Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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1950s and 1960s, the federal government set up dummy think tanks and funded

established think tanks to conduct covert operations. The Rand Corporation was pre-

eminently a

Cold War

think tank dedicated to studying national security issues.

Although it has since diversified, Rand still receives most of its funding from government

contracts.

Think-tank scholars, most of whom hold advanced degrees, come from many

rofessions but have all achieved recognition in their areas of expertise before being

hired. Think tanks also hire scholars who will help entice donors to fund programs.

During a Democratic presidential administration, more conservative scholars may find

homes at Heritage, AEI or the Hoover Institution. When political fortunes change, these

scholars frequently receive political appointments in the new administration. News

organizations turn to think-tank scholars with established areas of expertise. When

scholars appear repeatedly on news shows, they may be nicknamed “talking heads,”

the media exposure can enhance scholars’ standing in the policy community.

MELINDA SCHWENK

Thomas, Clarence

b. 1948

Conservative African American jurist. His 1991 nomination to the

Supreme Court

President George Bush to replace liberal activist Thurgood

Marshall

provoked even

more controversy when a former associate, law professor Anita Hill, accused him o

sexual harassment. The ensuing televised hearings riveted and divided America around

issues of race and gender—while Thomas’ supporters evoked the specter of a “high-tech

lynching,” others were repelled not only by the charges but by the interrogations of a

white, male Senate panel. Thomas was narrowly confirmed, and has taken a conservative

albeit low-key stance in the Court. Issues and reflections surrounding these hearings are

reviewed in Toni

Morrison

’s

Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering Power

(1992).

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Three Stooges

Slapstick team of vaudeville and movies (in the 1950s) popular among those amused by

hitting, eye gouging and similar antics. The original members were Moe Howard (1897–

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1975), Shemp Howard (1900–75) and Larry Fine (1911–75), although various

replacements also appeared. Through television reruns and cult status, their fan base

remains dedicated to this day.

GARY McDONOGH

Thurber, James

b. 1894; d. 1961

Poet, cartoonist, playwright and essayist, Thurber’s wry humor explored alternative

relations of gender in which men sought less to dominate than to escape from gender

battles, work and modernity. A frequent contributor to the

New Yorker,

Thurber’s best-

known works include

Is Sex Necessary?

(with E.B.White, 1929), “The Secret Life o

Walter Mitty” (1942) and the

Thurber Carnival

(1945), as well as children’s books and a

memoir,

The Years with Ross

(1959). Films and a television series have been based on his

works.

GARY McDONOGH

Thurmond, Strom

b. 1902

Perennial senator from South Carolina. Thurmond was elected as a Democratic

governor

in 1946, but veered away from Truman’s

civil rights

agenda to head the

splinter

Dixiecrat

presidential ticket in 1948. Winning a write-in ballot for the Senate in

1954, Thurmond has held onto his seat and beliefs for decades, although he switched to

the Republicans in 1964, a watershed year for the transformation of the Democratic South

into a conservative

Republican

enclave. Despite increasing black voter registration and

Sunbelt development, Thurmond represents a power broker for his state in addition to his

hawkish, moralistic roles in the Senate. As of 1996, he became the oldest person ever to

serve in the Senate.

GARY McDONOGH

Till, Emmet

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b. 1941; d, 1955

Fourteen-year-old

African American

Chicagoan who visited his uncle in Mississippi

for the summer of 1955. Unfamiliar with the racial code of the

South,

he spoke casually

to a married

white

woman in a store, and received retribution at the hands of the

woman’s husband and his half-brother. Unlike countless

lynchings

that either went

unrecorded or never resulted in a case against the lynchers, the Till case went to court

owing to the bravery of his uncle who was willing to identify the assailants. While the

two defendants were acquitted by an all-white jury, the national attention the case

received and the outrage the verdict unleashed helped to mobilize many

African

Americans

and northern white liberals who joined the

Civil Rights movement

ROBERT GREGG

Times Square

On New Year’s Eve,

New York

City, NY’s Times Square becomes the focus o

thousands gathered in the cold and of a televisual nation that marks the countdown as an

illuminated ball descends atop the former Times Building. Times Square, at the heart o

