Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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concerts

Concerts constitute a crucial part of American postwar cultural life; much be can learned

from the choices of the viewer. In most larger American

cities,

there are distinct venues

for

classical music, jazz

and

rock ’n’ roll

music. Increasingly touring artists who don’t

fit neatly into these categories have also ventured into these spaces. Ranging from

individual performers or pianists playing just one night to a symphony doing a season,

concert halls are a center for cultural activity (and social organization by

class,

age,

race

and

gender)

. Unlike clubs, customers sit in assigned seating, with a traditional

roscenium stage in a hall designed with acoustics in mind. It is a more formal way to

hear music and hence, even in the casual twentieth century people tended to dress up and

make an appearance.

Many attempts have been made to reach out to non-traditional or younger audiences.

One of the ways in which city agencies have done this is by sponsoring free out-of-door

concerts in the summertime. In

New York,

for example, such luminaries as Luciano

Pavarotti and Diana

Ross

have performed concerts outdoors, as have many other lesser-

known singers and musicians. In smaller towns, churches and meeting halls are often

used as spaces for concerts—for local performers as well as performers on tours. On

college campuses,

concert halls are an important part of campus life, as artistic directors

try to bring in acts that will serve both the students and the local residents. Touring

agencies and agents have helped to make this aspect of the music industry a large part o

commerce that helps to sells albums.

ee also:

performing arts centers

EDWARD MILLER

Congress

The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government,

established by Article I of the Constitution. Congress comprises the 435-member House

of Representatives and the 100-member Senate. Each House member represents a portion

of a state, and all House districts include approximately the same number of people

(pursuant to a 1962

Supreme Court

decision). Each senator represents an entire state,

and each state has two senators. The entire House is up for re-election every two years;

senators serve six-year terms and one-third of the Senate seats are up for election in each

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 286

election cycle. As a result of these structural distinctions, the House and Senate have

significantly different rules and cultures and, frequently different politics.

For most of the postwar period, Congress has been controlled by the

Democratic

Party

. The Democrats controlled the House, without interruption, from 1955 through

1994, often by wide margins, and they controlled the Senate during those years as well,

except from 1981 through 1986. In the 1994 elections, in a stunning reversal,

Republicans

gained control of both bodies, and they held onto that majority albeit by

thinner and thinner margins, through 2000.

Ideological control of Congress followed a somewhat different pattern. Congress

gradually became more liberal through the 1950s, but a conservative coalition o

Southern Democrats (sometimes called

Dixiecrats

) and rural Republicans was often able

to exercise a stranglehold over Congress into the early 1960s. Liberals gained control by

the mid-1960s, swept in by Lyndon

Johnson’s

landslide victory in 1964 and replenished

by the post-

Watergate

1974 congressional elections. Conservatives gradually made a

comeback through the 1980s before consolidating their power in the 1994 elections. In

1995 the keystone of the conservative majority was once again the

South,

now mostly

represented by Republicans and exercising additional political muscle, thanks to the shift

of population to the

Sunbelt

But, no matter who has been at the helm, the public attitude towards Congress

throughout the postwar period has generally been one of scorn. From President Harry

Truman

running against the Republican “do-nothing” Congress in 1948 to member o

Congress Newt

Gingrich

excoriating the Democratic Congress in 1994 to President Bill

Clinton

attacking the Gingrich-led Congress in 1996, Congress has been a reliable

political whipping-boy an object of public derision and dismay.

While its popularity has varied from year to year, Congress’ approval ratings in polls

since 1966 have been below 50 percent (after an unusual high point of more than 60

ercent in 1965). Moreover, polling since 1960 has consistently found that the public has

less confidence in Congress than in the other branches of the federal government, and

often less confidence than in “big business” or the media. At a low point in 1991, fewer

than 20 percent of those polled expressed a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in

Congress.

Yet this contempt is not necessarily bred by familiarity. Polls have consistently found

that while Americans disapprove of Congress as a whole, they like their individual

representative. Asked how they would rate their individual Congress representative, more

than 50 percent of Americans—in many of the postwar years, considerably more—

expressed approval. That is one reason re-election rates for House and Senate incumbents

have generally been higher than 80 percent—94 percent for House incumbents between

1982 and 1992.

In addition, much of the public is unfamiliar with the basic workings of Congress. For

example, a 1996 Harvard study found that 39 percent of those questioned could not say

which party was in control of the House of Representatives—this at a time of repeated

and very widely reported partisan clashes in the House.

