God Bless America Research Articles

The Effect of Patriotic Messages on Restaurant Tipping1

This study compared the effectiveness of 2 types of patriotic messages with a warmth/ ingratiation message and a control condition on restaurant tipping. Two female food servers waited on 100 parties eating dinner. When diners were finished with their meals, servers left them 1 of 4 messages on their checks: “Have a Nice Day,”“God Bless America,”“United We Stand,” or no message. Results indicated that parties who received the “United We Stand” message left significantly higher tips than did those receiving no message or the “Have a Nice Day” message. No other significant differences were found. These results and their implications are discussed.

A Concise History of American Antisemitism (review)

Reviewed by: A Concise History of American Antisemitism Shalom Goldman (bio) A Concise History of American Antisemitism. By Robert Michael. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. xxi + 231 pp. There is considerable breadth to Robert Michael's A Concise History of American Antisemitism, but the study lacks parallel depth. Michael begins in Christian Europe, devoting his first chapter to antisemitism's [End Page 381] European Christian roots. Subsequent chapters take us from the colonial period to the late 1990s. There are a scant three pages on the antisemitic developments of the years 2000 to 2005. Unfortunately this book has the quality of a list, not a sustained narrative. In the preface, Michael notes that "today, Jews seem to have achieved full equality in the U.S." (xv). But he then proceeds to undercut that assertion by minimizing Jewish achievement and acceptance. One example will suffice: after listing fifty American songs "written by Jews," from John Payne's "Home Sweet Home" to Carol King's "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman," Michael speculates that antisemitism was the reason that Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" did not replace "The Star Spangled Banner" as the national anthem! The first chapter on European antisemitism before the founding of America is similarly unnuanced. Though Michael quotes some of the theoreticians of antisemitism, including Gavin Langmuir, he makes no allusion to their theories; thus the book is essentially an annotated list of antisemitic writings and incidents. Throughout, Michael's focus is on the Christian religious roots of antisemitism; little attention is paid to its social and economic roots. Subsequent chapters treat the colonies and the Early Republic, from the Early Republic to the Civil War, from the Civil War through World War I, the interwar period, World War II, and America and the Jews since 1945. One might contrast Michael's A Concise History with Leonard Dinnerstein's Antisemitism in America (1994), which accurately describes itself as "the first comprehensive scholarly survey of anti-Semitism in the United States." Dinnerstein, too, finds that "Christian viewpoints underlie all American antisemitism, and "it cannot be emphasized too strongly that all aspects of American antisemitism are built on this foundation of Christian hostility toward Jews."1 At the same time that he reminds us of the persistence of antisemitic feeling, Dinnerstein enumerates the opportunities, both social and individual, that the U.S. has offered to Jews. At the conclusion of Dinnerstein's book, he notes that, "Thus, while antisemitism has always been a problem for Jews in a Christian society it has always been weaker in the United States than in European nations."2 Michael makes a similar point, but buries it in a discussion of U.S. inaction during the Holocaust. Dinnerstein points out that it is after World War II that American antisemitism declined. Michael, in contrast, uses World War II to focus on "American acquiescence in the murder of the Jews" (170) . [End Page 382] Throughout the book there are some astounding assertions, among them that in the 1920s and 1930s "the level of antisemitic feeling was perhaps even greater in America during this period than in Germany and Eastern Europe" (110). While Michael's survey ends on a pessimistic note, Dinnerstein's 1994 book reminds us that "American Jews have never been more prosperous, more secure, and more 'at home in America' than they are today."3 In my opinion Michael's book would give the reader unfamiliar with the topic a distorted picture of American Jewish history, and particularly of the remarkable success Jews have achieved in the U.S. Though Michael alludes to this success in the first sentence of his preface, he makes little of it throughout the book. Shalom Goldman Emory University Shalom Goldman Shalom Goldman is Associate Professor of Hebrew and Middle Eastern Studies at Emory University. His most recent book is God's Sacred Tongue: Hebrew and the American Imagination (2004). Footnotes 1. Leonard Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America (New York, 1994), vii, ix, xiii. 2. Ibid., 250. 3. Ibid., 228. Copyright © 2004 American Jewish Historical Society