New York’s

theater

district, with a giant subway exchange below and a variegated neon

canopy above, has become a global emblem of the city The “crossroads of

Broadway

”

has also sheltered talent agencies, souvenir stands, adult entertainment and prostitution, a

seediness that preoccupied city administrators and tourists in the 1970s. Subsequent

clean-up campaigns include a Times Square Business Improvement District (that taxes

local merchants to provide extra cleaning and security) and promotion of national

franchises and high-rise development. The new, clean Times Square represents both the

Americanization of Manhattan and the dual city where public space is appropriated by

urban elites.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Time Warner

Time Inc. began in 1922 with its namesake magazine; in the same year Warner Bros, a

film company, opened its first studio. These two companies merged in 1989 forming the

world’s largest and most diversified entertainment conglomerate that exerts an amazing

amount of control in the film, publishing, television and recording industries. In 1995

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Time Warner bought TBS, becoming the most important force in

cable

broadcasting.

Today, Time Inc. is still the premier magazine publisher with twenty-four publications—

Time, Sports Illustrated, People

and many others; the book division includes Warner

Books, Little, Brown and Co., as well as Book of the Month Club. The Warner Music

Group is the most diversified music entertainment company; Warner Bros’ film

entertainment unit produces TV shows such as

Friends

and

(both NBC, 1994–), as

well as operating the WB network. This conglomerate also includes HBO, Cinemax and

Time Warner Cable, the second-largest owner and operator of cable systems.

EDWARD MILLLER

tipping

A tip of 15–20 percent added on to pre-

tax

bills for restaurants,

hotels,

beauty salons,

taxis and other services hardly seems an extraordinary surcharge in a global economy.

Yet, for many workers, tips represent a primary source of income, eclipsing any hourly

wage (which may be lowered to reflect tips or erased by government deductions from a

resumed higher income). Hence, tipping is not only a reward or recognition for service

ut a necessity. For those in elite establishments, this may mean a substantial and rapid

cash income, but it may also uncomfortably underscore dependence and difference in

service-sector

interactions.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Title IX

The most far-reaching of federal educational laws, Title IX of the Education

Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any program or

activity at a private or public educational institution receiving federal funds. Title IX

regulations forbid sex discrimination in financial assistance, discriminatory course

assignments and sexual harassment. They also mandate equal athletic opportunities for

both sexes.

ee also:

sports and gender

MARY-CHRISTINE SUNGAILA, ESQ.

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tobacco industry

America’s tobacco industry has a long, profitable history Virginia colonist John Rolfe

(Pocahantas’ husband) produced the first commercial crop in 1612. In 1890 James

Buchanan Duke founded the American Tobacco Company (ATC). A 1902 merger with

Britain’s Imperial Tobacco Company created the British-American Tobacco Company

(BAT). In 1911 the US Supreme Court dissolved Duke’s monopoly into several smaller

companies, including R.J.Reynolds (RJR), Liggett & Myers (L&M), American Tobacco

(AT) and Weyman-Burton. The other major tobacco manufacturers, Lorillard, Philip

Morris (PM) and Brown & Williamson (B&W), formed in the 1930s.

Cigarette sales grew steadily until the early 1950s when stories about health risks to

smokers proliferated. In 1964 the US

Surgeon General

’s report

Smoking and Health

concluded that smoking was a health hazard. In 1965 the US

Congress

began requiring

the Surgeon General’s warning on all cigarette packages. The year 1971 brought a ban on

broadcast tobacco-product

advertising

. By 1990 all interstate

buses

and domestic airline

flights banned smoking.

The tobacco industry reacted to these changes by diversifying and expanding

internationally. PM, manufacturer of Marlboro and Virginia Slims, led both trends. Its

major domestic purchases included Miller beer, General Foods and Kraft. RJR,

manufacturer of Camel, went into foil products,

oil

and

food

operations. In 1986, the

company became RJR-

abisco. AT, maker of Pall Mall and Lucky Strike, diversified

into liquor and golf brands, changing its name to American Brands in 1969. American

Brands left the tobacco business after B&W bought Gallaher, its cigarette division, and

changed its name again to Fortune Brands in 1997. Still controlled by parent company

BAT, B&W, maker of Kool, diversified relatively late. Its acquisitions included the elite

retail

department store

Saks Fifth Avenue. Lorillard, maker of Newport, was purchased

in 1968 by the Loews Corporation, which also owns insurance company CNA Financial

Corporation. L&M, maker of Chesterfield and Lark, successfully diversified into

pet

food products and

alcohol,

becoming the Liggett Group in 1964. In 1980 Grand

Metropolitan Limited took over L&M, reducing its presence in the tobacco industry.