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The low opinion of Congress has endured, perhaps paradoxically even though the

institution has in many ways become more open, responsive and professional throughout

the second half of the twentieth century To start with a fundamental, the demographics o

congressional membership have become more varied. The number of

African

Americans

in Congress increased from two in 1947 to thirty-nine in 1999, the number o

women increased from eight to sixty-seven in the same period, and the religious make-up

roadened as well. House members, in particular, increasingly came from different walks

of life; the percentage of seats held by

lawyers

dropped from about 60 percent in 1953 to

about 40 percent in 1994, and people were more likely to be elected to Congress without

having had previous political experience. In addition, while agitation for “term limits” on

members of Congress increased through much of the 1990s, Congress had fewer long-

time members, mostly because of a surge of retirements.

Each House and Senate member was also increasingly likely during the postwar period

to vote his or her own district or state’s interest rather than to be swayed by

party

leadership. (While party unity increased in the 1990s, this was generally due to the

increased ideological consistency of party membership rather than to the increased power

of party leadership.) This independence reflected, among other things, an increased use o

olling, which gave members a sense that they knew better how their constituents stood

on issues and changes in congressional rules, especially those initiated in the 1970s,

which gave more junior members of Congress greater say over the drafting of legislation.

Throughout the postwar period, it also became easier for the public to follow

congressional proceedings. Reforms in the 1970s made it easier for the public to get a

complete view of committee proceedings. C-SPAN, a non-profit arm of the

cable-

television industry was given permission to offer “gavel-to-gavel” coverage of the House

in 1979 and the Senate in 1986. Furthermore, by the mid-1990s, many congressional

documents were available over the

Internet

Groups outside of Congress also began to provide more information. Beginning with

the liberal Americans for Democratic Action in 1948, interest groups issued annual

“report cards” evaluating key congressional votes. By the 1980s more than seventy

groups, across the political spectrum, were attempting to hold congressional feet to the

fire in that manner. Public interaction with Congress, through mail, phone calls, visits and

eventually e-mail, also increased throughout the postwar period, although an increasing

amount of the mail consisted of form letters drafted by liberal and conservative interest

groups.

All these changes led Congress to increase its institutional resources and to regulate its

ehavior differently The size of congressional staffs exploded in the early 1970s and then

stabilized. About 2,600 people worked for Congress in 1947; in 1991 the number was

close to 19,000 (in both

Washington, DC

and local offices). Beginning in the 1970s,

Congress began to do more to oversee the ethics of its members—although that hardly

prevented recurrent scandals—and to crack down on the most egregious junkets and other

perquisites.

Lobbying

was subjected to more restrictions, and, perhaps most significantly

in 1974 campaign spending was made subject to enforceable restrictions and disclosure

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 288

requirements for the first time.

None of this, however, stanched the growth of “interest-group” lobbying or the

increasing flow of campaign funds into party coffers. With the federal government

playing a growing role in American life and Americans’

enchant for forming

organizations (noted first by de Tocqueville in the early nineteenth century), more and

more groups—business and labor, religious and secular, liberal and conservative—moved

their headquarters to Washington, DC or hired burgeoning lobbying firms to ply the halls

of Congress.

By the late 1990s, members of Congress were more likely than ever to accuse their

foes of being in the pocket of some “special-interest” group—

usiness, labor,

environmentalists, trial lawyers, etc. The public’s suspicion that Congress was controlled

by “interests” that did not represent the “public interest,” along with the inherently

chaotic and combative nature of the congressional process, seemed likely to perpetuate

the low esteem with which Americans of all stripe regarded Congress.

Further reading

Bacon, D., Davidson, R. and Keller, M. (eds) (1995)

The Encyclopedia of the US

Congress,

4 vols, New York: Simon & Schuster.

Dionne, E.J. (1991)

Why Americans Hate Politics,

New York: Simon & Schuster.

Dodd, L. and Oppenheimer, B. (eds) (1997)

Congress Reconsidered,

6th edn,

Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.

Rieselbach, L. (1994)

Congressional Reform: The Changing Modern Congress,

Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.

DAVID GOLDSTON

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

Civil-rights

organization founded in 1942 by several white students at the

University o

Chicago,

along with black activists like James

Farmer

. CORE drew its inspiration from

methods Gandhi employed in India, and developed the tactic of

sit-ins,

before their

widespread adoption and success in 1960. Under Farmer’s leadership, it organized the

freedom rides

in 1961, which succeeded (after

SNCC

intervened to continue them to

their conclusion) in pushing the Interstate Commerce Commission to prohibit segregated

facilities at bus terminals.

