Shaker's Influence On American Culture

As you may know, utopia is an imagined community that has nearly perfect assets for its citizens. There are people who try to physically create utopian societies and end up failing. These communities fail for a few reasons: the idea of "utopia" is slightly different for each individual, poor economies, and disputes dividing the societies. Three of the most popular utopian societies are what I will be talking about and how they failed. Brook Farm was an experimental and agricultural community in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Thomas Walker Introduction Thomas Walker was raised in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Thomas’ first profession was as a physician, he attended the College of William and Mary and studied under his uncle Dr. George Gilmer though he never received a medical degree. Thomas Walker later fought in the French and Indian war. Once he returned home he went to work for the Loyal Land Company exploring areas of eastern Virginia. He later went on another exploration of areas of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee.

The women’s suffrage movement began in Seneca Falls, New York during a convention on the rights of women. Seneca Falls was a progressive town but even here, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s call for suffrage was controversial. Voting and politics were seen as completely male domains and it was shocking to think of women involved in either. The main argument of suffragists was that they were being denied one of the most basic rights of Democracy. They were expected to live under laws which they could not vote for and pay taxes to a government which didn’t represent them.

America has been influenced by many people, inventions, and cultural phenomenons since it’s confederation in 1776. Phineas T. Barnum has influenced much of mass-entertainment since coming to America in 1834 at age sixteen (Harris 13), he has vastly changed what it means to promote and entertain in American Culture. His knowledge of what people want and how to make people think they want what he had, was amazing. He constantly fooled people and had a way of making the customers come back. James Cook argues that Barnum’s fascination with the entertainment business began in July 1835 while reading a newspaper article about Joice Heth, a one-hundred sixty-one year old maid of General Augustine Washington and nanny of later President George Washington.

When people think of the 1970’s, hippies, culture movements, Richard Nixon, and the Vietnam War always seems to come to mind. People today only focus on the major events that are always in the news, they will get bored otherwise. Americans gradually became invested in situations occurring around the world instead of their own country, especially during 1974. Inflation drastically increased across major countries as a result of the increase of the cost of fuel, manufacturing, and food. The aftermath left the world in a chaotic mess.

The earth is a valuable place that should be kept safe by those who live in it. Joseph Bruchac in ‎‎“The Sky Tree” and Barry Lopez in “Coyote Finishes His Work” are both Native American ‎literatures that demonstrate the importance of earth. In the “Sky Tree” a sick man asked his wife ‎Aataentic to cut down a tree because he believed that the fruit that grew from the tree would ‎heal him. When the tree was cut it fell through a hole; eventually, the tree grows in a new earth. ‎In “Coyote finishes his Work” Coyote the main character teaches the Indians how to survive.

Edward Malone: Edward Malone was born on February 1st, 1825 in County Kings, Ireland. When he was young, he lived on his parent’s farm and worked almost every day. Malone developed an interest in both sheep dealing and carpentry. Malone moved to the United States in 1950, but it is not known why.

Land Grant Universities were an immense influence on American society. Individually, students are allowed to contribute, while land grants provide the collaboration and the means to achieve our society’s goals. Justin Smith Morrill dedicated his life to starting and improving the Land Grant Universities. Morrill’s contributions led to the success of the land grant institutions.

The religious revival of the 1800s was a perfect storm that allowed birth and growth of many new religions. One of the religions to emerge was Shakers. There was three main causes that allowed Shakers to be to establish and grow like they did, disestablishment of church and state, mass westward migration, and the desire for communal living and equality. With the disestablishment of church and state is now now legal to form a new religions and all religions had to compete on the same terms, no longer suppressing new religions from forming.

You are in the paleolithic era, wearing nothing but animal skin to protect you from the elements. You go back to your tribe and find that a woman comes back with the majority of the food for the tribe. You and the rest of the tribesmen eat than go and pray to a goddess, thanking her for giving birth to you and the world you live in. Women and Goddesses were worshipped for their life giving abilities and beauty. In many creation stories from many indigenous peoples, a goddess was the one that either created the world ro people, or both.

Sameness: A Research Response American Culture is centered around uniformity. Individual minds have been infiltrated and programed to expect sameness; many of the strongest and brightest minds have been programed this way. Rather than embracing the qualities that make each individual unique, society pushes individuals to abandon their own quirky traits in favor of conforming with the “norm” decided on by society. In his quote, “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” George Carlin used experiences from his own life, observations from the world around him, as well as counterculture to shape his comedic routines.

During the seventeen-century, there were different types religious based colonies. One was the Pilgrims and the others were the Puritans. Their believes were very different. They traveled to America during 1620 for a better life. They were many things that the Pilgrims and Puritans religious did to influence their settlement in North America.