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 championship series. The winner is awarded the Stanley Cup, the league’s
top prize.
Television transformed sports
in the second half of the 20th century. As more Americans watched sports on
television, the sports industry grew into an enormous business, and sports
events became widely viewed among Americans as cultural experiences. Many
Americans shared televised moments of exaltation and triumph throughout the year:
baseball during the spring and summer and its World Series in the early fall,
football throughout the fall crowned by the Super Bowl in January, and the
National Basketball Association (NBA) championships in the spring. The Olympic
Games, watched by millions of people worldwide, similarly rivet Americans to
their televisions as they watch outstanding athletes compete on behalf of their
nations. Commercial sports are part of practically every home in America and
have allowed sports heroes to gain prominence in the national imagination and
to become fixtures of the consumer culture. As well-known faces and bodies,
sports celebrities such as basketball player Michael Jordan and baseball player
Mark McGwire are hired to endorse products.