America in the British Imagination

1945 to the Present

J. Lyons

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137376800
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

How was American culture disseminated into Britain? Why did many British citizens embrace American customs? And what picture did they form of American society and politics? This engaging and wide-ranging history explores these and other questions about the U.S.'s cultural and political influence on British society in the post-World War II period.

1

The Architect of Modern Britain: The Influence of the United States on Britain, 1945–1963

Many in Britain in the 1950s expressed dismay at the American influence creeping into the country. “America mostly pays the piper and calls for most of the tunes,” J. B. Priestley, the English playwright and novelist, suggested in 1955.

There is no longer any point in leaving Leicester Square and Coventry Street in order to describe Broadway, which merely has more electric light, newer Hollywood films, larger cafeterias. English readers have not to be conducted across the Atlantic now to observe the American style of urban life: it can be discovered in the nearest town. It is now the great invader.¹

English author and journalist Harry Hopkins saw the American imprint everywhere.

From hula-hoops to Zen Buddhism, from do-it-yourself to launderettes or the latest sociological catch phrase or typographical trick, from Rock ‘n’ Roll to Action Painting, barbecued chickens roasting on their spits in the shop windows to parking meters, clearways, bowling alleys, glass-skyscrapers, flying saucers, pay-roll raids, armoured trucks and beatniks, American habits and vogue now crossed the Atlantic with speed and certainty that suggested that Britain was new merely one more offshore island. Strip-tease clubs completed the “Fordisation” of sex, supermarkets of shopping and Wimpy bars of eating. As if by some automatic process every successful American stereo or gimmick duly appeared in British version—a Dors for a Monroe, a Steele for a Presley, a Shirley Bassey for an Eartha Kitt.²

As Priestly and Hopkins observed, the United States of America exerted a profound influence on twentieth-century Britain. Since the end of World War II, this influence deepened as the United States easily outpaced Britain as an economic power, greater affluence allowed Britons to purchase even more American products and developments in mass communications further disseminated American culture to Britain. Britons of course maintained many of their old traditions, adapted and remade the American culture they consumed and were influenced by other parts of the world besides the United States. Yet, the American stamp on British society was unmistakable. Britons adopted American production and business methods, enthusiastically bought American products and submerged themselves in American cinema, fashion, music and literature. The United States played a crucial role in the development of a modern consumer society as American-style supermarkets and retail methods took root in Britain.

US Influence on Britain

The United States of America and Great Britain emerged victorious from the bloodiest conflict in human history but with their economic and diplomatic power moving in different directions. The United States comprised 6 percent of the world’s population in 1945 but produced 55 percent of its steel, 70 percent of its oil and 60 percent of its manufacturing output.³ By 1959, 71 percent of the world’s largest firms were American owned.⁴ Most Americans shared in this wealth. Median family income adjusted for inflation nearly doubled between 1946 and 1960. Home ownership soared and suburbs grew as young couples moved into sprawling modern houses with long driveways and spacious garages housing huge cars fresh off the production line. Nearly every one of these households possessed an array of consumer products including refrigerators, televisions and washing machines.⁵ Reflecting its economic strength, the United States pushed the boundaries of knowledge and human excellence. US universities were amongst the best in the world and the nation produced literature, music, art, science and architecture that was admired and copied all over the world. Unsurprisingly, in 1956 the United States overtook Germany as the country with the largest number of Nobel Prize winners.⁶

In contrast to the rising fortunes of the United States, the old economic powers of Europe including Britain lay in ruins. As World War II came to a close in 1945, Britain faced severe economic problems that would persist throughout the immediate postwar years. Nazi bombing campaigns had destroyed more than 200,000 homes during the war and made another 250,000 uninhabitable. Even though Britain was a victor in the war, shortages and rationing persisted until 1954. Britain faced the task of rebuilding its industry and administering its large Empire, even though the costs of the war meant the nation was almost bankrupt. Starting with India in 1947, Britain quickly granted independence to all of its major colonies.⁷

