Folklore in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon J. Bronner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
North America ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
The United States ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Folk Tales ◽  
American Folklore ◽  
The 19Th Century

Folklore in the United States, also known as “American folklore,” consists of traditional knowledge and cultural practices engaged by inhabitants of North America below Canada and above Mexico, states of Alaska and Hawaii, and the territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands. Scholarly and public awareness of American folklore primarily in the contiguous United States followed corpuses of myths, folk tales, and epics in Europe during the 18th century. Although European scholars considered much of the American material, especially in ballads and songs, to be derivatives of European traditions brought by settlers, many traditional forms such as tall tales, hero legends, and indigenous native customs in North America appeared distinctive. In Euro-centered folklore theory, the United States purportedly lacked a peasant class and a shared racial and ethnic stock that fostered the production of folklore. Also affecting perceptions of American folklore was the status of the United States as a relatively young nation, compared to the ancient legacies of European, African, and Asian civilizations. Further, geographically the country’s boundaries had moved since its inception to include an assortment of landscapes and peoples. Primary folkloristic attention in 17th-century colonial North America was the otherness of Native American groups and their various myths, songs, and rituals. A major question was whether these myths, songs, and rituals reflected a unified culture diffused from Asia or a varied indigenous tribal lore. In the 19th century, awareness turned to the persistence and adaptation of expressive songs and stories of European settlers, enslaved Africans, and Southwest Mexicans. Narratives and buildings appeared to show signs of transplantation from the Old World, although as the New Republic emerged in the 19th century, intrepid Americanists presented cultural evidence of ethnic mixing that formed New World hybrids such as folk tales, games, and barns. Although folklore in the United States was popularly associated with localized rural practices, folklorists in the 20th century pointed out emergent American traditions that suggested urban, regional, and national identities. Notable examples of distinctive expressions in the United States included the cowboy and railroader song, urban legend, and regional food. The rise of industrialism, transportation technology, and digital communication in the United States raised concerns that commercial popular culture had displaced folklore, but folklorists found that residents maintained folklore as a significant expression of various small-group or subcultural identities. Among the contexts that fostered folkloric production are college campuses, summer camps, and slumber parties. In a society like the United States that lacks collective public rites of passage to enter adulthood, folklore in the form of narrative and ritual in these contexts functioned to guide youths to adult responsibilities. The digital culture of the Internet that became widespread in the 21st century also provided frames for folkloric communication through the conduit of the social network. Although often circulating globally, many combined visual-verbal “memes” and “creepypastas” projected national anxieties. In this period, Americans could be heard and viewed using folklore rhetorically to refer to the veracity and significance of cultural knowledge in an uncertain, rapidly changing, individualistic society. Folklore frequently referred to the expressions of this knowledge in story, song, speech, custom, and craft as meaningful for what it conveyed and enacted about tradition in a socially dispersed, mobile, and future-oriented country.

The Feminization of Etiquette Literature: Foucault, Mechanisms of Social Change, and the Paradoxes of Empowerment

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Arditi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Change ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Space ◽  
The 19Th Century

This paper explores the opening of a discursive space within the etiquette literature in the United States during the 19th century and how women used this space as a vehicle of empowerment. It identifies two major strategies of empowerment. First, the use or appropriation of existing discourses that can help redefine the “other” within an hegemonic space. Second, and more importantly, the transformation of that space in shifting the lines by which differentiation is produced to begin with. Admittedly, these strategies are neither unique nor the most important in the history of women's empowerment. But this paper argues that the new discourses formulated by women helped forge a new space within which women ceased being the “other,” and helped give body to a concept of womanhood as defined by a group of women, regardless of how idiosyncratic that group might have been.

Nicholas Said

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Bashir Salau
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Middle East ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
North Africa ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Sahara Desert ◽  
Insight Into

The two versions of the autobiography that Nicholas Said published offer insight into 19th-century conditions in five continents as well as insight into life as a child, slave, manservant, and teacher. As a child in the 1830s, Said was enslaved in Borno, marched across the Sahara Desert, and passed from hand to hand in North Africa and the Middle East. After serving as a slave in various societies, Said was freed by a Russian aristocrat in the late 1850s after accompanying the aristocrat in question to various parts of Europe. In the 1850s, Said also traveled as a manservant for a European traveler to South and North America. Ultimately he settled in the United States, where he authored two versions of his autobiography, served as a teacher and soldier, got married, and disappeared from sight. This article compares the two versions of the autobiography that Said published, provides an overview of Said’s life, charts the development of scholarly works on Said, and draws attention to the primary sources related to the study of Said and his autobiography.

