The two-dollar bill

Bend, OR

It is a legal form of U.S. currency but it has always been considered an oddball. Merchants in the U.S. give it skeptical looks when you hand it to them, and outside of the U.S. few people know it exists. Featuring Thomas Jefferson and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I consider it a true American icon: unique and legal, but unexpected and striving for its place in society (or a cash drawer).

Liana

The music of Charles Ivess

New York Philharmonic

He Successfully combines music from many segments of American life and religions to make a sometimes inharmonious whole. He seems peculiarly appropriate for these days of national disharmony.

Jane

Drs Feynman and Watson.

USA

Two American and Universal geniuses that changed our view of Nature in general and of Humans in particular. And both had (and one still has) a great sense of humor. America has an uncanny knack to be oblivious to our scientific icons. Isn't time that we might start naming highways and parks with thinkers and not only with sport luminaries?

Marcos

No

A pickup truck

Everywhere, USA

The pickup truck is the definitive American symbol: hard working, useful, available in endless varieties across the spectrum. A bit brash, a bit unapologetic, steadfast, and reliable. You'll find them on farms and construction sites, in town and at fancy valet stands. Versatility, thy name is F150.

Toby

Team America: World Police

USA

Because it's comic irony is so close to the truth.

Richard

Louis Armstrong

Queens, New York

Bring joy to this cruel, crazy, beautiful world of ours by featuring the great Louis Armstrong. He embodies love, genius and humanity. Not only is he a musical genius who made jazz history, but he is a great humanitarian who among many other things stopped a war with music! We surely need the Armstrong spirit NOW! Please visit his home in Queens, New York where he still is giving great parties. Oct 15th at 6pm Louis lovers will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Louis Armstrong House Museum with a big bash in his garden featuring the Hot Sardines. We're gonna swing like gates! Take a tour of his home and you will leave smiling just the way visitors from all over the world do. Pops is tops! But don't take my word for it. Come by and see for yourselves that this man is a diamond with so many facets that the light of his love and majesty will uplift you and enrich your life. He is a fertile seed that just keeps growing. Louis Armstrong is an American Original.

marcia

The song "Tutti Frutti "

In the hearts of all who love Little Richard

American music changed the day "Wop bop a loo mop " rang out for the first time. A quick perusal of David Kirby's book "Little Richard:The Birth of Rock and Roll is enough to explain it completely. Thanks for your consideration.

Nancy

Blue Velvet

Lumberton, USA

David Lynch's seminal 1986 film IS America -- at least from one twisted auteur's perspective. From its opening montage -- firetruck with dalmation and white picket fence and red rose against blue sky to the Hardy Boys meets kinky sex plot -- BLUE VELVET says more about Reagan America than any other film of its era.

Eric

Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock

Los Angeles, CA

It is not only the defining American comedy of its era, the very image of Harold Lloyd struggling to climb the face of a skyscraper is the visual representation of the American Dream -- strive and succeed. No special talent, no magic gift, just grit, determination and persistence will win the job, win the competition, win the girl, get you the good life.

Kerr (pronounced "Care" or "Cur")

@KerrLockhart

The MGM Grand

Las Vegas, NV

If Las Vegas is itself an American Icon, and I believe it is, the MGM Grand is the iconic hotel/casino in Las Vegas. It epitomizes all that is the Las Vegas strip – huge, gaudy, over-the-top and built on people's hopes and dreams. It offers the lure of wealth and glamour and fun, but it can also be a place of heartbreak and loss. It is the home of the new American dream – riches and reward without work or sacrifice, just credit and luck.

Randy

@guywriter

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

King, NC

This novel has come to be an iconic representation of life during the Depression era, and of the effects of the Dust Bowl. Tom Joad is the embodiment of the everyman, beaten down by factors outside his control (the economy, the weather, prejudice) but still striving to succeed. The novel is a portrait of America at its worst and and its best at the same time.

Randy

@guywriter

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

New York

Its difficult to select one work by Toni Morrison to feature but this one is the gatekeeper to the rest of her portfolio. Toni Morrison's prose and style is unique. There is no other American writer that can write the way she writes.

