U.S. Culture

public housing projects. Poorer people often live crowded together in

large apartment complexes in congested inner-city areas. Federal public

housing began when President Franklin Roosevelt sought to relieve the

worst conditions associated with poverty in the 1930s. It accelerated

during the 1950s and 1960s, as the government subsidized the renewal of

urban areas by replacing slums with either new or refurbished housing. In

the late 20th century, many people criticized public housing because it

was often the site for crime, drug deals, gangs, and other social ills.

Nevertheless, given the expensive nature of rental housing in cities,

public housing is often the only option available to those who cannot

afford to buy their own home. Private efforts, such as Habitat for

Humanity, have been organized to help the urban poor move from crowded,

high-rise apartments. These organizations help construct low-cost homes in

places such as the South Bronx in New York City, and they emphasize the

pride and autonomy of home ownership.

In recent years, the importance of home ownership has increased as higher

real estate prices have made the house a valuable investment. The newest

home construction has made standard the comforts of large kitchens,

luxurious bathrooms, and small gardens. In line with the rising cost of

land, these houses often stand on smaller lots than those constructed in

the period following World War II, when one-story ranch houses and large

lawns were the predominant style. At the same time, many suburban areas

have added other kinds of housing in response to the needs of single

people and people without children. As a result, apartments and

townhouses—available as rentals and as condominiums—have become familiar

parts of suburban life. For more information on urbanization and

suburbanization.

Food and Cuisine

The United States has rich and productive land that has provided Americans

with plentiful resources for a healthy diet. Despite this, Americans did

not begin to pay close attention to the variety and quality of the food

they ate until the 20th century, when they became concerned about eating

too much and becoming overweight. American food also grew more similar

around the country as American malls and fast-food outlets tended to

standardize eating patterns throughout the nation, especially among young

people. Nevertheless, American food has become more complex as it draws

from the diverse cuisines that immigrants have brought with them.

Historically, the rest of the world has envied the good, wholesome food

available in the United States. In the 18th and 19th centuries, fertile

soil and widespread land ownership made grains, meats, and vegetables

widely available, and famine that was common elsewhere was unknown in the

United States. Some immigrants, such as the Irish, moved to the United

States to escape famine, while others saw the bounty of food as one of the

advantages of immigration. By the late 19th century, America’s food

surplus was beginning to feed the world. After World War I (1914-1918) and

World War II, the United States distributed food in Europe to help

countries severely damaged by the wars. Throughout the 20th century,

American food exports have helped compensate for inadequate harvests in

other parts of the world. Although hunger does exist in the United States,

it results more from food being poorly distributed rather than from food

being unavailable.

Traditional American cuisine has included conventional European foodstuffs

such as wheat, dairy products, pork, beef, and poultry. It has also

incorporated products that were either known only in the New World or that

were grown there first and then introduced to Europe. Such foods include

potatoes, corn, codfish, molasses, pumpkin and other squashes, sweet

potatoes, and peanuts. American cuisine also varies by region. Southern

cooking was often different from cooking in New England and its upper

Midwest offshoots. Doughnuts, for example, were a New England staple,

while Southerners preferred corn bread. The availability of foods also

affected regional diets, such as the different kinds of fish eaten in New

England and the Gulf Coast. For instance, Boston clam chowder and

Louisiana gumbo are widely different versions of fish soup. Other

variations often depended on the contributions of indigenous peoples. In

the Southwest, for example, Mexican and Native Americans made hot peppers

a staple and helped define the spicy hot barbecues and chili dishes of the

area. In Louisiana, Cajun influence similarly created spicy dishes as a

local variation of Southern cuisine, and African slaves throughout the

South introduced foods such as okra and yams

By the late 19th century, immigrants from Europe and Asia were introducing

even more variations into the American diet. American cuisine began to

reflect these foreign cuisines, not only in their original forms but in

Americanized versions as well. Immigrants from Japan and Italy introduced

a range of fresh vegetables that added important nutrients as well as

variety to the protein-heavy American diet. Germans and Italians

contributed new skills and refinements to the production of alcoholic

beverages, especially beer and wine, which supplemented the more customary

hard cider and indigenous corn-mash whiskeys. Some imports became

distinctly American products, such as hot dogs, which are descended from

German wurst, or sausage. Spaghetti and pizza from Italy, especially, grew

increasingly more American and developed many regional spin-offs.

