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Culture: The Driving Force of

American History
Ryan Marchione
Box #1863
Dr. Miller
HIS 371
Option 2
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When people try to create a narrative of American history, they often bring up events

such as the American Revolution, The Civil War, World War II, The Great Depression, and The

Civil Rights Movement. All of these events are of great significance to U.S. history, but they

don’t explain the true underlying force that causes these events to occur. Often when people are

telling the story of America, they try to use the cause and effect method to explain how these

events happened. Cause and effect does play a role in these iconic events taking place in U.S.

History, but they don’t explain what is really connecting all of these events through time. The

true driving force of U.S. History is culture. Our culture is what has led to the ideals and values

that cause events like the ones mentioned above to happen.

To understand how culture has driven U.S. history over time, we must first look at what

culture is. Culture has been defined many different ways, and there is no one definitive definition

of culture, but some writers in U.S. history have given their opinions as to what culture is.

Raymond Williams said in his 1976 work that the definition of culture has changed over time,

and that culture is “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language

because it has come to be used for important concepts in several distinct intellectual disciplines”

(Williams. Pg. 76-77). Perhaps this is why so many people don’t use culture to explain U.S.

history, because it is so complex and hard to grasp.

One very important aspect of culture is noted by T.S. Eliot. Eliot says that “it is part of

my thesis that the culture of the individual is dependent upon the culture of a group or class”

(Eliot. Pg. 93). Eliot makes the point that culture is not made up of one person, but it is instead

made up of a group of people. This is an important point to understand because it helps us to

realize the impact that our culture has played on our history over time. One person may start a

cultural trend, but that trend can’t really become imbedded into the greater culture until multiple
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people embrace that culture as well. This is evident throughout American history, and it has been

the driving force that has influenced U.S. history. Some examples would be a small group of

colonists coming together and deciding that they didn’t want to be oppressed by Great Britain

anymore, and so their ideas caught on with others, and a cultural trend of rebellion and anti-

colonization began amongst the colonists. This cultural trend eventually led to The American

Revolution and American independence. T.S. Eliot makes a great observation about culture

being shared by multiple people, and by analyzing U.S. history through this perspective, we can

see how cultural trends shared by people have led to just about every major event in U.S. history.

America has had some growing pains through its history, but overall it has progressed

rapidly to where we are today in a relatively short period of time. Throughout its progression,

many people have taken note of the characteristics of the American culture, one of these people

was Alexis de Tocqueville who visited America in the early 1800’s. Tocqueville took note of

what he saw in American democracy. He observed the kinds of people that he saw in America.

He notes that he saw “Christian people whose religious zeal prefers to be fed on the truths of the

next life” and “On the other side of these religious men, I have met others whose gaze is turned

to earth rather than to heaven” (Tocqueville. Pg. 40). This is a very interesting observation, and

one that will prove to be an accurate prediction of things to come in U.S history. Tocqueville,

whether he knew it or not predicted the growing division of ideals and values in America.

Through American history, we have seen a decrease in religion and religious values, and an

increase in the values people place on material goods and things of this world. This cultural trend

is one explanation as to why certain events and movements occurred in the United States. Two

such events were the rise of industry for material gain and consumerism. Both of these
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movements have had an enormous impact on U.S history and I will further discuss those later in

the paper.

Tocqueville must have had a crystal ball because later in his book, he makes more

observations that would come true later in the course of U.S. history, and his assessments of

American democracy would prove to be accurate. Tocqueville claims that “The most democratic

country on earth is therefore the one in which men have most nearly perfected the art of joining

their efforts in the pursuit of common goals”. He also claims that “In democratic societies…they

can accomplish nothing alone” (Tocqueville. Pg. 117). These statements can be applied to almost

any movement in U.S. history. Events have happened and change has been made when people

come together to create that change. One example of this is the Civil Rights Movement. America

was in a dark time where democracy was not felt by a great many people, and they came together

for the common good and achieved equal rights over a hundred years after Tocqueville made this

statement. Tocqueville’s assessments as to what makes a democracy are some of the very

characteristics that have driven U.S. culture and consequently U.S. history over time. You can

look at any event in U.S. history and apply what Eliot and Tocqueville have said about culture to

see how the culture has influenced and driven that event or movement. This further proves my

claim that culture is the driving force of U.S. History.

