Society of the United States

The cultural affiliations an individual in the United States may have commonly depend on social class, political orientation, and a multitude of demographic characteristics such as religious background, occupation, and ethnic group membership.

Race in the United States is based on physical characteristics and skin color and has played an essential part in shaping American society even before the nation's conception.

[7][needs update] Approximately 62% of White Americans today are either wholly or partly of English, Welsh, Irish, or Scottish ancestry.

While the northern states had outlawed slavery in their territory in the late 18th and early 19th century their industrial economies relied on the raw materials produced by slave labor.

Music styles such as jazz, blues, rap, and rock and roll, as well as numerous folk-songs such as Jimmy Crack Corn originated within the realms of African American culture.

[15] The USA Patriot Act, signed into effect by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001, has also raised concerns for violating civil liberties.

Section 412 of the act provides the government with "sweeping new powers to detain immigrants and other foreign nationals indefinitely with little or no due process at the discretion of the Attorney General.

[4][16][17] Social class, generally described as a combination of educational attainment, income and occupational prestige, is one of the greatest cultural influences in America.

Working-class individuals take great pride in doing what they consider to be "real work," and keep very close-knit kin networks that serve as a safeguard against frequent economic instability.

In contrast to upper-middle-class professionals who are mostly hired to conceptualize, supervise and share their thoughts, many Americans enjoy only little autonomy or creative latitude in the workplace.

[5][22] More recently those in the center of the income strata, who may still identify as middle class, have faced increasing economic insecurity,[23] supporting the idea of a working-class majority.

[citation needed] Today, Americans derive a great deal of their identity through their work and professional affiliation, especially among individuals higher on the economic ladder.

Recently professional identification has led to many clerical and low-level employees giving their occupations new, more respectable titles, such as "Sanitation service engineer" instead of "Janitor.

[5] The cuisine of the United States is extremely diverse, owing to the vastness of the continent, the relatively large population, and the number of native and immigrant influences.

[citation needed] Blue jeans were popularized as work clothes in the 1850s by merchant Levi Strauss and they are now widely worn on every continent by people of all ages and social classes.

Examples include: the lightbulb, the airplane, the transistor, nuclear power, the personal computer, video games, and online shopping, as well as the development of the Internet.

[citation needed] Automobiles play a great role in American culture, whether it is in the mundane lives of private individuals or in the areas of arts and entertainment.

Road transport is the most dangerous situation people deal with on a daily basis; but these casualty figures attract less media attention than other, less frequent events.

This move has been attributed to many factors such as the automobile, the availability of large tracts of land, the convenience of more and longer paved roads, the increasing violence in urban centers (see white flight), and cheaper housing.

White flight is reversing, with many Yuppies and upper-middle-class, empty nest Baby Boomers returning to urban living, usually in condominia, such as in New York City's Lower East Side, and Chicago's South Loop.

These cohabitation arrangements have not been the subject of many laws regulating them, though some states now have domestic partner statutes and judge-made palimony doctrines that confer some legal support for unmarried couples.

The current data suggests that by the time a person turns eighteen years old, slightly more than half of females and nearly two-thirds of males will have had sexual relations.

[citation needed] As with other Western countries, the United States has now a substantial proportion of children born outside of marriage: in 2010, 40.7% of all births were to unmarried women.

The "sprinkling" or "scattering" of the ashes may be part of an informal ceremony, often taking place at a scenic natural feature (a cliff, lake, or mountain) that was favored by the deceased.

[citation needed] Today, family arrangements in the United States reflect the diverse and dynamic nature of contemporary American society.

[citation needed] Strong cultural differences have a long history in the US with the southern slave society in the antebellum period serving as a prime example.

[citation needed] In his 1989 book, Albion's Seed (ISBN 0195069056), David Hackett Fischer suggests that the United States is made up today of four distinct regional cultures.

[citation needed] According to Fischer, the foundation of American culture was formed from four mass migrations from four different regions of the British Isles by four distinct socio-religious groups.

Fischer says that the modern U.S. is composed only of regional cultures, with characteristics determined by the place of departure and time of arrival of these four distinct founding populations.

[citation needed] In her novel The Bluest Eye (1981), Toni Morrison depicts the effects of the legacy of 19th century racism for poor black people in the United States.