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cattle graze. Great herds of buffalo once roamed the Plains. They were nearly all killed by settlers, who hunted them for sport.

The Great Lakes that both edge and divide Michigan give it the nation’s longest freshwater shoreline. Stretching 1,000 km northwest of New York, Detroit –the state’s largest city and the nation’s sixth largest city – was the birthplace of mass production of motor cars and today it is the headquarters of the country’s car manufacturers: General Motors, American Motors, Ford and Chrysler all have their headquarters there or in adjoining suburbs. The city is rich in educational and cultural facilities; the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is internationally known.

Minnesota (from an Indian term for sky-tinted water) is a land dotted with lakes, birthplace of the Mississippi and many other rivers. It helps attract million-odd summer tourists. There dairy farming flourishes.

A pile of stones marks the center of the North American continent at Rugby, North Dakota - the coldest state in the USA, after Alaska. South Dakota is an important agricultural state; it is also first in gold. State’s nickname is Coyote State. Here, at six thousand feet above sea level, you can see a colossal mountain carving. It shows the lifelike granite figures of four American greatest presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Gutzon Borglum spent fourteen years carving these gargantuan busts in Mount Rushmore as a lasting tribute to American leadership. In 1927, Borglum began this monumental task when he was sixty years old, a time when most men are preparing for their retirement and not for a lengthy project. Upon Borglum’s death, his son continued the project until the funding ran out. Of the four presidents, George Washington’s bust is the most prominent, looking as serious as we tend to think of him. Behind him is Thomas Jefferson, who bears a friendlier visage. Teddy Roosevelt is tucked off into the corner next to last of the four, Abraham Lincoln, whose bust is the least complete. It is unbelievable that such a monumental masterpiece should sit in a now quiet area, once the scene of deadly battles between the Sioux Indians and the white men. The same state is famous for Badlands Park, where the colorful rocks are twisted into weird spirals and ridges.

Ohio, an important manufacturing and agricultural center, is a home of eight US presidents. It gets its name from a Seneca word for the Allegheny - Ohio, “beautiful river.” It was a voice on the radio in Cleveland, Ohio, belonging to Alan Freed, that in

1951 slapped the phrase rock and roll on the latest rhythm and blues songs. The establishment damned the music as rites of a “pagan culture, capable of inducing prehistoric rhythmic trances,”, but disk jockeys gave the voice to the rebelliousness of teens all over Ohio and after 1954, New York. DJs had the power to make or break new

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talent. Cleveland’s DJ, Bill Randle, brought Elvis Presley fame outside Memphis by playing his songs every 15 minutes. Most deejays were local celebrities.

Iowa is the second richest (after California) of agricultural states. Two Iowa mechanics built a contraption called a tractor in 1901 and a farm machine industry still thrives. In 1920 Christian Nelson, a teacher and co-owner of the Nelson-Mustard Cream Co., a candy store in Onawa, Iowa, was inspired by a boy who had a terrible time deciding whether to spend his nickel on ice cream or a chocolate bar. After several-months’ experimenting Nelson discovered a way to combine the two. He dubbed his invention the “I Scream Bar.” Next Nelson teamed up with R. Stover, who later became famous for his chocolates and whose wife is credited with inventing the name “Eskimo Pie”.

Eskimo pies were an immediate hit. Nelson was hailed as an all-American, rags-to- riches hero, although, in fact, the Eskimo Pie company was plagued by problems, especially unlicensed imitators. The Eskimo Pie remains one of America’s favorite treats. Recently, sugar-free, low-fat, and yogurt Eskimo Pie products have been introduced. Iowa is also recognized for the biggest popcorn-packing plant in the USA.

Hamburgers are one of the most popular kinds of fast food in the world today. The name, however, can be misleading, as the burger is not made of ham. It is beef.