With Britain virtually on its knees, the United States used its military strength to confront the Soviet Union in a mounting Cold War, which further spread its influence across the globe. The United States held a monopoly on nuclear weapons until 1949, had the largest defense budget in the world, and deployed its armed forces around the world, including to the United Kingdom where 40,000–50,000 American servicemen were stationed in the early 1950s. In 1949, the United States took the lead in forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance headed by the United States to defend Europe from the Soviet threat, with Britain becoming one of the organization’s original 12 members.⁸ The US government and private agencies sponsored programs in Europe to promote a positive image of the country and to counter communist propaganda. President Eisenhower established the United States Information Agency (USIA) in 1953 as an independent federal agency whose job it was to impart a favorable view of the United States abroad. The USIA, whose motto was “telling America’s story to the world,” sponsored educational exchanges, conferences on American history, art exhibitions, tours of musicians and performances of plays.⁹

As the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation, the United States took the lead in creating international economic institutions and laying the ground rules for the global economic order. In 1944, delegates from 44 Allied nations met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to establish rules for global commercial and financial relations. The leader of the US delegation and the primary mover behind the conference was Harry Dexter White, an American economist and senior US Treasury department official. Because of White’s prodding, the conference established the dollar as the principal currency of international exchange, tying the other currencies to the dollar and linking the dollar to the price of gold. The conference established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to lend money to nations with trade deficits, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), better known as the World Bank, to provide long-term loans to developing countries. These organizations were headquartered in Washington DC and dominated by US finance and personnel. Ironically, Harry Dexter White, the main architect of US economic dominance, was subsequently found to be a Soviet spy who passed secret information to Stalin’s regime during World War II. On August 14, 1948, White appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee and three days later he died of a heart attack.¹⁰

As part of its desire to rebuild the economies of Western Europe and combat communism, the United States provided the British government with much needed financial assistance. In 1941, the United States began to supply Britain with essential war-time material under the Lend–Lease program. At the end of the war, the US government agreed to write off all war-time debts and to supply the British government with a US$3.75 billion loan at 2 percent interest, which Britain finally paid off in 2006. Under the 1948 European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan, named after US Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Britain received a further US$2.7 billion in aid, more than any other European nation. The financial assistance supplied by the United States helped to stabilize the British economy, relax austerity measures and rebuild the infrastructure of the country.¹¹

The US government’s activist stance continued as it helped to introduce American products into Britain by promoting free trade. The United States pressured Britain and other countries into reducing protective tariffs and restrictive quotas, believing that America’s powerful corporations, using up-to-date manufacturing technology, would be able to produce cheaper and better made goods than their competitors and, therefore, dominate world trade. Under the Lend– Lease agreement, at Bretton Woods and in negotiations over the postwar loan for Britain, the United States had pressed for an end to imperial preferences, which was established in Ottawa in 1932 to create trade barriers to those outside of the British Empire. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a multilateral agreement signed in 1947, sought to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers further. Tariffs slowly fell but the British government continued to use import quotas against American manufactured goods until the late 1950s and the imperial preference system ended only when Britain joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. Still American products saturated the British market. US companies such as Esso, Hoover, Singer, Kellogg’s, Wrigley, Heinz, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Harley-Davidson, Campbell’s and Kodak became household names in Britain.¹²

US companies had a long history of investing in Britain, and the investments accelerated in the postwar years. In 1856, J. Ford and Company established a vulcanized rubber factory in Edinburgh and many other American companies subsequently followed their lead by investing in the UK. Woolworths, the US “five and dime” store, which offered a myriad of cut-priced merchandise under one roof, opened its first British outlet in Liverpool in 1909 and followed this with one on Oxford Street, London, in 1924. By 1914, 70 US manufacturing subsidiaries or jointly owned Anglo-American concerns operated in the United Kingdom, employing about 12,000 workers. Leading companies like Gillette, Hoover, Remington and Firestone—all established factories in and around London in the interwar years and General Motors took over British automakers Vauxhall in 1925. In 1950, US companies invested US$847 million in Britain but by 1960 the figure had risen to US$3,231 million.¹³

Aggressive marketing aided American companies in selling their products in Britain. Eye-catching packaging, expert salesmanship and slick and expensive advertising helped American products reach a mass market. American businesses used billboards, advertisements in magazines and newspapers and later television commercials to entice consumers to buy their products. American advertising agencies established outlets in London and British agencies employed American personnel and incorporated American techniques of consumer research, opinion polls and market testing into their work.¹⁴ In 1960, five of the 12 largest advertising agencies in Britain were American-owned. The “Marlboro Man” enticed people to buy cigarettes with the promise of rugged individualism, masculinity and adventure in the Wild West, while the sophisticated elegance of Max Factor cosmetics tempted women to believe they could share in the glamour of Hollywood. “The American ballyhoo, which Britain has so much enjoyed mocking, is gradually winning,” journalist Anthony Sampson wrote in the early 1960s. “The most obvious manifestation of this is the advance of advertising.”¹⁵