Americans even adapted chow mein from China into a simple American dish.

Not until the late 20th century did Americans rediscover these cuisines,

and many others, paying far more attention to their original forms and

cooking styles.

Until the early 20th century, the federal government did not regulate food

for consumers, and food was sometimes dangerous and impure. During the

Progressive period in the early 20th century, the federal government

intervened to protect consumers against the worst kinds of food

adulterations and diseases by passing legislation such as the Pure Food

and Drug Acts. As a result, American food became safer. By the early 20th

century, Americans began to consume convenient, packaged foods such as

breads and cookies, preserved fruits, and pickles. By the mid-20th

century, packaged products had expanded greatly to include canned soups,

noodles, processed breakfast cereals, preserved meats, frozen vegetables,

instant puddings, and gelatins. These prepackaged foods became staples

used in recipes contained in popular cookbooks, while peanut butter

sandwiches and packaged cupcakes became standard lunchbox fare. As a

result, the American diet became noteworthy for its blandness rather than

its flavors, and for its wholesomeness rather than its subtlety.

Americans were proud of their technology in food production and

processing. They used fertilizers, hybridization (genetically combining

two varieties), and other technologies to increase crop yields and

consumer selection, making foods cheaper if not always better tasting.

Additionally, by the 1950s, the refrigerator had replaced the old-

fashioned icebox and the cold cellar as a place to store food.

Refrigeration, because it allowed food to last longer, made the American

kitchen a convenient place to maintain readily available food stocks.

However, plentiful wholesome food, when combined with the sedentary 20th-

century lifestyle and work habits, brought its own unpleasant

consequences—overeating and excess weight. During the 1970s, 25 percent of

Americans were overweight; by the 1990s that had increased to 35 percent.

America’s foods began to affect the rest of the world—not only raw staples

such as wheat and corn, but a new American cuisine that spread throughout

the world. American emphasis on convenience and rapid consumption is best

represented in fast foods such as hamburgers, french fries, and soft

drinks, which almost all Americans have eaten. By the 1960s and 1970s fast

foods became one of America's strongest exports as franchises for

McDonald’s and Burger King spread through Europe and other parts of the

world, including the former Soviet Union and Communist China. Traditional

meals cooked at home and consumed at a leisurely pace—common in the rest

of the world, and once common in the United States—gave way to quick

lunches and dinners eaten on the run as other countries mimicked American

cultural patterns.

By the late 20th century, Americans had become more conscious of their

diets, eating more poultry, fish, and fresh fruits and vegetables and

fewer eggs and less beef. They also began appreciating fresh ingredients

and livelier flavors, and cooks began to rediscover many world cuisines in

forms closer to their original. In California, chefs combined the fresh

fruits and vegetables available year-round with ingredients and spices

sometimes borrowed from immigrant kitchens to create an innovative cooking

style that was lighter than traditional French, but more interesting and

varied than typical American cuisine. Along with the state’s wines,

California cuisine eventually took its place among the acknowledged forms

of fine dining.

As Americans became more concerned about their diets, they also became

more ecologically conscious. This consciousness often included an

antitechnology aspect that led some Americans to switch to a partially or

wholly vegetarian diet, or to emphasize products produced organically

(without chemical fertilizers and pesticides). Many considered these foods

more wholesome and socially responsible because their production was less

taxing to the environment. In the latter 20th century, Americans also

worried about the effects of newly introduced genetically altered foods

and irradiation processes for killing bacteria. They feared that these new

processes made their food less natural and therefore harmful.

These concerns and the emphasis on variety were by no means universal,

since food habits in the late 20th century often reflected society’s

ethnic and class differences. Not all Americans appreciated California

cuisine or vegetarian food, and many recent immigrants, like their

immigrant predecessors, often continued eating the foods they knew best.

At the end of the 20th century, American eating habits and food production

were increasingly taking place outside the home. Many people relied on

restaurants and on new types of fully prepared meals to help busy families

in which both adults worked full-time. Another sign of the public’s

changing food habits was the microwave oven, probably the most widely used

new kitchen appliance, since it can quickly cook foods and reheat prepared

foods and leftovers. Since Americans are generally cooking less of their

own food, they are more aware than at any time since the early 20th

century of the quality and health standards applied to food. Recent

attention to cases in which children have died from contaminated and

poorly prepared food has once again directed the public’s attention to the

government's role in monitoring food safety.

