Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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hearings gave Richard

Nixon

his first taste of national recognition, when Whittaker

Chambers accused Alger Hiss, a long-time Democrat and close aide to

Roosevelt

during

the New Deal and the War, of passing classified documents to the Soviets in the late

1930s.

SUSAN SCHULTEN

House of Representatives

Congress

Houston, Texas

The Port of Houston (1998 population estimate 1,630,864) dominates oil and gas

shipping on Texas’ Gulf of Mexico coast and has underpinned the modern growth of this

Sunbelt

metropolis. Houston began in 1836 as speculative real-estate venture; today the

city sprawls across

highways,

far-flung

suburbs, edge cities

and

malls

(metropolitan

population nearly 4 million).

Houston proves more cosmopolitan than many other Sunbelt cities, with an important

historic black population and many

Latinos

(old Tejano families, recent Mexican

immigrants and Central American refugees), as well as global

migrations

of Asians and

Africans. Citizens also include Sunbelt white-collar migrations, national and

international, associated with shipping, oil and other activities. Houston boasts major

medical centers and universities (Rice, University of Houston), as well as the Menil

Museum.

Houston’s enclosed stadium, the Astrodome, hosted professional baseball (the Astros);

it figured in Robert Altman’s

Brewster McCloud

(1970), but is now obsolete. The city

also has

football

(the Oilers),

basketball

(the Rockets),

hockey

and a major

rodeo

The

National Aviation and Space Administration (NASA)

stands closeby. Houston hosted

the 1992

Republican

presidential convention and is one of the homes of the presidential

Bush

family.

GARY McDONOGH

Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Burnett)

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 566

b. 1910; d. 1976

A country

blues

artist with a deep, dark, guttural voice, Howlin’ Wolf worked the

farms and juke joints of Arkansas and Mississippi from the 1920s through the 1940s.

Influenced by Jimmie Rodgers and Charley Patton, Wolf moved to West Memphis,

Arkansas, after the Second World War where he formed his own band and became a

popular DJ on KWEM. In 1952 he moved to

Chicago, IL

where he recorded for Chess

Records and became a key figure in the electric blues scene, inspiring 1960s rock bands

like the Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones.

DEWAR MACLEOD

Hudson, Rock (Schere, Roy, Jr.)

b. 1925; d. 1985

As the independent movie

Rock Hudson’s Home Movies

(1992) argues, Hudson’s

career represents a telling lie embedded within American culture. Tall, handsome Hudson

romanced Doris

Day

sitcoms

writ large, while other romantic roles made him a

popular male actor in film and

television

. At the same time, his secret identity was

known to many gays, but was shielded from his general fan audience until his death from

AIDS

. The split between his public and private personae adds eerie intertexts to his film

romances like

All that Heaven Allows

(1955) and

Man’s Favorite Sport

(1964).

ee also:

actors

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Human Genome Project

Attempt to locate and map more than 100,000 human genes and their 3,000,000

nucleotide bases by 2005. The global project began formally in 1990, supported in the US

by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy—the latter showing

earlier antecedents in studies of radiation and genetic impact. The project has increased

genetic knowledge and also has identified specific contributors to hereditary diseases like

cystic fibrosis and colon cancer. Five percent of the budget has been set aside to consider

ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) that will arise. Many are concerned with the

alteration of genes as well as the meaning of the identification of defective genes in a

given population that would make them susceptible to discrimination. Annual US costs

Entries A-Z 567

rose from $27.9 million (1988) to $303.2 million (1998) as the project accelerated

completion to June 2000.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

humor

Americans take their humor seriously. Although vaudeville, film and

radio

had embraced

comedy as a sure-fire way to attract an audience, the postSecond World War comedian

often takes on the role of the cultural commentator. The audience expects comics to

“

attern their comic material close to everyday reality, making obvious behavioral

atterns explicit and tacit operating knowledge and other insights about American society

objects of conscious reflection” (Koziski 1984:57). In humor, the audience seeks both an

explanation of and a rebellion against the incongruities of the social order.