As Tocqueville reflected on what he saw in America, he noted that there is a rising group

of people who are concerned about the material items of this world more than the next world. We

can see a decrease in the importance of religion, and an increase in the value on material goods.

This is very evident in the second half of the 19th century in America. People began to value

wealth and material gain during this time, and one example of this would be the discovery of oil,

and the rise of the oil industry in America. This phenomenon is accurately depicted by Brian
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Black in his book Petrolia. In the book, Black describes how oil became a driving force of U.S.

culture, and how entire towns were built around the production of oil. Oil created a culture in

America during the time. Black describe the impact that oil had on the region of northwestern

Pennsylvania as “at one time this valley was oil, and oil was this valley” (Black. Pg 11). This

statement basically says that the entire population of this region was solely focused on the

harvesting and selling of oil. So, where people were once focused on bettering themselves and

living in accordance to God’s commands, they were now focused on making a profit through the

oil industry. This event was not exclusive to this one region in Pennsylvania either. People would

come from all over hoping to get rich, and Black describes in the book that people would exploit

the land and each other in the name of advancement for themselves, and when the resources

would dry up, they would simply move on to the next area that was profitable for them. Black

sums up this point by stating that the area “was meant only to be exploited and then cast aside,

while the orderly industry moved on” (Black. Pg. 174). This shows many things about U.S.

culture and the course of American history in general. This is one of the early examples of where

Americans begin to value themselves more than others, and that trend has only increased in the

present day. A country that was once founded on people working together for the common good

to promote human flourishing was now full of individuals who only saw moneybags, and they

didn’t care who or what they had to take advantage of to get that money.

While there was evidence of Americans beginning to value themselves and material gain

more than anything else in industry, there was also evidence of the shifting values in the

consumer world. American industry had taken off so much in the late 1800’s, that by the early

1900’s people could purchase things out of want instead of out of necessity. This was very

evident in William Leach’s book Land of Desire. In the book, Leach describes the rise of
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consumer capitalism through the development of department stores. Americans began to focus

their efforts on reaching the “good life”. No one knew exactly what the good life was, but many

had the idea that they could reach it by buying as many material goods as possible so that they

could show off their wealth. In the early days of America, the “good life” seemed to be living life

based on a set of morals that would bring them into communion with God and with each other.

Now 150 or so years later, the “good life” seemed to be about living as luxuriously as possible

and keeping up with the latest material trends. Leach even notes the power of consumerism in

the opening lines of his book when he says “whoever has the power to project a vision of the

good life and make it prevail has the most decisive power of all” (Leach. Pg XIII). This is a very

revealing statement, and it shows how powerful the consumer capitalist industry became in the

early 20th century. People became so ingulfed with acquiring material possessions that companies

concentrated on marketing their products by saying that if you have this, then you will be living

right. People believed it, and there was a never-ending cycle of people buying the latest trendy

item. This also is another defining characteristic of a culture, and that is that American culture is

restless, and is always looking for ways to progress. This is also a driving force for how

American culture has driven U.S. history. This new consumer culture also further displays the

rising individualism, and people’s indifference to the welfare of anyone around them. Leach

makes this evident by citing a saying by a columnist during the time period. The columnist

claimed that “we all want money and luxury, we only decry it when we cannot get it” (Leach.