In some ways, American food developments are contradictory. Americans are

more aware of food quality despite, and maybe because of, their increasing

dependence on convenience. They eat a more varied diet, drawing on the

cuisines of immigrant groups (Thai, Vietnamese, Greek, Indian, Cuban,

Mexican, and Ethiopian), but they also regularly eat fast foods found in

every shopping mall and along every highway. They are more suspicious of

technology, although they rely heavily on it for their daily meals. In

many ways, these contradictions reflect the many influences on American

life in the late 20th century—immigration, double-income households,

genetic technologies, domestic and foreign travel—and food has become an

even deeper expression of the complex culture of which it is part.

Dress

In many regions of the world, people wear traditional costumes at

festivals or holidays, and sometimes more regularly. Americans, however,

do not have distinctive folk attire with a long tradition. Except for the

varied and characteristic clothing of Native American peoples, dress in

the United States has rarely been specific to a certain region or based on

the careful preservation of decorative patterns and crafts. American dress

is derived from the fabrics and fashions of the Europeans who began

colonizing the country in the 17th century. Early settlers incorporated

some of the forms worn by indigenous peoples, such as moccasins and

garments made from animal skins (Benjamin Franklin is famous for flaunting

a raccoon cap when he traveled to Europe), but in general, fashion in the

United States adapted and modified European styles. Despite the number and

variety of immigrants in the United States, American clothing has tended

to be homogeneous, and attire from an immigrant’s homeland was often

rapidly exchanged for American apparel.

American dress is distinctive because of its casualness. American style in

the 20th century is recognizably more informal than in Europe, and for its

fashion sources it is more dependent on what people on the streets are

wearing. European fashions take their cues from the top of the fashion

hierarchy, dictated by the world-famous haute couture (high fashion)

houses of Paris, France, and recently those of Milan, Italy, and London,

England. Paris designers, both today and in the past, have also dressed

wealthy and fashionable Americans, who copied French styles. Although

European designs remain a significant influence on American tastes,

American fashions more often come from popular sources, such as the school

and the street, as well as television and movies. In the last quarter of

the 20th century, American designers often found inspiration in the

imaginative attire worn by young people in cities and ballparks, and that

worn by workers in factories and fields.

Blue jeans are probably the single most representative article of American

clothing. They were originally invented by tailor Jacob Davis, who

together with dry-goods salesman Levi Strauss patented the idea in 1873 as

durable clothing for miners. Blue jeans (also known as dungarees) spread

among workers of all kinds in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,

especially among cowboys, farmers, loggers, and railroad workers. During

the 1950s, actors Marlon Brando and James Dean made blue jeans fashionable

by wearing them in movies, and jeans became part of the image of teenage

rebelliousness. This fashion statement exploded in the 1960s and 1970s as

Levi's became a fundamental part of the youth culture focused on civil

rights and antiwar protests. By the late 1970s, almost everyone in the

United States wore blue jeans, and youths around the world sought them. As

designers began to create more sophisticated styles of blue jeans and to

adjust their fit, jeans began to express the American emphasis on

informality and the importance of subtlety of detail. By highlighting the

right label and achieving the right look, blue jeans, despite their worker

origins, ironically embodied the status consciousness of American fashion

and the eagerness to approximate the latest fad.

American informality in dress is such a strong part of American culture

that many workplaces have adopted the idea of “casual Friday,” a day when

workers are encouraged to dress down from their usual professional attire.

For many high-tech industries located along the West Coast, as well as

among faculty at colleges and universities, this emphasis on casual attire

is a daily occurrence, not just reserved for Fridays.

The fashion industry in the United States, along with its companion

cosmetics industry, grew enormously in the second half of the 20th century

and became a major source of competition for French fashion. Especially

notable during the late 20th century was the incorporation of sports logos

and styles, from athletic shoes to tennis shirts and baseball caps, into

standard American wardrobes. American informality is enshrined in the

wardrobes created by world-famous U.S. designers such as Calvin Klein, Liz

Claiborne, and Ralph Lauren. Lauren especially adopted the American look,

based in part on the tradition of the old West (cowboy hats, boots, and

jeans) and in part on the clean-cut sportiness of suburban style (blazers,

loafers, and khakis).

