12. Cultural peculiarities of Midwest states

Arkansas – mineral springs. Land of opportunity, the only North American diamond mine. Ozark music and culture.

Iowa – king-size prairies, State Fair.

Illinois – the land of Lincoln. Chicago – the “City of the big shoulders”.

Michigan - the Big Three: Ford, General Motors, Chrysler. Painter G. Wood’s living place.

Indiana – Santa Claus post office. Indiana University in Bloomington, housing the Art Museum, designed by I.M. Pey and the sights in Columbus, created by the architect.

Missouri – the names of M. Twain, T.S. Elliot, T. Williams are connected with Missouri.

Ohio – the crossroads of growing America. Cincinnati – the Queen City of the West.

Wisconsin – summer home of F.L. Wright in Taliesin.

Minnesota – the origin of the population – Scandinavians and Germans. A farming state. St Paul – the birthplace of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

5. Give general description of the Midwest states.

6. Is there anything special about the pronunciation of these states?

7. Can you comment on the names of the states?

8. Describe the biggest cities of Midwest states.

Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival

Sedalia in Missouri was a rough and rollicking railroad town when a young black musician published a new tune, named in tribute to the local saloon in which he worked. “The Maple Leaf Rag” by Scott Joplin appeared in 1897 and it changed American music forever. The white audience went wild when they heard Joplin’s tune. Within six months, “Ma­ple Leaf Rag” had sold an unprec­edented 75,000 copies of sheet mu­sic and this dangerous sound was suddenly being heard on parlor pianos everywhere. It made Joplin enough money to move to St. Louis, where he continued to write rags. The style was the dom­inant force in popular music for the next twenty years.

Joplin, however, was a serious musician, who aspired to grand opera. But the public was unwilling to listen to sym­phonic compositions written by African Americans. He died in 1919, bitter, broke and obscure, in New York. His work was rediscovered decades after his death, however, and a heightened appreciation for his skills as a com­poser grew after new recordings of his music were made in the 1970s. Many of his rags were used as the score for the hit movie The Sting, which brought his work to a wider audi­ence.

Sedalia never forgot the genius who once played piano here. Although the Maple Leaf Bar is long gone, the music written there lives on. This festival brings together some of the finest ragtime artists in the country and celebrates the legacy of Joplin.

13. Cultural peculiarities of Southeast states

Alabama – a monument to a Boll weevil. Azalea Festival in Mobile.

Florida – the oldest town in the U.S. – St Augustine. Disney World, Cape Canaveral.

Georgia – invention of cotton gin, formula of Coca-Cola. J.C. Harris’s home in Atlanta, Margaret Mitchell Room in Atlanta Public Library.

Louisiana – the land of «mosts» from frogs to fish. The birthplace of jazz, blues. Festival «Mardi Grass» in New Orleans.

Virginia and West Virginia – Pocahontas. Virginians - G. Washington, T. Jefferson, R. Lee, J. Madison. Arlington National Cemetery. Edgar Allan Poe Museum and Capitol in Richmond (designed by T. Jefferson).

Carolina (North and South) – the «lost colony». Great Smoky Mountains. First power-driven airplane by Wright brothers. Charleston, the only American city founded by nobility.

Kentucky – the first American state west of the Appalachian Mountains. Mammoth Cave. A. Lincoln’s birthplace near Louisville.

Tennessee – Elvis Presley’s Graceland in Memphis. An Utopian colony in Rugby. Nashville – Music City USA, Vanderbilt University (architect K. Hall).

Mississippi – the land of farms. Oxford – the town of writers (W. Faulkner, J. Grisham, B. Hannah, L. Brown).

1. What is the difference between the South and the rest of America?

2. Describe the South states.

3. What is the biggest state of the east?

4. What is special about the agriculture of the South?

5. What influenced the culture of the South towns?

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras already was established for a century in Mo­bile when a group of high-spirited youths from New Orleans returned home from a stay in France in 1820, determined to organize a celebration in their town. That was the seed that erupted into America’s most spectacular festival — the one that draws the biggest crowds, induces the wildest behav­ior, possesses the most colorful history, and summons up the most vivid example of carnival abandon on the continent. Not even Super Bowl tickets are as hard to come by as admittance to one of the masked balls of a major Mardi Gras krewe. A krewe is an organization, whose membership is secret, that ex­ists to participate in Mardi Gras since 1857. But not until after the Civil War, in 1872, did the celebration assume anything like its present form. According to the story, that was the season that a Russian grand duke came to town, in romantic pur­suit of actress Lydia Thompson.

New Orleans has always enjoyed a good love story, and the entire city was taken by this romantic tale. That year’s Mardi Gras was shaped to the love affair. Miss Thompson’s song was played through­out the festival, as all the krewes combined for the first time to plan a joint celebration.