CORE’s influence began to founder over the issue of the organization’s interracialism

(much of its membership had been white and many leadership positions were not held by

African Americans

). Exasperated by the sluggishness of reform in the

South

, many

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lacks in CORE began to promote black nationalism, a shift that became explicit with the

election of Roy Innis to national director in 1968. Innis moved the organization away

from civil rights altogether, and, after centralizing the organization under his control,

began to promote self-segregation and black capitalism. Attempts by old leaders to regain

control of the organization failed, and it has become a bastion of

black conservatism

ROBERT GREGG

Conroy, Pat

b. 1945

Born in

Atlanta, GA,

Conroy’s autobiographical novels explore, often in glaring and

confessional detail, his life in the

South

. Whether portraying an abusive, military father

(

The Great Santini,

1976), racist educational practices (

The Water Is Wide,

1972), or the

harsh discipline and racism of a military academy (

The Lords Of Discipline,

1980),

Conroy’s poetic prose and evocative images have earned him broad critical recognition.

Conroy has taken criticism for what is perceived as the “therapeutic” effusion of his

work, but his characterizations of

families

in turmoil are almost surgical in their precision

and depth. Several Conroy novels have been translated into powerful films.

JIM WATKINS

consumerism

While all societies consume, mass consumption has taken on intense and multiple

meanings within American society since the nineteenth century when advances in mass

roduction and a continental market demanded a new mass consumer. This new person

was fostered by newspaper

advertising

and

department stores

that channeled new

affluence. Later,

radio,

film,

television

and the

Internet

have all created commercial

media in which sales, sponsorship, product placement and information become

intertwined. Consumption, despite repeated anticonsumerist movements, is also deeply

linked to identity and status—

class

is read as consumption rather than production.

Contemporary consumption is framed by its economic history of the Great Depression

in the 1930s followed by postwar affluence. A Depression “mentality” and the experience

of limited rationing in the Second World War directly influenced parents of

baby

boomers,

as well as new generations themselves. Yet for many products were our most

important progress as new

automobiles,

appliances and materials created

suburbs

and

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 290

recreated urban lifestyles. The postwar period, in particular, identified

children

and

teenagers

as consumers, shaping the intensive niche marketing that in later decades has

driven

fashion,

media, music and other products. The

Reagan

era became a second

spring for consumerism, from the borrowed designer dresses of the

First Lady

to the

yuppies

Wall Street

. Expanding

credit cards

(and debts) replaced savings as baby

oomers and their offspring came into employment maturity at a time of apparently

constant growth.

The postwar boom did not eliminate divisions in consumption even as it enshrined

ideals of the marketplace. Among the struggles of the

civilrights

movement were

African American

demands for equal consumption—access to previously segregated

department stores or public accommodations. Women, as consumers for the home,

dependent on a husband’s salary also learned to establish economic independence

through consumption and credit histories. The poor were doubly exploited—unable to

buy as readily yet forced to consume cheaper or second-hand goods, or through plans like

rental purchase or other financing agreements that doubled prices for inferior products.

One might not buy a new automobile every year, for example, but one is forced either to

find something to deal with increasingly diffuse metropolitan life, or become more

marginal to an automotive culture.

Intellectual

movements have spoken against this intensive consumption in various ways:

the beatniks of the 1950s and

hippies

of the 1960s both represent anti-materialist

movements—although their stress on handicrafts or imported goods betrays an alternative

consumption as well. Religious groups have promoted spirituality rather than

materialism, yet wealthy churches and consumer-based

religions,

exchanging miracles

for donations, underscore a synthesis of God and mammon long criticized in American

life. Environmentalists have also pointed out that another result of runaway consumerism

is runaway waste, evident in overflowing landfills and polluted ecosystems nationwide,

even while “green”

roducts also sell. Political and economic analysts also warn of the

dangers of dependent consumerism—whether in the oil crisis of the 1970s or the

continuous trade imbalances of the 1990s. Yet, at the same time, American consumption

is seen as a vital component of world economic revitalization, where a sneaker plant in

Indonesia represents both exploitation and opportunity

Indeed, after the 1990’s extended growth and spending, consumerism is deeply

ingrained in American society as an emblem of success, a source of individual

satisfaction and a motor for American global power. At the same time, consumption is a

discourse of division in a polarized society—where children may kill for expensive

sneakers, while schools promote uniforms to “restrain” competition in the classroom.