In the politically repressive 1950s, stand-up comedian Mort Sahl and cartoonists Walt

Kelly and Herb Block obliquely commented on the terror generated by Senator

McCarthy’s

witch-hunts for communists. After a blustering politician commands Kelly’s

swamp animals to look for communists, the opossum “Pogo” famously declared, “We

have met the enemy and they is Us.” In the late 1950s and early 1960s, stand-up comic

Lenny Bruce crashed through society’s norms on discourse and taste, while Mike Nichols

and Elaine May, in a more sophisticated fashion, eviscerated conventional manners.

Mathematics professor Tom Lehrer joked in his satirical songs about the nation’s fear o

atomic annihilation, sentiments which presaged the film

Dr Strangelove

(1962) in their

attack on the absurd logic of nuclear warfare. Starting in 1952,

MAD

magazine

mocked

social conventions, as well as spoofing the decade’s

Cold War

mentality in the cartoon

feature

Spy versus Spy

. In 1958 Paul Krassner, who had worked for

MAD

and for Lenny

Bruce, began the magazine

The Realist,

which became the progenitor of media satire for

the next several decades.

The Realist

influenced

National Lampoon

and

Spy

magazines,

the comic strip

Doonesbury

and the

television

series

Laugh-In

(Boskin 1997:73).

Starting in 1960, comedian and political activist Dick

Gregory

became the first black

stand-up comedian to address

race

issues with predominantly white audiences. Unlike

black political activists, black humorists, like Gregory Nipsey Russell, Bill

Cosby,

Godfrey Cambridge and Flip Wilson, were welcomed into mainstream media venues,

including television. Traditionally humor on television has been tamer than humor on the

comedy club circuit. From the 1950s through the 1970s,

prime-time

television had to be

acceptable for the youngest, most impressionable audiences. Humor often pushes social

boundaries, and, in the late 1960s,

Laugh-In

and

The Smothers Brothers

provided the

prime-time audience with irreverent, sexy skits and jokes. In 1970, however, network

executives canceled

The Smothers Brothers

because the show’s jibes against tobacco

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 568

advertisers and the Vietnam War irritated conservatives and the

Nixon

administration

(Boskin 1997:103).

In the confusing 1970s, Steve Martin engaged in anarchic behaviors which mocked

people’s selfabsorbed seriousness. Like other successful comedians, Martin’s humor

translated to other media, including records, television and film. Joan Rivers, Bob

Newhart, Richard

Pryor,

Chevy Chase, Roseanne, Jerry

Seinfeld,

Ray Romano, Bill

Cosby

and a host of other comedians moved from successful stand-up careers into other

entertainment fields. Since 1975, NBC’s

Saturday Nïght Live,

which airs after prime-time

hours, has often used a dark-humored skit comedy to address social issues. The program

has also offered a showcase for young comedians, like Bill Murray, Eddie

Murphy,

Chris Rock and Julia LouisDreyfus. Ironically, comedy clubs, the traditional breeding

ground for new comics, have suffered in recent years because of the success of television

programs devoted to showing stand-up routines.

Although American standup comedy films and television programs have gingerly and

unevenly approached political humor in the past, in 1996 Comedy Central successfully

launched a satiric news show,

The Daily Show,

which humorously covered politics, the

media and

religion

. Unlike

The Smothers Brothers, The Daily Show

and late-night

talk-

show

hosts, Jay Leno and David Letterman have not faced censure or

censorship

for

their increasingly pointed remarks on the

president

and other authority figures. Indeed,

the boundaries of appropriate commentary on public figures have been stretched most

vigorously by radio talk-show hosts like Rush

Limbaugh,

who leavens his bombastic

olitical views with satires targeting liberals, women and democratic political figures.

“Shock jocks” like Don Imus and Howard Stern have used their radio shows to push the

limits of humorous free speech in their jokes about people and institutions. In turn,

candidates for political office have sought the power of the witty riposte in response to

political attacks. Candidate John

Kennedy

diffused the public’s concerns about his

wealth by reading aloud to audiences a fake telegram from his powerful father declaring

that the senior Kennedy “will not buy one more vote for Jack than is necessary to win the

election.” In 1968 candidate Richard

Nixon

tried to improve his public image by

appearing on

Laugh-In,

where he uncomfortably recited one of the show’s signature joke

lines, “Sock it to Me.”

