LECTURE 6: REGIONALISM

BACKGROUND

 Region def. & criteria: cf. year 2  Region in the US vs. the changing concept of region in EUR (20th century vs. EU)  Coming of regionalism and regional interests in the US  Cultural provincialism: the Europe vs. America dichotomy  Regionalism vs. globalization  Boorstin vs. Tindall: consensus vs. conflict in American history (or the paradigm shift in AS since the 1960s)

CULTURAL REGIONS USA

o a region tends to take the culture of its first effective settlement, or that of the powerful elite of the first settlement; o subsequent immigrant groups modify the culture; o a region has to believe in its distinct cultural identity; o you have to have an enemy (cf. sectionalism: the South vs. the Yankee North, etc.) 1. North East (New England, the Mid-Atlantic) 2. South (Old and New South, Southwest) 3. Middle West (Mid-West, Midwest) 4. West

THE ONGOING ACADEMIC DEBATE ON NATION, REGION, SECTION, AND THE FRONTIER

 Concepts: nation (cf. unifying forces), region vs. section, the frontier (region, section, or a building block of national identity), region vs. province vs. section

 Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893) o THE source of American democracy o Forged national identity (a key element of American nationalism and the concept of “otherness”) o Explains who the “WE” are in “We the people, in order to…”

 Turner, Sections and Nation (1922) o Section works against national unity o Mostly political by nature (politics and journalism) o Archetypal sections: North and South before CW

 Questions: What is the frontier? Does it hinder or encourage regional development and regional identity? What is the relationship between frontier and section?  Josiah Royce, “Provincialism” (1909) [originally a lecture at the University of Iowa in 1902] o “Let your province then be your first social idea. Cultivate its young men, and keep them near you. Foster provincial independence. Adorn your surroundings with the beauty of art. Serve faithfully your community and the nation will be served.” o Province vs. frontier o Frontier: genius loci (a sense of place) o Sense of place is not equal to virtues, cultural traditions, etc. o Diff. btw. regional and sectional values

 Joel Garreau, The Nine Nations (1981) o a scandalous attempt to define regions; it carries the concept of regions beyond the borders of the USA, to Canada and Mexico (cf. NAFTA, but barbed wire fences) o a new map each nation with a boundary, a capital, a flag o claims traditional boundaries are fast becoming meaningless o undermines the contention that geographical unity could be regarded as an obvious cohesive feature o THESIS: Not only are the traditional political and geographical borders of the three North American nations becoming meaningless but also the 380 or so million people living north of Central America have begun to act and function like the citizens of nine separate economic, political, and cultural entities o Garreau’s nine nations: 1. New England (Capital: Boston) 2. Quebec (the French influence; Capital: Montreal) 3. The Empty Quarter (no water, rich in minerals, Capital: Denver) 4. MexAmericana (Capital: L.A.) 5. Ecotopia (water, capital: San Francesco) 6. The Island (Cuba, the Bahamas, capital: Miami) 7. Dixie (former Confederacy, capital: Atlanta) 8. The Breadbasket (Kansas City down to Houston, capital: Kansas City) 9. The Foundry (Detroit)

 Michael Steiner, “From Frontier to Region: Frederick Jackson Turner and the New Western History” (1993) [CAL State Fullerton, former Országh Chair, DB] o reconciles the tension between the two notions, frontier and region: BOTH are essential parts of the American experience o regionalism is the dialectics between unity and diversity; it is the manifestation of the special dimensions of American cultural pluralism o it provides multiple identities by two sets of mutually complementary and interdependent sets of forces: the M-factors and the R-factors o M-factors: movement, migration, mobility---SPACE; qualities: universal, infinite, cosmopolitan, freedom, individualism o R-factors: region, roots, re-inhabitation---PLACE; qualities: local, closed, rootedness, settlement, communal LECTURE 7: AMERICAN FOLKLORE

