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Routledge is a global publisher of academic books, journals and online resources in the humanities and social sciences.
“Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees,” sang Billie Holliday in 1939 about the hanging and torture of African American males (generally) by mob violence, often in the South. As many as 4,000 people died in this way between 1889 and 1940. Lynching turned the racial divisions of American society into blood spectacle, especially in times of social crisis. Campaigns against this horror began at the beginning of the twentieth century; by the 1940s, it had generally disappeared (although federal legislation against it was never passed). It remains a horrifying occurrence (see Emmett Till) in postwar America, as well as an emotional reference in metaphors like “high-tech lynching” (see Clarence Thomas). Moreover, the brutal killing of gay student Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming and other hate crimes show that lynching may not be so far away from contemporary American life as most citizens would like to believe.
Industry:Culture
“Tabloids” generally refers to any paper produced in the tabloid format, that is, relatively smaller than conventional “broadsheets” and without physically separate sections. For urban commuters, these features make the “tab” easier to read than the broadsheet. So too do a number of other characteristics associated with most—not all—North American tabloids: short news items, large print and a simplified writing style. Tabloids’ colorful headlines often feature puns, slang, or hyperbole, for example, describing a murder in a New York strip club as “Headless Body Found in Topless Bar.” A tendency to cultivate a broad audience often results in sensationalist or salacious stories. Tabs generally eschew abstract discussions of state policy or political analysis, favoring instead news about crime, celebrity, sports, or the bizarre. The most notorious tabloids, weekly national “supermarket tabloids,” invariably trumpet tales of celebrity romance, dubious “scientific” breakthroughs, or alien abductions in their pages. Not surprisingly, these journals often face charges of illegitimate news gathering or even outright fabrication.
In the 1980s and 1990s, worried media critics charged that the success of tabloids had begun to infect the culture, leading to growing “tabloidization” within journalism and a gradual erosion of news ethics. This was precipitating, or at least evidence of, a decline in the nation’s public culture more generally. Similar debates have taken place in the past— with the advent of both the penny press and the yellow press—as established news organs find their niches threatened by more popular, more explicitly commercial sources.
Industry:Culture
“You can’t fight city hall” is an American adage that expresses frustration with political power. Yet local government buildings also embody emblems and stories of the city. The movie Philadelphia (1993) opens with an aerial view of City Hall—a proud Second Empire-style building (1871–1901), replacing the older federalist one at Independence Hall. Philadelphia, PA’s costly project sought to be the tallest building in America, but fell into later disrepair with 1970s deindustrialization. Other edifices epitomize nineteenth-century industrial America or later Beaux-Arts urban reform (St Louis, MO, San Francisco, CA); New York’s 1803–11 miniature palace proves distinctly understated in a towering city. Fanciful revivals of Indian and Spanish motifs in the 1920s, the skyscraper Los Angeles, CA built to demarcate a new downtown (1926–8) and Buffalo’s art deco tower (1929–32) illustrate subsequent visions of modernity A third wave of city halls emerged with 1960s urban renewal and increased federal presence, encompassing sculptural modernism in Las Vegas or Dallas (designed by I.M. Pei) and a federal local center for civic renewal in Boston, MA. Like the offices they shelter, all these city halls convey urban aspirations, memory identity and power.
Industry:Culture
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” a line from Bob Dylan, inspired a radical, Maoist off-shoot of Students for a Democratic Society at the end of the 1960s. Led by SDS activists Bernardine Dohrn and Mark Rudd, the Weathermen were to the student movement what Black Power represented to SNCC, radicalizing and then rejecting major aspects of civil rights and New Left ideology.
Stock phrases like “kill the pig” and “kicking ass” captured some disaffected with the Vietnam War and “corporate capitalism,” though they remained relatively few. The Weathermen eventually turned to urban guerilla methods and, as efforts at robbery and kidnapping made them fugitives, tended to separate themselves in clandestine organizations, akin to cults. In the 1980s and 1990s, several former Weathermen who had created new identities were arrested or turned themselves in to the police, recalling the more radical 1960s counterculture to the public mind.
Industry:Culture
A barrier island, accessible only by boat, 2 hours east of New York City, With no roads, Fire Island’s seventeen communities each have distinctive identities. Remoteness and isolation, notably made Cherry Grove the world’s earliest predominantly gay town from the 1930s onwards. Cherry Grove and neighboring Fire Island Pines are internationally famous summer destinations for gay and lesbian residents and visitors. In the 1960s, Fire Islanders helped create the Fire Island National Seashore national park, stopping developers who hoped to build a highway. This helped preserve the unique and remote seaside blend of natural resources and residential communities.
Industry:Culture
A century ago horses were common in work and sport throughout urban and rural America. In transportation and myriad occupations, they filled streets, linked farms and towns and extended human labor. Moreover, an infrastructure of trading, care and shelter formed part of human settlement, as it has for millennia. Yet, within decades, the automobile turned the horse into a rarer animal of leisure. Although the horse figures prominently in Hollywood and television through the popularity of the western and historical pieces, it has disappeared from everyday life. The Amish maintain it as a primary work/ transport animal. Mounted police, carriage tours and similar roles remain in some cities. Yet, even on ranches, the ease of a pick-up truck means a horse is sometimes carried rather than carrier. Meanwhile, maintaining a horse has become an expensive, specialized occupation, especially in urban areas.
