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User:ProfDEH/Icons of American Culture

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Icons of American culture encompass many kinds of cultural expression. Iconic status is hard to define but readily recognized as symbolizing the culture, history and heritage of the United States. Images, music, historic events and legends, vehicles, places and ideas may all be symbolic of the American way of life, its roots and the contemporary national identity. Icons deal not just with nostalgia, although that is an important component. The United States developed as a melting-pot of different cultures, and symbols of the new nation played a vital part in developing a sense of unity as a nation.[1] In the twentieth century, regardless of political reality, American culture influenced every country in the world by exporting powerful symbols of unity and gratification: a comfortable life with many desirable possessions. In the modern world iconic images remain hugely important.


Themes

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This article is not a list of icons, but an outline for expansion.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ John Belton, American Cinema/American Culture: "[In the 20th century] a coherent national identity had to be maintained (or re-created?) and it was precisely the American cinema that served as a kind of social bridge".
  2. ^ Icons of American Popular Culture: From P.T. Barnum to Jennifer Lopez, by Robert C. Cotrell, M.E. Sharpe 2009. ISBN: 978-0765622983. See 'Democratic Showmen: James Gordon Bennett and P.T. Barnum'
  3. ^ Icons of American Architecture [Two Volumes]: From the Alamo to the World Trade Center, by Donald Langmead, Heinemann Educational Books ISBN: 9780313342073. See Vol 1 Chapter 3
  4. ^ Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 13, 2006: Hummer H1 is history — GM won't make model after 2006
  5. ^ Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century by Peter Hall: WileyBlackwell 2002, ISBN 978-0631232520
  6. ^ Chester Himes, the hip city.
  7. ^ "Astaire and Rogers: Icons of American Screen Romance", keynote lecture synopsis, Austrian Association for American Studies
  8. ^ To Read a Mockingbird. Library Journal (New York) 129 (14): 13.. 1 September 2004


External references

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Extract from Robert Johnson, Mythmaking and Contemporary American Culture (Music in American Life) by Patricia Schroeder (Hardcover - 31 Aug 2004) ISBN: 978-0252029158. "For Emerson, representative characters are model citizens who embody cultural ideas"]

  • [http://hss.fullerton.edu/amst/thesisabstracts.asp California State University, Fullerton: Synopsis of thesis on cars as icons in American culture.
  • [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,219864,00.html Fox News, Mecca-Cola and other versions of iconic products.
  • American Icons: An Encyclopedia of the People, Places, and Things that Have Shaped Our Culture by Susan Grove Hall (Editor), Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated. ISBN: 9780275984212.
  • The Hamburger: A History (Icons of America), by Josh Ozersky, Yale University Press 2008. ISBN: 978-0300117585.