The story behind the song: 150 songs that chronicle the 20th century

Songwriters often use lyrics to describe the current events and social attitudes of a particular period or people. An examination of America's popular songs-and the stories behind their creation-can help us better understand our history and culture. This chronologically organized volume provides the stories of 150 songs in 20th-century American history. Each chapter begins with an historical overview of how songs from the period reflected the political, social, and economic culture of the decade. A discussion of 15 influential songs from each decade provides the songs' histories, what inspired the writers to create them, and why they have resonated over time. Included are patriotic songs, such as The Yankee Doodle Boy and God Bless America, protest songs of the civil rights and women's rights movements, such as We Shall Overcome and I Am Woman, songs that defined musical genres, such as Heartbreak Hotel and Stayin' Alive, and contemporary, often controversial music like Eminem's Stan. Each song's entry includes the song title, songwriter(s), publication information, and current availability. A selected bibliography includes Web sites and books helpful for researching songs, songwriters, and events of the 20th century. Indexes are arranged alphabetically, by song title, by songwriter name, and by subject, making this an excellent research tool for students and general readers alike.

Reviews of Books:God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War Kathleen E. R. Smith

Reviews of Books:God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War Kathleen E. R. Smith

Business and Ethics After September 11

On September 17, 2001, Richard Grasso, Chairman and Chief Exec utive of the New York Stock Ex change (NYSE), presided over the resumption of equity trading only four working days after the Septem ber 11 terrorist attach had halted trading indefinitely and created a national sense of physical and eco nomic vulnerability. Sentiment on the trading floor and in nearby offices, where many floors, des fa, and corners were still layered with dust as if trading had ceased thou sands of years before, supported defiance of terrorism with a mani festation of economic resolve. Suggesting that Grasso 's de termination as the leader of the free market was morally valiant, one trader expressed the common feeling that, If the marketplace were to fold or blunder, we would be giving the terrorists who did this their third target. To a reporter who noted the presence of grief counselors on the trading floor, Grasso said of himself My coun seling is this: that Monday morning 9:30 bell. l The start of trading was a return to instinct, 2 as an other trader put it, and once a ma rine sang GodBless America and the bell was rung by uniformed public servants observed by gov ernment leaders presiding with Mr. Grasso, the whole scene intimat ed that getting on with business

Patriotism and Progressivism

Many Americans believe that the left is “anti-patriotic” (and even anti-American) whereas the political right truly expresses the American spirit and reveres its symbols. Particularly since the late 1960s-when the movement against U.S. intervention in Vietnam gained momentum-the terms “progressive” and “patriotism” have rarely been used in the same sentence, at least in the mainstream media. It has become conventional wisdom that conservatives wave the American flag while leftists burn it. Patriotic Americans display the flag on their homes; progressives turn it upside down to show contempt.Since the World Trade Center bombing on September 11, 2001, the U.S. has seen a dramatic increase in the number of Americans proudly displaying the Stars and Stripes on their cars, homes, businesses, T-shirts, caps, lapel pins and even tattoos, along with sales of CDs with patriotic songs. Retail stores have redesigned everything from coffee mugs to bikinis in red-white-and-blue. SinceSeptember 11, bills to make the Pledge of Allegiance mandatory in publicschools have been introduced in seven states; half the states already require it. On October 12, 2001, a month after the tragic event, a right-wing group based in Orange County—Celebration U.S.A., Inc.—enlisted President Bush and Secretary of Education Rod Paige to participate in a synchronized nationwide recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools across the country, a ritual that was repeated a year later. In October 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 404 to 0 for a resolution encouraging the display of signs in public schools proclaiming “God Bless America.”This outpouring of flag waving signifies a variety of sentiments—from identification with the victims of the September 11 attacks to support for themilitary’s invasion of Afghanistan and, later, Iraq. But in U.S. popular culture, displays of the American flag are—along with the very idea of “patriotism”—-typically viewed as expressions of “conservative” politics. The patriotic fervor since September 11 has revitalized that belief and, as in other times, has given conservative politicos and pundits a handy means to undermine dissent and progressive initiatives.

