Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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Many American cities took shape around ports that provided outlets for trade and later

facilitated the growth of industry as produce and heavy goods were shipped around the

world from factories in

Philadelphia, PA, Buffalo, NY,

Chicago, IL

and

San

Francisco, CA

. In the late twentieth century these same cities—and others—rebuilt their

waterfronts as new urban recreational and commercial centers.

With the end of the Second World War mobilization, waterfront landscapes became a

grimy jumble of warehouses, factories, ships and piers that provided the dark and

dangerous ambience of many film noir classics. Indeed, the gritty construction and labor

conflicts of these ports remained a hallmark of urban success, epitomized in the classic

labor movie

On the Waterfront

(1954).

Deindustrialization,

coupled with a shift to

container transport that demanded different, centralized facilities articulated by trucking

and train, changed this narrative radically by the 1960s. Rust and abandonment

eventually claimed many waterfronts, while pollution choked

rivers

and harbors.

By the 1970s and 1980s, large stretches of centrally located post-industrial land and the

recreational and aesthetic potential of reclaimed water began to experience large-scale

revitalization across the US. Some projects made use of the functions and buildings of the

older port areas. Fishing facilities in smaller ports (and occasional larger ones, like San

Francisco) added color and culinary interest.

Markets

were transformed into festival

marketplaces in

Boston

(Fanieul Hall),

New York

(South Street Seaport embracing

Fulton Fish Market) and

Baltimore, MD’s

Inner Harbor, juxtaposing local historical

themes with placeless tourist franchises and a smorgasbord of restaurants. A smaller city

Savannah, GA,

refashioned cotton warehouses into shops and services, while Monterey,

California, preserved the literary landmark of Cannery Row. Elsewhere, ample pier

uildings have been turned into restaurants, dance clubs and recreational zones. Through

these facilities, many cities also covet the fame and markets of tourist cruises.

Other developments have reclaimed industrial space for public

parks

and plazas.

Aquaria, maritime museums and sports stadiums (

Pittsburgh, PA, Cleveland, OH,

Baltimore) have also emphasized the waterfront as a focal attraction for tourists and local

residents alike. In some further cases, reuse of government/military facilities provides

opportunities for new

urban planning

—Governor’s Island in New York City or Alcatraz

and the Presidio in San Francisco. Even older recreational complexes that would be

anathema to current environmental planning have taken on period charm in the attractions

of the

Atlantic City, NJ

boardwalk (with new casinos) or the amusements of the Santa

Monica (Los Angeles) pier (which has figured prominently in movies and television, e.g.

alling Down,

1993).

Residential development also has transformed older industrial buildings while adding

high-rise condominia and luxury hotels that combine convenience and views. The most

successful cases create new cities within cities, in which yuppies support urban stores and

services that become attractions for outsiders—the hallmark of Boston, Baltimore and

San Francisco, among others. Waterfronts also provide strong images of the city for mass

media—via both active urban life and dramatically framed skylines. As competition for

tourists and investments eclipses past rivalries for shipping itself, other cities have

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achieved only partial success—an uneasy collage of malls and attractions amid crumbling

toxic skeletons of the industrial city Even in successful redevelopments, disconnection

from nearby inner-city populations and the socio-economic difficulties o

deindustrialization beyond the port remain problems.

Further reading

Breen, A. and Rigby D. (1994)

Waterfronts,

New York: McGraw Hill.

The National Research Council (1980)

Urban Waterfront Lands,

Washington, DC:

National Academy of Sciences.

GARY MCDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Watergate

On June 17, 1972

Washington, DC

police arrested five burglars at the headquarters o

the

Democratic

National Committee at the Watergate apartment complex. These men,

employees of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), had broken in to tap

hones and photograph documents. Their arrest was the first of many revelations o

misconduct within the

Nixon

administration, culminating in one of the most serious

abuses of presidential power in the nation’s history.

Though the Nixon administration denied any White House involvement in the burglary

and dismissed it as a bungled attempt engineered by overzealous minions, the

FBI

eventually traced the burglary to sources within the administration. A few weeks later the

Washington Post

revealed that Attorney-General John Mitchell had managed secret funds

to undermine Nixon’s political enemies by gathering damaging information, planting

spies, forging letters, stealing campaign plans and feeding false information to the media.

The trial of the Watergate burglars and planners began in January of 1973, with Judge

John Sirica presiding. Five pleaded guilty and two were convicted, upon which one of the

urglars sent a letter to Sirica confirming that the White House had in fact been involved

with the original break in. When Sirica called for further investigation, Watergate became

a national story.

