international agreements: party to - Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen
Oxides, Antarctic Treaty, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environmental
Modification, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban,
Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Wetlands,
Whaling; signed, but not ratified - Air Pollution-Volatile Organic
Compounds, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Biodiversity, Desertification,
Hazardous Wastes, Tropical Timber 94
Note: world's fourth-largest country (after Russia, Canada, and China)
Traditionally the USA is divided into several regions:
2. New England, made up of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
3. The Middle Atlantic, comprising New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, and Maryland.
4. The South, which runs from Virginia south to Florida and west as far
as central Texas. This region also includes West Virginia, Kentucky,
Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and parts of Missouri and Oklahoma.
5. The Midwest, a broad collection of states sweeping westward from Ohio
to Nebraska and including Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois,
Minnesota, Iowa, parts of Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota,
Kansas, and eastern Colorado.
6. The Southwest, made up of western Texas, portions of Oklahoma, New
Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and the southern interior part of California.
7. The West, comprising Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, California,
Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii.
Note that there is nothing official about these regions; many other lineups
are possible. These groupings are offered simply as a way to begin the
otherwise daunting task of getting acquainted with the United States.
REGIONAL VARIETY
How much sense does it make to talk about American regions when practically
all Americans can watch the same television shows and go to the same fast-
food restaurants for dinner? One way to answer the question is by giving
examples of lingering regional differences.
Consider the food Americans eat. Most of it is standard wherever you go. A
person can buy packages of frozen peas bearing the same label in Idaho,
Missouri, and Virginia. Cereals, candy bars, and many other items also come
in identical packages from Alaska to Florida. Generally, the quality of
fresh fruits and vegetables does not vary much from one state to the next.
On the other hand, it would be unusual to be served hush puppies (a kind of
fried dough) or grits (boiled and ground corn prepared in a variety of
ways) in Massachusetts or Illinois, but normal to get them in Georgia.
Other regions have similar favorites that are hard to find elsewhere.
While American English is generally standard, American speech often differs
according to what part of the country you are in. Southerners tend to speak
slowly, in what is referred to as a "Southern drawl." Midwesterners use
"flat" a's (as in "bad" or "cat"), and the New York City patois features a
number of Yiddish words ("schlepp," "nosh," "nebbish") contributed by the
city's large Jewish population.
Regional differences also make themselves felt in less tangible ways, such
as attitudes and outlooks. An example is the attention paid to foreign
events in newspapers. In the East, where people look out across the
Atlantic Ocean, papers tend to show greatest concern with what is happening
in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and western Asia. On the West Coast,
news editors give more attention to events in East Asia and Australia.
To understand regional differences more fully, let's take a closer look at
the regions themselves.
NEW ENGLAND
The smallest region, New England has not been blessed with large expanses
of rich farmland or a mild climate. Yet it played a dominant role in
American development. From the 17th century until well into the 19th, New
England was the country's cultural and economic center.
The earliest European settlers of New England were English Protestants of
firm and settled doctrine. Many of them came in search of religious
liberty. They gave the region its distinctive political format -- the town
meeting (an outgrowth of meetings held by church elders) in which citizens
gathered to discuss issues of the day. Only men of property could vote.
Nonetheless, town meetings afforded New Englanders an unusually high level
of participation in government. Such meetings still function in many New
England communities today.
New Englanders found it difficult to farm the land in large lots, as was
common in the South. By 1750, many settlers had turned to other pursuits.
The mainstays of the region became shipbuilding, fishing, and trade. In
their business dealings, New Englanders gained a reputation for hard work,
shrewdness, thrift, and ingenuity.
These traits came in handy as the Industrial Revolution reached America in
the first half of the 19th century. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and
Rhode Island, new factories sprang up to manufacture such goods as
clothing, rifles, and clocks. Most of the money to run these businesses
came from Boston, which was the financial heart of the nation.
New England also supported a vibrant cultural life. The critic Van Wyck
Brooks called the creation of a distinctive American literature in the
first half of the 19th century "the flowering of New England." Education is
another of the region's strongest legacies. Its cluster of top-ranking
universities and colleges -- including Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth,
Wellesley, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan -- is
unequaled by any other region.
As some of the original New England settlers migrated westward, immigrants
from Canada, Ireland, Italy, and eastern Europe moved into the region.
Despite a changing population, much of the original spirit of New England
remains. It can be seen in the simple, woodframe houses and white church
steeples that are features of many small towns, and in the traditional
lighthouses that dot the Atlantic coast.
In the 20th century, most of New England's traditional industries have
relocated to states or foreign countries where goods can be made more
cheaply. In more than a few factory towns, skilled workers have been left
without jobs. The gap has been partly filled by the microelectronics and
computer industries.