Symbolic Counter-Speech

In this article, Professor Wasserman introduces, defines, and explores a new form of expression, labeled symbolic counter-speech. Symbolic counter-speech is an outgrowth of two free expression concepts: the right and opportunity to communicate through symbols and the Brandeisian imperative of counter-speech as the acceptable answer to objectionable speech. Symbolic counter-speech responds to a symbol on its own terms, countering the message presented by a particular symbol while using that symbol as the vehicle or medium for the contrary message. Symbolic counter-speech includes a range of expressive actions, from silent non-participation with a symbol or symbolic ceremony to confrontation of the symbol with a different, contrary symbol to attacks on the original symbol by destroying it or altering it to create a new message. Professor Wasserman considers symbolic counter-speech in the post-September 11 environment, when the United States has fallen back into to what Vincent Blasi labeled a pathological period, a period in which commitment to free speech wanes and in which government is especially likely to engage in systemic suppression. Although there have not been widespread governmental restrictions on expression, the primary feature of previous pathologies, there has been a dramatic increase in government and private patriotic symbolism and expression and of intolerance for objections to that patriotism. This has been particularly true with regard to the American flag and its complementary symbols, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem and God Bless America. The focus of this paper is the increase in patriotic symbolism, along with incidents of counter-speech to that symbolism, at professional and collegiate sporting events, the primary forum in American society in which crowds of adults regularly engage in patriotic expression. Finally, the concept of symbolic counter-speech and these examples of flag-related symbolic counter-speech illustrate the inconsistency between principles and traditions of freedom of speech and the movement for flag preservation, which logically would eliminate all symbolic counter-speech directed against the flag and its complements.

Under God and Anti-Communist: How the Pledge of Allegiance Got Religion in Cold War America

In the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, the American flag became ubiquitous—in stores, on cars, at work, in neighborhoods, in churches, and on t-shirts and other assorted articles of clothing. Over a year later, the Stars and Sfripes continue to be in vogue, to say the least. Countless billboards and bumper stickers, often with the flag as a backdrop, declare the United States to be One Na tion, Under God. Meanwhile, the stirring refrain of the patriotic invo cation God Bless America echoes in the collective national consciousness, whether it be sung by members of Congress on the steps of the Capitol, played by marching bands during football halftime shows, or proclaimed by ministers in churches across the nation. religion, it seems, is back, and with it comes a number of familiar, but troubling, questions. Having noted this, however, it should be observed that American civil religion has never really gone away. As a cultural phenomenon, civil religion has been around since at least the revolutionary era, soci ologist Robert Bellah observed in his seminal 1967 essay, Civil Relig ion in America. What we have, Bellah writes, from the earliest years of the republic is a collection of beliefs, symbols, and rituals with respect to sacred things and institutionalized in a collectivity. This religious understanding of the new nation, Bellah continues, while not antithetical to, and indeed sharing much in common with, Christianity, was neither sectarian or in any specific sense Christian.1 It was, how ever, distinctively American. Since Bellah first raised the issue, count

Forum: AAMS, AMPA, ASTNA, NEMSPA, NFPA

Forum: AAMS, AMPA, ASTNA, NEMSPA, NFPA

"Make My Getaway": The Blues Lives of Black Minstrels in W. C. Handy's Father of the Blues

