Ok, so some things in the golden era were not too cool...

[Harp]

Ironic, really, because Darrow's other "great trial" of that time (Illinois v. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb) wasn't a " trial" at all: it was a contested sentencing hearing where the State wanted the death penalty and really didn't stand a very good chance of getting it.

Darrow possessed talentum auri as lawyer, and a bit of the Bard's theatrical to stage manage a trial that might have led to the gallows.

 

[ChiTownScion]

As for "Inherit The Wind," what too many people today forget is that it was a play -- a fictionalized account "inspired" by real events. It was not a documentary. Matthew Harrison Brady was not a real person.

The introduction to the play itself says as much. I've always viewed it as a statement against its contemporary McCarthy era hysteria rather than the events of Dayton Tennessee 1924-- in much the same way that Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" was a comment of those events rather than the actual Salem witch trials. In that light I'd say that both works present a theme that is relevant to our current time.

 

[Benny Holiday]

A lot of Australians think, as we have been bombarded by seven decades' worth of American pop culture, that the Americans and us are very similiar culturally. It's only when we meet people from the US, person to person, that the differences show. This thread is a case in point: it's a fascinating look into the social history of the USA and I'm learning a lot here, friends. Keep going!

 

[Big J]

Interesting as American social theory is, I have to say, I'm a little disappointed to find that this thread wasn't stuffed brim-full of bizarre and inconvenient contraptions and such from the Golden Era. With pics!

(I'm just joking BTW).

 

[Stanley Doble]

Benny you have a point. As a Canadian I find Americans to be the nicest people you would want to meet, then every once in a while they go completely nuts.

Australians on the other hand, are reliably strange all the time but hardly ever show it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thing about America is that it isn't one country at all. People here in the Northeast have very little in common, culturally, with West Coasters -- and even less with Southerners. But somehow we manage to co-exist without going to war against each other, most of the time. And within regions, class-based cultural divisions remain extremely strong: a Northeastern WASP has very little in common, culturally, with a working-class clamdigger, and the working-class clamdigger has next to nothing in common, with the middle-class marketing consultant who moved here from Connecticut. I imagine this is just as true in other regions of the country. We are, when you get down to it, the result of a melting pot in which the ingredients, even after over two hundred years, have yet to melt together.

Canada, on the other hand, can be divded into two classes and two classes only: poutine eaters and non-poutine eaters. (Only kidding. Sort of.)

 

[Stanley Doble]

You mean the two solitudes.

Anywhere in the world outside the US, a Yankee is anyone from the United States.

In the South it is anyone from north of the Mason Dixon line.

In the North it is someone from New England.

I don't know if you can break it down any farther than that but I'm sure Lizzie can clear this up.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In New England a Yankee is someone from west of Hartford. All the rest of us are Red Sox.

 

[HudsonHawk]

In the South it is anyone from north of the Mason Dixon line.

The Mason-Dixon line is firmly in the North. Lost of people below it are Yankees.

 

[Stanley Doble]

So where would you draw the line?

 

[HudsonHawk]

So where would you draw the line?

Interstate 10

Seriously though...all of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, parts of Florida, Arkansas, Virginia and Texas. I do not consider West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Oklahoma or New Mexico to be "The South". I'm sure that'll fire up some folks though.

 

[sheeplady]

Interstate 10

Seriously though...all of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, parts of Florida, Arkansas, Virginia and Texas. I do not consider West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Oklahoma or New Mexico to be "The South". I'm sure that'll fire up some folks though.

A friend from Georgia stated (more than once) that people from Virginia were not true southerners because they "couldn't keep all their counties in the Confederacy."

Not saying I agree, but that's an example of how the line varies.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

As a "carpetbagger" myself (moved to Virginia from the Pittsburgh area as a young man more than 40 years ago), I can confirm that today, pretty much all of northern and eastern Virginia is not "the South", but if you get to the south western parts of the state, the accents are distinctly southern. Maryland, in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, is definitely not the south. Western Maryland has much in common with neighboring West Virginia, a hard-scrabble people with little connection to "Dixie".

 

[Zombie_61]

...As a Canadian I find Americans to be the nicest people you would want to meet, then every once in a while they go completely nuts...

