Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Everywhere, Earth

When it comes to the universality of growing up in the late '90's and early 2000's, dealing with extreme adversity, the strength of women, dealing with the complexities of emotions and relationships, nothing in the past few decades has taught me more than Buffy. I was in my thirties when I started watching, and I still sometimes ask myself "what would Buffy do". No other media creation captured the zeitgeist of the late nineties, early 2000's, and did it with humor, tragedy, vampires, demons, and enough existential angst that made Buffy a timeless example of the human experience.

Beth

Ford River Rouge Plant

Dearborn, MI

This is the largest integrated manufacturing plant in the world. But with that you have lots of history. This is where Henry Ford produced the biggest and most dependable form of transportation. If not the actually factory, then at least Henry Ford himself. This is also a good place to discuss the Industrial Age where factories and manufacturing became a key component of the everyday American life.

Leah

Fight Club, The Movie

Kansas City, MO

As a 17 year old in 1999 I was really questioning my life in suburban KC and its meaning. I saw this movie and it pointed a huge finger at the lifestyle that I was uncomfortable with, then that hand formed a fist, and punched through that life. It has influenced my life since.

Anthony

McDonald's

Illinois

I spent my childhood as a foreign service brat overseas and my husband is an immigrant from India. We concurred that while looking at America form afar, McDonald's was its symbol. Like America, the logo is garish but riveting and somehow irrepressibly chipper. Also, the company itself is like America: a monster that takes over everything but also known for its philanthropy. And the junk they sell? It's the diet we love and love to hate.

Laura

Michael Jackson

USA (deceased)

Seriously? What is there to say? I cannot think of another American singer/songwriter/performer who is as widely known and who has left such an indelible impression on generation after generation of fans and who was responsible for creating so many firsts and breaking so many barriers.

Nellie

Little House on the Prairie

De Smet, SD

I've suggested this before, but here's an addition. Two scholars at U of Missouri did bios of Laura and her daughter Rose. The question: did Rose ghostwrite the entire series? Book titles are BECOMING LAURA INGALLS WILDER and THE GHOST IN THE LITTLE HOUSE.

Kressel

Sagamore Hill, Home of Theodore Roosevelt

Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY

This home is an icon in American Culture because it was the home of Theodore Roosevelt and his wife Edith. He purchased it when he married his first wife Alice, but after her death left it for awhile during his grief. He then made it a working farm and actually worked on the farm himself. When he became president it became the "summer white house" & was a place visited by dignitaries from around the world. Roosevelt and Edith both died in the house, and it stands today as a monument to a president who began the national park service, fought in the Spanish American War and helped build the Panama Canal. The house itself was a true home, and both TR and Edith are buried just down the road from it.
It was also the home of a Girl Scout camp in 1976 that I attended.

Lisa

Corn

All over the country

Corn is a native American plant that feeds our country. The native diet of corn, beans and squash (3 sisters) sustained. Our modern corn had been bred for inductrial farming. It symbolizes American ingenuity and our power to feed, but is also a subsizided crop that leads to corn syrup and overconsumption of starches and sugars by Americans. It's a food conundrum. Fields of monocultured corn are a modern American icon but what are its more ancient origins and can we find a more sustainable existence by changing our relationship to corn?

Laura

Henry Thoreau's Desk

Concord, MA

A simple green desk made in Concord, Massachusetts, in about 1838 by a cabinetmaker who charged perhaps one dollar for it, had a career in America’s intellectual history entirely out of proportion to its humble origin, because it was Henry Thoreau’s desk. Thoreau is best known as the author of "Walden," universally acknowledged to be one of the great books of American literature, and of “Civil Disobedience,” one of the most influential essays in the worldwide democratic tradition. Both were written at this desk. A cornerstone of the Concord Museum collection, the desk has become a treasured American icon.

Carol

Garret Smith Estate

Peterboro, NY

Garret Smith's was a end point on the Underground Railroad. He gave them land and established the town of Peterboro, as a place for slaves to live. He established a school for them and helped them to succeed in their new lives. Many of their descendants still reside in this region of upstate NY. He was a relative of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who visited him in Peter boro.

Sue

Harriet Tubman Home

Auburn, NY

Harriet Tubman's contribution to the cause of freeing slaves is unparalleled in American History. A woman alone made a major contribution to our history because of her bravery and determination. She is more important than many male figures in our history.

Sue

Sing, Sing, Sing (as performed by Benny Goodman's Orchestra

Hollywood, CA

This song is a classic example of big band music, which is quintessentially American, and maybe one of the most popular. It has several distinct sections that all tie together. Gene Krupa's drum solo is ...man. Making me speechless.

Alice

Robert Smithson's

Utah's Great Salt Lake

Located in the remote landscape of Utah's Great Salt Lake, artist Robert Smithson's (1938-1973) "Spiral Jetty," created in 1970, is an iconic 1500-foot-long earthwork that has influenced artists around the globe and has left an unmistakable mark on the world of contemporary art.

Shelbey

Walt Whitman

Long Island, NY

Walt Whitman is the quintessential American poet. Leaves of Grass is a classic that has influenced scores of writers.

Pete

Marilyn Monroe

Hollywood, CA

Pretty obvious choice, though her celebrity personna has been analyzed to death.

Pete

Texas Hold'em Poker

Everywhere in the World, now

Played by paupers and presidents. Born in America and played everywhere from Vegas to (until very recently) hyperspace. Picture Steve McQueen, Richard Nixon, Matt Damon, Tobey McGuire, Coolio, and Jennifer Tilly all sitting around the table with chips in front of them.
A symbol of the American spirit of Gamble.

michael

Little House on the Prairie

De Smet, South Dakota

Once upon a time, a little girl was born in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. As a daughter of a pioneer family, she traveled to Indian Territory, then Minnesota, then the Dakota Territory, where she eventually settled. As a teenager, in order to help her sister attend the Vinton Braille School in Iowa, she worked as a teacher. Then in her sixties, she became the teacher of millions by writing the classic LITTLE HOUSE series, giving us a peek into pioneer life.

Of course, you can't discuss it without the TV series too. I have a million ideas. Please email me.

Kressel

Jerry Uelsmann

Florida

Jerry Uelsmann's black and white photography taps into something beyond what we see in front of our eyes, and encourages a fresh look at the world where there are no rules and everything is odd but usually OK anyway and often awe-inspiring. With any luck, it makes us thing outside the proverbial box and marvel at the everyday wonders that make up nature.

Theresa

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

New York, NY

The cover art itself should be recognized as an American icon! That color! The cut-out pill shapes! The soft-focus portraits! It is the ultimate in camp fiction but captures that moment in the 1950s/60s when young women flocked to NYC to join the work force (Mad Men, anyone?). Plus it's decades ahead of its time.

Molly

Carhenge

Alliance, NE

Dilla