The Senate also began investigating Nixon’s campaign practices, creating a Special

Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. The committee’s televised hearings

egan in May 1973, and for six months the nation watched a parade of witnesses uncover

the crimes and plots of the administration, including burglary bugging, perjury, dirty

tricks, tampering with judicial proceedings, political surveillance, shredding evidence,

lackmail and granting executive clemency to those who stay silent. All of these were

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hatched in the Nixon White House, and the circle of corruption came ever closer to the

president himself.

In October of 1973, Vice-President Spiro

Agnew

resigned after being found guilty o

cheating on his

taxes

and accepting bribes as both governor of Maryland and vice-

president. As Nixon’s approval ratings continued to sink, the House Judiciary Committee

began to gather evidence of presidential wrongdoing, a first step towards

impeachment

In March 1974, Judge Sirica’s grand jury indicted Nixon aides Haldeman, Ehrlichman,

Mitchell and four others for conspiracy to obstruct justice. White House Counsel John

Dean pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge, and cooperated with the grand jury The

grand jury’s sealed report named Nixon as an unindicted coconspirator, and in May 1974

the Senate Judiciary Committee began formal impeachment hearings.

Crucial to the committee’s investigations was the discovery that Nixon had recorded

all conversations in the Oval Office, but it took the

Supreme Court

to force Nixon to

submit these tapes. These provided the smoking gun that proved Nixon had ordered the

cover-up of the Watergate burglary just six days after it had occurred, meaning that he

had been lying to the public ever since. Faced with this evidence, Nixon resigned on

August 8, 1974. One month later he was given a full pardon by President Ford.

Further reading

Bernstein, C. and Woodward, R. (1974)

All the President’s Men,

New York: Simon &

Schuster.

Schell, J. (1975)

The Time of Illusion,

New York: Knopf.

SUSAN SCHULTEN

Waters, John

b. 1946

Director.

Baltimore

-born independent auteur/ cult

director

who sarcastically

celebrates and skewers his city the

middle class

and

suburbia

gone bad. After his initial

experience of pornographic film, his

Mondo Trasho

(1970) and

Pink Flamingos

(1972),

showcasing the 300-

ound transvestite Divine, offered visual offenses that rivaled

Bunuel and Dali. This partnership and vision continued in

Female Trouble

(1975) and

olyester

(1981). Waters has become more mainstream in his later work, although

maintaining a wry vision of race relations (

Hairspray,

1988), American domesticity

(

Serial Mom,

1994) and urban aesthetics (

Pecker,

1998). See Waters’ autobiographical

Shock Value

(1995).

GARY McDONOGH

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1198

CINDY WONG

Waters, Muddy (McKinley Morganfield)

b. 1915; d. 1983

Electric bluesman, born on a sharecropping farm in Mississippi, who garnered his

nickname from playing as a child in a local creek. Waters was discovered in 1940 by

folk-song archivists Alan Lomax and John Work. In 1943 Waters moved to

Chicago, IL

where he took up electric guitar and his countrified urban blues became a staple of the

South Side club circuit and, in the 1950s, the Chess label. Touring constantly and

appearing at every major

blues, jazz

and folk festival, Waters was a key influence on the

British bands of the 1960s blues revival.

DEWAR MACLEOD

Watts

Los Angeles, CA; race riots

Wayne, John (Marion Michael Morrison)

b. 1907; d. 1979

John “Duke” Wayne embodied a conservative, Cold War, patriotic heroism during his

forty-year reign as one of Hollywood’s most popular stars. In the mythical

westerns

and

Hollywood wars he inhabited, Wayne cut a forthright, paternal, but occasionally violent,

figure. Director John

Ford

made Wayne a star in

Stage Coach

(1939), and both Ford and

Howard

Hawks

used Wayne to good advantage in several films, including Hawks’

iver

(1948). During the Vietnam War, Wayne codirected and starred in the pro-war

The

Green Berets

(1968). Ironically Wayne assiduously avoided seeing action during the

Second World War and Korea.

MELINDA SCHWENK

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weather

“Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it,” according to

Mark Twain. But weather provides more than chatter—the experience and interpretation

of the American climate has deeply shaped national growth and culture.

By Twain’s day the United States already spanned a continent. Hence, storm systems

swept across the Plains to the East Coast, while droughts and floods affected not only

local

agriculture,

but also national business and population. Better forecasting today

makes it possible to envision these systems on a national scale. At the same time, weather

reports remain extremely local, geared to activities like vacations, school closings,

celebrations and commuting.

