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In 1973 the US Supreme Court struck down Texas criminal abortion legislation outlawing all abortions except those necessary to save the mother’s life, declaring that the constitutionally protected right of privacy was “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” The Court’s decision in Roe v.
Wade denounced as unconstitutional laws restricting a woman’s right to an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy; permitted states limited regulatory rights in the second trimester and allowed complete proscription of abortions in the third trimester, after the fetus had “quickened” or reached viability. This momentous and controversial decision single-handedly: (a) invalidated existing abortion legislation in forty-nine states; and (b) transformed abortion from a criminal act into a legitimate medical procedure. On a more tangible and immediate level, Roe meant that a woman with an unwanted pregnancy need no longer turn to questionable “back-alley” abortionists or travel to a state where abortion was legal in order to terminate her pregnancy.
Roe v. Wade represented a victory for the contemporary women’s movement, for whom social control over women’s reproductive capacity had become a central concern.
While abortion rights had not been championed by nineteenth-century feminists, by 1970 modern feminists had made it a prominent issue. Framing the issue as one of a woman’s right to control her own body, feminists came to regard reproductive control as a prerequisite to personal and political empowerment. They therefore advocated access to safe and legal abortion regardless of a woman’s race or class.
Liberal feminists were the first to target abortion rights. At the organization’s first national conference, the National Organization for Women (NOW) passed a controversial resolution supporting “(t)he right of women to control their own reproductive lives by removing from the penal code laws limiting access to contraceptive information and devices, and by repealing penal laws governing abortion.” Abortion was also the first major issue for radical feminists in the late 1960s. They took a somewhat different view of the issue from the liberal feminists, however. They did not seek, as the liberal feminists did, to invalidate abortion laws because of their interference with women’s autonomy and privacy. Instead, they sought to invalidate abortion laws because they viewed society’s control of women’s reproductive role as the fundamental source of women’s oppression.
While Roe’s impact was immediate and farreaching, the right it announced (the right of a woman to choose an abortion) came under equally immediate and enduring attack. By the 1980s, abortion had become a controversial and divisive social, political, moral and religious issue (see Roman Catholics). A political candidate’s stance on abortion (whether “pro-life” or “pro-choice”) became one of the premier litmus tests voters used to ascertain a candidate’s ability and desirability to serve in office. Pro-life advocates picketed and protested abortion clinics, lobbied for legislation restricting abortion rights, and urged that Roe be overturned. During the 1980s and 1990s, pro-life advocacy at times erupted into violence, leading most notably to abortion clinic bombings and the murder of doctors known to perform the abortion procedure. Based in part on the success of pro-life advocates’ lobbying efforts, legislatures enacted statutes further restricting the abortion right announced in Roe. As challenges to these statutes reached a more conservative Supreme Court, the basic right to choose became substantially strippeddown.
By 1998, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Roe decision, the Court had affirmed the right to an abortion, but had nonetheless approved numerous limitations on that right. The Court upheld state and federal laws that: (a) prohibited abortions in public hospitals unless they were necessary to save the woman’s life; (b) eliminated Medicaid funding for lower-income women seeking abortions; (c) required pregnant teenagers to obtain parental consent or judicial approval for the procedure; and (d) prohibited doctors practicing in federally funded family planning clinics from counseling their patients about abortion or referring them to abortion providers. The Court rejected such restrictions as spousal consent and mandatory hospitalization, however.
With advances in medical technology and the corresponding earlier onset of fetal viability, Roe v. Wade’s trimester approach has come under increasing attack as well.
Some have described the decision as being on a collision course with itself, opining that the decision may be further undercut in the future by the development of technology itself rather than by pro-life advocacy efforts.