Throughout the past five decades, Americans created jokes about the incongruities

inherent in a democratic system. Minorities point out their struggles to achieve full

American citizenship while members of the white majority somewhat nervously poke fun

at their seeming imperfections, particularly those of new immigrants. As women gain

more political and social power, comedians like Andrew Dice Clay build careers on

denigrating them. Although America promises

freedom,

progress and equality the social

system invariably fails to create this promised world. Disasters, like the Exxon Valdez

collision and the

NASA

space ship Challenger explosion, and bizarre criminal behavior,

such as the murders by Jeffrey Dahmer and the marital problems of Lorena and John

Wayne Bobbitt, quickly become fodder for jokes. Interestingly the seemingly bland,

family-oriented 1950s spawned a series of sick “dead-baby”

okes. Humor in various

Entries A-Z 569

ages, therefore, “frequently serves as a warning system of emerging social issues. Society

is vastly informed and enlivened by [humor’s] prodding presence, spontaneous refraction

of events and issues, criss-crossing within and between classes and ethnic groups and its

notable resilience” (Boskin 1997:204).

Further reading

Boskin, J. (1997)

Rebellious Laughter: People’s Humor in American Culture,

Syracuse:

Syracuse University Press.

Koziski, S. (1984) “The standup comedian as Anthropologist,”

Journal of Popular

Culture

Fall.

Veron, E. (ed.) (1976)

Humor in America: An Anthology,

New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich.

MELINDA SCHWENK

Humphrey, Hubert Horatio

b. 1911; d. 1978

As a US senator from Minnesota (1948–65 and 1970–8), Humphrey was a key

supporter of the

Civil Rights Act

of 1964. While serving as

vice-president

under

Lyndon B.

Johnson

(1965–9), he won a bitter fight for the 1968

Democratic

presidential

nomination that saw the party sharply divided over US involvement in the

Vietnam War

Against a backdrop of violent clashes between antiwar protesters and police in the streets,

Humphrey was steadfast in his support for the Johnson administration’s Vietnam policy

earning him a lasting reputation for loyalty to the establishment.

SARAH SMITH

Hungarian Americans

Several hundred thousand Hungarians migrated to the US during the years 1880–1914,

mostly landless young men seeking work. A substantial number, possibly as many as

one-half, later returned to Europe. Of the remainder, many especially those of Jewish

origin, settled in

New York

City’s Lower East Side; most of the others found their way

to the industrial centers of the Midwest where work was plentiful. Like other Eastern

European ethnic groups, the Hungarians encountered low wages, discrimination and

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 570

overty Today the majority of Americans of Hungarian origin are to be found in the

upper Midwest, especially Illinois and Ohio. Several thousand Hungarian refugees also

came to the US after the failed revolution of 1956.

MORGEN WITZEL

hunting

Hunting has been widely supported as both a pastime and a way of life in the United

States. A requirement in some of the

frontier

regions of the country and tied to the policy

of extinguishing the basis for

American Indians’

livelihoods, hunting remained a

common practice throughout the nineteenth century With the threat to a number o

species as a result of uncontrolled hunting, protections were put in place to limit the

carnage. Under President Theodore Roosevelt,

national parks

were established to

rotect large tracts of government land, particularly in the western sections of the

country, and the scientific management of the resources in these areas included the

control of hunting. Such approaches were reinforced by the Endangered Species Act o

1973, which provided mechanisms for the conservation of ecosystems on which

endangered species depend.

Hunting has remained entrenched in American culture and society even while the

opulation has become increasingly urban, and those seeking wild game to hunt

sometimes need to travel great distances. Part of this continued support for hunting lies in

the attachment of many to gun culture, promoted by the

NRA,

making hunting a

middle-

class

pastime as opposed to one of the landed gentry as in many other countries. An

upper-class fox hunting tradition was never visible enough to become a lightning rod for

a vocal opposition to hunting in general. The movie

The Deerhunter

(1978) highlighted

the pervasiveness of gun and hunting culture in rural areas of the US, contrasting the life

of a Pennsylvania resident who hunted deer for sport with his experiences in Vietnam to

accentuate the insanity of the latter.