These changes reduced the original “Big Six” cigarette manufacturers to the “Big Four.”

Meanwhile, chewing tobacco manufacturer United States Tobacco (formerly Weyman-

Burton), producer of Copenhagen and Skoal, branched into wine,

cigars

and

entertainment programming.

The tobacco industry faced increasing legal pressure in the 1990s. In 1994, led by

Mississippi, the states began suing the tobacco industry to recoup tobacco-related

Medicaid costs. In October 1996, Congress passed the FDA (Food and Drug

Administration) rule to regulate tobacco, especially sales and marketing aimed at minors.

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1130

Liggett also broke ranks with the industry in 1996, eventually settling with five states

over Medicaid suits and releasing internal documents. In 1997 the industry negotiated a

national tobacco settlement with the state Attorneys General, prompting Congress to

consider legislation to regulate the industry. Further suits and strategies continue to

challenge the industry in the US, including a $145 billion judgement in Florida (2000)

against these manufacturers.

Further reading

Finger, W. (ed.) (1981)

The Tobacco Industry in Transition,

Raleigh NC: North Carolina

Center for Public Policy.

White, L. (1988)

Merchants of Death,

New York: Beech Tree.

COURTNEY BENNETT

tourism

“See the USA in your Chevrolet!” Mass tourism in the postwar era has been mediated by

the hegemony of the

automobile

that had emerged earlier in the century and by cheap

mass transport via train, bus and aviation. Together, these opportunities for an affluent

society to spend leisure time away from the home have transformed an American

infrastructure of services as well as the imagery and even identity of places within a

burgeoning national and international tourist economy.

Tourism at the end of the century is the second-largest retail operation in the US,

employing 7 million people in addition to indirect profits and jobs. Domestic travel

expenditures in the US topped $350 billion in 1995; American travelers also spent $57

illion abroad, while foreign travelers spent $68 billion in the US. Some view it as the

ostmodern successor to industrial capitalism. Certainly, with growing

deindustrialization,

tourism is avidly promoted as an economic solution by federal,

state

and local offices through information centers,

advertising

and professional

outreach. Tourism and service courses are offered in

colleges,

while places seek to

transform themselves in terms of salient images (historical landmarks,

museums,

consumption, slogans), as well as services (convention centers,

hotels,

restaurants,

airports,

etc.).

The most common tourist destinations in the US as states are

California

(25.7

percent), Florida (25 percent), New York (21 percent) and

Hawai’i

(14 percent)—

showing the impact of both

Disneyland/Disneyworld

as the number-one single attraction

and the more general development of resort culture. Among cities,

New York

City, NY

remains the most popular destination, followed by

Los Angeles, Miami

and

San

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Francisco,

though

African Americans

are drawn to

Philadelphia, PA,

home of the

Liberty Bell, Mother Bethel and important underground railroad sites.

Santa Fe

and

New

Orleans

have developed especially distinctive images that foster regular visits, while

events from the

Superbowl

Olympics

to horse races, business conventions and

celebrity

fads all influence choices of destinations. The tourism industry includes

magazines, newspaper features, advertisements and

Internet

sites that shape the choices

and the tourist experience; offers from transportation and lodging providers compete

nationally and globally.

Tourism and travel may embody many individual and collective goals—an expression

of leisure, pursuit of knowledge, consumption, status, family bonding or simple escape—

or some meshing of all these. Moreover, “tourism” may be combined with business or

other pursuits. Goals, in turn, mean different destinations and travel. The station wagon

crammed with tents, children and pets for

camping

differs from a rented villa in Florence

or Maui, a honeymoon in Niagara Falls or eco-trekking in Nepal. Budget, time, social

relations and cultural capital shape the tourist venture as does acceptance—African

Americans in the postwar period experienced difficulties in finding lodging and even

bathrooms in the South; interstate travel was an early target of civil-rights activism.

Differing goals and foundations also influence how tourism will be recalled later

through photography (slides in the 1950s and 1960s giving way to video), social narrative

and souvenirs. The latter range from kitsch reproductions of the Statue of Liberty or

gaudy “Mexican” hats to works of art, high fashion and web-site chronicles.