Industry:Culture
In 1978 Arkansas Attorney-General Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton joined a partnership with James and Susan McDougal to buy and develop riverfront land as vacation homes: the Whitewater Development Corporation. The plan failed and the Clintons reported a loss of more than 140,000. McDougal also owned Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association, which, like many such institutions, went under in the 1980s partly as a result of fraudulent loans, and Hillary was the lawyer for Madison Guaranty. In addition, many opposed to the Clintons believed they had paid McDougal hush money Following the chronicling of the Whitewater case in The New York Times in 1992, the Republican-led Congress called for a special prosecutor. In August 1994 Kenneth W. Starr was appointed independent counsel (replacing the more moderate Robert Fiske) and he quickly expanded the hearings to encompass the firing of White House travel office clerks (Travelgate), the suicide of the Clinton’s friend/advisor Vince Foster (Filegate), and then the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky affair. Besides mushrooming into the 1999 impeachment case against Clinton, the Starr grand jury investigations achieved few indictments. The McDougals both spent time in prison (James died of heart failure a few months before his scheduled release, while Susan defied the court and was imprisoned for contempt). Clinton’s successor as governor of Arkansas, Jim Guy Tucker, also spent eighteen months in home detention for his involvement in Madison Guaranty.
Industry:Culture
In 1978 news stories exploded about environmental disaster in a working-class neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York. Love Canal—an 1879 project to market energy from the Niagara River—was used in 1942–52 to dump chemical wastes from Hooker Chemicals (later absorbed by Occidental Petroleum). The city subsequently acquired the site for a school, knowing its past, and also permitted homes. Odors and residues forced EPA investigations by 1976; most residents fled over the next three years. Yet, their battles for compensation clarified the need for community organization to fight for environmental protection and against problems of regulations and responsibilities in corporate environmental damage. Final suits were settled by 1998, with Occidental paying $400 million to federal and state agencies; some went to clean-up and some to residents who complained of transgenerational impacts. The contemporary study of A. Levine’s (1982) Love Canal has been updated in L. Gibb’s (1998) Love Canal. An iconic environmental disaster, its impact permeates movies and readings in cases like the Worcester, Massachusetts pollution central to the 1995 book A Civil Action and the 1999 movie that followed.
Industry:Culture
In 1992 the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro joined together ideals of environmental movements with realities of politics in discussing five major headings of global concern: climate change, biological diversity, deforestation, Agenda 21 and Earth Charter. The summit underscored the diverse environmental interests of developed and developing countries. Though US organizations are often the most visible in world conferences, hundreds of governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with the environment have been established in other countries. However, many criticized the summit as little more than a global, political attempt to risk-control and manage environmental challenges through science and technology without consideration of cultural and ecological consequences.
Critics of early environmentalism noted that issues generally concerned middle-aged people from upper-income levels who were mainly interested in the preservation and management of wilderness for future generations. Both the focus of environmentalism and the age group concerned shifted in the 1970s as young people, influenced by antiwar movements and the counterculture of the time, began to recognize that environmental degradation threatened the future of life on Earth. Nonetheless, there were still strong stratifications of the movement with voices of the poor and of minorities notably missing.
The current wave of environmental activities in the US can be traced to the 1960s and early 1970s when people like Murray Bookchin (Our Synthetic Environment, 1962) and Rachel Carson (Silent Spring, 1962) began to question the rapid advancement of technological innovation without social and environmental constraint. In 1970 Americans celebrated the first Earth Day, focusing attention on human interactions with the Earth and laying groundwork for groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Additionally roots of the National Environmental Policy Act (1970) (creating the Environmental Protection Agency), Clean Air Act (1970), Clean Water Act (1972), Ocean Dumping Act (1972), Endangered Species Act (1973) and Safe Drinking Waters Act (1974) grew from this early interest. In 1978 Love Canal (Niagara Falls, New York) refocused national attention on the detrimental effects of hazardous waste on humans and their environment. Divergences also grew within environmentalists: The term “deep ecology” was coined by Naess in 1973 to champion self-realization and biocentric equality in contrast to the utilitarian treatment of nature by Western society This has underpinned radical action in environmental protests as well.
