American History - Notes

“Of all historical problems, the nature of national character is the most difficult and most important.” ~Henry Adams

Notes from excerpts we've read in my American Studies class "American Character", based on the author’s viewpoint.  I've found this class to be very interesting.  Thought some of you may enjoy reading these highlights.  The first part of the class has focused on our past. :)

AMST – Readings and Novels

Readings

·      “What is an American” by J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur

o   Letters from an American Farmer in 1782 (French born)

o   Romanticizes America – Lacked objectivity (limited view of North Eastern Europe), yet beautiful view. 

o   The American Character he sees:

§  Opportunists: People who came here wanted more (rich stayed in Europe)

§  American “new man” – acts upon new principles, ideas, and opinions.  No outdated rules/laws.  Establishing new.

§  Free, hard working, quickness, independent thinkers.

§  Alma Mater – new race of men (mixed blood unlike any other) whose labors and posterity will create great changes in the world

§  Americans love their country.  Unity of purpose.

o   This character is created because:

§  All new, no set laws, no royalty, – don’t owe anyone

§  Incomprehensible opportunity with massive land, unlimited creativity.

§  Careful to do best as they get what they earn, what grow is own, keep what earn.

§  Not such extreme class differences (more equality).  Rich and poor are not so far removed. 

·      “The Pachuco and Other Extremes” by Octavio Paz

o   Los Angeles Mexicanism: delight in decorations, carelessness and pomp, negligence, passion, and reserve – seems to float in the air, never mixing with the North American world of efficiency and precision – yet hovers.  Never existing, never vanishing.

o   Mexicans who have lived in the city for many years look like other North Americans, yet what distinguishes them is their furtive, restless air: act like people wearing disguises who are afraid of a stranger’s look because it would strip them and leave them naked.

o   Pachuco – a spiritual condition, or lack of spirit. 

§  Youths who form gangs in Southern cities that can be identified by their language and behavior and clothing. 

§  Instinctive rebels.  Do not attempt to vindicate their race.  Obstinate will-to-be, that affirms nothing except their determination not to be like those around them. 

§  Does not want to be Mexican again, at same time does not want to blend into the life of North America.  Flaunts differences.   Creates own style that spotlights and isolates him at the same time.  Exhibits a wound.  Persecution redeems him and breaks his solitude.  His salvation depends on his becoming part of the very society he appears to deny.

§  Has lost his inheritance: language, religion, customs and beliefs. 

o   Differences between Mexicans and North Americans – irreconcilable attitudes:

§  The Mexican feels torn from the womb.  The history of Mexico is man seeking his parentage, origins.  The North American feels he has built his own world and it is built in his image.  He is alone among his works, lost in a wilderness of mirrors.

§  The North American avoids reality, has no desire to understand it, is confident in surviving no matter how dark the future may appear and only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality.  Mexicans contemplate horror, are even fond of self-destruction and celebrate the dead.

§  North Americans are credulous, love fairy tales.  Mexicans are believers, love myths and legends.

§  The Mexican gets drunk in order to confess.  The North American gets drunk in order to forget.

§  The Mexican is sorrowful and sarcastic.  The North American is happy and full of jokes.

§  The North American considers the world something that can be perfected.  The Mexican considers it something that can be redeemed.

§  The North American is concerned of contamination with contact.  The Mexican feels there is no health without contact.

§  If the solitude of the Mexican is like a stagnant pool, that of the North American is like a mirror.  We have ceased to be springs of living water.

·         “The Japanese Are Different From You and Me” by James Fallows

o   View of a westerner in 1986

o   America: source of pop-culture energy.  All new comes from US, they refine/improve.

o   Japanese take pride in their economic and social system, but act as if something is wrong with them as a race

o   Pure race – avoid interbreeding.  Superior to “mongrel interbreds”.

o   American virtues: big army, sense of style/rhythm, artistic, raw animal/sexual strength

·      “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” by Frederick Jackson Turner

o   Response to his teacher’s stance that American culture came from European culture, thesis presented to the American Historical Society at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893

§  Teutonic Germ Theory – in order to understand American culture, you had to understand European (Teutonic) culture.  Seed in German/European culture.

o   Has become the Theory of American Exceptionalism – (one of most argued about theories) – American culture was formed on the frontier; it is the first period of American History (because of our history and geography, we are different than Europe)

§  Americans are different from other nations because they chose to come here, not chosen.  Intentional.  Different people from different places that hold some common values. 

o   He felt the frontier was the most significant.  Expansive land, ever receding frontier.  Waves of settlers expanding westward.

o   Frontier: an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development.  Meeting point between savagery and civilization.  Edge of free land.

o   Frontier continuously drawn onward by the demand for land and the love of wilderness freedom.

o   American character dominated by these forces: perennial rebirth, fluidity of life, expansion westward of new opportunities, and continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society.  Steady growth of independence.

o   3 classes:

§  Pioneer: depends on natural vegetation and hunting. Builds a cabin in the woods with a small farm and a couple animals.  Stays until crowded out by neighbors and starts over again.

