American Folk Art Museum, art museum in Manhattan, New York, dedicated to the collection, exhibition, and study of American folk art and outsider art. (Read Sister Wendy’s Britannica essay on art appreciation.) Since its first incarnation in 1961—when it was known as the Museum of Early American

John Mellencamp: …“Jack and Diane,” the album American Fool (1982) made Mellencamp a star. Although criticized by some at this stage of his career as a humourless self-important Bruce Springsteen manqué—patronizing his working-class subjects rather than celebrating them—Mellencamp suddenly matured as a songwriter. His lyrics grew more empathic, and his music acquired…

American Football League (AFL), American major professional gridiron football league that was founded in 1959 and began play in 1960 as a rival of the National Football League (NFL). The American Football League (AFL) competed for the attention of fans and challenged the prominence of the NFL in

Charles A. Beard: In such books as American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932–1940 (1946) and President Roosevelt and the Coming of War, 1941 (1948), he charged Roosevelt with virtually maneuvering the United States into war with Japan. Beard was criticized as an isolationist because of these views, and his reputation declined…

American Fork, city, Utah county, north-central Utah, U.S., near Utah Lake, at the foot of the Wasatch Range. Settled by Mormons in 1850, it was incorporated in 1853 as Lake City but was renamed for the American Fork River in 1860 to avoid confusion with Salt Lake City. Once primarily a trading

colony collapse disorder: Suspected causes: Nosema species, Paenibacillus larvae (American foulbrood), and sacbrood virus. Many of those pathogens are present in increased abundance in hives affected by CCD, though no pathogens have been found definitively to cause the disorder.

Mathilde Krim: …similar organization to form the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). Most of AmFAR’s funds went to research. The organization was also instrumental in the development of community-based clinical research trials and was active in education and lobbying efforts. AmFAR’s efforts resulted in health care services for AIDS patients and…

Helen Keller: …primarily on behalf of the American Foundation for the Blind, for which she later established a $2 million endowment fund, and her lecture tours took her several times around the world. She cofounded the American Civil Liberties Union with American civil rights activist Roger Nash Baldwin and others in 1920.…

Helen Keller International (HKI), one of the oldest international nonprofit organizations working to prevent blindness and fight malnutrition. Headquarters are in New York City. In 1915 the American merchant George Kessler and his wife, Cora Parsons Kessler, organized in Paris the British, French,

Paul Blanshard: …furor with the publication of American Freedom and Catholic Power (1949), the first in a series of controversial books that severely attacked the Roman Catholic Church. For nearly two decades Blanshard plagued the church with such best sellers as Communism, Democracy, and Catholic Power (1951), The Irish and Catholic Power…

Wim Wenders: Der amerikanische Freund (1977; The American Friend), based on Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley’s Game, explores the concept of dislocation, or separation. For this film, Wenders cast his longtime idol, film director Nicholas Ray, and the two later collaborated on the documentary Lightning over Water (1980), about the last days of…

Anne Tracy Morgan: …in 1917 she organized the American Friends for Devastated France, which by the end of World War I had collected and distributed an estimated $5 million in food, medicine, and other war relief; had relocated more than 50,000 French villagers left homeless by war; had built orphanages, kindergartens, and clinics;…

American Friends Service Committee, organization to promote peace and reconciliation through programs of social service and public information, founded by American and Canadian Friends (Quakers) in 1917. In World War I, the AFSC helped conscientious objectors to find work in relief projects and

American frontier, in United States history, the advancing border that marked those lands that had been settled by Europeans. It is characterized by the westward movement of European settlers from their original settlements on the Atlantic coast (17th century) to the Far West (19th century). The

American Fur Company, enterprise incorporated in New York state (April 6, 1808) by John Jacob Astor, which dominated the fur trade of the central and western United States during the first third of the 19th century. The company absorbed or crushed its rivals during its search for furs in the Great

Ridley Scott: … (2003), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), American Gangster (2007), and Body of Lies (2008). He later helmed the action adventure Robin Hood (2010), which starred Crowe and Cate Blanchett; Prometheus (2012), a sci-fi thriller that revisited the eerie world of Alien; and The Counselor (2013),

