Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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relies on the Bible and

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ,

as well

as two smaller volumes,

The Doctrine and Covenants

and

The Pearl of Great Price

Latter-day Saints believe the book is a record of God’s dealings with his children in the

Western Hemisphere from 600 BC to AD 421, culminating in the visitation and ministry

of Jesus Christ in the Americas after his crucifixion.

The doctrine of continuing revelation (on an individual basis for all members of the

church and through the president, sustained as prophet, seer and revelator, of the church

for church matters) is central. Distinctive tenets include: belief in a premortal and post-

mortal life; sacred ordinances for deceased ancestors; moral and health codes; individual

progression; the eternal nature of the

family;

family history and genealogy In 1978 the

riesthood was extended to all worthy male members of the church. Women are not

ordained to the priesthood, and the church has drawn criticism from some Mormons and

many non-Mormons concerning public stances against the Equal Rights Amendment,

anti-

abortion

legislation and full-time employment for mothers of young

children

However, Mormon women are active participants in congregations, auxiliary

organizations and temple worship.

Further reading

Ludlow, D.J. (1992)

Encyclopedia of Mormonism,

New York: MacMillan.

Mauss, A.L. (1994)

The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle With Assimilation,

Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

STACILEE FORD

morning television

Even before

cable

made 24-hour

television a

national reality network programming

adapted to and changed daily cycles.

Prime time

denoted highly competitive evening

hours, while daytime offered a melange of

soap operas, game shows

and occasionally

children’s

programming, targeting a female householder, and

late-night television

ecame the province of talk and movies. Within this clock, early morning weekday

television became the moment to capture viewers with useful information and ephemera

that provide backgrounds for breakfast and departures. Morning television, then, has

produced a curious combination of

news,

weather, financial information, sports and chat

that has become one of the established features of contemporary television, local and

national, and an area of growth (12.8 million viewers) even against cable competition in

the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

NBC’s

Today

show, running since 1952, is the most successful model. Perhaps

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preceded by local farm reports, children’s programming, or news, it takes over the screen

from 07:00 till 10:00. Although current watchers may not remember that the first host,

Dave Garroway, was paired with a chimp (1953–77), both the team formula and

established rhythm of repetitious information and coffee-cup chat survive. Successive

hosts/partners, including Barbara Walters, Hugh Downs, Jane Pauley, Bryant Gumbel,

Debra Norville, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, have updated the formula, with comic

relief supplied by weathermen like Willard Scott (1980–). The show opened its

glassenclosed studios to New York (a 1950s strategy revived in 1994) and has gone on

location around the world. Authors, sports people and politicians have used it as a forum,

and have been caught by questions not necessarily expected in “infortainment.” Other

network pairings have competed on ABC

(Good Morning, America)

and CBS

(CBS This

orning),

in 1999 they snare only half the market and 75 percent of

Today’s

advertisement revenues.

Later morning television provides a transition to daytime as local shows and

syndicated talk continue the coffee and conversation format. Daytime

talk shows

have

stirred a great deal of public debate with their focus on controversial, lurid topics of sex

and violence. In 1999 networks also began exploring this space. Public television

generally provides an early morning alternative in children’s programming (

Sesame

Street,

PBS, 1969–).

Weekend differences are clearly marked as well. Saturday morning, with school out, is

the terrain of kids (sometimes mimicking the infotainment format of the 1990s). Sunday,

meanwhile, has been a graveyard of public service, press interviews and reflective

television (Charles Kurault’s essays or the political forum of

Meet the Press,

NBC,

1947), while “real” Americans are at church or play.

Further reading

Stark, S. (1997)

Glued to Set.

New York: St. Martin’s.