THE TOWNSEND JOURNAL: ACCOUNTING FOR THE MARITIME TRADE IN 1840s BOSTON BASED ON B. F. FOSTER'S APPROACH

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandi L Holley ◽  
Dale L. Flesher
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Joint Venture ◽  
Young Men ◽  
The United States ◽  
Maritime Trade ◽  
The 19Th Century

ABSTRACT: The 19th century brought on much economic growth and advancement in accounting in the United States. The teaching of accounting began to veer away from rules and instead sought the logical underpinnings of the system. It was a time when accounting evolved into accountancy through the development of theory, such as the proprietary theory and the theory of two-account series. The Townsend Journal (1840-1841), which chronicles the joint venture between two young men in the Boston maritime trade, is a case study of this progression in commerce and accounting during this pivotal time. B. F. Foster's contemporaneous Boston publications on bookkeeping provide the framework to understand this evolution in accountancy, as well as the recordings in the Townsend Journal. Through the examination of the Townsend Journal alongside B. F. Foster's texts, this paper preserves and illustrates a historical link in the evolution of the field.

Intolerance toward Native American Religions

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
John Corrigan ◽  
Lynn S. Neal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Native American Religions

Settler colonialism was imbued with intolerance towards Indigenous peoples. In colonial North America brutal military force was applied to the subjection and conversion of Native Americans to Christianity. In the United States, that offense continued, joined with condemnations of Indian religious practice as savagery, or as no religion at all. The violence was legitimated by appeals to Christian scripture in which genocide was commanded by God. Forced conversion to Christianity and the outlawing of Native religious practices were central aspects of white intolerance.

2. The rise of black abolitionism and global antislavery struggles

Abolitionism ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 29-46
Author(s):  
Richard S. Newman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
French Government ◽  
Slave Rebellion ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
The 19Th Century

As a new century loomed, black activists pushed abolition forward across the Atlantic world. The greatest example came in Saint-Domingue, where a slave rebellion in the 1790s compelled the French government to issue a broad emancipation decree. “The rise of black abolitionism and global antislavery struggles” explains how a more assertive brand of abolitionism also developed in the United States, as free black communities rebuked American statesmen for allowing racial oppression to prosper, arguing that slavery and segregation violated the American creed of liberty and justice for all. Several European and American nations banned the slave trade in the early 1800s, but slavery proved to be a resilient institution in the 19th century.

Classical Architecture in Europe and North America since 1700

Classics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Classical Architecture ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The 19Th Century

Since the Western Roman Empire collapsed, classical, or Greco-Roman, architecture has served as a model to articulate the cultural, artistic, political, and ideological goals of later civilizations, empires, nations, and individuals. The Renaissance marked the first major, widespread re-engagement with classical antiquity in art, literature, and architecture. Debates over classical antiquity and its relation to the modern world continued ever since. One such important debate was that of the quarrel between the Ancients and Moderns, which resulted when Charles Perrault published his Parallèles des anciens et des modernes in 1688. This dispute focused on whether the modern age could surpass antiquity, especially in literature. The Greco-Roman controversy (1750s and 1760s) was another example of Europeans engaging with the classical past; this debate focused on whether Greek or Roman art was of greater historical value; an argument has continued unabated to this day. Figures like Johann Joachim Winckelmann argued (in publications such as Winckelmann 1764, cited under Early Archaeological Publications on Greece and Classical Ruins in the Roman East, on Greek art) for the supremacy of Greek forms, while others like Giovanni Battista Piranesi (whose 1748–1778 views of Rome are reproduced in Ficacci 2011, cited under Early Archaeological Publications on Italy) advocated for Rome’s preeminence. Such debates demonstrate how classical antiquity was an essential part of the intellectual and artistic milieu of 18th-century Europe. This bibliography focuses on the appropriation of classical architecture in the creation of built forms from 1700 to the present in Europe and North America, which is typically called neoclassical or neo-classical, both of which are acceptable. Scholars often define the neoclassical period as lasting from c. 1750 to 1830, when European art and architecture predominantly appropriated classical forms and ideas. The influence of classical architecture continued in popularity throughout the 19th century and early 20th century in the United States. The early 19th century saw the flourishing of the Greek Revival, where Greek forms dominated artistic and architectural production, both in Europe and the United States. The ascendance of Queen Victoria in 1837 marked a shift toward a preference for the Gothic and Medieval forms. Neoclassical forms saw a resurgence in the second half of the 19th century, as Roman architectural forms became increasingly popular as an expression of empire. The term “Neo-classical” was coined as early as January 1872 by Robert Kerr, who used the term positively. It later took on certain negative overtones, when it was used as a derogatory epithet by an unknown writer in the Times of London in 1892. Neoclassical architecture has fared no better with the rise of modernism in the early 20th century onward and since then it has been seen as old-fashioned and derivative. Neoclassical architecture was not a mindless imitation of classical architectural forms and interiors. The interest in classical architecture and the creation of neoclassical architecture was spurred on by important archaeological discoveries in the mid-18th century, which widened the perception of Greek and Roman buildings. The remarkable flexibility of ancient architecture to embody the grandeur of an empire, as well as the principles of a nascent democracy, meant that it had great potential to be interpreted and reinterpreted by countless architects, patrons, empires, and nation states—in different ways and at different times from the 18th to the 20th century. This bibliography is organized thematically (e.g., General Overviews; Companions, Handbooks, and Theoretical Works; Reference Works; Early General Archaeological Publications; The Reception of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Bay of Naples; and World’s Fairs and Expositions) and then geographically, creating country- or region-specific bibliographies. While this model of organization has some flaws, it aims to avoid repetition and highlights the interconnected nature and process of the reception of classical architecture in later periods.