Boston Terrier, breed of dog developed in the latter half of the 19th century in Boston, Massachusetts. Bred from the English Bulldog and a white English terrier, the Boston Terrier is one of the few breeds to have originated in the United States. It has a terrier-like build with dark eyes, a short

map: Government and other mapping agencies: Large societies, such as the American Geographical Society, the National Geographic Society, and the Royal Geographical Society, play important roles in addition to being centres of reference as noted above. The National Geographic Society produces popular small-scale maps of the various regions of the world. The American Geographical Society has…

germander: American germander (T. canadense) of North America has slender spikes of purple to cream flowers on stems 90 cm (3 feet) tall. Native to Europe but naturalized in North America is wood sage, or woodland germander (T. scorodonia), which bears yellow flowers. Bush germander (T.…

Giorgio Armani: From the runway to the silver screen to the red carpet: …result of the popular film American Gigolo (1980), in which actor Richard Gere was featured as the dashing owner of a closetful of tailored Armani clothing. The public developed an increasingly insatiable demand for his minimalist style, and many Hollywood leading ladies became torchbearers for the Armani look at the…

Araliaceae: …various diseases; its American relative, Panax quinquefolium (see photograph), is used in the United States as a stimulant. Hari-giri, or castor aralia (Acanthopanax ricinifolius), is used in Japan in building and in furniture making.

Ruth Orkin: Her photograph American Girl in Italy (1951)—which captured a woman walking down a street in Italy and being ogled by a group of men—became an iconic image of the street photography genre.

Gillian Anderson: Other TV work: The Fall, Sex Education, and The Crown: She also appeared in American Gods in 2017, playing Media, a god who transforms into various celebrities, including Lucille Ball, David Bowie, and Marilyn Monroe.

plover: …apricaria; see photograph) and the American golden plover (P. dominica), which breed in the Arctic and winter in the Southern Hemisphere. The American golden plovers of the eastern range fly over the Atlantic and South America as far south as Patagonia, and most return via the Mississippi Valley; those in…

American goldfinch, (Spinus tristis), small acrobatic songbird native to North America. Males are known for their distinctive, bright yellow plumage that contrasts with their black tail, cap, and wings. They are also known for their call, a vocalization that sounds like “po-ta-to-chip” or

ribes: Major species: …or European, gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa); American gooseberry (R. hirtellum); black currant (R. nigrum); buffalo currant (R. odoratum); downy, or Nordic, currant (R. spicatum); and common, or garden or red, currant (R. rubrum).

Gordon Parks: Photography: …took perhaps his best-known photograph, American Gothic. For four months Parks followed the subject, Ella Watson, a Black cleaning woman in the FSA’s offices, and documented her work and family. The series—which is in the collections of the Library of Congress—includes photographs of Watson’s Washington, D.C., neighborhood, her adopted daughter…

American Gothic, painting by Grant Wood completed in 1930. Grant Wood, an artist from Iowa, was a member of the Regionalist movement in American art, which championed the solid rural values of central America against the complexities of European-influenced East Coast Modernism. Yet Wood’s most

Sarah Paulson: Early life and career: … sister, in the television series American Gothic (1995–98). Although Paulson initially aspired to the superstardom of her idol, Julia Roberts, over time she found a niche as a compelling character actor by playing supporting roles in such films as What Women Want (2000), Down with Love (2003), and The Notorious…

Glendale: …Community College (1965), and the American Graduate School of International Management trains employees of U.S. firms for work abroad. The city’s attractions include State Farm Stadium, a multipurpose facility that is home to the Arizona Cardinals of NFL football, the annual Fiesta Bowl of collegiate football, and numerous other sports…

American Graffiti, a coming-of-age film directed and cowritten by George Lucas and released in 1973. It was shot on a budget of about $750,000 and wound up grossing more than $140 million worldwide and snagging five Academy Award nominations. American Graffiti focuses on a group of teenagers

alder: Major species: …or lenticels; and the aromatic-leaved American green alder (A. viridis). A number of these species are also found in Europe, including the green alder and gray alder.