Agriculture in the US and worldwide became a focus for modern environmentalism with soil erosion, aquifer depletions, desertification, saline incursion into irrigated soils, climate change from land clearing, deforestation, resistance of pests to pesticides and loss of genetic diversity in food crops as problems with global implications. Despite the Green Revolution, importing high-yield agricultural techniques to developing countries to increase food production, concerns grew about population growth and what constitutes “sustainable development.” The notion that too many humans exist to allow coexistence with the rest of nature continued as deep ecologists suggested population reduction and a return to simpler ways of life. Early solutions for population control included zero population growth, the notion that reproduction should be for replacement or reduction in numbers only.
The 1980s brought more attention to the environment as implications of acid rain and heat pollution were recognized worldwide. Urban heat islands, created from high concentrations of concrete, human beings and combustion products from transportation, were identified as major contributors to build-ups of pollutants, especially particulates, around American cities and suburbs. Issues of urban pollution mobilized the Environmental Justice Movement to emerge from the shadows of mainstream environmentalism. It focused on racism and exposure to environmental hazards, noting the general lack of attention by mainstream, predominantly white, environmental organizations to problems concerning people of color. Out of this split grew the People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991 and many neighborhood projects, from Los Angeles, CA to the Northeast.
The 1980s and 1990s saw a strong backlash against environmentalism with environmental burdens placed on businesses and governments over-whelming available resources. The so-called “unholy trinity” of risk assessment, unfunded mandates and property rights emerged through the 1990s to threaten progress in environmental legislation. When the Exxon Valdez ran aground and dumped its oily cargo into one of the most pristine marine areas of the United States, there was a flurry of environmental activity from cleaning wildlife and shorelines to changing regulations for shipping such substances (see oil spills). However, as pictures of oil-soaked birds and marine mammals yielded to reports of cleanup fraud and environmental infighting, the event’s impact evaporated. During the early 1990s, many environmental organizations showed dramatic decreases in membership and financial support, perhaps as legislation intruded further into the lifestyles of the middle class. However, during this same time period there was an increased interest in ideas of ecofeminism (a term coined by Francoise D’Eaubonne in 1974) as a part of the environmentalist movement, connecting the domination of women and the domination of nature as scientific and political issues.
Free-market environmentalism emerged as a part of the backlash from earlier intensive centralized regulation of environmental concerns. These environmentalists suggest that decentralized tools such as market-value user fees, environmentally responsible incentives (such as rewards for recycling and waste reduction) and free markets will solve more environmental challenges than increased regulation and governmental control.
However, many critics of such ideas point to the lack of development of environmental economics to incorporate valuation of things such as scenic beauty in contrast with shoreline development. Further, questions of how to privatize management of assets such as coral reefs and migratory herds on a broad scale have received little attention. Testing of free-market environmental ideas in real situations has been conducted on a limited basis with some success, although strong concerns about the broader applications of such an approach to environmental problems remain.
Industry:Culture
In 2000 the case of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez galvanized issues and passions in American relations with Castro’s Cuba and the voices of Cuban Americans within US society and politics. Gonzalez, whose mother had died as they fled Cuba, was claimed by Miami, FL relatives as a refugee from a totalitarian regime. The US Justice Department, however, favored reuniting him with his father in Cuba. Taking Elian to Disneyworld and showering him with gifts, Cuban Americans also rallied in Miami and sought judicial and congressional recourse to keep the boy in the US, including a bill to grant him citizenship. Meanwhile, in Havana, others marched to claim the rights of a “kidnapped angel.” The Justice Department’s dawn raid on the home of Elian’s Miami relatives to return him to his father in Washington galvanized further Cuban American response, and even calls for an investigation of such “brutal action.” Yet the lack of movement after this raid challenged Cuban American political clout. Even as Elian’s fate dragged on in American courts for months, politicians began to speak of normalizing relations with Cuba (although not with the alacrity that was granted to China).
