20th Century American Culture Song Links

Links From Lectures

1.13.14
Clip from "Modern Times" (1936)
1.15.14
Scott Joplin, "The Strenuous Life," 1902
1.22.14
Bill Murray, "Meet Me Down at Luna Lena," 1905
"Shooting the Chutes," Luna Park, 1903
1.27.14
"Rite of Spring," Igor Stravinsky, 1913
"I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier," 1915
1.29.14
"Take it Easy," Duke Ellington, 1928
Black and Tan Fantasy, 1929
2.3.14
"I've Found a New Baby," Ethel Waters, 1925
2.5.14
"No Telephone in Heaven," The Carter Family, 1927
"The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane," Fiddlin' John Carson, 1923
2.12.14
"Dust Can't Kill Me," Woody Guthrie, 1940 recording
"I Ain't Got No Home in this World Anymore," Woody Guthrie, 1940 recording
2.17.14
"Happy Days are Here Again," Annette Hanshaw, 1930
2.19.14
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," The Andrews Sisters, 1941
2.24.14
"Sh Boom Sh Boom," The Crew Cuts, 1954
2.26.14
"Thirteen Women," Bill Haley and His Comets, 1954
"In the Suburbs," 1957
Launch of Explorer 1 Satellite, 1958
3.3.14
"Groovin' High," Charlie Parker, 1953
"Hound Dog," Elvis Presley, Performance on the Milton Berle Show, 1956
3.17.14
"People Get Ready," The Impressions feat. Curtis Mayfield, 1965
3.19.14
"All Along the Watchtower," Jimi Hendrix, 1968
Altamont Free Concert, 1969
3.26.14
"Superstition," Stevie Wonder, 1972
Death Wish trailer, 1974
"Ballero," War, Soul Train
3.31.14
"Sweet Home Alabama," Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1974
4.2.14
Sugar Hill Gang, "Rapper's Delight," Performed in 1981
New York Dolls, "Personality Crisis," 1973
The Ramones, "Blitzkrieg Bop" 1976 (song)
Wild Style trailer, 1983
Grandmaster Flash, "The Message," 1982
Blondie, "The Rapture," 1981
The B-52's, "Rock Lobster," 1979
4.7.14
Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the U.S.A.," 1984
"It's Morning in America," 1984
"This is Your Brain on Drugs," 1987
"I Learned it From Watching You," 1987
Cyndi Lauper, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," 1983
4.9.14
R.E.M., "It's the End of the World as We Know It," 1987
Ryan White banned from attending school, 1985
WarGames trailer, 1983
"Tear Down This Wall," Ronald Reagan, 1987
4.14.14
Beck, "Loser," 1993
Beavis and Butthead
Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," 1993
Vanilla Ice, "Ice Ice Baby," 1990
4.16.14
Panjabi MC featuring Jay-Z, "Beware," 2003
4.21.14
Arcade Fire, "Deep Blue," 2010

Popular Culture: Possible Classes and Books

Gender
Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man
Manliness and Civilization
Coming on Strong
Race/Ethnicity
Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man
Manliness and Civilization
Playing Indian
All the World's a Fair
Monitored Peril
The Body
Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man
Manliness and Civilization
Coming on Strong
Celebrity
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
Sam Patch
E. Pluribus Barnum
Fluidity of Culture
Playing Indian
In the Name of War
Sports
Manliness and Civilization
Coming on Strong
Transnationalism
All the World's A Fair
Buffalo Bill's Wild West
Youth Culture
Golden State, Golden Youth
Cycle of Outrage
Space and Place
Golden State, Golden Youth
All the World's a Fair
Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight
Horrible Prettiness
Mass Media
Understanding the Media
Monitored Peril
Authenticity
Creating Country Music
Playing With Fraud in the Age of Barnum (not on Janet's list)
Buffalo Bill's Wild West
Cultural Memory
The Shoemaker and the Tea Party
Buffalo Bill's Wild West
Playing Indian

American Civilization: People

John Smith (1580-1631) - Helped establish Jamestown, VA via Virginia Company of London

Thomas Hooker (1586-1647) - Left Massuchessetts Bay Colony to go settle Connecticut

John Winthrop (1587-1649) - Led English Puritans to New World; became governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony

William Bradford (1590-1657) - Leader of Plymouth colony in Massachusetts; sailed over on Mayflower with the rest of the Pilgrims ("separatists"); writer of Mayflower Compact

Roger Williams (1603-1683) - Theologian who helped create Rhode Island; believed in tolerance, and in separation of church and state

King Philip/Metacom (1639-1676) - Sachem of Wampanoag; leader of King Philip's War - war with Southern New England

Samuel Parris (1653-1720) - Minister of Salem Village; big leader of Salem Witch Trials; very rigid and egotistical; not very well-liked

Cotton Mather (1663-1728) - Son of Increase Mather; very influential Puritan preacher; wrote tons of books and pamphlets; very concerned about the second and third generations of Puritans falling away from original Puritan mission in America - advised them to stay the course; friends with judges in Salem Witch Trials

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) - "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741);
very interested in nature; very influenced by John Locke - "I know things through my senses;" leading preacher of the Great Awakening - all about "bodily effects;" very influenced by Newton as well; his followers became known as New Light Calvinists

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) - Wrote Common Sense (1776), etc.

