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Culture includes art, philosophy, science, religion, gender roles, women’s rights, and group identities (racial, ethnic, class, regional), which extend into the theme of American national identity.
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American Indian languages constituted more than 20 language families which included more than 400 distinct languages. Southwestern tribes evolved multifaceted societies supported by farming with irrigation systems. They lived in caves, under cliffs, and in multistoried buildings. Northwestern tribes had a rich diet based on hunting, fishing, and gathering nuts, berries, and roots. They carved large totem poles to save stories, legends, and myths, and they were often isolated from other tribes.
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The Aztecs, Incas, and Mayas developed highly organized societies with extensive trade and accurate scientific observations. All three cultivated crops that provided a stable food supply, particularly corn for the Mayas and Aztecs and potatoes for Incas. Men typically made tools and hunted, while women gathered food or grew crops.
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Great Plains tribes were usually nomadic hunters who survived on mainly hunting buffalo, which supplied food, tools, clothing, and the covering for their tepees. Midwestern tribes were supported by hunting, fishing, and agriculture, and they lived in permanent settlements with the large mounds.
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When Columbus landed in the New World, he started the trade of plants, animals, diseases, and tools/weapons between Europe and the Americas. Europeans brought beans, corn, sweet and white potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco from North America, and they introduced sugar cane, bluegrasses, pigs, horses, wheels, guns, smallpox, and measles to the Americas. Because of the diseases and war brought from Europe, an estimated 90% of the American Indian population died.
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The Treaty of Tordesillas moved the line of demarcation, which divided the Americas, so that everything west of the line was granted to Spain and everything east was given to Portugal after their overlapping territorial claims led to disputes. Spain and Portugal brought their culture and society to the Americas, causing the food, religion, and social hierarchies to transfer.
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The encomienda system was instituted by the Spanish in their claims in the New World to profit off of the natural resources such as gold and silver in the Americas. During this time, Spanish conquistadores frequently married natives and spread their religion, forming a new culture in the New World.
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Massachusetts became the first colony to recognize the enslavement of "lawful" captives, and in later years, other states began to enact legislation regarding slavery and interracial marriage. It became customary for whites to regard blacks as social inferiors, and racism and slavery soon became integral to colonial society.
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Because the initial majority of Catholics was soon outnumbered by Protestants, who consequentially held a majority in Maryland's assembly, the assembly adopted the Act of Toleration which granted religious tolerance to all Christians, but also called for the death of anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus.
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Bacon's Rebellion was a series of raids and massacres agains American Indian villages on the Virginia frontier and led to the burning of Jamestown. It exemplified the distinct class differences between the wealthy planters and the landless or poor farmers and the colonial resistance to royal control, which signified the beginning of a separate American culture.
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Most of the colonial population was English in origin, language, and tradition, however, both Africans and non-English immigrants brought diverse influences that modified the existing culture in significant ways. All of the colonies permitted the practice of different religions, but with varying degrees of freedom. Massachusetts, the most conservative, accepted several types of Protestants, but it excluded non-Christians and Catholics. Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were the most liberal.
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The Great Awakening was a significant change in religion for the colonists because it was characterized by a fervent expression of religious feelings unlike ever before. It led to divisions within churches and caused the colonists to share in a common experience regardless of their national origins or social class. All aspects of American life began to be centered around the church.
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Because the colonial population had grown and matured, people began to have more time for leisure, which allowed the arts to flourish among southern planters and northern merchants. Architecture in the colonies widely imitated the Georgian style of London. Brick and stucco homes built in this style were characterized by a symmetrical placement of windows and were only found on or near the eastern seaboard. On the frontier, a one-room log cabin was the common shelter.
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Most scientists, such as Benjamin Franklin who was famous for his work with electricity and his developments of bifocal glasses and the Franklin stove, were self-taught. Medicine was also not very advance at the time. Colonists who contracted smallpox or diphtheria were often treated by "cures" that only made them worse. One common practice was to bleed the sick, often by employing leeches. A beginning doctor received little formal training other than acting as an apprentice to a physician.
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Because the colonists that helped the British win the war were poorly trained, they were often seen as lesser than the British, despite the fact that they won and were proud of their success. This was a turning point for the colonial opinions of the British because they saw that the British were not treating them as equals, which caused their culture and society to develop separate from Britain.
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The colonists’ belief in the superiority of republican forms of government based on the natural rights of the people found expression in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence. The ideas in these documents resonated throughout American history, shaping Americans’ understanding of the ideals on which the nation was based.
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As increasing numbers of migrants from North America and other parts of the world continued to move westward, frontier cultures that had emerged in the colonial period continued to grow, fueling social, political, and ethnic tensions. The Spanish, supported by the bonded labor of the local American Indians, expanded their mission settlements into California; these provided opportunities for social mobility among soldiers and led to new cultural blending.
