Civilizatie americana
Contig(u)ous-the states on the mainland
1607-Jamestown
1620-Plymouth
1630-Massachusetts Bay Colony => first British permanent settlements
East border-Atlantic Ocean
West border-Pacific Ocean
North border-Canada
South border-Mexic + Gulf of Mexic
USA-4th largest coutry (1st-Russia, 2nd-Canada, 3rd-China)
The mainland-consists of 48 contiguous states, out of 50 states and it
spans the deserts, plains & mountains of N America from E to W
Deserts-Mojave, plains-Buffalo plains, mountains-Apalachian mountains
(low mountains)
Alaska & Hawaii-noncontogous states
Alaska-N-W edge of the continent
Hawaii-lais in the mid-pacific ocean
Total area of the 50 states-is nearly 3.8 milliom square miles including the
coastal waters=representing about 9.3 million square kilometers
The territories & the possesions
Located on the Pacific Ocean-Guam & The American Samoa
In the Carribean-Puerto Rico & Virgin Islands
Guam is considered to be an unicorporated territory of the USnamely the
largest of the Mariana Islands located on the W Pacific Ocean
The American Samoa-considered to be another unincorporatet territory of
the US situated on the Pacific Ocean NE to Fiji
Puerto Rico-self-governing island-commonwealth of the US located on the
Carribean Sea
The US Virgin Islands-stand for US territory constituting the SW group of
the Virgin Islands
Territories and possesions-12.000 square miles-17.600 square kilometers
Regions
The Atlantic Coastal Plain-from Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexic
The Appalachian Mountains-in between Eastern Canada & Alabama
The Central Lowlands-considered the heartland of the US
The Great Plains-a largely treeless region
Intermountain region-consisting of Rocky Plateaus, bowl-shaped basins,
buttes-flat-topped hills, canyons
The Cordillera-includes Alaska, wrappes around the intermountain region;
Rockies are the E Cordillera; Mt McKinley-highest peak of the US-20,320 ft
W Cordillera-the coast ranges Sierra Nevada and the Cascaded-famous for
earthquakes-the coast regions hug the nation's western shoreline where
huge underground plates overlap and the movement of the plates along the
fault lines (falii) jar the mountains, thus producing earthquakes-most
affected is San Francisco
The continental divide-it separates the rivers that flow west into the Pacific
from those flowing east into the Atalntic and Gulf of Mexic
Hawaii-consists of volcanic & coral islands
The North-Western most state-Washington
The North-Eastern most state-Maine
Alabama-Montogmery (AL)
Alaska-Juneau (AK)
Arizona-Phoenix (AZ)
Arkansas (Arcansaw)-Little Rock (AR)
California-Sacramento (CA)
Colorado-Denver (CO)
Connecticut-Hardford (CT)
Delaware-Dover (DE)
Florida-Tallahasse (FL)
Georgia-Atlanta (GA)
Hawaii-Honolulu (HI)
Idaho-Boise (Boisy, Idaho) (ID)
Illinois-Springfield (IL)
Indiana-Indianapolis (IN)
Iowa-Des Moines (IA)
Kansas-Topeka (KS)
Kentucky-Frankfort (KY)
Louisiana-Baton Rouge (LA)
Maine-Augusta (ME)
Maryland-Annapolis (MD)
Massachusetts-Boston (MA)
Michigan-Lansing (MI)
Minnesota-St. Paul (MN)
Mississippi-Jackson (MS)
Missouri-Jefferson City (MO)
Montana-Helena (MT)
Nebraska-Lincoln (
2
Nevada-Carson City
New Hampshire-Concord
New Jersey-Trenton
New Mexico-Santa Fe
New York-Albany
North Carolina-Raleigh
North Dakota-Bismarck
Ohio-Columbus
Oklahoma-Oklahoma City
Oregon-Salem
Pennsylvania-Harrisburg
Rhode Island-Providence
South Carolina-Columbia
South Dakota-Pierre
Tennessee-Nashville
Texas-Austin
Utah-Salt Lake City
Vermont-Montpelier
Virginia-Richmond
Washington-Olympia
West Virginia-Charlestone
Wisconsin-Madison
Wyoming-Cheyenne
The 5 Great Lakes
Michigan
Eirie
Huron
Ontario
Superior
The cultural regions of The USA
In the mid 1500s when the Europeans started the permanent settlement
there already existed a multitude of distinctive Native American cultures.