20th-century international relations: U.S. leverage in world markets: …private firms to form an American Group, led by Standard Oil of New Jersey, to seek a share of Mesopotamian oil reserves, while State Department expert Arthur Millspaugh outlined a plan for worldwide Anglo-American reciprocity. The British, fearing American retaliation and anxious to have help against native rebellions, granted the…

WPA Federal Writers’ Project: The American Guide series, the project’s most important achievement, included guides for every state and territory (except Hawaii), as well as for Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Philadelphia; for several major highways (U.S. 1, Ocean Highway, Oregon Trail); and…

Linda Cardellini: Career: …in the crime drama film American Gun (2005) and starred in the comedy Grandma’s Boy (2006). From 2003 to 2009 she portrayed nurse Samantha Taggart in the medical drama series ER (1994–2009). Concurrently, she appeared in the western miniseries Comanche Moon (2008). In 2011 she starred in the indie film…

From the Earth to the Moon, novel by Jules Verne, published as De la Terre à la Lune (1865) and also published as The Baltimore Gun Club and The American Gun Club. Although the novel was subtitled Trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes (“Direct Passage in Ninety-seven Hours and Twenty Minutes”), the

harpy eagle, (Harpia harpyja), large, powerful, crested bird of prey belonging to the family Accipitridae. The harpy eagle, which ranks among the world’s largest living eagles and is considered to be the most powerful eagle in the world, lives in lowland tropical forests in the Americas. Its

harvest mouse: American harvest mice: The 20 species of American harvest mice are widespread, being found from southern Canada to northern South America at elevations ranging from below sea level to above the timberline in the northern Andes Mountains. They live in prairies, grassy fields with shrubs…

hazelnut: …with two American shrubs, the American hazelnut (C. americana) and the beaked hazelnut (C. cornuta). The large cobnut is a variety of the European filbert, and Lambert’s filbert is a variety of the giant filbert. Nuts produced by the Turkish hazelnut (C. colurna) are sold commercially as Constantinople nuts. The…

Donald Trump: Health care: …the House of Representatives the American Health Care Act (AHCA), proved contentious even within his own party. Because Trump had not worked out a specific plan of his own, he was forced to rely on Republicans in the House to draft a substantive bill that would reduce government involvement in…

Benson Boone: Ghost Town, American Heart, Beautiful Things, and Mystical Magical: His sophomore album, American Heart, was released in 2025 by Night Street and Warner Records, and 3 of its 10 tracks appeared on the Billboard Hot 100.

trans fat: Regulation of trans fat: The American Heart Association nutrition guidelines indicate that, based on a 2,000 calorie-a-day diet, only 20 calories from trans fats should be consumed per day. This translates to 2 grams of trans fat per day for the average adult. Because it is suspected that many people…

Union for Reform Judaism, oldest American federation of Jewish congregations, which, since its founding (1873) in Cincinnati, Ohio, has sponsored many programs to strengthen Jewish congregations and promote Jewish education on every level. Its headquarters are in New York City. The union was

Henley Royal Regatta: …has become known as the American Henley. A similar event called the Royal Canadian Henley has been held annually at St. Catharines, Ontario, since 1903 (at various sites earlier to 1880). An Australian Henley at Melbourne was first held in 1904.

Bruce Catton: …became the founding editor of American Heritage magazine, for which he wrote 167 articles, and from 1959 he served as its senior editor.

dictionary: General-purpose dictionaries: In 1969 came The American Heritage Dictionary, edited by William Morris, who was known for his valuable small dictionary Words (1947). The American Heritage was designed to take advantage of the reaction against the Merriam-Webster Third. A “usage panel” of 104 members, chosen mostly from the conservative “literary…

American Highland, interior plateau region of eastern Antarctica. It extends from Enderby Land in the west to Wilkes Land in the east and inland from Ingrid Christensen Coast and Amery Ice Shelf. The ice-capped upland, which averages 7,000–10,000 feet (2,000–3,000 m) above sea level, was discovered

historiography: Economic history: The American Historical Association and the American Economic Association were founded together and did not separate for several years; it was common in American colleges for historians and economists to be in the same department. From the turn of the 20th century, however, the two disciplines…