Sports and Recreation

Large numbers of Americans watch and participate in sports activities,

which are a deeply ingrained part of American life. Americans use sports

to express interest in health and fitness and to occupy their leisure

time. Sports also allow Americans to connect and identify with mass

culture. Americans pour billions of dollars into sports and their related

enterprises, affecting the economy, family habits, school life, and

clothing styles. Americans of all classes, races, sexes, and ages

participate in sports activities—from toddlers in infant swimming groups

and teenagers participating in school athletics to middle-aged adults

bowling or golfing and older persons practicing t’ai chi.

Public subsidies and private sponsorships support the immense network of

outdoor and indoor sports, recreation, and athletic competitions. Except

for those sponsored by public schools, most sports activities are

privately funded, and even American Olympic athletes receive no direct

national sponsorship. Little League baseball teams, for example, are

usually sponsored by local businesses. Many commercial football,

basketball, baseball, and hockey teams reflect large private investments.

Although sports teams are privately owned, they play in stadiums that are

usually financed by taxpayer-provided subsidies such as bond measures.

State taxes provide some money for state university sporting events.

Taxpayer dollars also support state parks, the National Park Service, and

the Forest Service, which provide places for Americans to enjoy camping,

fishing, hiking, and rafting. Public money also funds the Coast Guard,

whose crews protect those enjoying boating around the nation's shores.

Sports in North America go back to the Native Americans, who played forms

of lacrosse and field hockey. During colonial times, early Dutch settlers

bowled on New York City's Bowling Green, still a small park in southern

Manhattan. However, organized sports competitions and local participatory

sports on a substantial scale go back only to the late 19th century.

Schools and colleges began to encourage athletics as part of a balanced

program emphasizing physical as well as mental vigor, and churches began

to loosen strictures against leisure and physical pleasures. As work

became more mechanized, more clerical, and less physical during the late

19th century, Americans became concerned with diet and exercise. With

sedentary urban activities replacing rural life, Americans used sports and

outdoor relaxation to balance lives that had become hurried and confined.

Biking, tennis, and golf became popular for those who could afford them,

while sandlot baseball and an early version of basketball became popular

city activities. At the same time, organizations such as the Boy Scouts

and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) began to sponsor sports

as part of their efforts to counteract unruly behavior among young people.

Baseball teams developed in Eastern cities during the 1850s and spread to

the rest of the nation during the Civil War in the 1860s. Baseball quickly

became the national pastime and began to produce sports heroes such as Cy

Young, Ty Cobb, and Babe Ruth in the first half of the 20th century. With

its city-based loyalties and all-American aura, baseball appealed to many

immigrants, who as players and fans used the game as a way to fit into

American culture.

Starting in the latter part of the 19th century, football was played on

college campuses, and intercollegiate games quickly followed. By the early

20th century, football had become a feature of college life across the

nation. In the 1920s football pep rallies were commonly held on college

campuses, and football players were among the most admired campus leaders.

That enthusiasm has now spilled way beyond college to Americans throughout

the country. Spectators also watch the professional football teams of the

National Football League (NFL) with enthusiasm.

Basketball is another sport that is very popular as both a spectator and

participant sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

hosts championships for men’s and women’s collegiate teams. Held annually

in March, the men’s NCAA national championship is one of the most popular

sporting events in the United States. The top men’s professional

basketball league in the United States is the National Basketball

Association; the top women’s is Women’s National Basketball Association.

In addition, many people play basketball in amateur leagues and

organizations. It is also common to see people playing basketball in parks

and local gymnasiums around the country.

Another major sport played in the United States is ice hockey. Ice hockey

began as an amateur sport played primarily in the Northeast. The first

U.S. professional ice hockey team was founded in Boston in 1924. Ice

hockey’s popularity has spread throughout the country since the 1960s. The

NCAA holds a national collegiate ice hockey championship in April of each

year. The country’s top professional league is the National Hockey League

(NHL). NHL teams play a regular schedule that culminates in the

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