John Adams (1736 - 1826) Second U.S. president, first U.S. Vice President; represented Continental Congress in Europe; opposed Stamp Act of 1765;

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) - Third U.S. President; primary author of Declaration of Independence; promoted republicanism and yeoman farmer ideal; Louisiana Purchase; influenced by Enlightenment; favored states rights and wanted limited federal government; died on Fourth of July - and so did John Adams

Abigail Adams (1755-1818) - Wife of John Adams; known for giving him lots of advice when he was in Europe representing Continental Congress - "remember the ladies"; advocate of married women's property rights and women's education

Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) - Physician and writer; one of the signers of Declaration of Independence; opponent of slavery and capital punishment; consulted Thomas Paine on writing of Common Sense; founded Dickinson College; believed in right to medical freedom; influenced development of psychiatry

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) - Seventh U.S. President; shaped Democratic Party; "Old Hickory;" first president associated with the frontier as he was based in Tennessee; a general in War of 1812; followed Jefferson as a supporter of the "agricultural republic;" killed the Second Bank of the United States; signed Indian Removal Act of 1830

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) - Presbyterian minister and leader of Second Great Awakening; temperance guy too; was against abolitionism

Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) Presbyterian minister; early advocate of dietary reform and vegetarianism and temperance; invented Graham bread in 1829; main goal was to curb lust; was against additives in bread - butchers and commercial bread makers often rioted when he spoke

Catherine Beecher (1800-1878) - Daughter of Lyman Beecher; sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe; sister of Henry Ward Beecher and Charles Beecher (famous Congregationalist ministers); opened Hartford Female Seminary in 1823; believed women and not men should be educators

William Lloyd Garrison (1805- 1879) Abolitionist and editor of radical abolitionist paper The Liberator; reformer; supported temperance and women's suffrage

Louis Agassiz (1807 - 1873) First guy to mention the Ice Age

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) Sixteenth President of U.S.; Republican; Emancipation Proclamation of 1863

Orson Fowler (1809 - 1887) Phrenologist who edited and published American Phrenological Journal from 1838-42; wrote lots of self-improvement books; popularized Octagon house

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) English guy; natural selection; evolution

Theodore Parker (1810 - 1860) Transcendentalist and Unitarian minister; an abolitionist and temperance guy too, and believed in prison reform

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) English philosopher who came up with all-encompassing concept of evolution; coined "survival of the fittest;"

Frances Willard (1839 - 1898) Temperance reformer and suffragist; president of WCTU; really into bicycle riding

G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924) American psychologist into childhood studies; founded American Journal of Psychology, and was first president of the APA

Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914) Scientist, philosopher, and mathematician; one of founders of Pragmatism; wrote about logic and semiotics

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) Jurist who served on Supreme Court from 1902-1932; fought for the North in the Civil War

William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher; fairly sick as a kid; one of founders of Pragmatism;

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) Sociologist and economist; Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

John Dewey (1859-1952) Philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer; one of founders (along with Charles Sanders Pierce and William James) of Pragmatism; one of the founders of the New School for Social Research; hated dichotomy, and was especially against idea of mind/body split; wanted to unite mind and body in education; used cooking to teach science in schools; believed skills students learned should be integrated into their daily lives; Progressive education was largely tossed aside during Cold War as U.S. had new obsession with scientific education; considered a public intellectual

Jane Addams (1860-1935) First woman to be awarded Nobel Peace Prize; founded Hull House in 1889, which included a night school, coffeehouse, gymnasium, music school, girls club, etc

William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) Politician and lawyer; Scopes Trial guy; one of the most popular orators in U.S.; devout Presbyterian; Populist leader; fought trusts and big banks; hardcore anti-Darwinist

Luther Gulick (1865 - 1918) P.E. instructor and advocate of the play movement; founder of Camp Fire Girls; served as president of the Playground Association of America

Margaret Mead (1901-1978) American anthropologist

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) Poet, novelist, and writer big in the Harlem Renaissance

Malcolm X (1925-65) Black muslim and speaker for Nation of Islam;

Cultural Geography: Possible Classes and Books

Gender:

Putting Women In Place (Great overview of connection between gender and place; well-written and accessible and great intro for undergrads)

Race/Ethnicity:

Sidewalk

Environment:

Changes in the Land

"The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492" - Denevan

Suburbia:

Building Suburbia

Behind the Gates

Suburban Nation

Urbanism:

Sidewalk

Gay New York

Private vs. Public Space:

Brave New Neighborhoods

Behind the Gates

City of Quartz

Sidewalk

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air

Gay New York

Labor and Capitalism:

The Lie of the Land

Mobility/Transgression:

In Place/Out of Place

Putting Women In Place

Country of Exiles (as example of conservative view of those who hate free-flowing movement and its implications of "placelessness;" is this a valid point? Does free flow and cosmopolitanism destroy "real place?")