St. Louis observed Langston Hughes in summer of 1941, sung more than any other song on air waves, is known in Shanghai and Buenos Aires, Paris and Berlin--in fact, is heard so often in Europe a great many Europeans think it must be American National Anthem..... in a Tok[y]o restaurant one night heard a Louis Armstrong record of St. Louis Blues played over and over for a crowd of Japanese diners there (144-45). If W. C. Handy's universally celebrated 1914 composition--the most influential American song ever written, according to Jasen and Jones (235)--was powerless to prevent Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, then Handy's autobiography, published to general acclaim six months before bombing, soon put to use in Allied war effort, a morale booster on Western Front. may please you to know, Handy wrote composer William Grant Still in 1944, that Council on Books in War Time has our permission to send 100,000 books of my autobiography Father of Blues to boys overseas without cost, and received a letter from an Army Chaplain stating this book has furnished many texts for his sermon (Southern, In Retrospect 231). At time of Father of Blues' publication in 1941, according to Handy's white literary associate Abbe Niles, Handy the most famous and most affectionately regarded American Negro (Father v)--the benign obverse, as it were, of Richard Wright, whose infamous and scarifying Native Son, published year before, decidedly not sort of propaganda Council on Books in War Time wanted to place in hands of an uneasily segregated U.S. military. [1] If Wright's Bigger Thomas avatar of African-American rage and despair, Handy's popular acclaim as what Newsweek called the Beethoven of Beale Street (Beethoven 46) grounded in story of a Southern black boy who makes good, creatively and financially, in an fully prepared to honor his musical gifts, if not always his rights as a citizen. Nor this implicit comparison lost on Handy's editorial collaborator, Arna Bontemps, who assumed Father of Blues would be vetted by its editors with an eye on mainstream sales. Just read in a P[ublishers] W[eekly], Bontemps wrote Langston Hughes several months after delivering finished manuscript, summarizing 1940 in book marts, one of sensations of year sudden boom and abrupt decline of Native Son as a best seller. It concluded boom due to novelty of such book being chosen by Book-of-the-Month and fade out followed discovery on part of readers (who thought they were getting a murder thriller) book contained a argument.... The Handy book should go to press soon--vastly diluted since last saw it, no doubt. take no credit or blame for its final shape. (qtd. in Nichols 54) [2] Native Son, in other words, a filial indictment; Father of Blues, dictated by Handy on eve of world war and ending with words God Bless America (a nod to Irving Berlin's 1939 anthem) a paternal benediction, a Washingtonian refusal of bitterness in service of uplift and national unity, anti-Native Son. Or it? While political argument residing within pages of Handy's autobiography has long remained obscure, it is worth remembering Handy initially entitled his life-story Fight It Out. Since title 'Fight It Out' did not express a musical career, he notes in Author's Acknowledgments, I have changed it to 'Father of Blues' (xiii). The original title resonates nowhere more than in opening chapter, in which Handy sketches lives of his two grandfathers, both of whom had struggled in different ways against confines of slavery. His paternal grandfather William Wise Handy had run away from his master in Princess Anne, Maryland, then was overtaken and sold into Alabama where, still urged by desire for freedom, he started an insurrection for escape, and shot but not killed. …

Irving Berlin: American troubadour

Although he could play piano in only one key--F-sharp--and never learned to read music, or to transcribe it, Irving Berlin published some eight hundred songs, dozens of them part of the enduring body of Broadway lore. Berlin was born in Russia in 1888, four years before his family emigrated to America and settled in New York City. His teenage years were spent working as a busker and singing waiter in the flamboyantly disreputable Bowery bars. Berlin published his first song in 1911. A prolific combination of genius and schmaltz, he would go on to compose some of the most popular songs--White Christmas, Easter Parade, God Bless America--and stage and screen musicals--There's No Business Like Show Business, Top Hat, Annie Get Your Gun--the stifling darkness of oppression, the greed of the ruling classes. For the world's elite, the near-universal adoption of capitalism today reveals history as a narrative of unbroken progress. Avoiding conventional chronological accounts, The Twentieth Century is organized around the major themes of the last hundred years. To help us understand recent past and probable future, Clive Ponting offers a world systems theory: A few core states have dominated much of the rest of the world, which provides raw materials and cheap labor, and remains tied to the core as virtual colonial territory. Between these extremes are Latin America, the Middle East, and eastern Asia, whose people have only a limited shot at self-determination as economic, social, and political differences between the core and periphery continue to grow. The book's central theme revolves around the struggle between progress and barbarism; the hope for future is that our conscience will catch up with reason. On the eve of the millennium this vivid history of the century is a must-read.