Tourism also demands adjustments among hosts, depending on attractions and

specializations. Services must converge with historic or natural landscapes, collections o

articular patrimonies or cultural diversity and even quaintness and isolation in defining

an attraction. This leads to a paradox of success that Rothman calls “devil’s bargains,”

when tourism alters the life and authenticity of the visited place and people. Hence the

Hawai’ian hula becomes a female “show” rather than a male religious event; Amish

farms are replaced by motels and malls for those who want to see a simple life in

comfort; and

national parks

are clogged with cars and pollution.

Not all American tourism stays in America. While in the past, trips to Europe or Latin

America represented elite privilege or bohemian escape, in the 1990s, more than 50

million Americans travel abroad annually with Canada (13 million) and Mexico (18

million) primary destinations; roughly 8 million go to Europe. In the postwar period o

American economic dominance, mass tourism created the image of an “Ugly American”

abroad—crass, untutored and unresponsive to places and cultures. Mass tourism has

grown to serve multiple niches from academic travelers to special packages based on race

and ethnic heritage, age, sexuality or environmental and political issues.

More than 40 million foreign tourists also arrive in the US annually with Canada the

largest single source (14 million), 8.7 million from Europe and 6.6 million from Asia.

Many of these visitors see the US through the prism of Disneyworld or other packaged

attractions. Yet their experiences of poverty, divisions and antagonisms in the US also

challenge American representations of success abroad.

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1132

Tourism and tourists tend to figure in mass media as subjects of ridicule, although

travel writing itself has been a long-established and evocative genre in American

literature (Mark Twain, Henry James, John Steinbeck, etc.). While

road movies

may

evoke an American quest, tourism as a theme often focused movies on differences,

confusions and adjustments. Neil Simon’s

The Out-of Towners

(originally filmed 1970)

chronicles the mishaps of travel to New York City that are refracted in films as

distinctive as

Brother from Another Planet

(1984) or

Home Alone 2

(1992). More sinister

images are evoked by dislocation and vulnerability in the sci-fi resort of

Westworl

(1973) or the vulnerability of Sandra Bullock as a woman whose identity is stolen in

The

(1995). Tourism abroad is even more torn between the ludicrous (

If It

’

Tuesday, This

ust be Belgium,

1969;

National Lampoon

films or many sitcom travel episodes), the

romantic (many films set in Paris, including

Funny Face,

1957 and

French Kïss,

1995) or

more personal crises and quests (

Havana,

1990;

Beyond Rangoon,

1998;

Men with Guns,

1998). Among depictions of American tourists abroad by non-Americans, one might note

Hitchcock’s

The Man Who Knew Too Much

(1956) or Jacques Tati’s remarkable

laytime

(1967).

Further reading

Jakle, J. (1985)

The Tourist,

Lincoln: University of Nebraska.

Rothman, H. (1998)

Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth Century American West,

Lawrence: University of Kansas.

Wilson, C. (1997)

The Myth of Santa Fe,

Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

toys

American

children

and toys, in many ways, scarcely differ from their consociates

worldwide except in affluence—more toys and more expensive ones. Dolls, wagons,

costumes,

bicycles

and

war

toys have been gendered dreams for generations, even as

historically American toys—

cowboy

outfits and guns or the postwar

Barbie

—have

spread around the globe.

Class

and

race

have changed perceptions of these “standard

toys,” as Toni Morrison sadly underscored in her novel

The Bluest Eye,

yet children have

scarcely been more equal in other nations. Nonetheless, several important characteristics

may set American toys and play apart from other nations.

Affluence and ownership are still important characteristics. For postwar children, as

cinema and television reinforce imagery, Christmas and birthdays became intensive and

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competitive celebrations of goods including multiple and expensive toys. Electronic

games, elaborate outdoor toys and innumerable small toys create a bounty that children

are taught to own. Even if they share with friends, lines of property (and position) are

drawn early on by who owns what, or by who fails to get coveted toys (a parental

competition satirized in media). Obviously, this leaves out some children from the

experience of a general cultural ideal—while cities, schools and institutions push drives

to collect “toys for tots,” the return to school or neighborhood gatherings after Christmas

remain difficult.