Such divisive feelings reflect the deep connections of people, places and interests that unite and separate the US and Cuba, especially since the revolution of 1959. These passions have been kindled by a long history of US intervention on the island, as well as by recent fears of its strategic role as a nearby foothold for communist organization and propaganda throughout Latin America. Yet, even more, these feelings reflect the special situation of first and second generation immigrants from Cuba, more than a million people (the third-largest Hispanic group), awaiting changes in the regime that will, in turn, change their lives. This suspended transnationalism becomes more complicated with decades of exile.
American relations with Cuba and the lives of Cubans in the United States have a long, complicated history In the nineteenth century Southern planters coveted Cuba as an enduring slave society The island became a battleground for American expansion in the Spanish-American war. Since American occupation of Cuba during and after this war, the US has frequently intervened (under provisions of the 1901 Platt Amendment) in direct governance and indirect control of the island. It supported regimes like that of Fulgencio Batista, while investors created an American image of Cuba as a tropical escape—casinos and recreation rather than economic and social development. The US still maintains a naval base in Cuba—Guantanamo—after decades of a hostile regime.
Some Cubans found alternative meanings to this proximity through emigration to the US, establishing the cigar industry in Tampa, Florida’s Ybor City and Key West, as well as New York City in the nineteenth century Jose Martí also found refuge in the US to work for Cuban independence. Nonetheless, this population remained relatively small (under 50,000) until 1959, when Fidel Castro and his guerrillas claimed control of the island. As Castro’s reforms and expropriations were seen to run against American interests, the US became embroiled in covert operations against the regime, including the ill-fated Bay of Pigs expedition. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis also pitted the Kennedy regime against the Soviet Union over the placement of strategic weapons in Cuba. The US came to impose sanctions, diplomatic isolation and embargo from the early 1960s onward. Castro found allies instead in the Soviet Union, and developed a Marxist regime that emphasized a new equality in economics, education and healthcare, while exporting revolution to the rest of the world—Che Guevara in Bolivia or more tragic interventions in Angola. The US remained obdurate despite gradually diminishing support from allies and human costs of the embargo in areas like medicine and family communication.
International relations, however bitter, were further complicated by Cuban refugees who fled the Castro regime. Over 150,000 refugees arrived in the early years of tense relations between the nascent Castro regime and the US. A highly urbane population, many settled in south Florida, where Miami’s Calle Ocho/Little Havana emerged as a new Cuban metropolis. Arguing their case in fiercely anti-communist terms, Cubans gained rights to facilitated residence and citizenship, converting them eventually into a major voice in conservative politics.
This community grew later by special policies that permitted the airlift of Cuban nationals to the US between 1965 and 1973 (accounting for some 260,000 more people).
The Mariel boatlifts in 1980 brought 125,000 new refugees to the US, including criminals released by Castro whose presence demanded complex investigations and incarcerations in camps across the US. Sponsorship of these refugees by churches and civic organizations spread Cubans—and the message of opposition to Castro—across the US and fortified the South Florida community.
In the years of Cuban economic crisis following the collapse of Soviet support and other problems, depiction of isolated rafts and dramatic escapes reminded the nation that Cuba was a place which people sought to flee from as well as return to. Here, however, the US government distinguished economic and political refugees and sought generally to return those escapees intercepted on the high seas. In the end, Cubans were allocated 20,000 entry visas annually as well as other markers of special treatment in their immigration status, which set them apart. Meanwhile, President Clinton’s endorsement of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act strengthened the embargo and penalties for those who violate it, raising questions and opposition worldwide.
Yet Castro’s regime did not fall, despite blockades and the economic collapse of its major ally. After four decades, then, the Cuban American community has faced new divisions as the second generation reaches maturity without any experience of the island itself. While many Cuban Americans have prospered in business, politics, culture and other sectors of the US economy Cuban Americans are also divided by class and race.
New generations have become Americanized as well: they do not see Spanish as their only formative language, nor do they feel the same intense Catholicism or nostalgia that binds together many in exile. Hence, responses to the Elian Gonzalez case become rituals of identity and community as well as demands for change and, ultimately for return.
