USA CULTURE

United States Culture, customs, behavior, and way of life in the United States. The American people express their culture through traditions in food, clothing, recreation, and ceremonies; through the education system and institutions of learning, including museums and libraries; and through the arts, encompassing the visual, literary, and performing arts.

American culture is rich, complex, and unique. It emerged from the short and rapid European conquest of an enormous landmass sparsely settled by diverse indigenous peoples. Although European cultural patterns predominated, especially in language, the arts, and political institutions, peoples from Africa, Asia, and North America also contributed to American culture. All of these groups influenced popular tastes in music, dress, entertainment, and cuisine. As a result, American culture possesses an unusual mixture of patterns and forms forged from among its diverse peoples. The many melodies of American culture have not always been harmonious, but its complexity has created a society that struggles to achieve tolerance and produces a uniquely casual personal style that identifies Americans everywhere. The country is strongly committed to democracy, in which views of the majority prevail, and strives for equality in law and institutions.

Paul Bunyan and Babe

	Ralph Waldo Emerson American intellectual and author Ralph Waldo Emerson helped lead the transcendentalism movement, a 19th-century school that looked to individual intuition, rather than scientific rationalism, as the highest source of knowledge. In “Self-Reliance” (1841), one of Emerson’s most important works, he expressed his optimistic faith in the power of individual achievement and originality. He also considered the overarching need to discover and develop a relationship with nature and with God. An actor reads this excerpt from the essay. Encarta Encyclopedia (p) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved./© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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	Paul Bunyan and Babe North American folklore credits Paul Bunyan and his giant blue ox, Babe, with the creation of such North American natural wonders as Puget Sound, the Grand Canyon, and the Black Hills. The origins of the tale are uncertain, but some say the legend began in the American logging mills in the early 20th century. This representation of Paul Bunyan, from about 1955, is in the Paul Bunyan playground in Bemidji, Minnesota. Encarta Encyclopedia Minnesota Historical Society/Corbis
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Characteristics such as democracy and equality flourished in the American environment long before taking firm root in European societies, where the ideals originated. As early as the 1780s, Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur, a French writer living in Pennsylvania who wrote under the pseudonym J. Hector St. John, was impressed by the democratic nature of early American society. It was not until the 19th century that these tendencies in America were most fully expressed. When French political writer Alexis de Tocqueville, an acute social observer, traveled through the United States in the 1830s, he provided an unusually penetrating portrait of the nature of democracy in America and its cultural consequences. He commented that in all areas of culture—family life, law, arts, philosophy, and dress—Americans were inclined to emphasize the ordinary and easily accessible, rather than the unique and complex. His insight is as relevant today as it was when de Tocqueville visited the United States. As a result, American culture is more often defined by its popular and democratically inclusive features, such as blockbuster movies, television comedies, sports stars, and fast food, than by its more cultivated aspects as performed in theaters, published in books, or viewed in museums and galleries. Even the fine arts in modern America often partake of the energy and forms of popular culture, and modern arts are often a product of the fusion of fine and popular arts.