As an American, specifically a native of southern California, I'd say you have this reversed--most of the time we're completely nuts, but every once in a while we're the nicest people you'd want to meet.

 

[buelligan]

The thing about America is that it isn't one country at all. People here in the Northeast have very little in common, culturally, with West Coasters -- and even less with Southerners. But somehow we manage to co-exist without going to war against each other, most of the time. And within regions, class-based cultural divisions remain extremely strong: a Northeastern WASP has very little in common, culturally, with a working-class clamdigger, and the working-class clamdigger has next to nothing in common, with the middle-class marketing consultant who moved here from Connecticut. I imagine this is just as true in other regions of the country. We are, when you get down to it, the result of a melting pot in which the ingredients, even after over two hundred years, have yet to melt together.

This is why I've always had a problem with the term "melting pot" and I've always wondered why anyone would want such a thing. I prefer to think of America as Thanksgiving feast. You have your main course then you have, mashed potato's, sweet potato's, green been's, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, and an assortment of pies. In much the same way America has a vast assortment of ingredients and you are free to try them out as you wish. Maybe all you like is turkey and mashed potato's well that is just fine but I like turkey and sweet potato's and that's fine too. Maybe you're like me and cranberry sauce, I like it but just once a year at Thanksgiving dinner. Just like I prefer to live in the country but a gallery walk downtown or a trip to German village is nice once and a while to experience things in a different way, while someone else may be absolutely horrified by the thought of living in the country. If America was a true melting pot then other than geography you could place someone in any random spot in the U.S.A. and everything would be exactly the same as it is anywhere else. Yuck how awfully boring.

 

[HudsonHawk]

This is why I've always had a problem with the term "melting pot" and I've always wondered why anyone would want such a thing. I prefer to think of America as Thanksgiving feast. You have your main course then you have, mashed potato's, sweet potato's, green been's, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, and an assortment of pies. In much the same way America has a vast assortment of ingredients and you are free to try them out as you wish. Maybe all you like is turkey and mashed potato's well that is just fine but I like turkey and sweet potato's and that's fine too. Maybe you're like me and cranberry sauce, I like it but just once a year at Thanksgiving dinner. Just like I prefer to live in the country but a gallery walk downtown or a trip to German village is nice once and a while to experience things in a different way, while someone else may be absolutely horrified by the thought of living in the country. If America was a true melting pot then other than geography you could place someone in any random spot in the U.S.A. and everything would be exactly the same as it is anywhere else. Yuck how awfully boring.

While I understand what you're getting at...America is more accurately an eclectic "buffet", rather than a "melting pot"...there has also been a remarkable amount of blending of different cultural influences and styles, everything from holiday traditions to food to music to simply the makeup of people, probably moreso than any other place in the world.

 

[buelligan]

While I understand what you're getting at...America is more accurately an eclectic "buffet", rather than a "melting pot"...there has also been a remarkable amount of blending of different cultural influences and styles, everything from holiday traditions to food to music to simply the makeup of people, probably moreso than any other place in the world.

You must not have understood what I was getting at because what you just said is what I was saying. ;-)

 

[HudsonHawk]

You must not have understood what I was getting at because what you just said is what I was saying. ;-)

No, my reading comprehension is just fine. I was simply commenting that there *are* aspects where America is "a true melting pot". Not everywhere, but some.

 

[dh66]

Like suburban strip malls. Homogeneity at it's finest, anywhere you go in the good ol' U.S.

 

[p51]

Just like someone from the Netherlands would offended if someone automatically said they were from "Holland" or Bavarians and Quebecers (or however you call someone from Quebec) consider themsevles different from the overall nation they're in, Americans ID with a specific area. I live in WA state and it's totally different in the Tacoma area than it is on the other side of the state in Spokane. It's hard to believe it's the same state, both geographically and socially.
Florida, where I was born and raised, is considered to be the only state that gets more 'Southern' the further North you travel in it!

A friend from Georgia stated (more than once) that people from Virginia were not true southerners because they "couldn't keep all their counties in the Confederacy."

My parents are from East Tennessee and they were a little embarrassed to admit that their part of the state generated as many regiments for the Union as they did for the Confederacy. I bet that caused some confusion among the US Army to see designations for numbered TN regiments in their armies...