§  Emigrant: next class that rolls in, purchases land, builds the village with bridges, schools, etc.  Lives a plain, frugal, civilized life.

§  Men of Capital and Enterprise: Buys from settlers.  Small villages rise to a town or city with colleges, orchards, and churches.

o   Traits of the frontier: coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; restless, nervous energy; dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom.

o   Creation story for America

o   Was worried the frontier was over, that period closed.

·      “Life on the Prairie Farms” by E.V. Smalley

o   Writer, publicist for Northern Pacific Railroad.  Job to lure people to west.

o   Life on the farms is lonely and secluded.  No trees, cramped abode, neighbors far away.  Families must do all themselves.

o   Suggested changing to farm villages, building on corners of lots

·      “The Limits of Ethnicity” by Irving Howe

o   Tend to the roots but remember the tree.

o   We’ve defined ourselves by not defining ourselves.

o   1890-1920 immigration boom.  Kids of immigrants desperate to be American, want to blend in.  Love white bread.  Their kids wanted roots.  White bread is boring.  “What the children want to forget, the grandchildren want to remember.”

o   People seeking to define themselves through deliberately excluding the dominant native stock

o   Losing passions, words, customs of the old countries

o   Reach back clumsily to a past that cannot be regained

o   Americanizing process: destruction of memories

o   Great weakness to the turn to ethnicity is that it misreads or ignores the realities of power in America.  What answers will ethnicity offer? 

o   Current problems require alignments that move past ethnic divisions. 

o   Instead of focusing on differences, create a vision of humaneness.  Become a mensch – keep one eye on the fading past, the other on the unclear future, enlarge ethnic into ethic, and become a person of the world. 

Books

·      Giants in the Earth by Ole Rolvaag

o   Book written in 1927 by a Norwegian who immigrated himself based on the generation who came before him and broke the prairies.  When he arrived fresh from Norway, was sad to see how culture and original intentions were lost in materialism.

o   Breaking/homesteading the prairie – one of our cherished myths.  Heart of American culture.

o   Environment overwhelms individual

o   Breaking the land was difficult anywhere, extremely difficult in arid plains – flat, treeless, dry.

o   First book to show the truth about prairies, others romanticized it.  Tragedy for many people and the land.  50 years later became the dust bowl.  Exposed human cost of settling the prairie: lives lost, hardships endured (6 months of winter, locust infestations), loneliness, going mad.  High price to pay. 

o   Constant tug of war between extremes:

§  Movement/mobility and rest/roots

§  Individuality and community. Want land plots near each other to preserve community yet build homes in the middle of it to establish space and independence. 

·      Per Hansa builds a larger house, includes a stable.  “Crazy/showing off”.  White washes walls.

§  Retaining the old culture and embracing the new. Giving up old culture yet still use skills derived from it.

o   Immigrant Chest – symbolism: storage, altar, coffin, and protection/shelter when afraid.  Represents the culture/life they left behind. 

o   Per Hansa found on West side of haystack, facing west.  Saga: hero always dies.  He was the most “American”, giving up his heritage more than others: large house, hardest worker.

o   Plea for diversity and traditions in American life.

o   2 father lands or none.  Yet lost where came from, not part of where are.  Old vs. new world. Struggle of immigrants: push/pull – lose self/surrender culture for wealth.

o   Immigrants dream: freedom and enjoyment of life.

o   Timeless – as relevant for today’s immigrants.  Same problems hundreds of years later.

·      Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska

o   Assimilation – outer changes, inner ideals stay the same:

§  Ex: Max Goldstein – Appreciates old world plain simpleness of Sara, yet also her new world independence

o   Acculturation – inner ideals change:

§  Sara refuses to rip her clothing when her mom has passed, against old values.  Rejected them.  This was her one good suit.

§  Reb’s new wife wanted him to work and buy her jewelry.   

o   Sara sees “Real Americans” at college.  They are clean, have fun and enjoy life, and emanate a feeling of wealth, freedom from the struggle of bread/rent.  Worry free.

o   Symbols of people between two worlds:

§  Reb – The Old World

§  Shena – The hopelessness of the Old World, push to emigrate

§  Daughters – The choices

§  Sara – the New World: struggle and ambition, poverty to economic success

“No other nation has so successfully combined people of different races and nations within a single culture.” ~Margaret Thatcher

“You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world… we are not a nation as much as a world… we are the heirs of all time and with all nations we divide our inheritance.” ~Herman Melville

The American Hyphen – two opposite views

o   “Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this republic.” ~Woodrow Wilson

o   “Variety is the spice of life… the whole point is to see that the hyphen connects instead of separates.” ~John Dewey

by Danielle Crume © 2011