John Edgar Wideman: Books and teaching career: …of John Edgar Wideman (1992), American Histories (2018), and You Made Me Love You: Selected Stories, 1981–2018 (2021). Among his other works are the memoirs Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race and Society (1994; a finalist for a National Book Award) and Hoop Roots: Basketball, Race, and Love…

Edward Norton: American History X and Fight Club: In American History X (1998) he portrayed Derek Vinyard, a reformed white supremacist in contemporary California who returns from prison to help shepherd his brother away from racial animosity and violence; he received his second Academy Award nomination for the part. The following year Norton performed…

holly: Major species: The somewhat taller American holly (I. opaca) has oblong prickly leaves and usually red fruits. There are spineless and yellow-fruited forms of both species.

Ellen Swallow Richards: …Lake Placid conferees formed the American Home Economics Association, of which Richards was elected first president. She held the post until her retirement in 1910, and in that time she established the association’s Journal of Home Economics. In 1910 she was named to the council of the National Education Association…

Honda Motor Company, Ltd.: subsidiary, American Honda Motor Company, which began producing motorcycles in the United States in 1979 and automobiles in 1982. In 1969 Honda introduced the popular CB750, the first “superbike,” which had a 750-cc engine, disc brakes, and an electric starter.

hop-hornbeam: Major species: The eastern, or American, hop-hornbeam (O. virginiana) is known as ironwood for its hard heavy wood, used locally for fence posts and small articles such as tool handles.

hornbeam: Major species: The American hornbeam (C. caroliniana) is also known as water beech and blue beech, the latter for its blue-gray bark. It seldom reaches 12 metres (39 feet), although some trees in the southern United States may grow to 18 metres (59 feet) tall. The smooth trunk…

American Horror Story, American horror anthology television series created by producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk for the FX network. The first season premiered in 2011, mixing gore and supernatural scares with the worst impulses of human behavior, historic true crime, elements of American moral

buckeye: Species: The most-notable species is the Ohio buckeye (A. glabra), also called fetid, or Texas, buckeye, which is primarily found in the Midwestern region of the United States. The tree grows up to 21 metres (70 feet) in height and has twigs and leaves that yield an unpleasant odour when crushed.…

horseshoe crab: Natural history: …is the single American species Limulus polyphemus, specimens of which can reach a length of more than 60 cm (2 feet), though males and females typically average lengths of 36.6–38.1 cm (14–15 inches) and 45.7–48.3 cm (18–19 inches) respectively. The other three species—the Japanese, or tri-spine, horseshoe crab (Tachypleus tridentatus),…

horticulture: Horticultural education and research: The American Horticultural Society, established in 1922, is devoted largely to ornamentals and gardening. The American Society for Horticultural Science was established in 1903 and became perhaps the most widely known scientific society devoted to horticulture. The International Society for Horticultural Science, formed in 1959 in…

Max Thorek: …Surgeons and co-founder of the American Hospital in Chicago, whose contributions to the art of surgery earned worldwide recognition.

Ali Wong: Career: …advice, in the family sitcom American Housewife (2016–21). She delved deeper into motherhood and marriage in her second Netflix comedy special, Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife, filmed when she was seven months pregnant with her second child. In 2019 she reunited with Park and Khan, cowriting and starring in the…

American literature, the body of written works produced in the English language in the United States. Like other national literatures, American literature was shaped by the history of the country that produced it. For almost a century and a half, America was merely a group of colonies scattered

Constance Mayfield Rourke: She is best known for American Humor: A Study of the National Character (1931). Considered a classic work of scholarship, American Humor examined both popular and elite culture and argued that American culture reflected a vital and rich tradition distinct from the European experience.