American toys also differ in quality, price and even style.

Yuppie

parents may favor

educational toys or classic (sometimes expensive) basics in wood and cloth. Some ask for

dolls that reflect their own features and lifestyles—

African American

toys represent a

special subgenre even within Barbie lines. Toys are also highly gendered in advertising

and consumption, and graded for age divisions that encompass an adult market as well as

metaphoric extensions (sports cars or electronics, for example, may be referred to as toys

for adults).

The sheer numbers of toys and the created desire that drives sales also underscores a

longstanding synergy of media and commodities. Captain Midnight Decoder Rings,

Howdy Doody puppets, Brady Bunch lunch-boxes, Carebears and generations of

tar

Trek

toys all speak to the power of television and film to sell to younger audiences (and

their beleaguered parents). While children’s television codes have attacked direct

manipulative marketing, media giants like

Disney

have had generations of spin-off toys

that sell movies, television, fantasy vacations and “happiness.” Indeed, Disney’s

Toy

Story

and its sequel represent both reflections on toys and a continuing bonus in sales—

old and new toys are agents in the narrative, markers of memory and commodities in

stores. In another synergy

McDonald’s

represents one of the world’s largest toy

manufacturers, in independent productions and linked to media.

While these are now global phenomena, many have been honed on generations o

postwar children who, as

baby boomers,

bring both nostalgia and criticism to new

generations of sales. This also creates secondary markets for toys as

collectibles

that

influence not only family relics but new purchases, as exemplified in the Beanie Baby

craze, where value is besmirched by any signs of actual play.

Hence, intense marketing and production also shape American toys. While hand-

crafted toys or designer lines appeal to wealthier consumers, Toys ‘r’ Us—now global—

has a strong monopoly on general sales in concert with major manufacturers like Mattel.

In the 1980s and 1990s, toy marketing has been driven by “the toy” of the year, from

Cabbage Patch Kids to Furby, where constructed scarcities drive prices to extremes as

demonstrations of Christmas love. This

consumerism

also made toys a vanguard for

development of e-commerce.

GARY McDONOGH

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1134

track and field

American athletes in track-and-field sports have been able to maintain their dominance as

a result of the emphasis

colleges and universities

place on the sport. Backed by the

NCAA

and an elaborate system of sports scholarships, colleges and universities have

been able to offer opportunities to athletes to compensate for the sport’s amateur status (a

status that no longer remains). The significance of the college-

ased system on the lives

of athletes has been explored in numerous movies from

Personal Best

(1982) to

Withou

imits

(1998). The pressure to succeed created by this system has given rise to the

widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The widespread attention given to track and field derived in large part from its

association with the

Olympic

movement, which provided a forum for the expression o

nationalist sentiments. As such, the efforts of athletes competing against countries with

which the United States is in competition (economically and ideologically) have often

taken on considerable significance. During the Cold War, therefore, considerable

attention would be paid to Americans competing against athletes from the Soviet Union

and East Germany. Owing to the prominence of

African American

athletes in many

track-and-field events, the possibilities of harnessing patriotic fervor to racial

advancement were commonly acknowledged. Jesse Owens’ success at the 1936 Berlin

Olympics, winning four gold medals in front of a furious Hitler (who would have been

more furious still had the Americans included their Jewish sprinters on their relay team),

was just one example of this. Owens (1913–80) became a nationally recognized and

celebrated athlete and, along with Joe Louis, helped pave the way for Jackie

Robinson

’s

desegregation of baseball.

Wilma Rudolph (1940–84), the first American to win three gold medals in the 1960

Rome Olympics (100m, 200m and 400m relay), continued this tradition. Her

achievement, a triumph also over childhood

polio,

made her one of the most celebrated

female athletes of all time. Her celebrity also helped to begin the process of breaking

down gender barriers in previously all-male track-and-field events prior to the passage o

Title IX

The identification between athletes and their country opening up opportunities to black

athletes that might otherwise have been closed, remained in place at least until the end o

the

Cold War

. President

Carter

’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, in the

aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, was considered by many a major blow to

African American athletes, not merely on the grounds of their pursuit of gold medals. But

African American track-and-field athletes also used this spotlight to make comments

about racial conditions in the United States. Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968

Mexico Olympics raised their fists in the

Black Power

salute during the medal ceremony

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