The estimated 10 million Indians in N America lived then in cultures that
had developed several hundreds mutualy incomprehensible languages.
The first category: in the Eastern half of the country there were two
3
different woodland areas known today as the Northeastern Maize and
the Southeastern Maize. In thid Eastern half of the country, a variety of
native cultures depended on hunting, fishing, gathering and farming. The
maize/corn cultures provided the most important staple of the Indians
diet. The Southwatern Maize region had more extensive and highly
developed agriculture due to the longer growing season.
Examples of the Native groups of the N region: Iroquois, the Huron, the
Mohican, the Delaware and the Shawnee
S region: the Powhatan, the Creek, the famous Cherokee, the Seminole,
the Natchez
The Native American cultural area in the Prairies and the Great Plains -
commonly known as the Plains/Bison region
The Native cultures depended on reiver bank farming, small game
hunting but also large game hunting (the buffalo/bison) and gathering. In
between 1700s-1750s they discovered how to use the horses that
reached them from the Spanish controlled areas and the Native American
Plains culture was transformed due to the fact that the bison/buffalo
started to be haunted on horseback.
Some famous tribes belonging to this region: the Dakota/Sioux (Suu)
migrated from the woodlands to the open areas further West. Many
Plains people exchanged their sedentary agricultural customes for the
Nomadic culture of the buffalo hunting. They evolved a ptriarchal society
dominted by a worrior hunting class. The Native American cultural groups
transformed by the arrival of the Spanish are: The Balckfoot, the Crow,
the Cheyene and the British controlled Dakota.
The Native American region usually called the Southwest includes the
arrid inland area of present-day states of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado,
Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah.
There s a wide diversity of Native cultures in this area. They were basic
only nomadic hunters, gatherers, farmers, relaying on advanced forms of
agriculture building extensively irrigation systems.
The Hopi, the Zuni, the lived in dweling knows as pueblo/adobe. These
Southwestern cultures varry significantly but shared the customes of
tracing ancestry through the women. The women owned the lands and
4
the men were simply farmers. They were pottery makers, jewlery makers
(silver and turqoise).
The Navajo and the Apache were considered to be late comers, they
migrated South from the Canadian plains aroun 1500s. They addopted
the farmer customes of the pueblo people. The Navajo later learn sheep
raising, peach growing and also silver working from the Spanish. Some
Apache groups took up certain aspects of the nomadic plains cultures:
buffalo hunting and cattle raising from the Spanish.
The Californian Intermontane Native American cultural region - Basin
range territories on three sides of the Colorado plateau and most of the
present day State of California. They were basically nomadic hunters and
gatherers living in a hursh climate. They are considered to be pure from
material point of view. They were loosly organised in family bands praised
for their democratic political traditions and peaceful way of life.
The Northwest people -they lived in coastal villages that were politically
and culturally independent. They were well suplied with wild food plants
and also with small game animals and large game animals. Cultural
regions: Chinook, Tsimshian, Kwakutle, Haïda, Tingit.
The NW coastal cultures exploited the forests to make long sea-going
canoes and household items. They were also wood carvers, carving totem
poles. They were fishing for salmon which represented their primary
economic activity. They dealt also with salt-water fishing and whaling.
There was an important ceremony called the Potlatch (it brought people
together); feasting. The families wealth consisted in offering, in giving.
They had a non-agricultural society which practicised non-slavery
farming.
Alaska - The various Inuit groups, including the Aleute are the native
people of a Western Arctic Cultural Region. This region includes the states
of Alaska and the so-called Aleute islands. The word "inuit" means
"people". This is the word the Eschimos used for themselves. The Native
Americans lived on the coasts, were highly skilled sea hunters. Those
inland were basically large game hunters. The Eschimo is considered to be
a nomadic sea hunter living in a igloo. The Inuit are considered to be
5
villagers living in underground houses.