Sergio

@Intelatin

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

A book set in many locations

Maya Angelou expresses the complexity of a life lived with American richness. She has trauma and discovery, change and complexity, repression and growth. She shows us that life is a set of transformations-- in reaction to what is around us, but also from our own internal struggles. You don't have to be black or a woman or from her time to connect to the beauty of the unexpected and the possible from the tough and improbable. She is an icon; her work is of her.

Maia

Bridge over Delaware River

Trenton, NJ

Trenton was an important industrial center during the 19th century and early 20th century and the sign on the bridge states this simply and elegantly.

Trenton was an early center for the manufacture of pottery (dishes, cups, storage jars). The Delaware-Raritan Canal was used to move raw materials and goods.
The steel rope for the Golden Gate Bridge and George Washington Bridge were made in Trenton by the Roeblings, who were also responsible for the design of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Trenton contained many, many manufacturing businesses who sold their goods all over the world. Many of he people who worked in manufacturing in Trenton were immigrants. Trenton and this bridge represent the American dream and American ingenuity.

Sandra

Clifton Chenier King of Zydeco

Opelousas, La.

In the 1960's down in southwest Cajun Creole La., while growing up in an extremely segregated place (incl HS)...we danced on the weekends to Clifton and his band and other black zydeco bands...even going to some of the black clubs where they played in Lafayette, Lawtell, St, Martinville, Breaux Bridge, Cankton, etc.

We were always welcome. It was such a positive response to the way we were "taught" to view the black culture down there.

Grammy awarded Clifton is deceased, but so many of the living zydeco and cajun bands continue to provide the greatest crossover influence down there...when I return to visit, it is still mostly segregated socially and many of the schools because of the economic conditions. So the music seeks to change that in a very powerful fashion.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!!!!!!

Caroline McGee

no

Andrew Carnegie

Pittsburgh, PA

First, he created a modern integrated U.S. industry, U.S. Steel, then he gave away his fortune funding libraries across America. My guess is that many of the people whose knowledge we prize today didn't have some of their wisdom forged in a Carnegie Library.
The photo is of the Carnegie Library building on Pittsburgh's North Side, which served its library patrons from the early 20th century until a few years back. The theater behind it is still vibrant.

Clif

Crawford Path

Bartlett, NH

The oldest continually maintained trail in the NH White Mountains. The place that awoke our National Conservationist ideas. The story of the Crawford family and how they made a living in this difficult and isolated frontier is a deeply human story with a uniquely American flavor that follows our evolving relationship nature within our nation. It is a place I brought my son to help me teach him the lessons of life and where he lead a multi-day hike as a symbolic milestone his 13th birthday.

Michael Cerone

USS Constitution (Old Iron Sides)

Charlestown, MA

One of the first 5 purpose built Ships of the US Navy. Her story from innovative construction using American materials, to her record including the most famous against HMS Guerriere, Java, Pictou, Cyane and Levant comes to life when you visit the ship. Her tall masts and earnest seamen working the lines and telling her story are a thing of beauty and give a real connection to the history of this nation.

Michael

Cerone

Basement Tapes

Big Pink, NY

Seriously--Robert Christgau nails the reason and I'm leaving up to him to define this American Icon:

"These are the famous lost demos recorded at Big Pink in 1967 and later bootlegged on The Great White Wonder and elsewhere. Of the eighteen Dylan songs, thirteen have been heard in cover versions, one by Dylan himself; the six Band songs have never even been bootlegged and are among their best. Because the Dylan is all work tape, the music is certifiably unpremeditated, lazy as a river and rarely relentless or precise--laid back without complacency or slickness. The writerly "serious" songs like "Tears of Rage" are all the richer for the company of his greatest novelties--if "Going to Acapulco" is a dirge about having fun, "Don't Ya Tell Henry" is a ditty about separation from self, and both modes are enriched by the Band's more conventional ("realistic") approach to lyrics. We needn't bow our heads in shame because this is the best album of 1975. It would have been the best album of 1967 too. And it's sure to sound great in 1983."

And again in 2013.

Tory

The Autobiography of Ben Franklin

Philadelphia, PA

Imagine if we all lived by these 13 virtues:

"Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation."
"Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."
"Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time."
"Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."
"Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing."
"Industry. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."
"Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly."
"Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."
"Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."
"Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation."
"Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."
"Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation."
"Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates."

Joshua