1492 – Columbus reaches the new world. The Columbian exchange begins. The old world has much to reconsider.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange

1517 – Martin Luther starts the Protestant Reformation. The Church’s authority is challenged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

1545 – The Catholic Reformation addresses challenges to the Church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Reformation

1738 – Methodism offers a new relationship to God.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodism

1807 – Britain ends its slave trade after 3 centuries. The abolitionist movements create new views of societal change.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

1821 – Liberal Christianity adapts to the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, Critical Analysis and Darwin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Christianity

1865 – The American Civil War. Federalism, abolitionists, slavery, Lincoln, warfare, transport, industrialization, government growth, reconstruction, economic recovery, “Lost Cause”, Jim Crow. “A nation divided cannot stand”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

1880 – Community organizations of many kinds are created to manage immigrants, urbanization, industrialization, growth, mobility, diversity, poverty and public health.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_organization

1880 – Peak level migration from Europe to the United States begins.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_immigration_to_the_Americas

1886 – Post-impressionism leads to modern art, distanced from the public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Impressionism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_art

1893 – The American Frontier era closes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Thesis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_frontier

1899 – American Popular Music emerges.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_popular_music

1910 – The “Great Migration” from the South to the North.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)

1910 – Christian fundamentalism is defined as a real alternative to “liberal Christianity”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism

1920 – A majority of Americans live in urban areas. 76% in Northeast, 28% in the South.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States

1922 – Protestant neo-orthodox theology is defined.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Barth

1922 – Personal psychology, “stream of consciousness” writing joins modern art to insert psychology and philosophy into popular arts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)

1936 – Self-help books, seminars, programs and counseling blossom, providing an individual, transactional, psychological, positive alternative to religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-help

1940 – US high school attendance reaches 80%, up from 40% in the 1920’s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_school_movement

1944 – American soldiers enroll in higher education at record rates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill

1946 – Returning soldiers also make up for lost time in forming families and having children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-20th_century_baby_boom

1946 – New families needed new housing, leading to suburban real estate development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburbanization

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown

1949 – Dystopian fiction packs a much greater punch in the post-war era.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_and_dystopian_fiction#Dystopian_fiction

1965 – The Roman Catholic Church addresses modernity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council

1965 – Urban riots erupt in major US cities for several summers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_riots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_riot

1965 – University students rebel against the expected cultural conformity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterculture_of_the_1960s

1965 – Legal and illegal immigration to the United States grows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_immigration_to_the_United_States

1969 – Divorce started to become a more personal, transactional event rather than a social or religious one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce

1969 – LGBTQ groups and supporters advocated for legal and social rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_history_in_the_United_States

1970 – English becomes the global language for trade, diplomacy and science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_a_lingua_franca

1976 – The US birth rate drops by half. World rate is cut in half by 2014.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate

Summary

The movement from one Church to many Christian denominations to “A Secular Age” is the largest change. The growth of the US from a small colony to a world power and then to an economic, military and cultural superpower is of equal magnitude. Migration westward, northward, inward and to the cities has reshaped American culture. Individualism has grown to become the dominant cultural perspective. The role of laws and social norms in shaping personal behavior has dropped.

Americans have been extraordinarily mobile, joiners, religious, productive, creative, patriotic, pragmatic, skeptical and independent. The country has succeeded as a multi-cultural nation and been a successful exporter of its culture around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power