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Routledge is a global publisher of academic books, journals and online resources in the humanities and social sciences.
This term includes at least part of New York, New Jersey Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Generally this encompasses the coastal subregion, the Delaware and Susquehanna River watersheds and Chesapeake Bay. While it is clear that the Mid-Atlantic includes the northeast corridor of cities that Interstate 95 links from Washington, DC to New York City, inland boundaries are more diffuse and vague: the Appalachians often seem to mark graded differentiation westward.
The Mid-Atlantic historically has been the center of economic and social power within the US. Apart from its claims as colonial cradle to many seminal events of American history from the Revolution onwards, the region also contains a great many shared American cultural symbols: civic monuments in Washington, Philadelphia, PA, Baltimore, MD and New York City, NY; world-class museums, major universities and research centers in these and other cities; and the cultured landscapes of city town and village. These are reflected in literature and mass media from colonial days to the early twenty-first century, when rock music, art and movies continue to depict and explore the region (Philadelphia, 1995; Twelve Monkeys, 1995; Barry Levinson and John Waters’ films on Baltimore, Bruce Springsteen and many New York producers).
This cultural heritage reflects a long economic prosperity: until the mid-twentieth century, the Mid-Atlantic states were hubs for the production and shipping of goods to the nation and the world, made in and shipped from New York, Philadelphia, Trenton, New Jersey, Delaware, Wilmington and Baltimore. This combination of industrialization and urbanization, fed by European immigration and the great migration of Southern African Americans, allowed the Mid-Atlantic to distinguish itself from new England (“quaint and isolated”) or the Southeast (“rural and backward”). This also gave the region political clout. Although the last Mid-Atlantic-born president was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, advisors, money and votes are consolidated and close to Washington.
As US manufacturing has moved overseas since the 1960s, there is a sense that the Mid-Atlantic’s hegemony is being eclipsed by others. In a postindustrial economy the region is now commonly associated with crumbling cities desperately attempting to revive themselves, sprawling suburbs connected by aging highways and railroads, and ever-present problems of pollution, drugs, crimes and poverty. Tourism still brings in revenues, but urban populations plummet each year as citizens have opted for new Sunbelt and Pacific Northwest opportunities.
Despite these changes, the Mid-Atlantic continues to offer promise to citizens and visitors alike. Its history and cultural, diversity has been renewed by migration from Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa. Its landscapes include a wide range of cityscapes, small towns and rural landscapes shaped by centuries of care, as well as the rivers and bays of the coast. While Southwestern and California cuisine have been fashionable, Mid-Atlantic cities claim the best cuisine among European and other ethnic restaurants, while local specialties reflect the natural and cultivated resources of the area, whether Maryland crabs, Amish pastries or urban street food. In all, the region embodies the promises and dilemmas of America in the global century.
Industry:Culture
When Nirvana’s Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson’s Dangerous off the top of the charts in 1991, rock, after years of taking second place to dance music, re-emerged.
Grunge became the title that the recording industry and media gave to the sound of the Seattle, WA music scene, which was subsequently plundered for all available talent.
Grunge signified a style—long hair, flannel shirts and torn jeans laid over a slacker ideology—as much as a sound—roughly a punk-metal fusion, with Nirvana at the pop/punk end, Pearl Jam in the hard rock middle and Soundgarden at the metal/punk end.
Industry:Culture
The color white represents base on the color scale. This symbolic meaning has often been presupposed when white, or whiteness, represents racial identity. When white represents racial identity it often represents normalcy naturalness or homogeneity. It is this type of affiliation that often leads white identity to be unexamined by cultural or social studies.
Yet, this lack of critical engagement solidifies a conundmm where various racial identities are constantly discussed, but whiteness is left simply to exist. Thus, white becomes a substitute for power and stands atop a supposed racial hierarchy that represents a natural order. A critical understanding of white identity is found when various histories, affiliations and representations are critiqued for their attachment to whiteness over time (see Frankenberg 1997).
White identity has historical roots in a worldview generated in Enlightenment Europe and a Victorian ideal of beauty and civility The historical attachment of white identity to normalcy and power can be found in many scientific and social proclamations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (see Gould 1991). These historical accounts often skewed scientific methodology and fact to assert that white identity had a natural position atop a racial order, especially in the United States. This coincided with slavery colonialism and an influx of immigration that brought various others into contact with a white AngloSaxon Protestant social order that was dominant at the time. Therefore, the attempts to assert white identity as a natural occurrence became a defense mechanism and fed a Eurocentric worldview. White has also been affiliated with national and ethnic identity. The idea and conception of national identity, especially in England and the United States, has been synonymous with whiteness historically. This has had a number of consequences for cultural representations of the United States where model citizenship becomes synonymous with being white and, usually male.
