Culture of The United States

The culture of the United States is primarily a Western culture, but is also influenced by Native American, African, Asian, Polynesian, and Latin American cultures. American culture started its formation over 10,000 years ago with the migration of Paleo-Indians from Asia into the region that is today the continental United States. It has its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore. The United States of America is an ethnically and racially diverse country as a result of large-scale immigration from many different countries throughout its history.

Its chief early European influences came from English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish settlers of colonial America during British rule. British culture, due to colonial ties with Britain that spread the English language, legal system and other cultural inheritances, had a formative influence. Other important influences came from other parts of western Europe, especially Germany, France, and Italy.

Original elements also play a strong role, such as the invention of Jeffersonian democracy. Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia was perhaps the first influential domestic cultural critique by an American and a reactionary piece to the prevailing European consensus that America's domestic originality was degenerate. Prevalent ideas and ideals that evolved domestically, such as national holidays, uniquely American sports, military tradition, and innovations in the arts and entertainment give a strong sense of national pride among the population as a whole.

American culture includes both conservative and liberal elements, scientific and religious competitiveness, political structures, risk taking and free expression, materialist and moral elements. Despite certain consistent ideological principles (e.g. individualism, egalitarianism, and faith in freedom and democracy), American culture has a variety of expressions due to its geographical scale and demographic diversity. The flexibility of U.S. culture and its highly symbolic nature lead some researchers to categorize American culture as a mythic identity; others see it as American exceptionalism.

It also includes elements that evolved from Indigenous Americans, and other ethnic cultures—most prominently the culture of African Americans, cultures from Latin America, and Asian American cultures. Many American cultural elements, especially from popular culture, have spread across the globe through modern mass media.

The United States has often been thought of as a melting pot, but beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it trends towards cultural diversity, pluralism and the image of a salad bowl instead. Due to the extent of American culture, there are many integrated but unique social subcultures within the United States. The cultural affiliations an individual in the United States may have commonly depend on social class, political orientation and a multitude of demographic characteristics such as religious background, occupation and ethnic group membership.

Part of a series on the
Culture of the United States
History
People
Languages
Traditions
Mythology and folklore
Cuisine
Festivals
Religion
Art
  • Architecture
  • Sculpture
  • Fashion
Literature
  • Comic books
  • Poetry
Music and performing arts
  • Dance
  • Theater
Media
  • Radio
  • Television
  • Cinema
Sport
Monuments
  • World Heritage Sites
Symbols
  • Flag
  • National anthem
  • Coat of arms
Culture portal
United States portal

Read more about Culture Of The United States:  Regional Variations, Language, Cinema, Broadcasting, Science and Technology, Education, Religion, Folklore, National Holidays, Fashion and Dress, Popular Culture, Sports, Cuisine, Family Structure, Housing, Social Class and Work, Race and Ancestry, Death and Funerals, Group Affiliations, Volunteerism, Politics, Military Culture, Gun Culture, Other Aspects

Famous quotes containing the words united states, culture, united and/or states:

    I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.
    Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)

    Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    We can beat all Europe with United States soldiers. Give me a thousand Tennesseans, and I’ll whip any other thousand men on the globe!
    Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

    Life is a series of sensations connected to different states of consciousness.
    Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)