The US also has unique weather phenomena that have shaped its sense of the power o

nature

. Three-quarters of all tornadoes occur here; the Eastern and Gulf Coasts, like

Hawai’i,

lie in major hurricane routes. “Blizzard” is an American word as well, capturing

the strength of Arctic snows blanketing the Midwest. The Great Depression’s Dustbowl,

Midwestern floods, fire seasons in

California

and

Florida

and other dramatic

phenomena also influence markets, families and the national experience.

Moreover, variations in perceptions of weather, from the sultry

South

Southwestern

deserts to the rainy

Pacific Northwest,

shape regional meaning and

identity. These pervade images of rugged

New Englanders

or in Tennessee William’s

steamy evocations of the South. Although urbanites may seem more immune to natural

phenomena than farmers,

Chicago, IL

is still the Windy City while a climatic inversion

of sunny

Los Angeles

set a futuristic stage in

Blade Runner

(1980).

Does anyone do anything about it? Knowledge of the weather and attempts to control

its effects were envisioned as a national research project by President Thomas Jefferson,

whose legacy was developed by both the

Smithsonian Institution

and military research.

ew technology like the telegraph allowed simultaneous measurements and early reports

of climactic changes. Since the Second World War, radar, satellites and

computers

have

all changed manipulation of weather data and the reliability of predictions, centralized

and distributed through the National Weather Service.

Technology has also changed the ways in which Americans learn about weather, as

newspaper forecasts have given way to the immediacy of radio and television. Five

minutes for weather is a staple of local news. In television’s early days, weather reports

became notorious for their lack of journalistic or scientific prowess—whether relying on

attractive “weather girls” or “characters” with make-up and props. Subsequently more

accurate prediction has coincided with computer imaging of storm movements, while

reports on snows, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes have become staples of news as well;

the impact of the El Niño current off

California

received frequent coverage. The

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Weather Channel, begun in 1982, reaches 90 percent of cable users with 24-hour reports.

Weather reports may also underpin environmental concerns, whether local issues o

farming/gardening, pollution, water supplies or more general concerns of global

warming.

Further reading

Laskin, D. (1996)

Braving the Elements,

New York: Doubleday (provides a wonderful

introduction to American weather and history)

GARY McDONOGH

Weather Underground

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” a line from Bob

Dylan,

inspired a radical, Maoist off-shoot of

Students for a Democratic Society

at the

end of the 1960s. Led by SDS activists Bernardine Dohrn and Mark Rudd, the

Weathermen were to the student movement what

Black Power

represented to

SNCC,

radicalizing and then rejecting major aspects of

civil rights

and New

Left

ideology.

Stock phrases like “kill the pig” and “kicking ass” captured some disaffected with the

Vietnam War and “corporate capitalism,” though they remained relatively few. The

Weathermen eventually turned to urban guerilla methods and, as efforts at robbery and

kidnapping made them fugitives, tended to separate themselves in clandestine

organizations, akin to

cults

. In the 1980s and 1990s, several former Weathermen who had

created new identities were arrested or turned themselves in to the police, recalling the

more radical 1960s counterculture to the public mind.

ROBERT GREGG

weddings

Weddings in the United States constitute a $33 billion unregulated industry annually

where the average wedding budget for the late 1990s was estimated at 120,000.

Approximately 2.5 million couples marry annually in the United States, after emotional,

social and legal negotiations between the couple and among families (providing the grist

for constant television and movie narratives). Despite commitment, cost and preparation,

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it is also estimated that four out of ten

marriages

will fail.

Parents generally do not arrange marriages, unless their religious tradition strongly

encourages it. Most states require both parties to be eighteen, unless they have parental

consent. In fact, brides and grooms have been getting older since the Second World War,

the average age being 24.5 years for brides and 26.9 years for grooms. Engagements are

lasting longer, too, averaging fourteen months.

Weddings may be civil and religious; these rules may also conflict. Bigamy and

olygamy for example, are not permitted in the United States, despite religious traditions

that permit those practices

(Islam, Mormons)

. Some religions require a waiting period,

counseling or conversion prior to a wedding. Clergy conduct religious ceremonies

(sometimes multiply in inter-faith marriages), and judges or other recognized officials

conduct civil ceremonies. In other cases, the time it may take to make it to a drive-in

chapel may suffice—

Las Vegas

is famous for this industry Small civil ceremonies have

reflected economic constraints and a desire for privacy

The wedding event itself may be rich in family or religious traditions or a unique

experience reflecting the personalities or lifestyles of the couple; often, a classic

American “large wedding” influences even rebellions against formalities. Different ethnic

and cultural traditions are also influenced by perceptions of this American model in

synthetic ceremonies and receptions.