GARY McDONOGH

Morrison, Toni

b. 1931

Winner of the

Pulitzer Prize

for fiction in 1988 for

Beloved

(1987) and the

Nobel

Prize

for Literature in 1993. Born Chloe Anthony Wofford in northern Ohio, the setting

for her first novel,

The

Bluest Eye

(1970), she changed her name to Toni while an

undergraduate at Howard University. After briefly teaching college, she began her first

novel while a Random House senior editor. Like others that followed—

Sula

(1973),

Son

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of Solomon

(1977),

Tar Baby

(1981),

Beloved, Jazz

(1992) and

Paradise

(1998)—it

charted the pains, emotions and intimacies of

race

and gender. The last three form a

loose, historically based trilogy, beginning with slavery and Reconstruction, continuing

with African American

migration

to 1920s

New York City,

NY, and culminating in the

conflicts of an allblack township in Oklahoma in the years after the Second World War.

In 1998

Beloved was

adapted for the screen by Oprah

Winfrey

. Since 1993 Morrison has

been a professor of Humanities at Princeton University.

ROBERT GREGG

mortgage

banks and banking; suburbs and edge cities

Moses, Robert

New York City and its boroughs

motels

While American

hotels

cater to various urban needs, their locations and facilities scarcely

fit

automobile-

driven families exploring continental

highways

. Early travelers found

lodgings in camp-sites, tourist homes and hastily constructed rooms. The name “motel,”

contracting motor and hotel, appeared by 1926, although tourist courts and the small-

town “cottages” also competed as titles. With the wealth and highways of postwar

America, many low-slung modernist L-shaped buildings with a carport by the office, a

ool and easy access mushroomed nationwide. The interstate highway system eventually

moved travelers towards major chains dominating intersections with signs visible for

miles before arrival (hence, the isolation of the Bate’s motel in Hitchcock’s

Psycho,

(1960); by 1962, after decades of building, the US had over 60,000 motels. In the 1950s,

public spaces and size expanded along with competition.

Motel owners established linkages through professional associations in the 1930s,

followed by recommendation services and referral chains to standardize services among

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independent motels. Chain ownership was pioneered by the Alamo Plaza chain (founded

1929, with characteristic “Spanish-style” courts). Holiday Inn, begun along Memphis

highways in 1952, became the leader in co-ownership

franchises,

with continually

upgraded standards. Howard Johnson’s orangeroofed lodges expanded from a franchise

ice-cream

family

restaurant, while other cheaper chains offer basic standardized facilities

beside the offramp. These predictable middle-class lodgings relegated older motels to

marginal positions for poorer travelers, immigrant housing and illegal activities—

prostitution or illicit sex (meanings intensified by their representations in

television

and

movies).

The economic crisis among the aging owners of “mom-and-pop” motels nonetheless

created a unique opportunity for immigrant entrepreneurship in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ethnic entrepreneurship was not especially associated with older hotels, although

Basque-run hotels of the

West

created a special niche and Taiwanese have developed

new complexes in suburban

Los Angeles, CA

. Yet, by 1999, more than 50 percent of all

American motels were owned by

South Asians,

generally members of a Gujarati Hindu

sub-caste, either immigrants from India or displaced Indians from Uganda (portrayed in

ississippi Masala,

1992). These do not serve an ethnic clientele as much as they

represent a fortuitous association now sustained by ethnic ownership and trade

associations.

As analysts argue, though, hotels and motels are not just about travel but about cultural

ideals of domesticity and family, social distinction and even style, as prepackaged rooms

shaped American tastes for the

home

. They have also been stages where dramas of good

and evil—cleanly lit standardized hotels versus sleazy, dangerous dives linked to

prostitution, crime or immigration—are played out in media and along the road. The

motor hotel, linking rooms and automobiles, has a more clearly American history

singularly transformed through contemporary

immigration

Further reading

Jakel, J., Sculle, K. and Rogers, J. (1996)

The Motel in America,

Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins University Press.

Varadarajan, T. (1999) “A Patel Motel Cartel?,”

New York Times Magazine

July 4, pp.

36–9.

GARY McDONOGH

motorcycles

Motorcycles have occupied an important place in American popular culture for more than

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fifty years. Whether used for sport, recreation,

police

or military purposes or simple

transportation, they have come to symbolize a number of America’s most cherished and

controversial values.

Freedom, violence,

risk-taking,

masculinity

and

mobility

are all

part of the motorcycle’s powerful reputation and mystique. Its prominence in the songs,

novels and films of the twentieth century testifies to its overwhelming contribution to

America’s cultural landscape.