Paradoxically, given the image of the hunter as the rugged individualist, hunting has

ecome central to the scientific management of the environment. Since the 1930s, the

Malthusian notion that habitats are able to support only a certain number of a species has

een applied to the management of different species. But, instead of assigning

rofessionals to crop the herds, federal and state authorities have assigned this task to

rivate sportsmen and women. In each state, therefore, hunting seasons have been

established (sometimes of varied duration for different species), federal and state

regulations dictating the methods of killing, the number that can be killed in one day and

therefore also the amount of game that may be in the hunter’s possession. While such

state control has helped to entrench hunting as part of game management, the system has

faced growing opposition recently In the 1990s, animal rights activists, who claimed that

Entries A-Z 571

animals suffer under the system, carried out protests of various kinds and lobbied

Congress

to bring about a complete ban on hunting.

Hunters most often use rifles and shotguns to kill their game. Frequently, hunters use

semi-automatic weapons, leaving carcasses riddled with lead. Reacting to this situation

and claiming that less sophisticated weapons make the hunt more challenging anyway,

many hunters are now returning to the use of bows and arrows or muzzleloading rifles.

Such developments towards clearer distinctions between weapons used for hunting and

those used for “self-protection” may become more evident as the gun culture itself faces

growing scrutiny in the wake of a slew of shootings at schools across the country.

ROBERT GREGG

Huston, John

b. 1906; d. 1987

Although he began as an actor and screenwriter, Huston’s legendary presence as a

director of films about loners and dark struggles overshadows these achievements (and a

series of cinematic failures as well). His first picture,

The Maltese Falcon

(1941)

captured the ambience of the American anti-hero, which he developed in subsequent

films with Humphrey

Bogart,

including

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

(1948, Oscar for

Best Director and Best Screenplay),

Key Largo

(1948) and

The African Queen

(1951).

His opposition to

HUAC

activities in

Hollywood

eventually led him to live in Ireland,

whose culture he explored in his last movie,

The Dead

(1988). Other landmarks include

the Asphalt Jungle

(1950),

Wise Blood

(1979), where he also turns in a haunting

performance and

Prizzi’s Honor

(1987). Huston also belonged to an American film

dynasty: his father Walter (1884–1950) won an Oscar for his work in

Treasure of the

Sierra Madre;

daughter Anjelica (1952–) won an Academy Award for

Prizzi’s Honor

and sons Tony and Danny have also been involved with film.

ee also:

actors

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 572

IBM

The International Business Machine corporation (also known as “Big Blue” in Richard

Delamarter’s 1986 expose), founded by Thomas J.Watson, long dominated the

computer

industry in the US. Watson had come up through National Cash Register, where he was

ailed with other executives in 1912 for antitrust violations. Joining and taking over the

CTR corporation, he expanded from calculating machines to massive computers and

eripheral attachments that made IBM the most profitable company in the world in the

ostwar period. At the same time, the company became known for its crushing o

competitors and regulation of workers (down to their white shirts). IBM faced its own

lengthy antitrust suit from 1969 to 1982. IBM stumbled as personal computers hit the

market, although it recovered with an industry standard in the 1980s. Nonetheless, it no

longer provided the secure employment or national symbol that it once was despite

continuing power. Its history and style are often opposed to the West Coast

Apple

and

Silicon Valley

entrepreneurs; parallels, however, may also be telling.

Further reading

Delamarter, R. (1986)

Big Blue,

New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.

GARY McDONOGH

ice cream

While not an American invention, this popular dessert has stimulated American ingenuity

as well as consumption. The US claims invention of ice-cream sodas (1879,

Detroit,

), sundaes (Evanston, Illinois, late nineteenth century), cones (1904,

St. Louis, MO

ackaged treats like Eskimo Pies and Popsicles (1920s) and soft ice cream (1939).

