American Popular Culture

Social Constructions American popular culture has brought entertainment to many for the past two centuries. However, very little people know the extent to which American popular culture has shaped the historical relationship between marginalized social groups and dominate American society. Traditionally, the term popular culture has denoted the education level and general "cultural-ness" of the lower classes, as opposed to the "official culture" and higher education emanated by the dominant classes. This separation of upper class and lower class became even more pronounced towards the end of the 19th century. At the end of the 19th century the was a strong need for one to express their intellectualism as well as further their education in order to gain a higher status in society. Due to the need to denote other races, we have the arrival of black face minstrelsy in American popular culture, which allowed for inferior white races such as the Jewish of Irish to gain approval from the dominate white culture. However, black face minstrelsy also forced African Americans further into segregation from American society. During the period of Modernity from 1870 to 1930, there was a strong fascination with the Wild West and Manifest Destiny. During this time there was the formation of the Boy Scouts, which was the true depiction of what Americans thought it was like to be Native American. Due to irrational fears and anxieties, American popular culture took comfort in “playing Indian” because it allowed them to express these worries in American mainstream media. From the end of World War I, following major cultural and social changes brought by mass media innovations, the meaning of popular culture began to overlap with those of mass culture, media culture, and culture for mass consumption. Because of World War II, many women were put to work in order to fill the jobs of the men at war allowing them to gain a sense of independence. However, other events in history such as

Cited: Kasson, John. Amusing the Millions: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century. Hill and Wang; First Edition edition, 1978. Print. Levine, Lawrence, “American Culture and the Great Depression,” The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History Oxford University Press, 1993. Print. Nasaw, David, and . Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements. Harvard University Press, 1999. Print.