behaviors) seeks to redress by force.
Industry:Culture
Testing the limits of deregulation and a new presidency, 14,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers’ Organization struck on August 3, 1981 for higher wages, despite provisos to federal employees forbidding such job actions. The ensuing traffic chaos intensified when President Ronald Reagan dramatically fired all air-traffic controllers—sending a definitive signal about union activism and management to the public and private sector. This also devastated those adapted to this highly stressful job; only in 1993 did President Clinton sign a bill allowing them to return to work.
Industry:Culture
Weddings in the United States constitute a $33 billion unregulated industry annually where the average wedding budget for the late 1990s was estimated at 120,000.
Approximately 2.5 million couples marry annually in the United States, after emotional, social and legal negotiations between the couple and among families (providing the grist for constant television and movie narratives). Despite commitment, cost and preparation, it is also estimated that four out of ten marriages will fail.
Parents generally do not arrange marriages, unless their religious tradition strongly encourages it. Most states require both parties to be eighteen, unless they have parental consent. In fact, brides and grooms have been getting older since the Second World War, the average age being 24.5 years for brides and 26.9 years for grooms. Engagements are lasting longer, too, averaging fourteen months.
Weddings may be civil and religious; these rules may also conflict. Bigamy and polygamy for example, are not permitted in the United States, despite religious traditions that permit those practices (Islam, Mormons). Some religions require a waiting period, counseling or conversion prior to a wedding. Clergy conduct religious ceremonies (sometimes multiply in inter-faith marriages), and judges or other recognized officials conduct civil ceremonies. In other cases, the time it may take to make it to a drive-in chapel may suffice—Las Vegas is famous for this industry Small civil ceremonies have reflected economic constraints and a desire for privacy The wedding event itself may be rich in family or religious traditions or a unique experience reflecting the personalities or lifestyles of the couple; often, a classic American “large wedding” influences even rebellions against formalities. Different ethnic and cultural traditions are also influenced by perceptions of this American model in synthetic ceremonies and receptions.
The mother of the bride used to have the most responsibilities for planning the wedding, for which the father paid. Today’s bridal couples often take responsibility for their own weddings. As they are older, they have established tastes, careers and a wider circle of friends. The best man and maid of honor tend to be peers, either close friends or relatives; friends and family are also incorporated as bridesmaids, ushers and junior attendants. Numbers and elaboration of dress depend on the size and cost of the wedding.
June used to be the traditional month for weddings, following commencements. Today more marry in the fall or during winter holidays. Brides still prefer white or ivory bridal gowns, costing between $500 and $2,500, but more radical or practical choices may be adapted to the ceremony.
Couples may register for household products at discount stores and hardware stores in addition to the traditional china, crystal and silver selections. Cash gifts are favored by many. These may be applied to the honeymoon, a traditional vacation after the wedding, or to setting up a new household.
Weddings have been affected by combined families, mixed traditions and changing gender roles. Children and former families may be dealt with in the planning and ceremony; multiple inlaws and step-families often demand careful juggling. In 1999 the Vermont Supreme Court outlawed discriminatory practices that precluded same-sex marriages, while some other sates, cities and groups have worked to recognize commitment ceremonies. This remains a hotly contested point among social and religious groups and for the changing nature of marriage in the twenty-first century.
Industry:Culture
While American hotels cater to various urban needs, their locations and facilities scarcely fit automobile-driven families exploring continental highways. Early travelers found lodgings in camp-sites, tourist homes and hastily constructed rooms. The name “motel,” contracting motor and hotel, appeared by 1926, although tourist courts and the smalltown “cottages” also competed as titles. With the wealth and highways of postwar America, many low-slung modernist L-shaped buildings with a carport by the office, a pool and easy access mushroomed nationwide. The interstate highway system eventually moved travelers towards major chains dominating intersections with signs visible for miles before arrival (hence, the isolation of the Bate’s motel in Hitchcock’s Psycho, (1960); by 1962, after decades of building, the US had over 60,000 motels. In the 1950s, public spaces and size expanded along with competition.
Motel owners established linkages through professional associations in the 1930s, followed by recommendation services and referral chains to standardize services among independent motels. Chain ownership was pioneered by the Alamo Plaza chain (founded 1929, with characteristic “Spanish-style” courts). Holiday Inn, begun along Memphis highways in 1952, became the leader in co-ownership franchises, with continually upgraded standards. Howard Johnson’s orangeroofed lodges expanded from a franchise ice-cream family restaurant, while other cheaper chains offer basic standardized facilities beside the offramp. These predictable middle-class lodgings relegated older motels to marginal positions for poorer travelers, immigrant housing and illegal activities— prostitution or illicit sex (meanings intensified by their representations in television and movies).
The economic crisis among the aging owners of “mom-and-pop” motels nonetheless created a unique opportunity for immigrant entrepreneurship in the 1970s and 1980s.
Ethnic entrepreneurship was not especially associated with older hotels, although Basque-run hotels of the West created a special niche and Taiwanese have developed new complexes in suburban Los Angeles, CA. Yet, by 1999, more than 50 percent of all American motels were owned by South Asians, generally members of a Gujarati Hindu sub-caste, either immigrants from India or displaced Indians from Uganda (portrayed in Mississippi Masala, 1992). These do not serve an ethnic clientele as much as they represent a fortuitous association now sustained by ethnic ownership and trade associations.