The affiliation of white identity to class status is prevalent as well. The notion of white privilege has come to symbolize this affiliation due to the fact that people socially defined as white often possess greater opportunity and rapid class mobility The relationship of whiteness to class status is often found in the built environment. The segregation of public facilities, social services and neighborhoods as “white only” throughout the United States in the beginning of the twentieth century demarcated white identity Upper-middle-class neighborhoods became a code word for white neighborhoods in a process known as “white flight” after the Second World War. This movement to the suburbs essentially “whitened” an entire generation of people previously considered to be ethnic others, but now possessing new racial identities because of their class mobility Solidification of this new white identity was found in television shows of the time like Leave it to Beaver. This entire process was dependent on the consistent racial segregation of African Americans and other people socially constructed as “others” in the United States.
Industry:Culture
While assimilationist pressures have told immigrants to learn English, support American economic and political culture and give up leftist politics, animal sacrifice and political allegiances abroad, other traits have been enshrined as “acceptable” markers of ethnic difference—costumes for school pageants, religious festivals and parades and, above all, food. Even on the universalist holiday of Thanksgiving, stuffings for the turkey and side dishes reflect regional and national heritages, which can also be celebrated at school and urban festivals. Some once-ethnic foods—hot dogs, pizza, tacos and kebabs, among others—have crossed over into a heterogeneous American cuisine. But family recipes, ethnic restaurants and neighborhoods and cookbooks also celebrate diversity and even cosmopolitan knowledge in the food-conscious late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Ethnic cuisine, in fact, implies an American standard, usually defined on the basis of regional variations on Anglo staples of meat, bread and potatoes, salads and vegetables, etc. Some ethnic cuisines have gone far beyond their own groups in altering this standard.
Italian foods like spaghetti and lasagna are staples of even Asian households. While Mexicans often face prejudice as immigrants, tacos are part of fast-food culture at home and in drive-ins.
Other cuisines have demanded ingredients, markets and restaurants that provide economic stakes for immigrant populations as well as opportunities for “crossover.” While Chinese cuisines once adapted to American norms and palates, the growth of Asian populations after the 1960s supported more critical clienteles for specialties like dim sum, and other varieties of Chinese cuisine, as well as Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese food. Moreover, these restaurants and the markets that supply homes and businesses serve as places of employment, economic stakes and social centers for ethnic communities.
The price of ethnic food varies. Japanese food, for example, often demands high-end prices (given ingredients in sushi and sashimi). High-prestige foods move beyond the label of ethnicity—especially French and Northern Italian cuisine. Meanwhile, other cuisines, especially those of Africa, remain exotic.
Fashion also comes into play as Americans treat food as adventure as well as comfort.
Fads have established Spanish, Thai, Mediterranean and, in the late 1990s, Latin American cuisine, as alternatives in trendy restaurants and cookbooks. In many cases, these claim an authenticity beyond the ethnic group established in the US.
The American melting-pot has also created fusion food. Some were produced outside of the US—Cuban Chinese immigrants, for example, pioneered fusion. French with Thai (and other Asian) cuisine, Pacific Rim cuisine and new American chefs have taken ethnic dishes as building blocks for culinary renovation shocking to ancestral countries.
Hence ethnicity in food, as in other areas of American life, is both a heritage and a starting point in shaping identities, interactions and markets.
Industry:Culture
The United States has been addicted to cheap gas, influencing both domestic and international policy. It has been one of the world’s largest producers of oil (after the former Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia) and natural gas, based on its holding of 3–4 percent of world supplies of each. This has created intense localized development, especially in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and the West as well as Alaska, coupled with federal strategies to expand and protect these resources. Petroleum also means major US corporations such as Texaco, Sunoco, Exxon (Standard Oil), Hess and transnational conglomerates like Shell and BP. It has fueled a postwar American lifestyle of extremely high energy consumption.
Even when US production peaked at 9.64 million barrels per day in 1970, the consumption of gasoline via automobiles and other energy uses since the Second World War had made the US an oil-dependent nation (with imports outstripping domestic production by the century’s end). Given cheap fuel from abroad, domestic drilling also decreased dramatically Global economics and politics, therefore, have been shaped by negotia-tions of an external supply of oil as a strategic resource. While oil companies once maintained their control through a neo-colonial relationship, the emergence of OPEC in the 1960s posed an alternative control on global supplies.