Although the name “hamburger” almost certainly comes from the town of Hamburg in

Germany, the history of the dish is unclear. In Hamburg several hundreds years ago the dish was basically a roast pork sandwich. The town of Seymour in Wisconsin is just one of several other places that claim to have created the hamburger. The story goes back to 1885, when a man called Charlie Nagreen tried to sell meat-balls at a county fair. They weren’t popular, though, as customers had difficulty eating them while walking. Nagreen came up with the idea of flattening out the meatballs and putting them in a bread roll. He called this meat sandwich a “hamburger”. Why he chose that name is unclear, and it seems likely that he was not actually the first to use it.

Wisconsin is called the nation’s Dairy Belt.; it also is the country’s largest supplier of beer (the Milwaukee area). Milwaukee is the largest city of the state. It is here, in 1901, that Bill Harley and three Davidson brothers – Walter, Arthur, and William – founded their motorcycle business in the Davidson’s backyard. Their invention is one of the symbols of today’s America, they remain the “ride of choice” for motorcycle aficionados. The commonly held image of the Harley-Davidson rider is the one of a tough and rough loner. Harley’s devoted customers wouldn’t consider riding another make. These fans have a vocabulary all their own, they proudly were Harley T-shirts, and some even sport Harley tattoos. Their motorcycles are often personalized with accessories and custom paint jobs. Early Harley riders were likely to be mechanics who

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were proud of their ability to fix their often leaky engines. But today’s Harleys are favored by motorcycle gangs ( biker gangs, hogsters). Harley fans include R.U.Bs (Rich Urban Bikers). The company sponsors H.O.G., the Harley Owners Group, a play on the fact that Harley’s super-heavyweight motorcycles are often called “hogs.”

Nebraska, once called the Great American Desert, is known for Scotts Bluff - a steep cliff rising from the prairie. It was a landmark for pioneers crossing the Plains on the way to Oregon. Chimney Rock was another landmark. Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral legislature. Its name means “Flat River” from an Indian word for the Platte

River. Nebraska’s some 72,000 farms and ranches help make Omaha one of the world’s largest livestock markets and rail centers. The Gateway Arch rises high above St. Louis, the largest city of Missouri. It is over 630ft (192 m.) high and made of stainless steel. It was put up to commemorate the opening of the West, in memory of the pioneers who traveled west from here. Indian “people of the dugout canoes” gave their name to a river and then to a state of Missouri (nickname: Show Me State). This is the land of rich farms, a region of wooden slopes, game and hill people who retain traditions of pioneering forebears. Even today this land of Mark Twain and mules and corncob pipes is a strategic industrial and distribution center.

St. Louis is known to be a birthplace of hot dogs. Sausages may come from Frankfurt or Vienna, as the names frankfurter and wiener imply but the hot dog, a sausage served in a long bun, is an all-American creation. The first hot dog bun was actually a pair of cotton gloves that had to be returned to the vendor for the next customer. The bun we know today was probably born in the 1880s, when a St. Louis sausage vendor got tired of giving his customers gloves and put his sausages on bread instead. Americans eat about 16 billion hot dogs a year, or 65 per person. To keep up, the Oscar Mayer company rolls 36, 000 franks off its “hot dog highway” every year.

Americans did not start eating ice cream out of cones until 1904 – at the world’s fair in St. Louis, The Smithsonian recognizes Abe Doumar, a Lebanese immigrant, as the inventor. He rolled a waffle from one stall and put it ice cream in it from another and sold the combination. He then created a machine for producing the cone.

Illinois(Prairie State) spouts agricultural riches and forms an empire of industries that range from making steel to printing National Geographic magazines. Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska are known as The Corn Belt of the Central Basin. The fertile soil and the long hot summers with enough rain are a farmer’s dream. Two out of three farmers in the USA grow corn.

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Questions

1. What traditions and standards has the Midwest been influenced by? 2. How do many people refer to each other in this region? Why? 3. What nation’s second largest city is situated here? 4. Which state is the coldest in the USA? 5. Where is the colossal mountain carving and what does it feature? 6. Which state is a home of eight American presidents? 7. What is the second richest of US agricultural states? 8. How was “Eskimo Pie” invented? 9. What does the term “rags-to-riches hero” mean? 10. Whose invention is one of the symbols of today’s America? 10. What is Missouri famous for?

