A rich and rewarding subject of popular imagination, the United States is compellingly portrayed in this first anthology designed specifically for American studies courses. Offering an indispensable introduction to the long and varied history of generalizing about America, leading scholar Richard Horwitz has compiled the definitive anthology for American studies and American culture courses. Brimming with imaginative selections, the reader contains essays, plays, songs, comedy, legal documents, speeches, and poems by a rich array of authors-both domestic and international-whose writings echo recurring American themes. Horwitz's insightful introduction and headnotes seamlessly guide the reader to an understanding of both America and American studies.

Introduction

Richard P. Horwitz

American Studies

xvii

Concerning Selections

xxxi

Part I America as a New World

1

(60)

How America Was Discovered (c. 1735--1815)

Handsome Lake

3

(4)

The Tempest (1611)

7

(5)

William Shakespeare

A Model of Christian Charity (1630)

12

(11)

John Winthrop

Engel v. Vitale (1962)

U.S. Supreme Court

19

(4)

Letter III from an American Farmer (1782)

23

(10)

J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur

To the United States (1827)

33

(2)

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Paddy's Lament (ca. 1865)

35

(3)

Irish-American Folksong

The Spirit of Capitalism (1904)

38

(12)

Max Weber

On Being an American (1922)

50

(11)

H. L. Mencken

Part II America as an Independent Nation

61

(64)

Declaration of Independence (1776)

Continental Congress

63

(7)

Declaration of Sentiments (1848)

Woman's Rights Convention

70

(7)

Independence Day Speech (1854)

77

(6)

John Wannuaucon Quinney

The Significance of the Fronter in American History (1893)

83

(16)

Frederick Jackson Turner

Vietnam's Declaration of Independence (1945)

99

(4)

Ho Chi Minh

Independence Day (1993)

103

(2)

Gretchen Peters

What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? (1852)

105

(20)

Frederick Douglass

Part III America as a Place to Belong

125

(60)

Americanism and the Foreign-Born (1915)

127

(4)

Woodrow Wilson

Objections Answered (1913)

131

(12)

Alice Stone Blackwell

Ain't I a Woman? (1851)

143

(3)

Sojourner Truth

Trans-National America (1916)

146

(17)

Randolph Bourne

Americanism (1919)

163

(8)

American Legion

Century Readings (1919)

171

(3)

Fred Lewis Pattee

The One-Hundred Percent American (1937)

174

(4)

Ralph Linton

National Brotherhood Week (1965)

178

(3)

Tom Lehrer

America (1953)

181

(2)

Claude McKay

This Land Is Your Land (1940)

183

(2)

Woody Guthrie

Part IV America as a Land of the Free

185

(64)

Gettysburg Address (1863)

187

(4)

Abraham Lincoln

The American System (1928)

191

(8)

Herbert Hoover

The Four Freedoms (1941)

199

(7)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)

206

(12)

U.S. Supreme Court

Puerto Ricans (1961)

218

(4)

Langston Hughes

Wrestling with the Hard One (1994)

222

(6)

Ana Lydia Vega

POPism (1975)

228

(7)

Andy Warhol

An Okie from Muskogee (1969)

235

(2)

Merle Haggard

Roy Burris

Wasteland of the Free (1996)

237

(3)

Iris DeMent

Of Our Spiritual Strivings (1903)

240

(9)

W. E. B. DuBois

Part V America as an Empire

249

(50)

The Utility of the Union (1787)

250

(6)

Publius Alexander Hamilton

The Monroe Doctrine (1823)

256

(3)

James Monroe

The European Colonizations of America (1855)

259

(7)

Arthur De Gobineau

The White Man's Burden (1899)

266

(3)

Rudyard Kipling

Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle (1949)

269

(5)

Mao Tse-Tung

U.S. and Mexican Pastimes (1946)

274

(3)

Mexican Embassy

Ugly American Sightings (2000)

277

(16)

Internet Bulletin Board

Letter to Americans (1986)

293

(6)

E. P. Thompson

Part VI America as a Culture

299

(68)

The American Scholar (1837)

301

(18)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Transcendental Critic (1927)

319

(11)

Vernon L. Parrington

Factors in American Literary History (1925)

330

(10)

Norman Foerster

Middletown Faces Both Ways (1937)

340

(13)

Robert

Helen Merrell Lynd

Cultural Locations: Positioning American Studies in the Great Debate (1992)

353

(14)

Alice Kessler-Harris

Suggestions for Further Reading On the Roots of American Studies

367

(4)

Credits for Selections, Citations, and Visuals

371

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