Sidewalk

Memory:

Shadowed Ground

The Past is a Foreign Country (on this list?)

Regionalism:

All Over the Map

The Middle West

Lure of the Local

Class:

Sidewalk

American Civilization List: Possible Classes and Books

Gender:

Catherine Beecher

Beyond Separate Spheres

Grounding of Modern Feminism

Women and Temperance

Individualism vs. Community:

A New England Town: The First Hundred Years (1970) By Kenneth Lockridge

Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (1974) By Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum

Perfectionism:

The Puritan Origins of the American Self (1975) By Sacvan Bercovitch

Storming Heaven

American Jeremiad

Cities on a Hill

Race:

Changes in the Land (1983) By William Cronon

American Slavery, American Freedom (1975) by Edmund Morgan

War Without Mercy

Work and Leisure:

Methodology:

Changes in the Land (1983) By William Cronon [Wide array of sources - fossil records, travel narratives, natural science records, etc]

War Without Mercy

Amoskeag [Oral histories]

Environmental History:

Changes in the Land (1983) By William Cronon

Nature's Metropolis By William Cronon

Dust Bowl By Donald Worster

Resistance:

Roll Jordan Roll

Making of a New Deal

Eight Hours for What We Will

Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917

Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (1995)
By Gail Bederman

Synopsis: This book seeks to illuminate the ways in which "middle-class men and women worked to re-define manhood in terms of racial dominance, especially in terms of 'civilization'" (20). Focuses the bulk of the book on four different figures: Ida B. Wells (discussed race problem and lynching as "unmanly" and an act of barbarism, yet whites continued to link lynching with manliness); G. Stanley Hall (believed in "recapitulation" theory that each human lived entire evolutionary sequence, and that kids were going through "primitive/savage" stage, and this should be encouraged so they don't turn out as weak, overcivilized pansies); Charlotte Perkins Gillman (linked feminism to white supremacy of civilization); Theodore Roosevelt (obsessive view that white race was the manliest and most powerful, and that it would remain manly via the strenuous life and via imperialist expansion into Cuba, Philippines, and Puerto Rico; and that middle class whites must prevent "race suicide" by having more kids). Argues that race and gender are intricately linked, and that "gender - whether manhood or womanhood - is a historical, ideological process...[it's a] continual, dynamic process" (7). Because definitions of manliness are always shifting, we shouldn't see 1870-1910 as a time of "crisis" per se, but rather as another redefinition. The rise of leisure and the decline of self-employed men led to changing notions of "masculinity," and increased fears that the "feminine" Victorian era would emasculate men. Men basically felt that they were losing control. However, the rhetoric of "civilization" and "manliness" was so flexible that it could be used in an array of ways - often contradictory ways. At its core, "civilization" discourse was all about race, gender, and power. 1910 Jack Johnson (black)/Jim Jeffries (white) "fight of the century" all about "reclaiming" white male dominance (though Johnson won).

Interacts With:

Hope in a Jar, Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man, Terrible Honesty (with idea that certain eras can be "feminine" or "masculine" - "masculine" modernity as a reaction against "feminine" Victorian era), All the World's A Fair (for discussion of white male superiority and racial dominance)

Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture

Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture (1998)
By Kathy Peiss

Synopsis: This book is an examination of the rise of the cosmetics and make-up industry in the U.S., and the constantly reconfigured and renegotiated understanding of make-up use among women, and in American culture overall. Aim is to understand women's intentions as well as social and cultural forces surrounding them. She focuses mostly on imagery and general cultural trends, rather than on what individual women thought, and does this by analyzing the history of the cosmetics industry from the early nineteenth-century to today, with the bulk of the focus on 1900-1930. She shows the way the beauty industry evolved from a female-run business which ducked standard advertising and marketing efforts, to a big consumer culture phenomenon in the 1920s run by men. She also shows how make-up moved from the realm of hookers to average American women, and the way it ultimately came to be deeply connected to femininity and self-expression, identity and community. Argues that the beauty industry continues to be a contested thing - the African American side is especially political, i.e. what is the ideal beauty?
Peiss argues that beauty culture was a way for women to negotiate modernity - the artifice and performance aspect of it was appealing and appropriate for the modern era, yet men continuously had a hard time with this "artifice." Make-up as "skin improvement" vs. make-up as "paint" was an early and tight distinction. This is all still up for debate though - i.e. is this oppressive? "Hussy" outsold "Lady" by a lot, and these two types were seen as moods and not types of people (how postmodern!!) Transformative power of make-up. [The parts about failed attempts to get men to use make-up are fascinating - kind of reminds me of failed attempts to get people to drink coke for breakfast].

Interacts With:

Manliness and Civilization, Tarzan, Houdini, and the Perfect Man, Venus Envy, Where the Girls Are, Fraud in the Age of Barnum (for the discussion of artifice), anything that deals with the performance or charade aspect of Modernity/urban life: Confidence Men and Painted Women,