THE SOUTHWEST

This region is characterized by geographical variety; from humid lands of eastern

Texas(Austin) to drier prairies in Oklahoma(Oklahoma City) and Western Texas to mountains and deserts in Arizona(Phoenix), Nevada(Carson City) and New Mexico(Santa Fe). The population of the region is 11 million. For a long period the basic pattern here was one of coexistence among Spanish-Americans, Texans, and several persistent American Indian peoples. Though the inflow of people from all parts of the country has been heavy in recent years, these original patterns are still important and give the region a feeling different from the rest of the West. The four states rank in the top six in terms of percentage of Latinos. The southwest is a battleground for the country’s most urgent domestic issue: what to do about the 12 million illegal in the country. The area is rich in minerals. Cattle-breeding is also an important part of the

Southwest’s economy.

Texas and Oklahoma developed a more open, aggressive, assertive, and optimistic version of Southern culture based on the riches of livestock and oil which was discovered in the 1920s. Water is precious here. Only the Red Indians knew how to survive here. In the second half of the 1800s, Indians, cattlemen, cowboys, and farmers were fighting each other for land. Those were the days of the Old Wild West. The word Texas comes from the

Indian word meaning “friends”. The nick-name of Texas is “Lone Star State”- it is the only state that was an independent republic, recognized by the United States, before annexation. Texas is the nation’s second largest state. Its largest cities Houston (the fifth largest city of the country) and Dallas now rank alongside Atlanta and Nashville as the leading cities of the South as a region. Houston is known as the site of the Space Center. The city was founded in 1836 and named in honor of General Sam Houston, first president of the Republic of Texas. Dallas is known to be the scene of the assassination of President John F.Kennedy in 1963. The city of Austin has the biggest state capitol building in the USA and houses the University of Texas.

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Nevada (nickname: Silver State) is known to the rest of the world as the place of legalized gambling and lenient divorce. This state seems to want people to lose their money, their virginity or their bachelor status as quickly as possible. The state’s casinos, legal brothels (buildings where men pay to have sex with prostitutes) and wedding chapels are like attractive light houses in the desert. They warn people about dangers, but the violet, gold and electric lights of Las Vegas shine in the dark desert and attract gamblers, the poor, sex-hungry and romantic. In California, and most other states, you have to have a blood test and wait some time before you can get married. Nevada only requires proof of identity. Here you could be married as Mr. and Mrs. Mickey and Minnie Mouse, with Walt Disney as a witness. A wedding march across the Mojave Desert is made from Los Angeles by thousands of people eloping, stars marrying. Frank Sinatra was married at least once in a chapel, Briggite Bardot did it there, and Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford used chewing-gum wrappers to make rings for the quickly arranged wedding, though a full ceremony with champagne, video, organist, garters, bouquets, photos and everything else is provided, too. “The Chapel of Love” performing the ceremony doesn’t open until 9 a.m. But a priest could marry you at any place-even right there in the middle of the road. You may choose a 30-second ceremony at a drive-through window, similar to McDonald’s. A limo will take you to the marriage license office and back. A woman minister-cum-mistress of ceremonies will tell you about Christian virtues before pronouncing you man and wife and you will parade through your hotel casino to the fanfare of thousands of slot machines down the path of matrimony.

If America is the world capital of reinvention, then Las Vegas - Sin City - is its heart. Every year it attracts tens of thousands of new residents, looking for a new life, a big break, a second chance. And increasingly, they are looking beyond the famous casinos.

The city’s population is 1.7 million; average annual change is 2.1 percent. Size of national economy (2006) makes up $13.153 trillion. The share of Vegas residents who work in the resort industry has fallen from 26.2% to 19.8% in the last decade, as more options emerge. The casinos remain a magnet for everyone from downsized industrial workers to retirees and Latin immigrants. But the city is increasingly drawing spin-off industries in high tech, finance and manufacturing (plastic and metal products). Vegas boasts of one of the best broad-bands - telecommunications networks in the USA. It‘s estimated that 40-50 percent of the businesses it has recruited in recent years relocated from California. Bedroom communities house a growing middle class. A typically Western entrepreneurial spirit thrives here. Pensioners who fill resorts are a big source of growth. Vegas’ population has been rising faster than the fastest-growing US cities like Charlotte, North Carolina, and that poses challenges on a scale unique for the

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United States, like how to create social stability in the face of a huge influx of unskilled labor and how to open and staff a new school district each year. Still, plenty of struggling second cities would love to have the neon mecca’s troubles.

