CULTURA Y LITERATURA INGLESAS

Grado Oficial Online en Español: Lengua y Literatura

TEMA 4. THE UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA .

Docente: María Amor Barros del Río

Área de Filología Inglesa
Universidad de Burgos
Curso 2014/2015

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 TEMA 4. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

4. 0. Introduction

4.1. History

4.2. Culture and Society

4.3. Literature

4.4. Bibliography

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4. 0. Introduction

The history and evolution of the USA are matters of much complexity. Many aspects have to be
considered in order to understand one of the most influential countries in the world. That is why a
comprehensive but surely incomplete historical and cultural review has been presented in the
following pages. The ultimate goal is to present the USA as a multifaceted and dynamic
geographical space where population, economy and religion entwine in a more or less precarious
balance.

4.1. History

The most pronounced feature of the country is its variety, a natural environment that varies from the
artic to the tropical, from rainforest to desert. The United States is exceeded in size only by Russia,
Canada and China.

European explorers and settlers encountered Native Americans in the late 1400's . Initial colonial
settlement after 1607 was largely composed of British arrivals, who shared North America with
Native American communities (these shrank from 10 million to 2 to 3 million due to epidemies) and
other Europeans, such as the French and the Spanish.

The Spanish occupied coastal Florida, the Southwest and California in the 1500s and 1600s. After
trying to enslave the natives, they worked to convert them to Christianity, farming and shepherding.
The English established their first permanent settlement in Jamestown (named after their king),
Virginia in 1607. Dutch and Swedish communities were established in New York, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania. The second fell to the Dutch influence and later New Netherlands fell to the English
fleet in 1664. The Dutch maintained their culture in rural New York and New Jersey for more than
200 years.

The English authorities allowed the American colonists to evolve political institutions with little
outside interference. Partially based on local control and the consent of the inhabitants, these
traditions of self-government later inspired the independence movement.

The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during
which rebels in Thirteen American Colonies overthrew the authority of the British Crown and

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founded the United States of America. During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the
Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental
Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard
Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain. After voting for
independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 1776, a
statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas
Jefferson as its principal author.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America and it came into force in 1789.
Since then, it has been amended twenty-seven times. The first ten amendments, known collectively
as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions
on the powers of government. The majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual
civil rights. The Constitution is interpreted, supplemented, and implemented by a large body of
constitutional law. The Constitution of the United States was the first constitution of its kind, and
has influenced the constitutions of other nations.

Slavery would not be abolished for another hundred years, but the Revolution saw the dawn of an
organized abolitionist movement. English traditions such as land inheritance laws were swept away
almost immediately. The Anglican Church in America could no longer survive. After all, the official
head of the Church of England was the British monarch. States experimented with republican ideas
when drafting their own constitutions during the war. All these major changes would be felt by
Americans before the dawn of the nineteenth century.

The American Revolution produced a new outlook among its people that would have ramifications
long into the future. Groups excluded from immediate equality such as slaves and women would
draw their later inspirations from revolutionary sentiments. Americans began to feel that their fight
for liberty was a global fight. Future democracies would model their governments on ours. There
are few events that would shake the world order like the success of the American patriotic cause.

A brilliant group of political leaders emerged during the Revolutionary Era and the early years of
the new nation. Collectively, they are called the Founding Fathers and their names are familiar —
Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison.
Perhaps the most eminent of this group, and almost certainly the single most important for the
success of the Revolution and the stability of the new nation, was George Washington because his
role in the fight toward independence became crucial during the war itself when he served for its
duration as the commander of the Continental Army. Today the federal capital of the US is

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Washington.

During the first 30 years of the 1800s, American Industry was truly born. Household manufacturing
was almost universal in colonial days, with local craftsmen providing for their communities. This
new era introduced factories, with machines and predetermined tasks, producing items to be
shipped and sold elsewhere.