FOLKLORE

Folklore: the unrecorded traditions of a people, including both form and content of traditions and the method of communicating it from person to person; impossible to fully record Fakelore: artificial “folklore:” fills a national need; feeling of inferiority (Brunvald p. 6) American folklore: immigrant input and/or made in USA Preservation: American Folklife Preservation Act (1976)

Oral Folklore (say it)

 Proverbs: cf. “Detective without curiosity is like glass eye at keyhole: no good.” CC  Riddles: p. 118  Rhymes: p. 139  Folk narratives: cf. tall tale: Mark Twain and the jumping frog  Songs and ballads: “Joe Hill” (Baez), Blues, “Clementine,” collecting folk songs: Lomax and Lomax + Woodie Guthrie and Billy Bragg and Wilco; p. 310

Customary Folklore (act it out)

 Beliefs and superstitions: Texas fishermen p. 393  Customs and festivals: Taco Liberty Bell, p. 420  Dance: Cotton-eye Joe (by Swedish rockers)  Gestures: devil’s horn and two outs in baseball, victory sign and FU (Grapes of Wrath)

Material Folklore (grab it)

 Architecture: teepee, log cabin (and Lincoln)  Artifacts: folk art  Food: immigrant cuisine, “buffalo wings”

EXAMPLES

Imaginary people

Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue Ox: 7 storks, the 1000 lakes in Minnesota (footprints), Grand Canyon (drag axe behind him) Pecos Bill: raised by coyotes, invented lasso, rattlesnake for whip, horse: widow-maker Real people

Billy the Kid: Henry McCarty, 21 years of age, 21 people killed (4-9 actually), Pat Garrett Joe Hill: Joel Emmanuel Hagglund, labor organizer, Wobblie (IWW), sentenced for murder

Women

Annie Oakley: Phoebe Ann Mosey, sharp-shooting heroine, BB’sWWS Bonnie Parker: and Clyde Barrow, movies, songs, B&C Festival, Gibsland, LA (ambush scene)

Indians

Squanto: Tisquantum (Rage of the Manitou), Patuxet Indian, Pilgrims and corn (Dave Barry) Geronimo: Apache (One Who Yawns): the original “Winnetou”

Cryptozoological creatures

Bigfoot: kind of Yeti Jackalope: antelope and (killer) rabbit; shy, can be caught with whiskey, breeds only during electrical storms (very rare); cf. MP&THG

Traditions

Scalping: Herodotus: Scythians; Visigoths, Franks, Anglo-Saxons; existed among Indians before the white man arrived; myth: whites introduced it, Indians picked it up Pony Express: 1860-61: mail service btw. Missouri River and Pacific coast; way stations at every 10 miles (full gallop); Buffalo Bill; US 36: Pony Express Highway, 8 statues (photo)

Contemporary urban folklore

Star Trek, Star Wars mythology Parody song on the internet: www.twistedtunes.com/ parody wavs Graffiti LECTURE 8: RELIGION IN AMERICAN SOCIETY

BACKGROUND

 1st Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”  traditions: WASP, and WHY Protestant  religious groups in politics: John Brown and the abolitionists, Social Gospel movement, the “radio priest” (Charles Coughlin), MLK and the CRM  3 great awakenings: religious revivals

THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

 Edward Bellamy, 1892: o I pledge allegiance to my Flag, and to the Republic for which it stands: One Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

 1st National Flag Conference, 1923: o I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States [of America (1924)], and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

 President Eisenhower, 1954: o I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

 2002: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional under the First Amendment due to its inclusion of the phrase “under God.”

CIVIL RELIGION IN AMERICA (ROBERT N. BELLAH, 1967)

 Origins: Rousseau, Social Contract  the set of beliefs, symbols, and rituals all Americans share  Declaration of Independence to JFK’s inaugural: references to God  3 times of trial: Independence/slavery (and Civil War)/global civil religion?