The mother of the bride used to have the most responsibilities for planning the

wedding, for which the father paid. Today’s bridal couples often take responsibility for

their own weddings. As they are older, they have established tastes, careers and a wider

circle of friends. The best man and maid of honor tend to be peers, either close friends or

relatives; friends and family are also incorporated as bridesmaids, ushers and junior

attendants. Numbers and elaboration of dress depend on the size and cost of the wedding.

June used to be the traditional month for weddings, following

commencements

. Today

more marry in the fall or during winter holidays. Brides still prefer white or ivory bridal

gowns, costing between $500 and $2,500, but more radical or practical choices may be

adapted to the ceremony.

Couples may register for household products at discount stores and hardware stores in

addition to the traditional china, crystal and silver selections. Cash gifts are favored by

many. These may be applied to the honeymoon, a traditional vacation after the wedding,

or to setting up a new household.

Weddings have been affected by combined families, mixed traditions and changing

gender roles. Children and former families may be dealt with in the planning and

ceremony; multiple inlaws and step-families often demand careful juggling. In 1999 the

Vermont Supreme Court outlawed discriminatory practices that precluded same-sex

marriages, while some other sates, cities and groups have worked to recognize

commitment ceremonies. This remains a hotly contested point among social and religious

groups and for the changing nature of marriage in the twenty-first century.

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Further reading

Handler, J.F. (1995)

The Poverty of Welfare Reform,

New Haven: Yale University Press.

JIM BAUMOHL

Welk, Lawrence

b. 1903; d. 1992

Lawrence Welk, known for his “champagne” music complete with large bubbles

dancing about the set, began with his traveling orchestra hosting dance parties in

ballrooms of the Midwest. After twenty-six years of these shows, often broadcasted on

radio, he moved to local television in 1951 and national television in 1955, where he ran

until 1972 (and then moved into

syndication

). Often thought of as a favorite of the blue-

haired set, this upbeat show featured an orchestra that was able to shift from waltz to

polka to a fox trot in rapid succession, keeping at-home dancers on their toes. Welk had

on offbeat, unlikely charm, which kept him as a favorite in front of cameras.

EDWARD MILLER

Welles, Orson

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1204

b. 1915; d. 1985

One of America’s most revered film-makers, Orson Welles was already an

accomplished

director

and actor before he made his first movie at age twenty-four.

Welles initially received wide acclaim for his stage direction, and notoriety for his 1938

radio adaptation of

War of the Worlds

. Told through a series of simulated news bulletins,

it sparked nationwide panic. Welles achieved his greatest success with his first movie

Citizen Kane

(1941), hailed by some as the greatest motion picture ever made.

Unfortunately although Welles continued to enjoy periodic success in films as both

director and actor, the remainder of his life consisted of losing battles for the right to

control his subsequent films, and ultimately to make films at all.

ROBERT ANDERSON

West

Comprehending the American West is a Herculean task. This essay will take the West to

include the tier of Great Plains states from Texas to the Dakotas and everything

westward, including

Alaska

and

Hawai’i

. This categorization easily makes the West the

largest of America’s regions, comprising nineteen states and well over half the nation’s

territory. This enormous and diverse area is in some views not a region at all, but a

conglomeration of very different regions: the desert

Southwest;

the Pacific Northwest;

the Great Plains; and the mountain interior. But the West offers unity as well as diversity.

What are the unifying characteristics of this vast region? Aridity is one widespread

feature of a generally difficult, inhospitable climate. Most of the West is also relatively

empty; the landscape is imposing, both in its grandeur and its harshness. The West is

home to America’s oldest, largest and best-known

national parks,

and is the center o

the nation’s

tourism

and recreation industries. The federal government owns and controls

a large portion of Western land.

It is the most multicultural part of the country with the largest concentrations o

Hispanic,

Asian and Native Americans. Virtually all of America’s Indian reservations

are located in the West. Surprisingly it is also the most urban region, with the highest

percentage of its people living in cities.

A large part of what makes the West cohere is its history. For most Americans the

West is defined primarily by its

frontier

heritage. The West is the land of explorers and

fur trading “mountain men,” gold rushes and Indian conflicts,

cowboys,

overland trails

and hardy pioneers. This “West of the imagination”

ecame the focal point for an

immense popular-culture industry incessantly portrayed in art and music, a vast literature

and above all in movies and on television.

The contemporary West, then, combines mythological popular-culture nostalgia and

modern reality. Nonetheless, change has come to the West in a particularly dramatic way

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