Despite this economic growth, the American Civil War, widely known in the United States as
simply the Civil War as well as other sectional names, was fought from 1861 to 1865. Seven
Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the United States and formed the
Confederate States of America, known as the "Confederacy" or the "South". They grew to include
eleven states, and although they claimed thirteen states and additional western territories, the
Confederacy was never recognized by a foreign country. The states that did not declare secession
were known as the "Union" or the "North". The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery,
especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. After four years of bloody combat
that left over 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead, and destroyed much of the South's
infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and the difficult Reconstruction
process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing civil rights to the freed slaves began. The Civil
War presents a struggle between two societies, not merely two armies. It showed how a
predominantly industrial society could prevail over an agricultural one. It demonstrated like no
previous war that the efforts of all individuals matter. Lastly, although he would not live to see the
results, the handling of the Civil War is a testament to the wisdom, determination and leadership of
Abraham Lincoln, arguably America's greatest President.

By the end of the 19th century this nation extended southward to the Gulf of Mexico, northward to
the 49th parallel, and westward to the Pacific. By the end of the 19th century, too, it had taken its
place among the powers of the world—its fortunes so interrelated with those of other nations that
inevitably it became involved in two world wars and, following these conflicts, with the problems
of Europe and East Asia. All in all, the Age of Industry brought tremendous change to America.
Perhaps the single greatest impact of industrialization on the growing nation was urbanization.
Thomas Jefferson had once idealized America as a land of small, independent farmers who became
educated enough to participate in a republic. That notion was forever a part of history.

As large farms and improved technology displaced the small farmer, a new demand grew for labor
in the American economy. Factories spread rapidly across the nation, but they did not spread evenly.
Most were concentrated in urban areas, particularly in the Northeast, around the Great Lakes, and

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on the West Coast. And so the American workforce began to migrate from the countryside to the
city.

The speed with which American cities expanded was shocking. About 1/6 of the American
population lived in urban areas in 1860. By 1900 that ratio grew to a third. In just 40 years the urban
population increased four times, while the rural population doubled. In 1900, an American was
twenty times more likely to move from the farm to the city than vice-versa. The 1920 census
declared that for the first time, a majority of Americans lived in the city.

At the end of the 1920s, the United States boasted the largest economy in the world. With the
destruction wrought by World War I, Europeans struggled while Americans flourished. Upon
succeeding to the Presidency, Herbert Hoover predicted that the United States would soon see the
day when poverty was eliminated. Then, in a moment of apparent triumph, everything fell apart.
The stock market crash of 1929 touched off a chain of events that plunged the United States into its
longest, deepest economic crisis of its history. The Great Depression brought a rapid rise in the
crime rate as many unemployed workers resorted to petty theft to put food on the table. Suicide
rates rose, as did reported cases of malnutrition. Prostitution was on the rise as desperate women
sought ways to pay the bills. Health care in general was not a priority for many Americans, as
visiting the doctor was reserved for only the direst of circumstances. Alcoholism increased with
Americans seeking outlets for escape, compounded by the repeal of prohibition in 1933. Cigar
smoking became too expensive, so many Americans switched to cheaper cigarettes. Mass
migrations continued throughout the 1930s. Rural New England and upstate New York lost many
citizens seeking opportunity elsewhere. The Great Plains lost population to states such as California
and Arizona.

Franklin Roosevelt faced this Depression surrounding himself with competent advisors, and
delegating authority with discretion and confidence. As a master of the radio, his confidence was
contagious among the American populace. Before his first term expired, Roosevelt signed
legislation aimed at fixing banks and the stock market. He approved plans to aid the unemployed
and the nations farmers. He began housing initiatives and ventures into public-owned electric
power. New Deal programs aided industrialists and laborers alike. His friends and enemies grew
with every act he signed into law. The New Deal sparked a revolution in American public thought
regarding the relationship between the people and the federal government.

The American participation in World War II was decisive. The mobilization effort of the
government in World War II eclipsed even that of World War I. With major operations in both the

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Atlantic and Pacific theaters, American industries literally fueled two wars simultaneously. The
social and economic consequences were profound. The Great Migration of African Americans from
the rural South to the industrial North was accelerated. New opportunities opened for women.
Americans finally enjoyed a standard of living higher than the pre-Depression years. World War II
was fought over differences left unresolved after World War I. Over 400,000 Americans perished
in the four years of involvement, an American death rate second only to the Civil War. Twelve
million victims perished from Nazi atrocities in the Holocaust. The deaths of twenty million
Russians created a defensive Soviet mindset that spilled into the postwar era. After all the blood and
sacrifice, the Axis powers were defeated, but the Grand Alliance that emerged victorious did not last
long. Soon the world was involved in a 45-year struggle that claimed millions of additional lives —
the Cold War.