As analysts argue, though, hotels and motels are not just about travel but about cultural ideals of domesticity and family, social distinction and even style, as prepackaged rooms shaped American tastes for the home. They have also been stages where dramas of good and evil—cleanly lit standardized hotels versus sleazy, dangerous dives linked to prostitution, crime or immigration—are played out in media and along the road. The motor hotel, linking rooms and automobiles, has a more clearly American history singularly transformed through contemporary immigration.
Industry:Culture
The Merchant Marine encompasses the commercial uses of vessels and the people who operate them. Ships carry more than 90 percent of all goods imported to or exported from the United States. Although the vast majority of these are not operated by US citizens or the government, the international maritime community plays a significant role in American commerce. The Merchant Marine is not a branch of the military, but historically there have been close ties because of the key role supplies play during wartime.
Vessels that are operated commercially include tankers (which carry petroleum at all stages of the refining process and other liquid cargoes), container carriers (including dry liquid and refrigerated containers), dry bulk carriers (for grains and ores), roll-on/roll-off ships, also called “ro-ro” (for automobiles and other rolling equipment), cruise ships (passenger ships), harbor craft (tug boats and spill-response vessels) and specialty ships (cablelaying vessels, research vessels, etc.). While cruise ships may have hundreds of seamen on their crews to meet the needs of the passengers, most of the cargo ships operate with less than thirty people (even on long international voyages), and harbor tugs can operate with a crew of only two or three.
Most Americans are not aware of the significant role the Merchant Marine plays as the carrier of the world’s trade. Large commercial ships can only enter a limited number of ports, often located out of sight in industrialized areas of coastal cities. The rise of commercial air travel in the twentieth century also reduced awareness.
Industry:Culture
While rooted in European myths and classic cinema (Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Nosferatu), the horror genre reveals dark recesses of American culture—so much so that other nations have tried to ban these Hollywood products from the 1930s onwards. To read these as reflections of American society (and even as causes of changes) is tempting, yet this relationship of image and society is constantly complicated by powerful artists, technological innovations, marketing and intertextual relations with other media.
Moreover, horror also speaks to continuing “positive” themes of American culture—a nation committed publicly to heaven (sometimes on Earth) also believes in hell.
American horror were already set high standards by the 1930s, when actor Lon Chaney Sr and director Tod Browning had established careers. Studies of physical deformity and the supernatural skirted the edges of the “respectable” production code, which tinkered with lines or images but avoided these often primal figures. The year of 1931 alone saw archetypal figures in Tod Browning’s Dracula (with Bela Lugosi), James Whale’s Frankenstein (with Boris Karloff) and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Even Tod Browning’s 1932 Freaks, mingling human deformity with vengeance mutilation, played (with cuts)— while European nations, closer to the horrors of the First World War, objected to the onslaught.
Horror film production continued through the Second World War (with occasional attempts to read distorted violence as European). It gained a new life with the Cold War when it intersected with science-fiction films exploring new technologies. Creatures distorted by nuclear holocaust swarmed the screen after Godzilla (1954) arrived from Japan—giant tarantulas, shrews, ants, etc. Other menaces came from space—not only UFOs but mind-controlling Martians. Still other dangers lurked within the hearts of people embodied by compelling actors, such as Vincent Price and Christopher Lee, aided by new technologies like 3-D and Percepto (which supplied electric shocks to the audience at a crucial moment in The Tingler, 1959). Films like I was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) courted the baby boom; David Skal cites a California physician in that era who felt horror movies were “self administered psychiatric therapy for America’s adolescents” (1993:256). Serving this “need,” American International Pictures emerged, with director Roger Corman, as the home of rapid and cheap B-movies based on blood rather than character or technology. At the same time, television and magazines helped keep alive classic older traditions.
In subsequent decades, monsters became more invasive and devastating. In 1968 Rosemary’s Baby introduced demonized middle-class children who would disturb movies like the Exorcist (1973) or the Omen (1976). Women’s roles have become stronger than brides or victims of the 1930s and 1950s, but horror still tends to be a man’s game as demon or slayer—the Alien series (1979–) is an exception.
Increasing violence again made those outside America queasy. Explicit violence, present since the late 1950s, grew over decades in slasher movies as well as mainstream cinema. Physical distortions based on foam latex and digitalization also expanded the genre. Horror films, moreover, intertwined with works by authors like Stephen King or Anne Rice. King, in Brian De Palma’s vision of Carrie (1976) created horror from an erstwhile center of American everyday life—high school. Both King and Rice root evil in American places and traditions in streams of novels that echoed the growing serialization of horror films, where Halloween (1978–) uses a shared American children’s holiday as its ongoing framework. Meanwhile, in the 1970s, blaxploitation flicks like Blacula (1972) and Abby (1974) provided separate but equal demonics. At the same time, horror has been seen as an attractive lure for the increasingly important teenage market.
The 1990s, by contrast, saw a resurgence of quality horrors (instead of B-movies), reflecting and mining traditions. The Vietnam generation (for whom Jacob’s Ladder (1990) provides an especially chilling memorial) grew up to an Oscar-sweeping Silence of the Lambs (1991), found humor in the The Addams Family (1991) and style in Coppola’s Dracula (1992) or the reflective Gods and Monsters (1998). New special effects have buoyed remakes like The Mummy (1999) and Godzilla (1998), while extreme violence and distortion were serialized in Hellraiser (1987) and the teen-oriented I Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). One might read these 1990s productions as apocalyptic, but for every Hannibal Lecter there is another romance or Disney flick.
Horror is part but not all of American psyche—the temptation of the forbidden, but also a desensitized experience of the modern, mapped out in the American everyday.
Industry:Culture