“[S]ince the American civil religion is not the worship of the American nation but an understanding of the American experience in the light of ultimate and universal reality, the reorganization entailed by such a new situation need not disrupt the American civil religion’s continuity. A world civil religion could be accepted as a fulfillment and not as a denial of American civil religion. Indeed, such an outcome has been the eschatological hope of American civil religion from the beginning. To deny such an outcome would be to deny the meaning of America itself.” MATERIAL CHRISTIANITY

 Religious artifacts and/or cultural products in American culture: high and low  Most common: Hotel Bible and the Book of Mormon; also dashboard Jesus  Images, 1-10  Colleen McDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996)  The Material History of American Religion Project at: http://www.materialreligion.org/index.html

AMERICAN JESUS

 Stephen Prothero, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), p. 3 & 7  The American Jesus has been constructed by Christians and non-Christians alike  Images 1-5

FAITH BASED INITIATIVES (BUSH, JR.)

 The New Religious Right (1979) and on  “Evangelical Christianity” and the election of 2004  the attacks on Darwinism in schools (AdvAmCiv readings)  FBIs of the Bush administration: video  Spoof: Colbert in Daily Show: video  Alternative religiosity: Dan Brown, The DaVinci Code (2003) LECTURE 9: WOMEN IN AMERICAN SOCIETY

BACKGROUND

 Women: a majority treated as a minority  Male dominated cultures: Western civilization (vs. Africa, etc. Mother Earth, etc.)  Currently: alternative Christian interpretations (The DaVinci Code)

COLONIAL/EARLY REPUBLIC PERIOD

 Daughters of the American Revolution, etc.: white, M-C, UM-C  Jefferson and black slave love  Afro-American women, Indians  Immigrant women and women on the frontier

NATION BUILDING, 1810S-1860S

 Urban development, concentration of people vs. frontier women (family, Indians)  Industrial revolution: agriculture-based industries (new England textile industry)  Mid-Century reform movements and women: education, prison reform, mental health care, international peace, religious communities, temperance, etc.  TWO major issues: Women’s movement, 1848 Seneca Falls (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Sarah Grimke, “Declaration of Sentiments”): white, M-C, UM-C + abolitionist movement (H. B. Stowe, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman): desegregated

FROM RECONSTRUCTION TO PROHIBITION

 Twin forces: urbanization and industrialization + immigration: new urban setup, heavy industries, new problems: urban vice: drinking and prostitution (cf. West Coast)  WCTU: against urban vice: leads to Prohibition Amdt.  Suffrage movement: leads to Woman Suffrage Amdt.  International Peace Movement (Carrie Chapman Catt, etc. BSR)  Urban social work (Jane Adams, CHI, NPP; Emiliy Balch)  Vira Borman Whitehouse in CH for CPI (cf. GT in ASI 2002/1)  Arguably the most successful period, but remains mostly white, M-C, UM-C

1920S TO 1950S

 1920s: the new woman: flapper: drinking, smoking, relaxed sexual life; movie images + ERA first try, failed  WWII: Rosie the Riveter, the working girl; men’s jobs, men’s pay, a real TuP  After the war: guys come home, baby boom; only delays the confrontation 1960S: FEMINIST MOVEMENT

 Baby boomers go to school: mothers with time available, want jobs  Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963) and NOW: what comes through from women’s magazines; who edits them; frigidity or sg. else  Radical feminists: discussion of clitoral or vaginal orgasm: feeds back to Friedan; rejection of the concept of woman as the object of male desire (cf. Bunuel)  ERA second try, failed again  Contraception and abortion: Roe vs. Wade (1973)  Prominent women in other movements

SINCE THE EIGHTIES: CONSERVATIVES VS. RADICAL FEMINISM

 Reagan: God, family, country: woman as homemaker again  Susan Faludy, Backlash (1991): sums it up + where is the limit?  PC and date rape myth, radical feminism in the 1990s: Are all men potential rapists? (Mike Tyson, Loreena Bobbitt)  Gender studies, body studies, etc.  The fundamental issue: biological differences, equal treatment, no accommodation by male dominated society (cf. CH and HU for extremes on childbearing)