In 1950, the United States operated under an apartheid-like system of legislated white supremacy.

Although the Civil War did bring an official end to slavery in the United States, it did not erase the
social barriers. Soon, a peaceful equality movement began under the unofficial leadership of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. A wave of marches, boycotts, sit-ins, and freedom rides swept the American
South and even parts of the North.

Public opinion polls across the nation and the world revealed a great deal of sympathy for African
Americans. The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations gave the Civil Rights
Movement at least tacit support. Although many obstacles to complete racial equity remained, by
1965 most legal forms of discrimination had been abolished. Legal equality did not bring economic
equality and social acceptance. Hope and optimism gave way to alienation and despair as the 1970s
began. Many realized that although changing racist laws was actually relatively simple, changing
racist attitudes was a much more difficult task.

The Vietnam War (1955-1975) became an international debate and coincided with anti-war,
pacifist and feminist movements. The 1980s saw an uprise of the American standard of living.
Commodities, sports, the film industry and the new technologies invaded the American households
while the US government ended the Cold War period. However, the last decade of the 20th century
was marked with dizzying change for the United States. With the Soviet Union out of the picture,
American diplomats sought to create a "new world order" based on democracy, free-market
capitalism and the Western lifestyle.

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4.2. Culture and Society

The USA can be described as a diverse ethnic culture founded on Native American civilizations,
European colonial settlement, African American slavery and later waves of immigration. Until
1776, more than half of the population came from the British Isles and contributed to a white,
mainly Anglos-American, Protestant dominant culture. They promoted many of the new nation's
political, social, constitutional and religious institutions. Their political principles were based on
democracy, grassroots sovereignty (independence of the people) and skepticism about government.

After the colonial period and American independence from Britain (1776) northwestern Europe
supplied over two.thirds of US immigration for most of the nineteenth century. There were also
many Asian immigrants, particularly Chinese, during this time. At the end of the century there was a
swift towards newcomers from southern and eastern Europe.

Subsequent fleets of immigrants (first wave 1680-1776, second wave 1820-1890 and third wave
1890-1930) brought people from many different origins: German, Irish, Britons, Scandinavians,
French Canadians, Chinese, Swiss and Dutch. More lately, Italians, Jews, Poles, Hungarians or
Mexicans would join too, especially during the I World War period. The factor that pulled most
people to the US was an apparently unlimited supply of land and work. A fourth immigration wave
would comprise from 1965 to the present, including hundreds of thousands of immediate relatives
and refugees. Despite greater immigration restrictions, the twentieth century saw a large variety of
other nationalities from worldwide origins immigrating to the US. In total, some 60 million
immigrants entered the US between 1820 and 2000. In the 1980s-19990s and the early twenty-first
century, large numbers of immigrants came from Asia, South and Central America and the
Caribbean, with the biggest groups being Mexicans and Latin Americans.

Ethnic diversity has brought advantages and disadvantages: it has reduced the dominance of the
original Anglo-American Protestant culture, but attitudes to immigration remain volatile.

Religion has its roots in ancient Native American belief structures and in the many faiths that
colonists, slaves and immigrants later brought to the US over the centuries. Although religion is a
private, personal matter and constitutionally separated from the state, it informs and may condition
social, economic and political life.

The US political and legal elements can be outlined as follows:

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  The central place of law and the Constitution in American life.

 The restrictions that the Constitution places upon politics.

 The fact that Americans believe in minimal government, especially at the federal level.

 The perceived need to produce consensual national policies.

Regarding economy, American people generally have a belief in individualism and a free enterprise
system, which is supposed to deliver or supply goods and services demanded by the consumer
market. The competitive nature of US life leads to great disparities of wealth, social inequalities and
varying life opportunities. In 2012, the US had a population of more than 313 million people.

4.4. Literature

Like other national literatures, American literature was shaped by the history of the country that
produced it. Linked to the living experience in the New England colonies, Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804–1864) is notable for his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, a novel about adultery. Set in 17th-
century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester
Brynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance
and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin and guilt.

Hawthorne influenced Herman Melville (1819–1891), a novelist, writer of short stories, and poet
who was notable for the books Moby-Dick and Billy Budd.