MIDDLE ATLANTIC
If New England provided the brains and dollars for 19th-century American
expansion, the Middle Atlantic states provided the muscle. The region's
largest states, New York and Pennsylvania, became centers of heavy industry
(iron, glass, and steel).
The Middle Atlantic region was settled by a wider range of people than New
England. Dutch immigrants moved into the lower Hudson River Valley in what
is now New York State. Swedes went to Delaware. English Catholics founded
Maryland, and an English Protestant sect, the Friends (Quakers), settled
Pennsylvania. In time, all these settlements fell under English control,
but the region continued to be a magnet for people of diverse
nationalities.
Early settlers were mostly farmers and traders, and the region served as a
bridge between North and South. Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, midway
between the northern and southern colonies, was home to the Continental
Congress, the convention of delegates from the original colonies that
organized the American Revolution. The same city was the birthplace of the
Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the U.S. Constitution in 1787.
As heavy industry spread throughout the region, rivers such as the Hudson
and Delaware were transformed into vital shipping lanes. Cities on
waterways -- New York on the Hudson, Philadelphia on the Delaware,
Baltimore on Chesapeake Bay -- grew dramatically. New York is still the
nation's largest city, its financial hub, and its cultural center.
Like New England, the Middle Atlantic region has seen much of its heavy
industry relocate elsewhere. Other industries, such as drug manufacturing
and communications, have taken up the slack.
THE SOUTH
The South is perhaps the most distinctive and colorful American region. The
American Civil War (1861-65) devastated the South socially and
economically. Nevertheless, it retained its unmistakable identity.
Like New England, the South was first settled by English Protestants. But
whereas New Englanders tended to stress their differences from the old
country, Southerners tended to emulate the English. Even so, Southerners
were prominent among the leaders of the American Revolution, and four of
America's first five presidents were Virginians. After 1800, however, the
interests of the manufacturing North and the agrarian South began to
diverge.
Especially in coastal areas, southern settlers grew wealthy by raising and
selling cotton and tobacco. The most economical way to raise these crops
was on large farms, called plantations, which required the work of many
laborers. To supply this need, plantation owners relied on slaves brought
from Africa, and slavery spread throughout the South.
Slavery was the most contentious issue dividing North and South. To
northerners it was immoral; to southerners it was integral to their way of
life. In 1860, 11 southern states left the Union intending to form a
separate nation, the Confederate States of America. This rupture led to the
Civil War, the Confederacy's defeat, and the end of slavery. (For more on
the Civil War, see chapter 3.) The scars left by the war took decades to
heal. The abolition of slavery failed to provide African Americans with
political or economic equality: Southern towns and cities legalized and
refined the practice of racial segregation.
It took a long, concerted effort by African Americans and their supporters
to end segregation. In the meantime, however, the South could point with
pride to a 20th-century regional outpouring of literature by, among others,
William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Robert Penn Warren, Katherine Anne Porter,
Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O'Connor.
As southerners, black and white, shook off the effects of slavery and
racial division, a new regional pride expressed itself under the banner of
"the New South" and in such events as the annual Spoleto Music Festival in
Charleston, South Carolina, and the 1996 summer Olympic Games in Atlanta,
Georgia. Today the South has evolved into a manufacturing region, and high-
rise buildings crowd the skylines of such cities as Atlanta and Little
Rock, Arkansas. Owing to its mild weather, the South has become a mecca for
retirees from other U.S. regions and from Canada.
THE MIDWEST
The Midwest is a cultural crossroads. Starting in the early 1800s
easterners moved there in search of better farmland, and soon Europeans
bypassed the East Coast to migrate directly to the interior: Germans to
eastern Missouri, Swedes and Norwegians to Wisconsin and Minnesota. The
region's fertile soil made it possible for farmers to produce abundant
harvests of cereal crops such as wheat, oats, and corn. The region was soon
known as the nation's "breadbasket."
Most of the Midwest is flat. The Mississippi River has acted as a regional
lifeline, moving settlers to new homes and foodstuffs to market. The river
inspired two classic American books, both written by a native Missourian,
Samuel Clemens, who took the pseudonym Mark Twain: Life on the Mississippi
and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Midwesterners are praised as being open, friendly, and straightforward.
Their politics tend to be cautious, but the caution is sometimes peppered
with protest. The Midwest gave birth to one of America's two major
political parties, the Republican Party, which was formed in the 1850s to
oppose the spread of slavery into new states. At the turn of the century,
the region also spawned the Progressive Movement, which largely consisted
of farmers and merchants intent on making government less corrupt and more
receptive to the will of the people. Perhaps because of their geographic
location, many midwesterners have been strong adherents of isolationism,
the belief that Americans should not concern themselves with foreign wars
and problems.