Pg. 22). In other words, this columnist is saying that even the poor people of the time period

want money, they are only talking negatively about it because they are jealous. Instead of

worrying for the well being of others, people were saying these other people are just jealous

because they don’t have what we have. Consumerism in America had caused people to lose sight
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of what was really important in life, and this further decreased the value of religion in American

culture. Leach even cites a claim that the U.S. government has enabled this cultural trend to

flourish when he says “remove the regime of capital, and the state would remain. Remove the

state and the regime of capital would not last a day” (Leach. Pg. 383). In other words, Consumer

culture has become so intertwined with U.S culture as a whole that even our own form of

government which is charged with preventing some of the very byproducts of this movement

such as inequality, has done the opposite of prevent these things, but it has instead enabled this

culture to flourish. This even further exemplifies the decreasing moral values of even the top

levels of U.S government.

A country that was founded on the principles of democracy, decency, the common good,

and human flourishing in Tocqueville’s world had lost sight of that and was now ingulfed in a

culture of material gain and individualism. This type of culture created inequality, and this

inequality would be fought throughout the 20th century and is still being fought to some degree

today. Various groups have been left out of the equation such as African Americans, Native

Americans, and in general the poor people of the nation. Jane Addams was a woman who tried to

close the gap between the rich and poor by her founding of the Hull house in Chicago in the

early 1900’s. Jane Addams “tried to do what she could to help her “neighbors” in immediate and

tangible ways” according to Christopher Lasch (Lasch. Pg. XVIII). In essence, Addams was one

example of old American values. While the rest of the world was focused on advancing

themselves in the world, Addams was focused on helping those who were left behind.

Besides the poor of the day, Native Americans were also exploited in the name of

“progress”. Native Americans were forced to adapt to the western culture, or they would be

killed. Colin Calloway described the way that Native Americans were forced into U.S.
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mainstream culture by saying that Native Americans “usually wore the white man’s clothes and

lived in impressive ranch houses” (Calloway. Pg. 159). Just because some Indians adapted to

western life doesn’t mean they all did. One example would be Wooden Leg who described

himself as “a tamed old man” (Calloway. Pg. 157). In other words, the Native Americans ways

were being forced away from them, and they didn’t have much choice besides to become

westernized or die. This type of thing would not have happened in the early days of America

because this event goes against the values of early American democracy. But the individualism

of the new America was completely fine with leaving some groups out of the fold. This is yet

another example of the shift in values from the American culture of old, and the American

culture of the current time period. These inequalities would drive U.S. history to the point of

countercultural movements such as the Civil Rights Movement, the LGBTQ movement, and the

Me-Too movements.

One major issue that has been evident throughout most of U.S. history has been the

treatment of African Americans. Ever since the end of the Civil War, African Americans had

been fighting for equal treatment. They finally received equality a hundred years after they

should have received it, but our culture even to this day has traces of racism, but no where near

the extent that it had been 50 years ago. W.E.B. DuBois predicted the struggle of African

Americans when he said that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color

line” (DuBois. Pg. 34). This wasn’t the only problem in the 20th century for Americans, but it

was a major one as DuBois called. One author that gives insight to the issues of African

Americans is Cornel West. West claims that the problems are not with black people exclusively

but are instead with the American culture in general. This goes back to T.S. Eliot’s point that one

person doesn’t make a culture. West claims that “as a people, we are on a slippery slope towards
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economic strife, social turmoil, and cultural chaos. If we go down, we go down together” (West.

Pg. 8). West claims that America is in trouble as a whole because our values have caused a split

in the nation. A nation that was founded on communion and working together, so if the country

loses its founding values, it is in danger of collapsing itself. West claims also that American

culture has created “rootless, dangling people with little link to the supportive networks family,

friends, school-that sustains some sense of purpose in life. We have witnessed the collapse of the

spiritual communities that in the past helped Americans face despair, disease, and death” (West.