In the 19th century Walt Whitman (1819–1892) was one of the most influential poets in the
American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time,
particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, the last version being a compilation of over 400
poems, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality: The poems of Leaves of Grass are
loosely connected and each represents Whitman's celebration of his philosophy of life and
humanity. This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures during a time when
such candid displays were considered immoral.

Also Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was a prolific private poet although fewer than a dozen of her

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nearly 1800 poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her
lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the
time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines,
typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and
punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in
letters to her friends.

American poetry reached its peak in the early-to-mid-20th century, with such noted writers as
Wallace Stevens, T.S.Eliot, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, and E.E. Cummings. Mark Twain (the pen
name used by Samuel L. Clemens, 1835–1910) was the first major American writer to be born away
from the East Coast. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel" as it is considered the
prototype of the national epic. In the novel arena, Henry James (1843–1916) was notable for novels
like The Turn of the Screw, a novel included within the Gothic fiction genre.

At the beginning of the 20th century, American novelist Edith Wharton (1862–1937), was
nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. She combined her insider's
view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels
and short stories of social and psychological insight. Many of Wharton's novels are characterized by
a subtle use of dramatic irony. Having grown up in upper-class late-nineteenth-century society,
Wharton became one of its most astute critics, in such works as The House of Mirth and The Age of
Innocence.

Other remarkable authors are Stephen Crane (1871–1900), who wrote notable works in the Realistic
tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism, and Theodore
Dreiser (1871–1945) whose novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives
despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of
nature than tales of choice and agency. Dreiser's best known novels include Sister Carrie (1900) and
An American Tragedy (1925).

Experimentation in style and form is seen in the works of Gertrude Stein (1874–1946). A literary
innovator and pioneer of Modernist literature, Stein’s work broke with the narrative, linear, and
temporal conventions of 19th-century.

American writers expressed disillusionment following WW I. The stories and novels of F. Scott
Fitzgerald (1896–1940) capture the mood of the 1920s, and John Dos Passos wrote about the war.

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Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) became notable for The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms; in
1954, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. William Faulkner (1897–1962) is notable for novels
like The Sound and the Fury. American drama attained international status only in the 1920s and
1930s, with the works of Eugene O'Neill, who won four Pulitzer Prizes and the Nobel Prize. In the
middle of the 20th century, American drama was dominated by the work of playwrights Tennessee
Williams and Arthur Miller, as well as by the maturation of the American musical.

One of the key developments in late-20th-century American literature was the rise to prominence of
literature written by and about ethnic minorities beyond African Americans and Jewish Americans,
who had already established their literary inheritances. This development came alongside the
growth of the Civil Rights movements and its corollary, the Ethnic Pride movement, which led to
the creation of Ethnic Studies programs in most major universities. These programs helped establish
the new ethnic literature as worthy objects of academic study, alongside such other new areas of
literary study as women's literature, gay and lesbian literature, working-class literature, post
colonial literature and the rise of literary theory as a key component of academic literary study.

 Asian American literature achieved widespread notice through Maxine Hong Kingston's
fictional memoir, The Woman Warrior (1976), and her novels China Men (1980) and Trip
master Monkey: His Fake Book.

 Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut
collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), and went on to write a well-
received novel, The Namesake (2003). In her second collection of stories, Unaccustomed
Earth, released to widespread commercial and critical success, Lahiri shifts focus and treats
the experiences of the second and third generation.

 Other notable Asian-American (but not immigrant) novelists include Amy Tan, best known
for her novel, The Joy Luck Club (1989), tracing the lives of four immigrant families
brought together by the game of Mahjong.

 Latina/o literature also became important during this period, starting with acclaimed novels
by Tomás Rivera (...y no se lo tragó la tierra) and Rudolfo Anaya (Bless Me, Ultima), and
the emergence of Chicano theater with Luis Valdez and Teatro Campesino. Latina writing
became important thanks to authors such as Sandra Cisneros, an icon of an emerging
Chicano literature (The House on Mango Street).

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4.5. Bibliography

Mauk, D. & Oakland, J. (1995) American Civilization. An Introduction. 6Th edition.

Routledge.

On line resources:

US history: http://www.ushistory.org/

Wikipedia: www.en.wikipedia.org

Encyclopedia Britannica: www.britannica.com

The Norton Anthology of American Literature:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/naal7/

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