American Culture During The 20th Century

20th Century Innovations’ Impact On Our Country’s Culture Two innovations during the 20th century that affected the cultural life of the country are the movie and advertising industries, both of which continue to be influential to today’s society; they defined what it meant to be an American based on the mass media’s opinion. The movie industry greatly influenced society during the 20th century, and continues to do so today. When Americans watched motion pictures back in the early part of the 20th century, they saw a very line between an actor’s character and an actor’s true self. Audiences were captivated by the lives of the rich and famous, as many Americans are today, and the celebrity’s lifestyle was revered and changed the way
At first, Americans wanted to stay out of World War II, taking a more isolationist approach. However, after Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7th, 1941, Americans were more ready to fight. Americans experienced World War II mainly through the inconveniences that it imposed on their daily lives, unless they had loved ones serving in the military (Armitage, Buhle, Czitrom, and Faragher 563-564). In the end, pop culture had a large affect on bringing communities together in support for the war (Armitage, Buhle, Czitrom, and Faragher 567). In contrast, a majority of Americans would end up criticizing and protesting the Vietnam War, many of them college age students. However, other Americans protested the war, even holding antiwar rallies in Central Park in Manhattan
Privately before the U.S. officially entered the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to stand with other threatened democracies, countries that would eventually become our allies, but knew that Congress and the American people wanted to remain as isolated from those events as possible. While in 1935 Congress passed the first of five Neutrality Acts to prevent future entanglements in foreign wars, eventually the bills being passed reflected a more helpful approach to allied nations before we entered the war (Armitage, Buhle, Czitrom, and Faragher 559). When the U.S. finally entered the war, the government created departments specifically to drum up support within the American people, showing a support for the war themselves. In contrast, members of government joined the Vietnam War effort before we were officially in the war, but after a few years of fighting became skeptical of its purpose, and responded to the American peoples’ opposition to the war (Armitage, Buhle, Czitrom, and Faragher