The Indigenous culture of Hawaii. This Hawaiian culture was developed
from imigrants coming from Tahiti and the so called Marquesas islands
around 4,000 B.C. they were gatherers, gathering food plants from
Hawaiians tropical forests. The islanders developed eloquent agriculture
and constructing irrigation systems. They were experts at open-sea
fishing especially from the canoes and the focus was late on sea food
building circular fish pounds especially on the shores of the island. The
priesthood and the aristocracy owned most of the islands while the
ordinary people lived in very small areas where they had restricted rights
to fish. The religious class became agressive before the European
influence because they used religious taboos to control the lives of the
common people and of the women.
As a conclusion: the land used for hunting, gathering, fishing and farming
was the corner stone of the Native American life. The Native Americans
were aware of their dependence of the land for survival. Some cultures
overhunted some species until they became extinct. The conflicts with
the surrounding cultures resulted in migration to a new land.
The contemporary cultural regions of the USA: the Northeast, the South,
the Midwest & the West.
The Northeast from Maine to Maryland, to the border of Ohio. Densly
populated region, a higly urban one and economically troubled due to the
decline of the older industries. Considered to be the economic and
cultural center. Divided into New England and Mid-Atlantic. New England-
Northern ( Maine & Vermont and most of New Hampshire) and Southern
zone.
The midatlantic: more populated, much richer, surpasses New England
economically since the 1700s, it has economic supremacy, it has
Pensylvania. Famous for Colombia and Princeton universities.
The South: represented by the 11 states which left the USA to form the
Confederacy during the Civi War: Virginia, North & South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkinson
6
and Texas. In addition: the South arguably contains the border states of
West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and some even Maryland.
Divided between the Upland and Lowland South. Cultivated cotton, sugar
cane.
The Midwest divided between
The West: the Southwest, the Mountain states, the Pacific Northwest, the
Pacific Coast.
Alaska & Hawaii.
Yellowstone Park
Location: NW part of Wyoming
It sprawls across 2.2 million square miles that features: erupting geysers
(Old Faithful Beehive), bubbling mud, limestone formations, petrified
forest, thundering waterfalls, gurling hot springs, incredible diverse
wildlife=> Wilderness
First national park ww
The hotels: Old Faithful Inn (like a cathedral, 7 stories, 350 rooms, made
of local rocks), Lake Hotel (older-1889-1920s)
The Great Fire of 1988-devastation gave way to new growth
The Yellowstone Lake-largest high altitude lake of N America
Waterfall-2 higher than Niagara waterfalls
The Canyon
Flora: pine tree, aspen, grasses, sagebrush - lush vegetation
Fauna: coyote, grizzly and black bear, moose, elk, buffalo, bighorn sheep,
badger, trumphet swan, bald eagle, various birds, river otter
The American People
The USA has the 3rd largest population of the world
In 1990 the population of the USA passed the 250 mil mark, so people
should be considered the most distinctive feature of the USA
According to W. Whitman-"the USA is not a nation, but a nation of
7
nation"; so people from around the world reached the American shores
and enriched the American culture and history.
The Native-Americans
The first people on the American continent coming from Asia. They came
across Baring Strait from Siberia to Alaska at various times when the sea
level dropped and the first migration might have been as early as 40,000
years ago and once in America, these people moved eastward and
southward across America, and when Christopher Colombus arrived in
the 15th century, they were perhaps 10 million people in North America.
They had developed many diffrent kinds of societies, all these being in
fact the people that Columbus called "indians" in the mistaken believe
that he had reached the East Indies.
The story of the westward growth of the USA was also the story of the
distruction of the Native Americans and maybe the best example is the so
called trail of... the most affected were thr Cherokees. Today there are
about 1.5 million Indians in the US inhabiting especially the Western and
South Western states of New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, California.
About 1/3 of the Native Americans lived on reservations, land that was
set aside for them and they are affected by poverty and unemployement
especially those living on reservations.
The British
They settled in the 1660s in the Eastern part of the North America. By the
time of the American revolution in 1776, the culture of the American
colonists was entirely British but through and American 'twist' (religion,
language, government). It represented the foubdation on which America
was born, and over the years many emigrants to the USA had come from
the UK but also from Ireland.