Offsetting summer overproduction in the dairy industry ice cream has also been the

victim of postwar corporate conglomeration. This has created room for boutique brands

like Haagen-Das and Ben & Jerry’s, whose inventive flavors evoke the

Grateful Dead

and other 1960s themes. Home ice-cream making, from hand-turned churns to electric

machines, also has become a

family

summer ritual.

GARY McDONOGH

Entries A-Z 573

identity politics (contests in which individual

and group identities become key factors in

debate and decisions)

abortion; Clinton, William Jefferson

illegal immigrants

immigration

The United States is traditionally defined as a nation of immigrants. Images of poor,

huddled masses welcomed by the Statue of Liberty just prior to disembarkation at Ellis

Island and visions of a “melting-pot” assimilating new arrivals dominate public

symbolism of this past. These characterizations, however, hide other histories of the

country’s immigrant past, including the discriminatory use of quotas to exclude certain

groups and the potent forces of nativism that made many feel unwelcome after arrival.

The benevolent image of immigration veils yet another history of the forced immigration

African Americans

from Africa into slavery.

Indeed, there have been many immigration experiences and narratives. Fluctuating

rhythms and patterns of movement have meant that experiences between and within

groups have differed greatly over time. Many factors have influenced American

acceptance of immigrants, including:

• Changing immigration laws. Early on, these varied from state to state before becoming

tightly controlled by federal legislation. This first encouraged immigration, then cut it

off in the 1920s. Doors reopened in the 1960s, widening in the 1980s, and spurred

ongoing debates and divided legal and illegal populations.

• Fluctuations in the American economy as it went through periods of growth and

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 574

recession. At times, this provided industrial work with “family wages,” at other times

high unemployment and only low-paid, low-skilled jobs.

• Regional differences and experiences for immigrants. Some arrived at ports in the

industrialized

Northeast,

others in the developing

West

. Some, like the Chinese, found

work as indentured laborers on the railroads, while others were able to establish

themselves on

farm

land in the

Midwest

• Prevailing assumptions about particular immigrant groups according to shifting racial

mythologies and hierarchies. The Irish and Italians were initially classified as non-

white by many native-born white Americans, and the Chinese and Japanese became “a

yellow peril,” facilitating exclusion and

segregation

. Sometimes, perceived threats and

responses have intensified in riots and civil actions. Catholics in the nineteenth century

were suspected of papist sympathies, while wealthy and poor

Jews

faced anti-

Semitism. German cultural traditions were banned during the First World War, and

West Coast Japanese were interned in the Second World War. In the 1990s,

Arab

Americans

have been blamed for acts of terrorism, Haitians linked to

AIDS

and

Hispanics

labeled a threat to social services.

• The growth during the twentieth century of urban black communities, in some ways

making it easier for European “ethnics” to “whiten” themselves, especially once they

took advantage of government housing benefits after the Second World War and

escaped their

ethnic enclaves

ther features complicate any discussion of immigrants themselves:

• The widely divergent conditions that many immigrants left. Some chose to leave their

places of origin to improve their conditions at home. Others were forced to do so

following rural displacement, famine, war or pogroms.

• The gender composition of immigrant groups. Early Italian and Chinese sojourners

were mostly men, while Russian

Jews

fled pogroms in family groups.

• The intra-class, regional and religious differences dividing particular groups.

Differences surfaced between first-wave migrants who established communities and

second-wave immigrants who came as professionals to minister and to profit from

them. Other antagonisms have divided Protestants and Catholics among the Irish, or

Hong-Kong Chinese and mainlanders.

e might add to these the experiences of those who were absorbed as part of the US’

mperial expansion, peoples residing in

American Indian

reservations,

Hawai’i, Mexico

he Philippines,

Cuba

and

Puerto Rico

. Many would become potential citizens, albei

ith ambivalent loyalties. Others allied themselves with the United States in wars (ho

nd cold) following the Second World War, from Greece to China and Korea to Vietnam

nd became

refugees,

seeking aid from a sometimes less than grateful American people.

All these differences are discussed in individual articles on immigrant groups, setting

nd citizens. Here, we focus on unifying themes of policy, analysis and contemporar

uestions that have shaped the meaning of immigration in America, especially sinc

Entries A-Z 575