Richard Wright: Posthumous publications: The autobiographical American Hunger, which narrates Wright’s experiences after moving to the North, was also published posthumously, in 1977. Some of the more candid passages dealing with race, sex, and politics in Wright’s books had been cut or omitted before their original publication. Unexpurgated versions of Native…

Abscam: Russell film American Hustle (2013) was broadly based on the events surrounding the Abscam investigation.

Green Day: …life of their parents’ suburb, the musical American Idiot made a triumphant move to Broadway the following year, gaining rave reviews and two Tony Awards, for scenic design and lighting design of a musical. Additionally, the Broadway cast album was awarded a Grammy in 2011.

Green Day: …Day released the stylistic gamble American Idiot (2004), a politically charged album with operatic scope. The hugely successful release combines the large-scale political commentary of Green Day’s punk forebears with the charged intimate observations of their own previous albums and in doing so achieved unexpected relevancy and acclaim. American Idiot…

American Idol, American reality television series in which aspiring singers competed for a recording contract and a shot at wealth and fame. Following its debut on the Fox network, American Idol (2002–16) became one of the most-watched shows in the United States and produced numerous imitations.

Following its debut in 2002, the television show American Idol became a pop culture phenomenon in the United States. Millions have tuned in to watch aspiring singers compete for a recording contract, and by the early 2020s it was one of the longest-running reality competition shows. And while

An American in Paris, composition by George Gershwin, subtitled “A Tone Poem for Orchestra.” It premiered at Carmegie Hall in New York City on Dec. 13, 1928, and it was the first of Gershwin’s purely orchestral works, with no role for piano but plenty of jazz harmonies and spirit. In 1951 (after

Gene Kelly: Films of the 1950s: An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain, and Brigadoon: Kelly surpassed that triumph two years later with the Academy Award-winning An American in Paris (1951). Climaxed by a spectacular 13-minute ballet that incorporated visual motifs of French Post-Impressionism, the film was singled out by critics…

Janet Flanner: Those and other pieces constitute An American in Paris: Profile of an Interlude Between Two Wars (1940).

Curtis E. LeMay: …presidential candidate on the third-party (American Independent) ticket headed by George C. Wallace.

Taryn Simon: The project was published as An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007) and was displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, as well as at other museums and galleries worldwide. In order to capture the photographs compiled in Contraband (2010), Simon installed herself…

Indigenous peoples of the Americas, any of the aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere. Inuit, Yupik/Yupiit, and Unangan (Aleuts) are sometimes excluded from this category, because their closest genetic and cultural relations were and are with other Arctic peoples rather than with the groups

Native American art, the visual art of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas, often called American Indians. For a further discussion of the visual art of the Americas produced in the period after European contact, see Latin American art. The very use of the word art suggests one of the basic

Native American arts, arts of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas. Native American arts are treated in a number of articles. See Native American literature, which includes a discussion of the oral tradition; Native American art; Native American music; and Native American

Native American art: Arts of the American Indian peoples in the contemporary world: …American Indian art is the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, an outgrowth of the early interest of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board in assisting young Native American artists in securing needed training.

American Indian boarding school, system of boarding schools created for Indigenous—that is, Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian—children by the United States government and Christian churches during the 1800s and 1900s. Hundreds of thousands of children attended the schools, which

Native American dance, the dance of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas, often called American Indians. The treatment of Native American dance in this article is meant to focus first on certain general features of dance and their manifestation in a number of areas. The diversities existing

Oklahoma: The arts: …extensive displays of artifacts), the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians, and the Southern Plains Indian Museum. Western historical collections are maintained by the University of Oklahoma and by the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City. Two museums in the state celebrate a historic highway running from Chicago…

American Indian languages, languages spoken by the original inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere and their modern descendants. The American Indian languages do not form a single historically interrelated stock (as do the Indo-European languages), nor are there any structural features (in

mythologies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the traditional oral and written literatures and mythological traditions of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These include ancient hieroglyphic and pictographic writings of Mesoamerica as well as an extensive set of folktales, myths, and