The motorcycle was an integral part of the 1950s “bad-boy” or rebel persona. Those

who rode motorcycles were on the margins of polite,

middle-class

American society The

1954 film

The Wild One,

for example, offered Marlon

Brando

as the leader of a

motorcycle gang called the “The Black Rebels” who travel from town to town, drag

racing and drinking at local

bars

. When Johnny is unjustly accused of murder in a small

California

town, the conservative

community

seeks him for vigilante justice. The film

was banned in several US cinemas and was not permitted in the United Kingdom for

fourteen years after its release. Many feared that unruly people would riot in theaters.

In 1969’s

Easy Rider,

Dennis Hopper and Peter

Fonda

put a new rebel on the seat of a

motorcycle: the

hippie

. By placing his heroes on motorcycles as they traveled across

America, Hopper reinterpreted the

road-movie

genre while emphasizing the notion that

motorcycles were uniquely suited to the vagabond lifestyle.

Robert Pirsig’s book,

Zen and the Art of Motorcyde Maintenance

(1974), is also a part

of this tradition. The largely philosophical novel centers on the extended motorcycle tour

of a father and his son. Pirsig’s message in this American classic is that people should

care for themselves (psychologically more than physically) in the same manner that a

conscientious person maintains his or her motorcycle. Pirsig stresses importance o

human’s symbiotic relationship with teehnology, represented by the motorcycle.

In this vein, the motorcycle also has served as the adhesive for notorious groups. The

Hell’s Angels were a rough gang of motorcycle enthusiasts famous for their leather

ackets, their appetite for drugs and

alcohol

and a penchant for

violence

. The Angels

were an intimidating force during the 1960s (evident in their role in Tom

Wolfe’s

book

about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters,

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,

1968). The

mere sound of their approach (the collective roar of their engines) invoked fear in the

hearts of outsiders. Accordingly, the Rolling Stones hired them as security for the band’s

1969 debacle of a free concert at Altamont Speedway. During the show, some spectators

sustained injuries and a few died, although the Hell’s Angels’ role in the deaths at

Altamont has been a point of contention. Many commentators trace disillusionment with

1960s counterculture to this day

Harley-Davidson motorcycles, or “Hogs,” are the objects of unparalleled cult

enthusiasm. These American-made machines are almost universally considered the most

beautiful and well-

uilt motorcycles in the world. Proud owners ride them hundreds o

miles to conventions where they bask in the presence of those who share their love for

these machines. Still, the American monopoly on quality motorcycle manufacturing has

come under fire. While BMW has almost always been known to produce well-made

ikes, the Japanese have made the largest impact on motorcycle culture in the United

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States with faster engines and sleeker body designs. Though many consumers prefer the

more performance-oriented Japanese models, HarleyDavidson enthusiasts always seem

satisfied with the aesthetics and endurance possessed by their famous cycles.

Harley-Davidson memorabilia and

collectibles

and senior owners also evoke the

taming of the motorcycle, in which

mass media

as well as

consumerism

have had

critical roles. For example, the popular 1950s retrospective television

sitcom

Happy Days

(ABC, 1974–84) featured Arthur Fonzarelli—Fonzie—as the motorcycleriding auto

mechanic who defined “cool.” While Fonzie’s reputation for toughness and daring

certainly fitted the “bad-boy” image, he was a watered-down version of the motorcycle

riders of the 1950s. His relationship with the thoroughly middle-class Cunningham

family gave Fonzie a respectability which earlier characters had lacked.

Yet motorcycles also challenge the edges of sport and society One of the most

appealing aspects of the motorcycle in America has always been its suitability for death-

defying feats of courage. America’s most famous thrill-seeker, Evel Knievel, has

performed his famous leaps almost exclusively on motorcycles. Moreover, motor-cross

racing is one of the many maturing

X-sports

and is successful precisely because it is fast

and dangerous. This is what people originally loved and feared about motorcycles. Today

these machines are as popular as ever and, though with much less gender specificity they

continue to represent and reinterpret, sometimes in a more commodified mode, many o

the same values that they did in the 1950s.