The African-Americans
In between 1620 and 1820 by far the largest group of people entering the
US came as unwiling imigrants. These people were West Africans brought
to the US as slaves to work especially on the plantations and large farms
of the South. There were 8 million people who were brought against their
will from Africa. The Civil War put and end to the slavery and brought
equal rights for the black. Especially the Southern enforced important
8
laws segregating and discriminating against the black people. In between
1950 and 1960s the civil rights movement helepd get rid of these laws.
However, the effects of 200 years of slavery and 100 years of segregation
and continued prejudice are not easy to get rid of. Despite many changes,
the black americans are still considered to be poor so they are still much
more likely than the white americans to be poor and to suffer the bad
effects brought by poverty and unemployement. Today about 12% of the
american population is black and is true that many black people living in
the South but not only there can be found in the cities of North Eastern
region as well as in the Middwest.
Imigrants from Northern and Western Europe
Starting with the 1820s the number of the emigrants coming in US began
to increase rapidly. They decided to leave their own countries because
they were faced with major problems in Europe, mainly powerty,
discrimination, and armed conflicts. They left hoping to find better
opportunities in America and for the first half of the century most
emigrants came from North Western Europe, especially from countries
such as Germany, the UK, the Republic of Ireland, and also from
Scandinavia, especially from Sweden and Norway. In the late 1840s for
example the widespread hunger resulted from the failure of the potato
crop lead many Irish people to leave Ireland and to move in the States
and during this period the USA was expanding into what is today the
Midwest. Even today, the German and Scandinavian influence is obvious
in the Midwest influencing the midwestern food, festivals.
The imigrants from the Southern and Eastern Europe
Although in continues, in between the 1870s and the 1930s even more
people came from South Eastern Europe from countries such as Italy,
Greece, Poland, and Russia. Just like the earlier influence, they moved to
the US to escape poverty and discrimination. In between 1900 and 1910
almost 9 million people arrived from the previously mentioned countries
as well as other countries. During this period, the USA was turning from a
mainly agricultural country into mainly industrial one. The new imigrants
helped make this change possible and many of them settled in cities and
started to work in factories often under bad conditions. In the 1920s
9
there were enforced laws whicj slow down until the 60s when the laws
against imigrants were changed.
Hispanic Americans
Are considered to be people of Spanish American origins and some of
them lived in areas which only later became part of the USA for example
in what are now New Mexico and California. Many others imigrated to
the US and the Hispanic imigration has increased lately. There are three
main categories: the Mexican americans "chicanos" and they make out
about 2/3 of the total Hispanic population, the 2nd category are the
Puerto Ricans and the 3rd category are the Cubanese americans. They all
speak Spanish but there are many differencies. One of them is related to
the fact they are concentrted in different areas. Chicanos are
concentrated in New Mexico, puertoricans in ... many recent imigrants
are from Central America. The Hispanics are one of the fastest growing
minority in the US.
Asian Americans
In the 19th there were many laws angainst the imigration. Even today,
especially Chinese and Japanese, met with
Since the 1960s with many changes of the imigration laws, and the
conflicts in the South Western Asia, they turned into an important
imigrating groups and by the 80s half of the imigrants were Asian. Most
of them have sttled in the New York City and South states, such as
California, Hawaii and Texas.
For many yeara it was thought that the US is and should be a melting pot.
People from all over the world would come and adopt the American
culture as their own and more recently have compared the US to a
mosaic a picture made of many different pieces. America's strength lies in
its diversity baing very important all the contributions brought by all
these people coming from different cultures. America encourages
diversity, and all the citizens need to have equal rights.