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Ideas about national identity increasingly found expression in works of art, literature, and architecture.
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During and after the American Revolution, an increased awareness of inequalities in society motivated some individuals and groups to call for the abolition of slavery and greater political democracy in the new state and national governments. In response to women’s participation in the American Revolution, the idea of “republican motherhood” gained popularity. It called on women to teach republican values within the family
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The rise of democratic and individualistic beliefs, a response to rationalism, and changes to society caused by the market revolution, along with greater social and geographical mobility, contributed to a Second Great Awakening among Protestants that influenced moral and social reforms and inspired utopian and other religious movements. Also, liberal social ideas from abroad and Romantic beliefs in human perfectibility influenced literature, art, philosophy, and architecture.
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Americans formed new voluntary organizations that aimed to change individual behaviors and improve society through temperance and other reform efforts. Also, increasing numbers of Americans, especially women and men working in factories, no longer relied on semisubsistence agriculture; instead they supported themselves producing goods for distant markets.
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As substantial numbers of international migrants continued to arrive in the United States from Europe and Asia, mainly from Ireland and Germany, often settling in ethnic communities where they could preserve elements of their languages and customs, a strongly anti-Catholic nativist movement arose that was aimed at limiting new immigrants’ political power and cultural influence.
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The women’s rights movement sought to create greater equality and opportunities for women, expressing its ideals at the Seneca Falls Convention, which influenced how many people viewed women's roles and rights and domestic ideals that emphasized the separation of public and private spheres.
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The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, while the 14th and 15th amendments granted African Americans citizenship, equal protection under the laws, and voting rights. Because of these amendments, the women’s rights movement was both emboldened and divided because of differing beliefs about the coexistence of the civil rights and women's rights movements.
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Social commentators advocated Social Darwinism to justify the success of those at the top of the socioeconomic structure as both appropriate and inevitable. However, some business leaders argued that the wealthy had a moral obligation to help the less fortunate and improve society, and they made philanthropic contributions that enhanced educational opportunities and urban environments. A number of artists and critics championed alternative visions for the economy and U.S. society.
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Many women sought greater equality with men, often joining voluntary organizations, going to college, promoting social and political reform, and, like Jane Addams, working in settlement houses to help immigrants adapt to U.S. language and customs.
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Despite the industrialization of some segments of the Southern economy—a change promoted by Southern leaders who called for a “New South”—agriculture based on sharecropping and tenant farming continued to be the primary economic activity in the South, which demonstrates a continuity in southern culture despite industrialization.
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Some Progressive Era journalists attacked what they saw as political corruption, social injustice, and economic inequality, while reformers, often from the middle and upper classes and including many women, worked to effect social changes in cities and among immigrant populations. The Progressives were divided over many issues such as Southern segregation, popular participation in government, and immigration restriction.
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The Great Migration gave rise to new forms of art and literature that expressed ethnic and regional identities, such the Harlem Renaissance movement. During and after World War I, African Americans escaping segregation, racial violence, and limited economic opportunity in the South moved to the North and West, where they found new opportunities but still encountered discrimination.
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In the 1920s, cultural and political controversies emerged as Americans debated gender roles, modernism, science, religion, and issues related to race and immigration.
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New forms of mass media, such as the radio, contributed to the spread of national culture as well as greater awareness of regional cultures.
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Mobilization and military service provided opportunities for women and minorities to improve their socioeconomic positions for the war’s duration, while also leading to debates over racial segregation. Wartime experiences also generated challenges to civil liberties, such as the internment of Japanese Americans.
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Anxieties over the Cold War changed U.S. culture and led to significant political and moral debates that sharply divided the nation, especially because of the Red Scare, which caused fear among Americans.
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Mass culture became increasingly homogeneous in the postwar years, inspiring challenges to conformity by artists, intellectuals, and rebellious youth.
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During and after World War II, civil rights activists and leaders combatted racial discrimination utilizing a variety of strategies. Latino, American Indian, and Asian American movements continued to demand social and economic equality and a redress of past injustices as an extension of the Civil Rights Movement.
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Responding to social conditions and the African American civil rights movement, feminist and gay and lesbian activists mobilized behind claims for legal, economic, and social equality
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Feminists and young people who participated in the counterculture of the 1960s rejected many of the social, economic, and political values of their parents’ generation, introduced greater informality into U.S. culture, and advocated changes in sexual norms.
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The rapid and substantial growth of evangelical Christian churches
and organizations was accompanied by greater political and social activism on the part of religious conservatives. -
International migration from Latin America and Asia increased dramatically. The new immigrants affected U.S. culture in many ways and supplied the economy with an important labor force. Intense political and cultural debates continued over issues such as immigration policy, diversity, gender roles, and family structures.
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