Crisis loomed in 1970 as world supplies tightened and OPEC began to raise prices. In 1973 Arab states shut off exports to the US in protest of American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Spiraling prices and generalized inflation, lines and rationing at gas pumps challenged American hegemony, although the government favored increasing production rather than attacking demands due to sprawl, consumption, etc. Iran’s embargo in 1979 again raised this specter, although development of Alaskan fields and increased production worldwide has allowed Americans to think and drive as if any crisis has evaporated. Both controversial offshore drilling and the multi-billion dollar commitment of the Trans-Alaska pipeline reflect public interest in oil development even at the expense of the environment, which is already contaminated by automotive wastes.
Critics also have accused the US of coddling dictatorial regimes (Nigeria) or even going to war in the Gulf to protect strategic supplies and allies.
Within this framework, petroleum companies have become highly visible signs of American life through the frequent gas stations of city streets and highways, as well as massive impact on cities like Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Denver. Research support and corporate sponsorship of programming like PBS’ Masterpiece Theater (Mobil) or sporting events have been used to assuage concerns about profits and environmental impacts. The names associated with the history of oil production— Rockefeller, Pew, etc.—also appear in monuments, foundations and other institutions of American life. Yet oil spills, smog and petrochemical wastes spur continuing opposition to the unchecked role of petroleum products and producers in American life.
Natural gas is sometimes touted as an alternative possibility especially for home and production uses, and has led to major investment in delivery pipelines around the country This resource, too, is concentrated in western states giving them special clout in energy planning and use, while deregulation has opened new competition among energy commodities and suppliers.
Industry:Culture
While American youths spend more time watching television than they spend in school, adolescents do read. Adolescents like to read what everyone else is reading and they like good-looking book covers and prefer paperbacks to hardbacks. The genres of adolescent fiction are as varied as are those of children’s and adult literature, including historical fiction and adventure tales, coming-of-age stories, contemporary horror tales and socialissue stories that treat such topics as AIDS, divorce, disability and immigration. Some books are clearly tailored to an adolescent market, especially for younger readers, while others are introduced through education and peer groups in high school and college, by which time they will generally be reading “adult” books.
Adolescent fiction also addresses struggles adolescents face, such as coming of age, religion, divorce (Voight, A Solitary Blue), suicide (McRae, Going to the Dogs), loneliness (Bethancourt, The Me Inside of Me), eating disorders (Levenkron, The Best Little Girl in the World), death (Paulson, Hatchet), disease and disabilities (Mahy Memory; Adler, Eddie’s Blue-Winged Dragon), emotional problems (Riley, Crazy Quilt), abuse (Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees), alcoholism (Paulson, The Crossing) and sexuality (Dizeno, Why Me? The Story of Jenny). Discussions and concerns with racism and ethnicity often lead adolescents to classics such as Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Alice Walker’s Color Purple, Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior, or Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street.
Historical fiction includes popular prehistory series such as Jean Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear, which captivates readers with adventure, survival and discovery themes.
Katherine Paterson has contributed other significant titles to adolescent historical fiction, including The Sign of the Chrysanthemum, set in twelfth-century Japan. Adolescents also enjoy westerns, including the series by Louis L’Amour and Janet Dailey’s Calder series, and read fiction set in the Second World War, Vietnam and the civil-rights eras. Paterson and Walter Dan Myers are familiar names to adolescent readers; Second World War themes are found in Paterson’s Jacob Have I Loved. Sook Nyul Choi’s Year of Impossible Goodbyes treats a North Korean family fleeing the communists, while Echoes of the White Giraffe follows this family’s life in a refugee camp. Myers’ Fallen Angels, Marsha Qualey’s Come in from the Cold and Bobbi Ann Mason’s In Country all deal with Vietnam.
Adolescents are drawn to romances, from the Christian historical romances of Bacher (Heartland Heritage series) and Thoene (Shilo Legacy Series) to more traditional femaleoriented novels. Meanwhile, science fiction and fantasy permit adolescent readers to explore new and old worlds in creative, divergent ways, whether through adventures with dragons or travels in space with aliens. Alternative worlds such as those found in Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time series and Roger Zelazny’s A Dark Traveling pique adolescent imagination. So does humorous science fiction by Gilden and Adams, while Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park attracts older adolescents as well as adults. Other popular fantasy genres of later adolescent reading include cyberpunk, aliens, utopias and dystopias. Graphic novels (Speigelman’s Maus, Maus II) and comics are also widespread, especially among males.
As comics may suggest, teens also have a great capacity for horror, mystery and crime fiction—and for following similar series of horror films. Popular crime and mystery writers include Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark and Sue Grafton, who all have strong adult markets. Christian mystery writing for adolescents includes the Jennie McCrady Mysteries. The cinematic ties and high adventure novels of Tom Clancy and Robin Cook’s thrillers are also compelling, while teen novels of adventure and survival include works by Jean George and Gary Paulsen.