To be considered: representations of women in American culture. LECTURE 10: IMMIGRATION, ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, AND US-HUNGARIAN CONTACTS

BACKGROUND

 Immigration def: legal o illegal, voluntary or involuntary; permanent residence; economic, political or personal reasons  History of US immigration: TuP: 1924: institutionalized restrictions via national quota

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

 an issue since restrictions in place: mostly 20th century, LatAm/MEX  Some stats: o 1820: pop. 9.6 m; 1860: pop. 31.4 m (ca. 6 m immigrants); o 1890: pop. 63 m; 1920: pop. 105 m (ca. 26 m immigrants); o 1940: pop. 131.6 m; 2006: pop. 300 m (ca. 25 m immigrants + 12-20m illegal) o PEW study, 2004: 34 m first-generation immigrants, al least half illegal  Amnesty: Immigration Reform and Control Act, 1986 (Simpson-Rodino Act; applied to 2.8m people!) and its repeats  CRM for illegal immigrants: 2005-2006: “day without immigrants,” protests in LA, NYC, etc.  Business-labor relations: pros and cons for business: cheap labor, no taxes and social security BUT use benefits, and, if legalized; can organize  CRM de facto, but is it a CRM de jure (can it ever be?)

THE US AND HUNGARY

EARLY CONTACTS, 1580S TO 1880S  sporadic, largely unofficial  founding images created: BFS and Kossuth  Academy and APS  role of travelogues  key figures: Parmenius, BFS, Haraszthy, Kossuth, Károly Nagy, Pulitzer story

NEW IMMIGRATION TO WORLD WAR I  Large-scale migration => direct contacts  Nativism vs. HU life in the US  WWI: enemy aliens, positive image gone for a while  WWI: the crisis of split loyalties and the CPI  WWI and Trianon INTERWAR YEARS AND WORLD WAR II  Full, official contacts for the first time ever  Cornerstone: revision of Trianon treaty  Justice for Hungary: an article, a book, and a plane  New HU life in the US: must stay, must assimilate  WWII: HU declares war after PH, 1941 Two US policies: Otto von Habsburg vs. the 4 policemen Moscow, November 1944, 3 rounds of talks HU in the Soviet zone (4 policemen) and Yalta Manhattan Project Trianon 2, 1947

COLD WAR  Transition, 1945-47: establishment of Soviet control  Hostility, 1947-69: unnatural state of relations Expulsion of diplomatss and show trials (Robert A.Vogeler) Propaganda and the radios (VOA and RFE) 1956: “American imperialists” and “horthyfasisztak” + Mindszenty 1957-67: temporary charge d’affaires 1963: partial amnesty in HU 1966: diplomatic relations restored and raised to ambassadorial 1967: Radvanyi deserts 1969: Nixon and “normalization” begins

 Normalization, 1969-1980s Relations as “normal” as can be btw. US and HU Mindszenty, 1971 Consular agreement, claims settlement, scientific exchanges, 1972-73 Holy Crown and MFN treaty, 1978 Out of the Soviet zone: WB and IMF membership 1989: the year or miracles

SINCE 1990  HU fully independent, alliance (NATO)  American investments in HU  “Coca-Colonization” McDonald’s, Al Bundy  visa matters

MUTUAL IMAGES  US always more imp. for HU than HU for the US  HU: US a promised land: a generally held image, not typically HU  US: Kossuth-image + clever HUs (since Manhattan Project)  Prominent HUs in the US: Fabriczy Kovács Mihály; Joseph Pulitzer; Teller, Wigner, Nauman, and Szilárd; Joe Nameth and Pete Gogolak (NFL); Bartók, Sir Georg Solti, Ernő Dohnányi (music); Nobel laureates (Szent-Györgyi, Kálmán Oláh, etc.); Tom Lantos and Gorge Pataki (politics), Sándor Márai, Albert Wass, Lajos Zilahy, Ferenc Molnár (writers), etc.