The Grand Canyon
10
Location: Northern Arizona
Early exploration
Native Americans that used to live in that area
Flora and fauna
One of the world's natural wonders
Chasm awes our sense
It encompasses 2,000 square miles
It reaches one mile down in the earth
It spreads ten miles across
Anasazi-ancient ones-used to live there over 700 years ago; you can feel
the spirits of the ancient inhabitants there
2,000 sites rich in petroglyphs; Shaman's gallery are famous for rock
paintings, more than 40 antrophomorphic figures
Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon a National park in
1908
Flora: aspen trees, juniper tree, agave, lupines, water plants etc
Fauna: rock lizards, rock squirrels, bighorn sheep, muler deer, coyote,
mountain lion = cougar = puma = panther, rabbits, ravens, eagles,
hummingbirds, desert tortoises, rattle snakes, king snake, mice, spiders,
bluebirds, kaibab squirrel (white tail squirrel), moose, hawk, blue heron,
scorpions, frogs, ants, grasshoppers
Mojave desert, El Tovar hotel built in 1905
The GC is not timeless, one constant = change itself
The only logs train station, a train ride of 3 hours
The National Psyche (Spirit)
America was an idea before it turned into a place. The same can be said
about its citizens. Being an American is as much a state of mind as a
statement of birth and heritage. It is very difficult to describe a single
national character. America is simply too diverse ethnically,
geographically as well as economically. The list of disagreements is so
long that the main question is not what is the typical American like but is
there any common trait that is shared by all and if we put a native
Puebloan, a Bronx plumber, a Hollywood starlet, an African-American
11
senator, an Afgan-born teacher and a Korean-born grocery clerk in the
same room, they do not have shared hitory, values, beliefs, it is not
shared etnicity nor race, but the connections define othersness and
individualism = belief in the importance of diversity. Transcedentalism =
concern of self-reliance and personal independence.
One's Americanness is rarely total = there no "pure" Americans
The American mandate named the freedom to pursue one's ideas is
pointedly at odds with the human urge exhibited in different types of
societies of history to have all the members conform to singular
standards. For certain people in America eccentricity is a fact to be too
tolerrated for other people eccentricity is a which leads the national most
unified.
If the Americans lack a shared past or even a common present it is said
that together they . 3/4 of Americans still believe in the American dream
= to be happy, successful. This set of expectations was a revolutionary
one and it may be nothing more than a desire for a better life and more
just life. But in fact this is the same set of hopes that the pilgrims had
centuries ago when they left Europe in the 16th century to the 17th
century. America's history has its mark on the national psyche/soul and
those first European immigrants developed American's much-vaunted
(praised) pioneer spirit, a combination of self-reliant individualism,
practical creativity, disregard of social convention, mistrust of authority,
courage in the face of adversity.
The Pilgrims = they were embarke on a certain quest in search of "the
something". The truth is in between little has changed. Immigrants must
carve for themselves a home out of strange, hostile land, and ofc it helps
if they've packed similar traits in their luggage. What people desire from
America has also been notably insistant inbeded in the rights and
freedoms of the American Constitution. They have equal acces to the
nation's wealth, to say what they want, to worship who they wish,
without being persecuted. This whole set of expectation forms the so
called Egalitarian Contract. It refers to promoting or being characterised
by the believe in equal political, social, economic and civil rights for all
people. Was founded on the priciples of reformation especially in the
acceptance of the Bible as the unique source of . On the one hand, it
brings the nation together, but it also divides it.
12
The Protestant religion represents another major influence on the
American life. When the puritans reached the American side their most
valuable posession was their fate and they get caught, they tilt
(cultivated) the and the conservative sensibilities .
Today, whethef they hold religious beliefs, many Americans value the
same qualities and they focus on the central 'I' of Protestant doctrine. The
divine whether in the form of God or art or ecstatic nature (, is
experienced by the individual directly. Thus each person becomes a locus
(focus, center) and to be right does not necesarily requier a consesus.
Given all these influences, a portait of the so called typical american
comes into being. Yet, you can't say that it never completely solves itself
due to its size, to its diversity, due to the fact that this nation is too
contankerous and contradictory, due to the bias of omnipresence of
American media, and most people, due to the media, are familiar with
the common stereotypes - the good American - all are cliches = two sides
of the same shiny coin. That is why America as a nation has the curious
ability to appear at one and tha same time generous and greedy, both
altruistic and self-serving, both open and biased (prejudice), inventive and
conservative, intellectually curious and ignorant of history, exultant in
individualism and prizing conformity, devoutly spiritual and cynically
materialistic.
The Natives fancy themselves as doers and dreamers, as being simple and
smart, eternally optimistic. A traveler to America will meet all of these
faces and many more that do not fit.
13