Pg. 10). In other words, West also sees the decline in values in America. He says that we are

losing our support systems in communities in favor of individualism. As far as African

Americans, West claims that the “problem of African Americans is twofold: on one hand there is

too much poverty and on the other too little self-love” (West. Pg. 93). West is advocating for

African Americans to love themselves and to be proud of who they are, only then can they rise

above their current condition. West has an interesting take on the issues of African Americans,

and he claims that the issue in his America is not just a black problem, but it instead is an

American problem. West is advocating for a return to our fundamental values in order to

eradicate inequality.

In addition to issues affecting select groups in American culture, there is also problems

which effect everyone in America no matter their age race, or gender. That problem is the search

for self-fulfillment. In the early days of America, people found self-fulfillment in each other,

after the rise in consumer culture, people struggled to find fulfillment in the material goods

which attributed to their restlessness and the search for more. Joan Didion does a good job of

showing some of the ways in which Americans searched for fulfillment after the rise of the

consumer culture tore America apart in her book Slouching Towards Bethlehem. In the book,
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Didion talks about the commodification of marriage and the abuse of drugs as ways that people

tried to find fulfillment. Didion claims that is Las Vegas, 171 couples were married on a single

night, and that this is done out of the search for immediate gratification (Didion. Pg. 80). Also,

Didion claims that there are 19 wedding chapels in Vegas which compete to provide the most

efficient marriages. Didion suggests in the book that Marriage has become like a game of craps

which is to be played when the table is hot (Didion. Pg. 81). Didion paints a picture of the

cheapness of marriage in the 1960’s. People were searching for something to give their lives

meaning and when the material goods didn’t cut it, they looked for something else. In the early

days of America, marriage was seen as a sacred bonding between two people, now it was seen as

a means to an end, a further example of the decline in religious values in American culture.

Didion also talks about the drug abuse that she saw in her world. She talks about living

amongst hippies who were searching for the next high. Young people went missing from their

families, and the parents filed a missing person’s report, then moved on (Didion. Pg. 85). Family

structures were destroyed in America, and one cause was drugs. Didion’s chapter is filled with

people experimenting with different drugs. The reason for this is that one drug doesn’t give them

what they’re looking for, so they move on to the next one. These people that Didion interacted

with had no direction in life as she puts it their goals were to “get jobs, then a place to live, then I

dunno” (Didion. Pg. 92). These people were living in the moment and were only doing what felt

good in the moment.

Another search for fulfillment came in the 1990’s and is still present today is the

technological revolution which gave life to internet usage and video games. These two give

people a way to become what they can’t be in real life. People can find a virtual world that is

exactly like they wish the real world could be, which is why these two mediums have become so
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popular in present day America. Peter Bacon Hales writes about this in his book Outside the

Gates of Eden. Hales describes the ability of video games to let people escape from reality as

“immersion” (Hales. Pg. 395). Hales claims that people use virtual reality games as a way of

escaping from reality. People can become who they want without real world consequences.

People feel free with video games to live out their fantasies that they can’t carry out in real life.

This is yet another form of the search for artificial fulfillment in our current culture.

In conclusion. Culture is the driving force of American history. A culture is what keeps

the nation intact and the values held by the culture dictate what actions they take, and these

actions are what writes history. In the earliest days of America, the values held by the culture

were ones that promoted human flourishing and encouraged communion between people who

were looking out for the good of others. These are the cultural values that this nation was

founded on, and people were truly fulfilled when they had this in their lives. By looking at

American history through a cultural perspective, we can see the trajectories of religion and

individualism over the course of U.S. history. Religious values have steadily declined while

individualistic values have steadily risen. These individualistic values have created a culture that

values material goods. This doesn’t create real fulfillment like religious values do, so as a result

Americans have been restless and have been looking for things to provide fulfillment. Americans

have turned to money, cheap marriages, drugs, and video games to find this fulfillment, but it

hasn’t been reached. Throughout American history, we can see how a person’s values have

driven what actions they take, and it is for that reason that I conclude that culture is what has

driven American history to the current state that we are in.