Irving Berlin: songs from the melting pot: the formative years, 1907-1914

Irving Berlin remains a central figure in American music, a lyricist/composer whose songs are loved all over the world. His first piece, 'Marie from Sunny Italy', was written in 1907, and his 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' attracted more public and media attention than any other song of its decade. In later years Berlin wrote such classics as 'God Bless America', 'Blue Skies', 'Always', 'Cheek to Cheek', and the holiday favourites 'White Christmas' and 'Easter Parade'. Jerome Kern, his fellow songwriter, commented that 'Irving Berlin is American music.' In Irving Berlin: The Formative Years, Charles Hamm traces the early years of this most famous and distinctive American songwriter. Beginning with Berlin's immigrant roots - he came to New York in 1893 from Russia - Hamm shows how the young Berlin quickly revealed the talent for music and lyrics that was to mark his entire career. Berlin first wrote for the vaudeville stage, turning out songs that drew on the various ethnic cultures of the city. These pieces, with their Jewish, Italian, German, Irish, and Black protagonists singing in appropriate dialects, reflected the urban mix of New York's melting pot. Berlin drew on various musical styles, especially ragtime, for such songs as 'Alexander's Ragtime Band', and Hamm devotes an entire chapter to the song and its success. The book also details Berlin's early efforts to write for the Broadway musical stage, culminating in 1914 with his first musical comedy, Watch Your Step, featuring the popular dance team, Vernon and Irene Castle. A great hit on Broadway and in London, the show was a key piece in the Americanization of the musical comedy. Blessed with prodigious ambition and energy, Berlin wrote at least 4 or 5 new songs a week, many of which were discarded. He nevertheless published 190 songs between 1907 and 1914, an astonishing number considering that when Berlin arrived in America, he knew not a single word of English. As one writer reported, 'there is scarcely a waking moment when Berlin is not engaged either in teaching his songs to a vaudeville player, or composing new ones.' Early in his career, Irving Berlin brilliantly exploited the musical trends and influences of the day. Hamm shows how Berlin emerged from the vital and complex social and cultural scene of New York to begin his rise as America's foremost songwriter.

Unchartered lands in an age of “accountability”

Hallelujah! God Bless America! No one has these prices—Only Daniela High Fashion Dresses. High class merchandise at low low prices. 649 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Business card of a Manhattan dress shop.

The song is ended: songwriters and American music, 1900-1950

Embraceable You. Someone to Watch Over Me. Alexander's Ragtime Band. My Funny Valentine. White Christmas. Irving Berlin once wrote a song entitled Song is Ended, But the Melody Lingers On, and surely the title is a perfect epitaph for an incomparable era of American songwriting that endowed us with so many of our most beloved ballads and rousing showstoppers. The Song is Ended is the story of the Golden Age of American popular music, and a celebration of the enduring melodies and colorful life stories of five of this century's most engaging songwriters: Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers, with a fond bow in the direction of Victor Herbert and George M. Cohan. Author William G. Hyland provides an expert analysis of trends in popular songwriting during the first half of this century, escorting readers on a fascinating tour of the sights and sounds of fifty-odd years of American music, from the scratchy victrolas and Old World melodies of New York's teeming Lower East Side, to the hustle and bustle of Tin Pan Alley, to the hot rhythms and smoky clubs of the Jazz Age, to the sound stages of Hollywood and the glittering Broadway triumphs of Showboat, Anything Goes, Porgy and Bess, Pal Joey, and Oklahoma!. Nostalgic lovers of good music will delight in the stories behind some of their favorite songs: Irving Berlin, for example, originally wrote his tender and romantic classic I'll Be Loving You, Always, for a Marx Brothers revue (he wisely cut it), and he first composed God Bless America as an enlisted soldier in 1918, only to put it aside for almost twenty years when the pianist helping him rehearse for an army benefit complained Geez, another patriotic song? From Cole Porter's light-hearted and irrepressible You're the Top to Rodgers and Hart's wistful Blue Moon or the unforgettable Summertime from George Gershwin's masterful Porgy and Bess, The Song is Ended captures the charm, freshness and vitality of a truly great era in American musical history. The melodies from this golden era truly linger on, just as Berlin predicted, and reverberate on every page of this superb volume.

God Bless America and Poland Too.

God Bless America and Poland Too.