Indeed, extensions of consumerism into areas of public good challenge American dreams

of equality and democracy Should one have the right to buy media domination or

political influence? Is the Internet a new agora or a new

mall

? Are education, healthcare

and housing public rights or phenomena of the marketplace? Is freedom to consume, in

fact, the pervasive yet hushed underpinning of the American dream, as well as the engine

of American nightmares at home and abroad?

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GARY McDONOGH

consumer price index

Monthly statistic, computed by the United States Department of Labor, which measures

the price changes of various goods and services, such as gasoline,

food,

or apartment

rent, paid for by a typical American

family

. Large increases in the index indicate

inflation, whereas small changes in the index, or even decreases, may suggest the

economy is in recession. The prices of hundreds of everyday items, randomly collected

across the country are used to calculate the CPI, which is commonly used as a basis for

calculating cost of living adjustments for workers and retirees.

A.JOSEPH BORRELL

Consumer Reports

Consumer research began in 1926 with F.J.Schlink after a series of articles in the

epublic

underscored concerns with reliability and value. Schlink promoted scientific

testing and published rankings for a wide range of products; his employees left after labor

disputes in 1936 to found the Consumer’s Union and the magazine

Consumer Reports,

published monthly for 4.5 million subscribers.

Consumer Reports

accepts no

advertising

and promises rigorous objective testing of

automobiles,

appliances and other products.

Their dominance has been challenged since 1971 by J.D.Powers and Associates, a private

firm that bases ranking on user surveys and also has closer ties with corporations who

may buy their data for advertising. Issues of consumer safety as well as perceptions o

unreliable manufacturing have made both sources important to educated consumers

eyond everyday evaluations based on personal knowledge or brand name loyalty. This

competition also suggests American cultural divisions between elite scientific

observation and popular choice, as well as the complexities of a

consumerism

that

promotes its own commercial self-evaluation.

Further reading

Noah, T. (1999) “People’s Choice Awards,”

New York Times Magazine

August 7:42–5.

GARY McDONOGH

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 292

consumer safety

Ralph

Nader’s

Unsafe at Any Speed

(1965) warned Americans that many “things” could

kill as surely as people. Freedom to consume entails risks which have become hotly

debated in the litigious ambience of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century

where not only faulty products—flammable children’s pajamas, unsafe cars or faulty

construction—

ut guns, tobacco and medicine have been subject to scrutiny in the courts

and the media. While federal and state consumer product safety commissions,

investigative journalism and lawsuits sometimes pin down clear dangers and culpable

manufacturers or marketers, these class action lawsuits—representing claims of millions

of smokers or thousands of women who received breast implants—have often faced more

difficult questions of who is responsible in knowledgeable consumption and use, as well

as what chains of causality must be established when billions of dollars in damages are at

stake. Consumer-safety issues are frequent themes in both news, which duly publicizes

weekly product recalls, and fictional media. Hence, Jonathan Harr’s 1995 bestseller

Civil Action,

which deals with the search for responsibility for cancer in a contaminated

Massachusetts city became a major 1999 film, followed by

The Insider,

which explores

secrets of tobacco and

television

. In the end, it is unclear if the US is less careful in

manufacturing or control, more litigious in its responses to product failure, or simply

more embroiled in constant consumption where expectations and satisfactions do not

coincide.

GARY McDONOGH

contemporary (postmodern) art

American art since the late 1970s has been characterized by both supporters and

detractors as

postmodern,

but it is sometimes unclear whether the term refers to the

contemporary social context of media-saturated global capitalism, or to new artistic

styles. The question is complicated by the diversity of practices that the term has been

used to identify Some leading artists have elaborated or departed from aspects o

minimalism, pop art

and

conceptual art

to develop art that is critical of both

specifically artistic and broader social institutions. This work, often in hybrid forms

known as installation art, and sometimes site-specific (made for a particular space),

characteristically employs

photography,

ready-made objects and materials, and texts.

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Key figures include Hans Haacke, Jenny Hoizer, Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman.