JAMES DAVID

Motown

A company a sound, a polished set of star acts and a city—

Detroit, MI

. Founded by

songwriter and Ford assembly-line worker Barry Gordy, Jr. in 1959, when he decided to

romote his own songs and local talent on a variety of labels, including Tamla and

Motown. From the “Hitsville, USA” office in Detroit, Gordy built one of the largest

lack entertainment companies in the country; by 1965 it earned $12 million. Gordy

worked with talented songwriters like the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, who later left

embittered. With 170 acts—some from local

high schools

—including superstars like

Diana Ross and the

Supremes,

Marvin

Gaye,

(Little) Stevie

Wonder,

Michael

Jackson

and family Martha and the Vandellas and others who offered catchy music and lyrics,

smooth harmonies, powerful voices and elegantly choreographed performances, Gordy

changed American (and global) listening and dancing.

Gordy moved Motown to

California

in 1970 and sold it in 1988 to MCA and Boston

Ventures; it was sold to Polygram in 1993 for $301 million. The Motown Historical

Museum preserves the original office and studio, but Detroit is no longer the capital o

African American

—and American—music that it was when people were “Dancing in

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the Streets.”

Further reading

Early G. (1995)

One Nation Under a Groove,

Hopewell: Ecco.

Smith, S. (2000)

Dancing in the Streets,

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

GARY McDONOGH

Moynihan Report

Government Report in 1965 titled “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” Its

author, sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan, had served as an assistant secretary of labor

in both the

Kennedy

and

Johnson

administrations (was later elected senator from New

York between 1976 and 2000). Focusing on urban black communities, Moynihan made

conditions that were general to all poor people seem specific to

African Americans

. This

was clear in his suggestion that the black

family

was stuck within a “tangle of pathology”

derived from experiences in their history of slavery and

segregation

(drawing on the

work of slavery historian, Stanley Elkins, and sociologist E.Franklin

Frazier

). The critics

of Moynihan’s report accused him of racism, and of positing a “culture of poverty”

argument that amounted to “blaming the victims” for their own condition. Moynihan’s

focus on the need to remasculinize black men (if necessary with training in the armed

forces), and discourage emasculating women from working, became a focus o

considerable attention among black feminist scholars who noted the work’s fundamental

sexism.

ROBERT GREGG

Ms.

magazine

Founded in 1972, at a time when “the second wave” of

feminism

was hitting its stride in

America, this monthly magazine became the first nationally distributed commercial

feminist publication. At the height of its popularity in the late 1970s,

. had a

guaranteed circulation of 500,000. It was founded by feminist activist and writer Gloria

Steinem

and Patricia Carbine, editor-in-chief of

McCall’s

. Designed to fill a perceived

gap in coverage by mainstream women’s

magazines

of feminist issues, it featured

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groundbreaking cover stories on domestic violence and

sexual harassment,

and

eventually caused more traditional magazines to incorporate feminist material.

MARY-CHRISTINE SUNGAILA, ESQ.

MTV

Launched in 1981, at a time when the record industry was foundering, MTV (music

television

) injected new life into the popular music scene by hooking young people on its

high-energy diet of music videos (short films set to the music of popular songs). The

cable

network’s influence reached beyond music however. MTV’s rise sparked the

continued spread of cable television generally and the quick-cutting, symbol-laden and

visually driven style of

video

-making had an impact on directors in both television and

the movies. A number of music-video directors went on to successful careers in other

formats, while several prominent filmmakers took their turns as video directors.

Further reading

McGrath, T. (1996)

MTV: The Making of a Revolution,

Philadelphia: Running Press.

ROBERT ANDERSON

multiculturalism

Policy and philosophy promoting a vision of knowledge and experience that does not

rivilege any single group; usually directed against a Eurocentrism that defines history

and value by reference to a Northern European experience in America. Multiculturalism

has been especially important in the reform of universities and other educational

institutions since the 1980s to embrace African American, Asian American, Latino

American and other European ethnic authors, celebrations and perspectives; “culture”

here is often used here indiscriminately to encompass

race, class

and even gender.