Among notable Cuban Americans are South Florida politicians, business people and cultural figures. Cuban Americans have made a mark in literature (Cristina García, Oscar Hijuelos), entertainment (Gloria Estefan), arts, dance and sports, especially baseball.
Industry:Culture
In a mobile nation, hotels and motels have become way-stations, luxurious homes and markers of despair. While public lodging is not unique to America, the range of its meanings nonetheless deserves scrutiny as keys to a changing landscape Hotels once invited travelers to any town that claimed a train stop and a future.
Luxurious accommodations and celebrities have been associated with metropolitan hotels of global prestige since the nineteenth century—the Plaza and Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, the Willard in Washington, DC, Palmer House in Chicago, IL, the St.
Francis in San Francisco, CA and the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, among others. Downtown hotels originally catered to businessmen, although wives and families were reunited at exurban resorts like the Breakers in Palm Beach and the Greenbriar in West Virginia which offered elegant accommodations, fine meals and select company.
Divisions of gender and class in both hotels and ever-expanding resorts have changed along with the workforce and family travel since the Second World War. Elite hotels have also figured as settings for novels, plays and movies, with the Plaza a favorite for children (Eloise, Kay Thompson, 1955; Home Alone, 1990), and adults’ (playwright Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, movie 1971); the St. Francis was a model for television’s 1980s series Hotel.
Hotels have created the landscape of resort cities like Las Vegas and Miami Beach. In smaller cities, historic luxury once perhaps subsidized by local governments seeking prestige, has become part of downtown revitalization, while new hotels nationwide compete for architectural renown and business. Hence, John Portman’s Atlanta Peachtree Plaza became associated with atrium hotels, while the Bonaventure in Los Angeles became the type specimen for postmodernism to Fredric Jameson. Specialized boutique hotels and family-run bed and breakfasts are perceived to provide a more European ambience.
Hotel chains have played a major role in this commerce. Major chains linked ownership and management of urban prestige hotels by the 1920s, although most operated under independent names. Conrad Hilton expanded between the wars from a Texas base to buy the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and other prestige hotels while extending his scientific management through leases and management contracts worldwide in the postwar period; many hotels carried the Hilton name. Other major American-based chains include the Sheraton ITT and luxury specializations like the Omni, Westin and the global Ritz-Carlton. Hotel and motel properties have also been targets for foreign investment, as well as 1990s incursions of upscale chains like Nikko and Swissotel.
Hotels also have reflected divisions in American society—luxury is available for a price that distinguishes a suite in the Beverly Wilshire from a night’s accommodation at the YMCA. Hotels also were segregated in many major American cities—small Southern towns might have no public accommodations for blacks at all until the Inter-state Accommodations Act of 1965. Despite their urban fame, Americans have also been prejudiced against hotels as places to “live,” whose residents seemingly reject the domestic home and its duties. Residential hotels were discouraged in most cities by the turn of the nineteenth century Later, SRO (single room occupancy) and welfare hotels became known as urban blights. Literature, films (Midnight Cowboy, 1969; Barton Fink, 1991; LA Confidential, 1994) and crime television have used a range of hotels to map out social diversity division and trajectories in the city.
Industry:Culture
In American youth and popular culture, “cool” is the desired pose. Cool is also a pervasive marketing tool. Coolness is in part about a confidence in appearance (in between trendy and nerdy), creating a visual style, but it is also a comment on an observable attitude—a mixture of nonchalance and self-absorption in attitude. Designer clothing comes in and out of style, for seemingly mysterious readings, making it cool to wear and, then, in a flash, “tacky.” Places—discos, neighborhoods, cities—come into style and are cool. For example, recently South Beach in Miami, FL became cool—after the artists moved in, celebrities followed, but with the advent of too many tourists it became passé. Some bands are cool. These bands tend not to be the most highly regarded by the population at large, but a secret amongst those who consider themselves in the know. Those long considered to be the antithesis of cool—nerds and geeks—have become cool with the rise of hacker and now Internet-related culture. In time, they too will be passé.