American Indian Movement (AIM), militant Native American civil rights organization, founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1968 by Ojibwe activists Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Eddie Benton Banai, Pat Bellanger, and George Mitchell. Later, Russell Means, an activist of Oglala Lakota Sioux

pottery: American Indian pottery: The American Indians are of Asiatic descent; their route to the New World was from Siberia into Alaska across the Bering Strait. The usually quoted period of their migration is between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago. Since they were nomadic peoples, it…

Native American: Religious freedom: Congress eventually passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA; 1978). AIRFA was intended to ensure the protection of Native American religions and their practitioners, and it successfully stripped away many of the bureaucratic obstacles with which they had been confronted. Before 1978, for instance, the terms of the…

Clark Wissler: In The American Indian (1917), a classic in North American ethnology, he explored the regional clustering of cultural traits and the relation between culture and physical environment, outlining the main culture areas. The distribution and adaptation of cultural traits and their relative ages were treated in…

Glendale: …Community College (1965), and the American Graduate School of International Management trains employees of U.S. firms for work abroad. The city’s attractions include State Farm Stadium, a multipurpose facility that is home to the Arizona Cardinals of NFL football, the annual Fiesta Bowl of collegiate football, and numerous other sports…

charity fraud: Fighting fraud: The American Institute for Philanthropy, for example, publishes ratings for charities on its Web site, ranging from an A for excellent to a grade of F for poor.

construction: Emergence of design professionals: …both in London, and the American Institute of Architects (1857). Official government licensing of architects and engineers, a goal of these societies, was not realized until much later, beginning with the Illinois Architects Act of 1897. Concurrent with the rise of professionalism was the development of government regulation, which took…

chondrichthyan: Danger to human life: In 1958 the American Institute of Biological Sciences established a Shark Research Panel at the Smithsonian Institution and Cornell University to gather historical and current records of shark attacks throughout the world. For the 35 years from 1928 to 1962, inclusive, the panel listed 670 attacks on persons…

public opinion: Opinion research: …first questions asked by the American Institute of Public Opinion, later to be called the Gallup Poll, was “Are Federal expenditures for relief and recovery too great, too little, or about right?” To this, 60 percent of the sample replied that they were too great, only 9 percent thought they…

institutional economics, school of economics that flourished in the United States during the 1920s and ’30s. It viewed the evolution of economic institutions as part of the broader process of cultural development. American economist and social scientist Thorstein Veblen laid the foundation for

Francis Fukuyama: …2005 Fukuyama founded the magazine The American Interest, which sought “to explain America to the world, and the world to Americans.” Five years later he became a fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Fukuyama served as director (2015–21) of the institute’s Center on Democracy, Development, and…

Springfield: …1885; other colleges are the American International College (1885), the Western New England College (1919), and the Springfield Technical Community College (1964). The city’s Basketball Hall of Fame commemorates James Naismith, who invented the game of basketball in Springfield in 1891. Eastern States Exposition Park in West Springfield is the…

Chris Dodd: …most notably the insurance corporation American International Group, Inc. (AIG), to distribute bonuses. Facing a difficult reelection campaign, Dodd announced in January 2010 that he would not seek a sixth term in the Senate. He later served as chairman (2011–17) of the Motion Picture Association of America.

B-film: Studios such as American International Pictures emerged during the 1950s to offer cheaply produced exploitation movies, which were targeted to specific audiences or low-rent exhibitors. These films, which were not necessarily exhibited with an A-picture, were also dubbed B-films. It was at this juncture that the term B-movie…

commodities fraud: The CTFC and fraud: …non-option-related fraud case involved the American International Trading Company (AITC), a Los Angeles-based company. In the 1970s the company offered a managed-account program for trading in commodity futures contracts and required an investment of as little as $2,000. AITC promised profits to speculators and guaranteed customers that they would not…

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, commonly known by the acronym AIPAC, is an influential pro-Israel political lobbying group in the United States. It advocates for U.S. assistance to Israel—in the form of economic and military aid, diplomatic support, and other measures—and for other

Johnny Cash: …American III: Solitary Man (2000), American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), and the posthumous American V: A Hundred Highways (2006). The recipient of numerous awards, he won 13 Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 1999, and 9 Country Music Association Awards. Cash was elected to the Country…