Outside the academy it may be linked with political coalition-

uilding like Jesse

Jackson’s

Rainbow Coalition. Conservatives have attacked multiculturalism in the name

of enduring values,

assimilation

and the threat of fragmented knowledge; their critiques

have often been diluted by the impact of civil rights and new

immigration

on American

society and culture itself.

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GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

multinationals

The traditional multinational corporation was controlled from its world headquarters

(often in the US). Firm-wide policy dictated the responsibilities of its foreign

subsidiaries. The subsidiaries were tightly controlled, often run by imported executives

who had little flexibility in altering methods or products to conform to local cultures.

“Corporate imperialism” sought new markets as an opportunity to sell existing products,

not as an opportunity for development of new ideas.

The concept of “think globally act locally” has gained credence with the increasing

interrelationship technological innovation has created. Multinationals are more than just

firms with operations in multiple countries. Today foreign subsidiaries often run

independently. Instead of importing Harvard MBAs, the executive ranks include locally

orn and educated employees who have broad power to set policies and standards.

Multinationals thrive on the diversity of their employees and the markets in which they

operate.

The global giants are faced with a challenge: to what extent must firms maintain

control over their foreign operations? Initial forays into emerging markets produced

mixed results. Cereal firms spent millions in India only to have their customers switch to

generic, local alternatives as soon as they became available. Consumer product firms and

automakers have had difficulty identifying

middle-class

needs. Clearly, some flexibility

is needed to market products to a wide variety of cultures.

Gillette has been particularly successful without modifying its products for cultural

variations. On a daily basis, 1.2 billion people use at least one Gillette product.

McDonald’s

on the other hand has encountered differing tastes throughout the world,

forcing it to serve vegetarian burgers in India and alcohol in other markets. Chevrolet

would have had serious problems had it marketed its Nova

automobile

brand in Spanish-

speaking countries, and could not sell them among

Hispanic

Americans (

No va

translated

as “it doesn’t go”).

As the consumer markets in developed countries become saturated, multinationals are

increasingly looking to emerging markets as the growth engines of the twenty-first

century.

Coca Cola,

Nike, Citibank and numerous others have increased their presence in

such markets. The winners in this race will be those who are able to weather the turmoil

in these markets and capitalize on it. Coca-Cola (by purchasing local bottlers) and

General Electric

(by pursuing local contracts) have been aggressive in maintaining and

bolstering operations during troubled times. In unveiling its list of the “World’s Most

Admired Companies” in October, 1998,

Fortune Magazine

highlighted the ability o

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firms to allow flexibility and local control as one of the most important elements o

achieving global success.

The growth of multinationals creates fears of Americanization and the loss of cultural

identity to the point that entire nations feel threatened. Some of these fears are well

founded, although Robert Reich argues the increasing irrelevance of corporate

nationality. Multinational corporations owe their allegiance to their shareholders

regardless of nationality. The outdated notion of “What is good for GM (General Motors)

is good for the US” masks the reality of a global economy. Reich argues that the

strongest countries are those with the most skilled workers, not the largest capital base.

Weblike organizations that are replacing the centralized multinationals will allow power

to flow to those with the most valuable knowledge.

Further reading

Reich, R. (1992)

The Work of Nations,

New York: Vintage Books.

MARC BALCER

Mumford, Lewis

b. 1895; d. 1990

Born and educated in

New York

City, Lewis Mumford became a prominent American

intellectual

and authority on

urban planning

after the Second World War, writing

multiple volumes and articles in journals like the

New Yorker

on cities and landscape. His

most notable work,

The City in History

(1961), provided a bleak image of dehumanizing

and dysfunctional modern

cities

. Appearing at the height of the

migration

of many

Americans from cities to

suburbs,

the work rationalized increased suburbanization, even

while it recognized the continued decimation of the cities caused by the migration o

Americans to the suburbs.

ROBERT GREGG

Murphy, Eddie

b. 1961

African American

comic and actor who has honed his edgy style in stand-up and street-

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