Long ago, only Indians lived in Oklahoma. Then on April 22, 1889, settlers were allowed to claim the land. A gun was fired at midday. People raced across the borders. By the evening, 10,000 people had claimed land. In Oklahoma City , there is a statue of a tired Cherokee Indian on his pony. Long ago, the Cherokees were forced to move to Oklahoma from their homes in the southeast. Many died on the road, known as the Trail of Tears. Oklahoma is on top of oil fields. Millions of people come to Oklahoma every year to visit its 200 man-made and 100 natural lakes.

Arizona’s nickname is Grand Canyon State. It is mostly a desert area. It’s principal tourist attraction, the Grand Canyon, is one of the world’s natural wonders. For more than 10 million years, the Colorado River has been eroding the land along its course in northern Arizona, creating the awe-some landscape of the Grand Canyon. A 2-billion- year-old layer of rock lies at the bottom of the chasm; a mile above are petroglyphs carved by prehistoric Indians. The first Europeans to see the canyon were members of the 1540 expedition led by the Spanish explorer Colorado. White men knew little about the region until 1869, when Maj. John Wesley Powell and nine companions made a daring trip down the raging Colorado. “What a conflict of water and fire must have been here!” he wrote. A railroad spur line reached the canyon’s south rim in 1901, and a hotel was opened at the line’s terminus in 1904, turning the canyon into a tourist attraction. Theodore Roosevelt cautioned his countrymen to preserve the natural wonder, saying, “the ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it,” in 1919,

Congress heeded his warming and created Grand Canyon National Park.

Questions

1. What original patterns give the region a feeling different from the rest of the West? 2.

How high is percentage of Latinos? 3. What is the origin of the word “Texas”? 4. Why has Texas state such a name – “Lone Star State”? 5. What is Houston famous for? 6. Where was President John Kennedy assassinated? 7. How is Nevada known to the rest of the world? 8. What city in the USA is known as Sin City? Why? 9. Is Texas or

Oklahoma on top of oil fields? 10. Which state’s nick-name is “Grand Canyon State” and why?

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THE PACIFIC SOUTHWEST AND NORTHWEST

The Pacific Southwest Region is primarily California – one of the largest and most populous states, called the Golden State. There has never been a state even faintly resembling California. In 1769, a Spanish Jesuit, Father Junipero Serra, established the first mission in Southern California. Eventually 21 missions were strung out, about a day’s walk apart, all the way to San Francisco. There Spanish influence stopped. Once a tranquil land of Spanish missions, California got its first swarm of settlers in the Gold Rush of 1849.Today climate and booming industry spur a continuing influx that in 1964 saw it become the nation’s most populous state. Here live over 25 million people, seven times the population in all the first 13 states in 1790, since 1964 more populous than New York, and home now to one in every ten Americans. Were this an independent country, it would exceed more than 100 other nations in population and 92 in land area. Its gross national product would be greater than those of all nations save the United States and 6 others. Of all the United States, California is the one that could most easily exist alone. Located so far from the nation’s traditional power centers in the East and with a population so huge it creates its own market for products and ideas, California alone has been able to challenge New York as the center of economic decision making and Massachusetts as the Athens of America. Agriculturally, it would be among the world’s leading nations. It feeds the country in many crops and provides a large percentage of its fruits and vegetables. Yet in another sense, California is very much a part of – and dependent on – the United States. The government in Washington and taxpayers everywhere invest fantastic wealth in California’s multitudinous defense industries. Half of California’s 101 million acres are owned by the federal government.