Government support for free trade, and state-of-the-art marketing, may have been important for the success of American consumer goods in Britain, but their ability to produce innovative products contributed more toward American success. In the 1840s, Charles Goodyear, for example, developed the vulcanization of natural rubber and started the rubber industry, a product that has become a major component of modern life. Alexander Bell may have been born in Scotland but he immigrated to the United States where he invented the telephone in 1876 and established Bell Telephone Company. Bell demonstrated the telephone to Queen Victoria in January 1878 and established premises in London to distribute the device.¹⁶ Thomas Edison made important technological innovations in motion pictures and the phonograph record player. The Wright Brothers, Wilbur and Orville, invented the first powered airplane in 1903, Eugene Polley invented the first wireless TV remote control in the mid-1950s and Gregory Pincus developed the first contraceptive pill launched in Britain in 1961. America gave Britain and the world other important inventions such as aerosols, safety razors and tea bags. The expression “the best thing since sliced bread” would not have been possible without the bread-slicing machine invented in the 1920s by Otto Rohwedder, a jewelry store owner from Iowa.¹⁷

British children in particular had much to thank the United States for. After President Theodore, or Teddy, Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear on a hunting trip in 1902, an American company started to produce stuffed toy bears calling them “Teddy’s Bears” to honor the president’s action. The toys became a success and Ideal Novelty and Toy Company began to produce the Teddy Bear in the United States and abroad. Teddy Bears became the bed-time companion for children throughout Britain and a ubiquitous presence in children’s stories. A. A. Milne bought his son, Christopher Robin Milne, a Teddy Bear from Harrods in London in 1921 and was thus inspired to write Winnie-the-Pooh. The comic strip character Rupert the Bear made its debut in the 1920s, and Sooty and Paddington Bear made theirs in the 1950s.¹⁸ Monopoly, a board game originating in the United States in the interwar period, began to be produced in Britain by Waddington’s with London place names replacing the original New York ones. The word game Scrabble was introduced into Britain from the United States in the 1950s as were Yo-Yos and Hula Hoops.¹⁹

Washington’s support for free trade, expensive and innovative advertising and the American genius for invention would not have led to the successful import of American culture into Britain without the unprecedented affluence of the 1950s, which provided a market for American products in Britain. By July 1957, only 1.2 percent of the British workforce was unemployed. Material wealth seemed to be improving for most members of society as real incomes rose by 20 percent between 1951 and 1961. Household income increased as more women too started earning. In 1931, only 10 percent of married women were in the workforce; by 1951 the figure had risen to 21.7 percent and by 1961 to 29.4 percent.²⁰ In 1958, the government abolished hire purchase restrictions. This meant that a buyer who could not afford to purchase a product could now pay a percentage of the price as a deposit and pay off the rest in monthly installments. In 1950, there were 2,307,000 cars and vans on the road in Britain; this figure doubled to 5,650,000 in 1960. Only 4.3 percent of the population owned a television in 1950, but this had risen to 39.8 percent in 1955 and to 81.8 percent in 1960.²¹ In 1942, 3.6 percent of families owned washing machines, and in 1958 the number jumped to 29 percent.²² Which? magazine began publication in 1957 to help consumers choose from the vast array of enticing goods on offer. The Ideal Home Exhibition, established in 1908 to display new home inventions and designs, enjoyed a record attendance of 1.5 million visitors in 1957. In July 1957, Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan told an audience that “most of our people have never had it so good. Go around the country, go to the industrial towns, go to the farms and you will see a state of prosperity such as we have never had in my lifetime—nor indeed in the history of this country.” Most believed he was right.²³

American goods poured into Britain but American production methods also changed how British goods were made. Henry Ford developed the concept of mass production in the early years of the twentieth century, which revo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. The Architect of Modern Britain: The Influence of the United States on Britain, 1945–1963
• 2. Terra Incognita: The United States in the British Imagination, 1945–1963
• 3. The British Working Class and the United States, 1963–1979
• 4. The United States and the Politics of Thatcherism, 1979–1990
• 5. Culture Wars: American Global Supremacy and British Nationalism, 1990–2001
• 6. September 11 and After: From Hostility to Indifference, 2001–2013
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index