Industry:Culture
Vaguely nostalgic melange of rock from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and, sometimes, 1980s, evoking feelgood memories of teenage life and possibilities for baby boomers, removed from any context of political, economic and socio-cultural change. Popular as a radio format, these “greatest hits” also set the ambience for movies like The Big Chill (1983), while fading into everyday backgrounds of offices, cars and elevator muzak. Oldies seem to be creating a pseudo-nostalgia for the children of boomers as well, exemplified in the renewed popularity of the 1978 Grease with new generations in its twentieth-anniversary release.
Industry:Culture
They emerged from mid-1960s San Francisco, CA counterculture, adding a country accent to psychedelic music. Starting out at the Fillmore (see Graham, Bill) they came to be one of the hardest touring bands in rock history—in 1969 the band played 152 shows.
Their shows were long, filled with improvisatory solos, with audiences of “deadheads” given to ingesting hallucinogens and dancing. Deadheads often followed the band around the country recognizable in their tie-dyed attire and band insignia. A skull became “the Dead” logo and the band members—especially singer/guitarist Jerry Garcia, but also Bob Weir, Pig Pen and Mickey Hart—became legendary. The band ended when Garcia passed away in 1995 after a long struggle with drugs. Over 25,000 people paid their respects in San Francisco’s Memorial Park.
Industry:Culture
The Oscars, 13½ inch statuettes awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, first appeared in 1927 when Wings captured Best Picture while German-born Emil Jannings won Best Actor. Oscar nominations are decided upon within specialist branches before the final vote of all academy members. As the ceremony has moved from a hotel auditorium to wider audiences, professional roles have been taken by comedian hosts (Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg), and sets and production numbers have become increasingly elaborate—as have jewelry hair and costumes for stars. While moments of political intrusion are often remembered (Marlon Brando’s Native American substitute, George C. Scott’s refusal, Richard Gere’s pleas for Tibet), the Oscars tend to reaffirm the priority of Hollywood as the entertainment capital.
Indeed, workers in technical fields and “lesser-interest” awards are relegated to earlier, less publicized ceremonies so that the narrative of the Oscars focuses on the final naming of the highest categories—Best Picture and Best Director. Foreign films were added as a category in 1947.
Industry:Culture
The Roman Catholic parochial school system in the United States, the largest private school system in the country and in the world, educates elementary through secondary students in schools affiliated with Catholic parishes. The system of parochial schools developed in the nineteenth century as a result of concerns within Catholic circles about the dominant Protestant sensibility. Catholics viewed the public schools not as secular, but as non-denominational Protestant, and sometimes audaciously anti-Catholic, especially where nativist attitudes were strong. The Catholic Church believed that attendance in public schools would lead to a decline in Catholic identity among the immigrant Catholic communities.
At the midpoint of the twentieth century, the official position of the Catholic hierarchy was that all education for Catholics should be religious in orientation and controlled by the Church, a position held by the majority of Catholics as well. The number of schools in the parochial school system doubled between 1940 and 1960, when it reached its peak in population and percentage of Catholics. The predominance of parochial schools in the Catholic community sustained a culture of Catholicism that imbued much of the activity of the community. From May Queen processions to beginning the school day with Mass, such socializing resulted in various attitudes among Catholics and perceptions of the Catholic community. The schools were known for their strict discipline, for children wearing uniforms, and for the religious sisters who tended to run the schools. While there were abuses of discipline resulting in many true and apocryphal stories about students surviving Catholic schools, the schools were effective in inculcating Catholic values in the students and making it more likely that they would remain Catholic in their later years.
Towards the end of the twentieth century, as Catholics, as a group, have become more acculturated into mainstream society parochial schools have shifted their focus. While the majority of schools used to be urban, the majority of Catholics have now moved into the suburbs. Thus, schools have been built in the suburbs for the moving population and the numbers of inner-city schools have declined. The remaining inner-city parochial schools educate increasing numbers of nonCatholics and minorities, following the Catholic Church’s concern for the poor in the inner cities, especially for African American, Latino and new immigrant populations. For inner-city families, parochial schools offer a low-cost and high-reward alternative to the decaying public-school structure. While urban parochial schools spend less per student than the local public school, they demonstrate higher rates of learning.
In recent years, parochial schools have become the touchstone for traditionalist religious forces. Foes of the secular public-school system promote parochial schools’ values, and supporters of parochial schools often align themselves with the burgeoning force for tax-supported vouchers.
Industry:Culture