Though still seen as the Promised Land by many, California became more competitive than ever before. Only the very talented and hard-working engineer, lawyer, or other professional could command the salary to buy middle –class amenities and participate in all the special things California has to offer. The new computer industry is concentrated here, in Silicon Valley- an area of the Northern California famous for world-class academic institutions (Stanford University and the University of California at Berkley), brilliant scientists, military procurements of semiconductors and the pleasant climate of Northern California, which makes it one of the greatest ‘science parks” in the world. At hundreds of start-ups across Silicon Valley, computer whizzes are setting the tone for the national work-a-thon, a strong example of dedication to the enterprise. In the United States, family life and work are often inseparable. Silicon Valley lifestyle is one in which the jargon of work, new technologies and new forms of communication have become a normal part of everyday “Homo Siliconus” family life.

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The people in Silicon Valley differ from the rest of the world in the way they embrace every available technology to keep in contact. The feeling of being connected and accessible around the clock creates an illusion of control. The typical resident of Silicon Valley uses his office as a place of social contact and his home as a place of work.

“Siliconus” families describe themselves as “teams” and develop “mission statements” listing each person’s responsibilities. Kids learn to adapt at an early age. (Researchers heard one child tell another “don’t bother me, I’m working.”)

Young computer whizzes may not be broadly representative of the contemporary work force. But in one respect – crazy hours – the Silicon Valley ethos speaks for America these days. Between 1977 and 1997, the average workweek) among salaried Americans working 20 hours or more) lengthened from 43 to 47 hours. Over the same years, the number of workers putting in 50 or more hours a week jumped from 24% to 37%. Now, according to a recent report of the International Labor organization, the USA has slipped past Japan to become the longest-working nation in the advanced industrial word. Americans work nine weeks more each year than their colleagues in Western Europe. More than half of Americans (52%) say they would be willing to trade a day off a week for a day’s pay a week. On the economic front, California is home to the nation’s largest commercial and financial institution, the Bank of America, and second to none in venture capacity activity. But California’s industrialists still must fly to New York to arrange major merges and to sell corporate stocks and bonds, just as

California’s municipalities still sell their bonds to the New York markets. Without US markets and the mighty flow of immigrants the other states have provided – California would be a pale shadow of what it is today.

The third-largest state in land area, after Alaska and Texas, California is so huge geographically – 800 miles from corner to corner – that people have sometimes despaired it as a single entity. Geography is extremely varied, with very hot and very cold areas within a few miles’ distance. It is a land of startling contrasts: westward lies the iridescent Pacific; to the south, the Colorado River and dense forest sun-scorched Mexican desert, to the east, alpine snowy mountains and peaks of the Sierra Nevada, to the north, more mountains and the forests of Oregon. The most cited contrast is between 14,494-foot Mt. Whitney, highest peak south of Alaska, and Death Valley, just 60 miles to the southeast, dipping 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point of the Western Hemisphere and the hottest and driest in the USA. (In 1849 a party of prospectors entered this desert furnace, hoping for o shortcut to the gold mines of California. Months later the survivors staggered out of the valley, their harrowing story written in a tangled trail of oxen carcasses, burned wagons, and human skeletons. “Good-bye, Death

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Valley!” one of them is supposed to have shouted, and so it was christened. One of forty-niners ( people from different parts of America and the world who were attracted to the West after the gold rush had begun in California in 1849) brought out a piece of silver

– a powerful lure for prospectors. Over the next 50 years, rumors of gold and other valuable minerals brought fortune seekers to the valley. But true to Death Valley’s stingy reputation, these mines were expensive to work and seldom yielded any profit. An exception was borax, which was mined profitably in the 1880s and hauled out by the famous 20-mule-team wagons. Some unscrupulous miners hit pay dirt biking eager investors, but none did so as successfully as the flamboyant Walter Scott. Scott persuaded dozens of financiers to invest in his “secret’ gold mine, sight unseen. And although “Death Valley Scotty” was eventually forced to admit that there was no such mine, he built a luxurious mansion in the valley and lived out to his dreams of grandeur until his death in 1954.