The region's hub is Chicago, Illinois, the nation's third largest city.
This major Great Lakes port is a connecting point for rail lines and air
traffic to far-flung parts of the nation and the world. At its heart stands
the Sears Tower, at 447 meters, the world's tallest building.
THE SOUTHWEST
The Southwest differs from the adjoining Midwest in weather (drier),
population (less dense), and ethnicity (strong Spanish-American and Native-
American components). Outside the cities, the region is a land of open
spaces, much of which is desert. The magnificent Grand Canyon is located in
this region, as is Monument Valley, the starkly beautiful backdrop for many
western movies. Monument Valley is within the Navajo Reservation, home of
the most populous American Indian tribe. To the south and east lie dozens
of other Indian reservations, including those of the Hopi, Zuni, and Apache
tribes.
Parts of the Southwest once belonged to Mexico. The United States obtained
this land following the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. Its Mexican
heritage continues to exert a strong influence on the region, which is a
convenient place to settle for immigrants (legal or illegal) from farther
south. The regional population is growing rapidly, with Arizona in
particular rivaling the southern states as a destination for retired
Americans in search of a warm climate.
Population growth in the hot, arid Southwest has depended on two human
artifacts: the dam and the air conditioner. Dams on the Colorado and other
rivers and aqueducts such as those of the Central Arizona Project have
brought water to once-small towns such as Las Vegas, Nevada; Phoenix,
Arizona; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, allowing them to become metropolises.
Las Vegas is renowned as one of the world's centers for gambling, while
Santa Fe, New Mexico, is famous as a center for the arts, especially
painting, sculpture, and opera. Another system of dams and irrigation
projects waters the Central Valley of California, which is noted for
producing large harvests of fruits and vegetables.
THE WEST
Americans have long regarded the West as the last frontier. Yet California
has a history of European settlement older than that of most midwestern
states. Spanish priests founded missions along the California coast a few
years before the outbreak of the American Revolution. In the 19th century,
California and Oregon entered the Union ahead of many states to the east.
The West is a region of scenic beauty on a grand scale. All of its 11
states are partly mountainous, and the ranges are the sources of startling
contrasts. To the west of the peaks, winds from the Pacific Ocean carry
enough moisture to keep the land well-watered. To the east, however, the
land is very dry. Parts of western Washington State, for example, receive
20 times the amount of rain that falls on the eastern side of the state's
Cascade Range.
In much of the West the population is sparse, and the federal government
owns and manages millions of hectares of undeveloped land. Americans use
these areas for recreational and commercial activities, such as fishing,
camping, hiking, boating, grazing, lumbering, and mining. In recent years
some local residents who earn their livelihoods on federal land have come
into conflict with the land's managers, who are required to keep land use
within environmentally acceptable limits.
Alaska, the northernmost state in the Union, is a vast land of few, but
hardy, people and great stretches of wilderness, protected in national
parks and wildlife refuges. Hawaii is the only state in the union in which
Asian Americans outnumber residents of European stock. Beginning in the
1980s large numbers of Asians have also settled in California, mainly
around Los Angeles.
Los Angeles -- and Southern California as a whole -- bears the stamp of its
large Mexican-American population. Now the second largest city in the
nation, Los Angeles is best known as the home of the Hollywood film
industry. Fueled by the growth of Los Angeles and the "Silicon Valley" area
near San Jose, California has become the most populous of all the states.
Western cities are known for their tolerance. Perhaps because so many
westerners have moved there from other regions to make a new start, as a
rule interpersonal relations are marked by a live-and-let-live attitude.
The western economy is varied. California, for example, is both an
agricultural state and a high-technology manufacturing state.
THE FRONTIER SPIRIT
One final American region deserves mention. It is not a fixed place but a
moving zone, as well as a state of mind: the border between settlements and
wilderness known as the frontier. Writing in the 1890s, historian Frederick
Jackson Turner claimed that the availability of vacant land throughout much
of the nation's history has shaped American attitudes and institutions.
"This perennial rebirth," he wrote, "this expansion westward with its new
opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive
society, furnish the forces dominating American character."
Numerous present-day American values and attitudes can be traced to the
frontier past: self-reliance, resourcefulness, comradeship, a strong sense
of equality. After the Civil War a large number of black Americans moved
west in search of equal opportunities, and many of them gained some fame
and fortune as cowboys, miners, and prairie settlers. In 1869 the western
territory of Wyoming became the first place that allowed women to vote and
to hold elected office.
Because the resources of the West seemed limitless, people developed
wasteful attitudes and practices. The great herds of buffalo (American
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