Schooling in the United States

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Floyd M. Hammack
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Educational Expectations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Formal Schooling ◽  
Large Expansion ◽  
Adult Status ◽  
The 19Th Century

The rise of schooling, from a peripheral activity of religious groups and some elites to a virtually universal and global experience of nearly all children, has been the object of study for over a century. Socialization, usually accomplished within the family, is how young people were traditionally brought into the skills and knowledge required by adult status. A few were chosen for more specialized and formalized education, among them priests, but “going to school” was a very uncommon human experience until the 19th century in the United States, when the “common school movement” established schools in rural areas and cities. By the second half of the 19th century, mass elementary schooling was in place and the expansion of “comprehensive” secondary education had begun. After World War II, a similar pattern of growth in higher education began to take shape. Increasingly called “postsecondary schooling,” the kinds of organizations offering this level of education were diverse, with a large expansion of public institutions, two- and four-year degree programs, and a robust private sector. As this expansion has taken place, the content of schooling, as well as the forms it has assumed, has grown. The questions scholars have asked about this phenomenon include “why has it taken place?” and “what are its consequences?” This article will focus on the literature documenting the expansion of schooling in the United States, the explanations that have been developed for this expansion, and assessments of its consequences. “Functional” (including human capital) explanations have stressed the technical demands of the labor market as the economy has moved from one based on extraction of resources (like farming) to manufacturing, and on to service activities. This view asserts that formal schooling needed to be expanded to transfer the cognitive skills required to attain independent adult status in the new economy. Alternatively, “conflict” theories see education as a tool used by competing groups to exclude nonmembers from eligibility for positions that provide high rewards. Dominant groups shape educational expectations and content in ways that privilege their own members, thus sustaining their dominance. Finally, “neo-institutional” explanations emphasize how education has become the chief legitimate mechanism for selection of people to adult statuses in society. These perspectives include a vast literature into which this essay will provide entrée. After assaying the theoretical literature, this report will examine the consequences of educational expansion for some specific educational topics, including early childhood education, the “college for all” movement, women in higher education, and the rise of community colleges and for-profit colleges.

US Foreign Policy toward Latin America in the 19th Century

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Loveman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Monroe Doctrine ◽  
American Policy ◽  
The 19Th Century

U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America in the 19th century initially focused on excluding or limiting the military and economic influence of European powers, territorial expansion, and encouraging American commerce. These objectives were expressed in the No Transfer Principle (1811) and the Monroe Doctrine (1823). American policy was unilateralist (not isolationist); it gradually became more aggressive and interventionist as the idea of Manifest Destiny contributed to wars and military conflicts against indigenous peoples, France, Britain, Spain, and Mexico in the Western Hemisphere. Expansionist sentiments and U.S. domestic politics inspired annexationist impulses and filibuster expeditions to Mexico, Cuba, and parts of Central America. Civil war in the United States put a temporary halt to interventionism and imperial dreams in Latin America. From the 1870s until the end of the century, U.S. policy intensified efforts to establish political and military hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, including periodic naval interventions in the Caribbean and Central America, reaching even to Brazil in the 1890s. By the end of the century Secretary of State Richard Olney added the Olney Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (“Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition . . .”), and President Theodore Roosevelt contributed his own corollary in 1904 (“in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence, to exercise an international police power”). American policy toward Latin America, at the turn of the century, explicitly justified unilateral intervention, military occupation, and transformation of sovereign states into political and economic protectorates in order to defend U.S. economic interests and an expanding concept of national security.

Native American Ethnicity: a View from the British Museum1

2000 ◽  
Vol 73 (182) ◽  
pp. 221-238
Author(s):  
J. C. H. King
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Native Identity ◽  
Native North America ◽  
American Ethnicity

Abstract Identity in Native North America is defined by legal, racial, linguistic and ethnic traits. This article looks at the nomenclature of both Indian, Eskimo and Native, and then places them in a historical context, in Canada and the United States. It is argued that ideas about Native Americans derive from medieval concepts, and that these ideas both constrain Native identity and ensure the survival of American Indians despite accelerating loss of language.

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