Riding is still popular among many Americans, especially those who live in open areas and the West. Stables and trails are also maintained in great city parks like Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. Ranches may maintain horses for recreation and work; dude ranches specialize in this union of man and nature.
Horse shows showcase precision horsemanship in equitation and more complex riding skills in dressage, jumping, reining and related events. Major official shows, sanctioned by the American Horse Show Association, include the National in New York City, the Devon Horse Show, near Philadelphia, PA and the American Quarter Horse Congress in Oklahoma. Specialized breeding groups and riding associations appear in pageants like the Rose Bowl parade.
Racing also remains a primary area in which humans meet the contemporary horse.
Both harness and flat racing are popular in the US, the latter having been established since the seventeenth century. In some states, only on-track betting is permitted; New York and other areas allow people to bet at state centers as well. Racing usually takes place on a one-mile oval dirt track, although races themselves vary in distance and prizes.
Among the most important horse races in the US are those of the Triple Crown: the Kentucky Derby (Churchill Downs, Louisville), the Preakness (Pimlico, Baltimore) and the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park, New York. Other race-tracks in Florida and California take advantage of warm winter weather. Famous horses of the postwar period include Man o’ War, Secretariat and Northern Dancer, while Eddie Arcaro and Willie Shoemaker became well-known jockeys.
Winning horses prove profitable after their racing careers through breeding fees.
Thoroughbred sales occur annually in Kentucky and at Saratoga Springs (New York); breeding is controlled through the Jockey Club and the American Stud Book. Breeding and training require knowledge, investments and commitment.
American horse breeding has contributed to the development of several important strains of horses, including the American Quarter Horse, Appaloosa, Standardbred, American Saddlebred, Morgan and Mustang. Wild horses are found still on western ranges and on islands off the Atlantic coast.
There are also problems associated with horses. Policies regarding over-breeding of horses for sport, over-use of public lands by wild horses and horses used in the pharmaceutical industry (i.e. for production of the drug Premarin) continue to be controversial. Americans have strong prejudices against eating horseflesh, although it is used in dog food. Some horses live out their days on retirement farms, but many also face industrial disposal.
Industry:Culture
A company a sound, a polished set of star acts and a city—Detroit, MI. Founded by songwriter and Ford assembly-line worker Barry Gordy, Jr. in 1959, when he decided to promote his own songs and local talent on a variety of labels, including Tamla and Motown. From the “Hitsville, USA” office in Detroit, Gordy built one of the largest black entertainment companies in the country; by 1965 it earned $12 million. Gordy worked with talented songwriters like the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, who later left embittered. With 170 acts—some from local high schools—including superstars like Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, (Little) Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and family Martha and the Vandellas and others who offered catchy music and lyrics, smooth harmonies, powerful voices and elegantly choreographed performances, Gordy changed American (and global) listening and dancing.
Gordy moved Motown to California in 1970 and sold it in 1988 to MCA and Boston Ventures; it was sold to Polygram in 1993 for $301 million. The Motown Historical Museum preserves the original office and studio, but Detroit is no longer the capital of African American—and American—music that it was when people were “Dancing in the Streets.”
Industry:Culture
A craze believed by many to have originated when Yale students began to throw upsidedown pizza pans borrowed from a New Haven restaurant. The first plastic disks were developed by Fred Morrison and Warren Fancioni in the late 1940s. Frisbees were then mass produced in the late 1950s by the company Wham-O. As the craze grew in the 1960s, a new non-contact sport developed called “Ultimate,” in which the objective is to get the frisbee into the opposing team’s end zone. Ultimate is popular at the club level on most US college campuses.
Industry:Culture
A degenerative brain disease resulting in memory loss, this disease affects approximately 4 million Americans. Symptoms include confusion, personality and behavior change, and impaired judgment. The disease usually begins by influencing shortterm memory before affecting other sections of the brain. Although the disease can affect people in their thirties, most individuals diagnosed with the disease are over sixty-five years old according to the Alzheimer’s Association, making this a particular concern—and image—of the elderly. There is no cure, although donepezil and tacrine are used to relieve some symptoms.
Industry:Culture
A drug responsible for devastating birth defects in the early 1960s may make a comeback almost forty years later to help treat leprosy and AIDS. Thalidomide, manufactured by Chemie Grüenthal, was sold from 1958–62 in approximately forty-six countries as a sedative or anti-nausea drug for pregnant women. Thalidomide severely deformed thousands of babies whose mothers took it in their first trimester of pregnancy. Never sold in the US because Federal Drug Administration (FDA) scientist Frances Kelsey single-handedly blocked its approval, it was internationally banned by 1962. The tragedy led to laws requiring rigorous testing procedures for American pharmaceutical products.
Industry:Culture