Other artists have taken the proliferating commodities of consumer culture (see

consumerism

) as their material; among them are Ashley Bickerton, Jeff Koons, Allan

McCollum. Critical supporters of these kinds of postmodern art see it as theoretically

sophisticated, while detractors see it as mere illustration of theory. Some of this work was

influenced by

feminism

. which provided one of the models for work in the 1990s

grounded in and meant both to express and complicate specific ethnic or sexual identities,

African American

artists, including David Hammons and Fred Wilson, Native

American artists, including Jimmie Durham, and gay artists, including Robert Gober. But

the 1980s also saw a return to painting, characterized alternately by a pastiche o

historical styles (David Salle), or a full-

lown and sometimes overblown expressionism

(Julian Schnabel).

FRAZER WARD

contraception

Birth control has long been a contentious issue in the US. Indeed, despite decades o

battles by advocates like Margaret

Sanger

to disseminate information, only in

Griswol

Connecticut

(1965) did the

Supreme Court

bar state laws censoring contraceptive

advice. In the early twenty-first century nonetheless, the issues surrounding

contraception—sexual education, condom distribution,

abortion, religion

—remain

volatile. Religious organizations, most notably the

Christian Right

and the

Roman

Catholic

Church, represent the dominant conservative voices in the debate over

contraception. Their fundamentalist opposition to premarital sex, abortion and

contraception, in any form, promotes abstinence (no sex at all) as the only acceptable

form of birth control. Anything else represents a moral transgression.

Though most people recognize that abstinence is, indeed, the best way to avoid

regnancy and STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), contraception has numerous

advocates, like Planned Parenthood. In fact, many Americans believe that premarital sex

has become an inevitable reality in our society Accordingly they have opted to work for

the good of young people with the understanding that many of them have sex (often with

more than one partner) prior to getting married. In this way more liberal Americans

accuse pro-abstinence contingents of being out of touch with the nation’s youth. To

minimize unplanned pregnancies and STDs they recommend far-reaching educational

rograms which inform young people about the dangers of unprotected sex. Some also

support the distribution of free condoms in

public schools

Condoms are among the most widely used contraceptives, in part, because they also

protect against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The birth-control pill is considered

the most effective safeguard against pregnancy; moreover, it operates internally and does

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 294

not interfere with the sexual act as the condom does. Its introduction in the 1960s, in fact,

became a foundation for an American sexual revolution. Yet, the pill has potential side-

effects and no effect on preventing the transmittal of STDs like

AIDS

. Alternatives like

intra-uterine devices (IUDs) became controversial, with claims about devastating effects

of the 1970s Dalkon shield, against which over 150,000 American women filed claims

for $2.5 billion in damages (although critics accused the company and US agencies o

dumping these IUDs into planning programs abroad). Diaphragms, on the whole, have

been less common in the US than in other countries worldwide.

Purchasing condoms in stores is not only expensive, but also an embarrassing

experience for many

teenagers

(and hence a staple of teenage movies). Distributing free

condoms promotes safe sex and ensures that the contraceptives reach the people who

need them most, ultimately reducing both births and abortions. Conservatives, however,

contend that this encourages sexual activity among people whom, they believe, should

not be having intercourse in the first place.

Most Americans, however, seem not to espouse beliefs as radical as these. While not

everyone endorses the condom distribution plan, most appreciate the virtues o

contraception. Condoms and pills are advertised on

television,

and doctors have

prescribed the pill and other solutions to countless women.

JAMES DAVID

conventions

Downtown convention centers became late-twentieth century strategies for

cities

promote

tourism

and

consumption

. Trade shows, business groups, religious associations

and fraternal organizations are prime clients, but the plum is a national political party

convention like those held in

Philadelphia, PA

(Republicans) and

Los Angeles, CA

(Democrats) in 2000. These events, held every four years before the elections, bring

together thousands of party representatives in summer assemblies to formally choose

presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Since the nine-teenth century these

delegates have generally been chosen by primaries or caucuses at the state level, although

elected officials and party bosses have also held power. The convention also establishes

the party platform and national leadership.

Twentieth-century conventions have become battlegrounds at times; even after the

Second World War the triumph of John F.

Kennedy

at the 1960 Democratic Convention

and Ronald

Reagan’s

1980 victory over Gerald

Ford

added drama to television

coverage. These meetings have also been arenas for debates on critical issues like

civil

rights,

Vietnam, abortion

and the representation of women and minorities. These

debates were especially divisive for Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s, before reforms in

1972 (that led to George McGovern’s nomination; see

Mississippi Freedom Democratic

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