Much of coastal California is sunny and balmy, the kind of lotus land that has drawn millions. Retiring to California became too costly for the average elderly person. Yet simultaneously, California had become the new Ellis Island of America, one of every four immigrants entering the US eventually settles in California. Floodtides of immigration cause inevitable social tensions with longtime Californians, both black and white, who see their state being “taken over”. California’s pressing and complex problems include the unmet needs of minority groups, especially black and Mexican-American citizens; the diminishing supply of pure air and water; chronic transportation congestion; and growing fiscal demands, particularly for education and crime control. Nature can play cruel tricks. Californians live in uneasy knowledge, and some in intense terror, of earth-quakes. More than 15 severe quakes struck California in the past century. The capital city of California is Sacramento – a city situated 360 air miles from Los Angeles.

Two of the largest Californian cities are Los Angeles – the nation’s third largest city - and San Diego. The visitor from the East disembarks from a transcontinental jet, rents an automobile, and starts motoring up the San Diego Freeway toward the Santa Monica Freeway and then central Los Angeles. Gazing on the endless acres of boxy little houses on individual lots, catching glimpses of the hills, one might bemoan the irrevocable loss of delicately flowered, precious, natural California. Yet one also senses the wealth, the driving power, of California’s Southland. Behind the wheel of the automobile, one feels a strong exhilaration. This is Los Angeles, this is the excess, the myth, dream, heights, and lurking tragedy all rolled into one. Los Angeles, the vortex of civilization where mankind devours every habit able place and then sprawls farther and farther out into desert, the place of movie stars and aero-space, possibly the most diverse economy to be found anywhere, has become the world’s largest metropolis and model for urban and

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social development in the late 20th – early 21st centuries. Los Angeles ranks third nationally in manufacturing, finance and trade, and leads the USA in production of aircraft, aviation electronics, heating and plumbing equipment, machinery, canned seafood. Important centers of the American motion-picture and television industries are at Hollywood, a district of Los Angeles. When moviemaking was in its infancy, pictures were turned out on the East Coast. In 1913, one of the film directors, searching a nice scenery for his movie, ended up in a peaceful place called Hollywood, the name that one Mrs. H.H. Wilcox had given to her husband’s ranch in the late 1880s. A stable was turned into a studio and production was started. That was the beginning of what would one day be called Paramount Pictures. Sites of interest in Hollywood include the

Hollywood Wax Museum, Mann’s Chinese Theater, which displays the hand -and foot - prints of movie stars. Los Angeles is the site of the major southern branch of the state university, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA): the University of Southern California and others. California spends more money for education than for any other purpose, and more people in California are engaged in education than in any other pursuit.

100 miles up the coast from Los Angeles there’s exquisitely gardened Santa Barbara, a city set in a crescent-shaped valley between the honey-colored mountains and the Pacific. Santa Barbara is imbued with quiet gentility and tradition; no California city is so close in architecture and life-styles to the ancient Spanish. Here is the Queen of the Missions, where the altar candle Rome the Padres lighted in 1886 has never been snuffed out. Nor is there any California city so Eastern. “Color Boston, Little Back Bay

West with blooming begonias, Anew England Style Blueblood community with two social registers, a court house which looks like a Moorish palace and the third-oldest polo playing club in America –that is what Santa Barbara is.

There are strong bonds of unity between Northern and Southern California. Even the University of California, with all its campuses, offers unity. The expressways are packed with traffic, and the San Francisco - Los Angeles air corridor is one of the world’s most heavily traveled. San Francisco is gateway to the Pacific and heartland of northern California. During World War II, and immediately following, heavy industries developed in San Francisco, primarily petroleum and steel products, automobile assembly, shipbuilding, machinery. Despite all this the core of the city retains its scenic charm, it has only “smokeless” industries, such as food processing, printing and publishing, commerce, and banking. San Francisco is unusual and very picturesque. It is surrounded by water on three sides. It stands on forty hills. In San Francisco the best way to get up and down the streets is to take a bumpy ride in a cable car. They are drawn along by thick, strong wire under the street. The symbol of San Francisco is the