Industry:Culture
In any culture, music contributes to the quality of children’s early life experiences.
Founding the first kindergartens in the nineteenth century the United States adopted the theories, philosophies and methods of their German inventor, Froebel. Children’s songs were an important instructional medium so Froebelian song materials were translated for America’s teachers.
With the child-study movement in the early twentieth century many researchers also studied children’s rhythmic and vocal development, again influencing publications about children’s music. For example, early childhood songs in text were notated in the keys in which children can sing more comfortably.
However, children’s music in educational settings seems to be losing emphasis since the mid-twentieth century One reason is educational trends that focus more on math and science. Still, in early childhood education settings, such as preschool, music exists in a unique way. Children’s musical experiences there include singing, moving to music, listening to music and playing or creating music with musical instruments. These activities tend to be limited by classroom teachers who are not necessarily musicians.
Regardless of educational or social trends, children’s song remains important.
American folk or traditional tunes such as “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” or “Old MacDonald” are children’s popular songs, transmitted by word of mouth. There is also a wide variety of recorded lullabies and play songs, including songs from many cultures.
Popular music such as rock, jazz, New Age and pop also form part of children’s music.
Many authors include tunes in children’s books so children can sing through the words.
Some musicians also have created songs for movement and rhythmic games.
Mass media is also an influential factor in children’s music. Television programs for children, such as Sesame Street and Barney, are very popular among American children and they learn many songs from such programs.
Industry:Culture
In August 1990, President George Bush undertook the biggest US military commitment overseas since Vietnam, deploying more than 500,000 troops in the Persian Gulf to defend Saudi Arabia following Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait.
Bush’s firm response to Iraq’s invasion came as a surprise to the Iraqi president. US Ambassador April Glaspie had informed Hussein eight days before the invasion that the American government held “no opinion on ArabArab conflicts,” saying “the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.” The Iraqis long had claims on territory in Kuwait and complaints that the Kuwaitis were bringing down the price of oil through overproduction.
Hussein’s smiles following this meeting were erased by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s resolve to ensure that Bush did not “go wobbly” and allow the invasion to stand. While General Colin Powell, Chairperson of the Joint Chiefs, wanted to give an embargo and sanctions imposed on Iraq time to work, Thatcher and Bush decided by January that Hussein would not withdraw. Bush went to war against Iraq, launching a bombing and missile assault that left Hussein’s forces crippled and unable to withstand the land assault which came over a month later.
Bush and his military chiefs received criticism for stopping the “Desert Storm” land invasion after only five days, before Hussein’s Republican Guard was destroyed. This made possible Hussein’s subsequent intransigence and resulted in a number of follow-up operations during Clinton’s administration. Constant engagement between American and British fighter planes and Iraqi air defense systems has continued since Desert Storm.
Saddam Hussein remains in power and is extremely wealthy due to black-market deals in Iraqi oil. The citizens of Iraq have been suffering in large numbers, many dying as a result of malnutrition exacerbated by the world embargo.
In the United States, the war was especially noteworthy for the fact that, even though it was considered a triumph for Bush, this did not translate into electoral success in the next presidential election. It has also lingered as a source of disaffection for many veterans who suffered from what was called Gulf War Syndrome, and who had their claims of injury rejected by the Pentagon.
The war has already made it into American movie history thanks to Courage under Fire (1996) and Three Kings (1999).
Industry:Culture
In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and its companion cases the US Supreme Court unanimously held that the operation of separate public schools segregated on the basis of race was unconstitutional. The Court’s 1954 decision found that separate schools for African American public school students was “inherently unequal,” violating the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws to all citizens. The Brown decision was the Court’s first ruling to directly overturn the “separate but equal” doctrine articulated almost sixty years earlier in Plessy v. Ferguson, and laid the groundwork for ending legally imposed segregation in other public entities over the next decade. It is widely regarded by historians and legal scholars as one of the Supreme Court’s most important decisions ever rendered.
Industry:Culture
