8. Industrialization and culture (first half of XX c.)

Progress in economy and agriculture. First airplane and automobile. Invention of computer and transistor. First monopolies: A. Carnegie, D. Rokefeller, J.P. Morgan. Literature: humorous short story – O. Henry, romanticism in realism – J. London, critical realism – T. Dreiser, J. O’Hara, H. Miller, after-war criticism – Sh. Anderson, S. Lewis, social criticism of the Great Depression – J. Dos Passos, J. Steinbeck, the Harlem Renaissance, the Lost Generation – E. Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, development of novel – W. Faulkner, poetry – R. Frost, the rise of drama – E. O’Neill, L. Hellman, T. Wilder. Arts: acmeism, fauvism, cubism, surrealism – G. O’Keeffe, denial of academic painting, Ashcan school. Theatre: Broadway commercial theatres. The birth of cinema: Ch. Chaplin. Moving cartoons: W. Disney. Music: expressionism of I. Stravinsky, jazz – S. Joplin, D. Ellington, symphojazz of D. Gershwin, Dixieland, bluegrass, honky-tonk. Architecture: functionalism – L. Sullivan, F.L. Wright, M. Van der Roe, art deco – New York Chrysler building. Development of Ballet – S. Balanchin.

1. What were the main inventions of the time?

2. Who were the richest persons of America?

3. What were the main trends in literature?

4. Why were the writers of one literary movement defined as “lost generation”?

5. How many times did R. Frost win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry?

6. What was W. Faulkner’s favorite theme?

7. Where is much of Steinbeck’s fiction set?

8. Was drama popular at the time?

9. What were the main forms of painting?

10. Describe the new styles in architecture.

11. What was the difference between music of the XIX c. and XX?

Eli Whitney and the American system

Eli Whitney, the man who in vented the cotton gin, never made much money from it. Too many people copied his original machine without paying him anything.

In about 1800 Whitney began to make guns. Until this time these had always been made by skilled gun-makers. Each gun was individually made, entirely by one man and a part from one gun would not necessarily fit another. Whitney changed this. At a factory he opened in Newhaven, Connecticut, he began to use machines to make guns. His machines made individual parts for guns in separate operations and in large numbers. Most important of all, they made parts that were exactly alike, so that any part would fit any gun. This made it possible for guns to be put together in stages, with different workers each carrying our one particular task.

Whitney's way of working meant that guns could now be made by men without enough skill to make a complete gun. He had worked out the main ideas of a way of manufacturing that would later become known as the "American system." Later still this American system became known as "mass production." Mass production was a very important discovery. Without it the standard of living of today's United States, and that of the entire industrialized world, would not be possible.

9. American culture of the second half of XX c.

World War II - as a dividing line. War novels: Irwin Shaw, N. Mailer. Postwar novels: J. Cheever, J. Updike, J.D. Salinger. Drama: T. Williams, A. Miller, theatre of absurd – E. Albee. Science fiction: R. Bradbery, C. Symack, A. Clark. Painting: pop art, optical art, minimal art, Dada, abstract expressionism – M. Rothko, J. Pollock, graphics – R. Kent. Architecture: neo-pop school – M. Lapidus, J. Portman, leading architects – W. Harrison, I.M. Pei, H. Stubbins. Music: different forms of jazz – funky, cool, rhythm-and-blues, rock-and roll, underground, country, rock-opera, musicals – Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady. Theatres can be divided into three kinds: road companies, which bring hits to smaller cities, local stock companies (summer stock) and the theatre in New York.

1. Why is World War II considered a dividing line?

2. What is the difference between the war novels and postwar novels?

3. What new genres in literature appeared?

4. What were the main forms in painting and architecture?

5. Can we say that the musical styles of the second half of XX c. developed from the earlier styles?

6. What kinds of theatre of the time do you know?

Kennedy's Peace Corps

In their rivalry with the Soviet Union, American governments knew that communism is often most attractive to the people of countries where food is short and life is hard. From the 1950s onwards, therefore, they spent millions of dollars on modernizing farms, constructing power station s and building roads in countries as far apart as Turkey and Colombia, Pakistan and Chile. The idea of this "foreign aid" was to give poor people all over the world better lives, partly out of a genuine desire to help them but partly also to win new friends and supporters for the United States.

Foreign aid did not always take the shape of food, machines or money. Sometimes human skills were sent, in the form of teachers and technical experts. Soon after John F. Kennedy became President he started a new scheme of this kind when he set up an organization called the Peace Corps.

The idea of the Peace Corps was to use the enthusiasm and the skills of young Americans to help the people of “underdeveloped” - that is poor nations to help themselves. All members of the Peace Corps were volunteers, who agreed to work for two years in the poor countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Peace Corps achieved at least one thing - for a while it gave a human face to the bare financial statistics of American foreign aid.