I: Frontier Era: Early colonial (early 1600's-1775)
The beginning. The future United States is just a series of modest British colonies in North America.
II: Frontier Era: Early Independence (1776-1865)
Independent America, but still in the early stages. America is still a modest frontier nation, though one that is rising. The American Founding Fathers pave the foundations that America is built on. America struggles with the problem of slavery. In the end, a new Founding Father, Abraham Lincoln, is needed to lead America past slavery, and a huge war has to be fought. The foundations of America are laid with great difficulty, and America's rise begins.
III: Frontier America: America Rising (1866-1913)
Independent America, rising but not fully emerged, not quite, not just yet. The frontier south of Alaska and Canada, at least in the west, still exists. America steadily and rapidly grows from a growing frontier nation to become the economic powerhouse of the world, but is still little concerned with world affairs outside the Americas. Guided by Abraham Lincoln, the Constitution and the Founding Fathers, and with immense resources, with cultures from Irish to Italian to Jewish to Mexican to west African, America has immense potential.
I would at this point like to give a shout out to the unsung founders of America: the great British and other European passenger ships of this era, especially the great British ships, on which so many people from overseas came into America to build America and make it strong! Ships like the SS Great Britain, the first large ironclad ocean steamship that was propeller-driven rather than paddle-wheel (and thus partly sail)-driven.
IV: The War Years: America Becomes A Citizen of the World (1914-1945)
The years of war and disaster in the great wider world. WWI. WWII. America is unfallen, and America is the economic powerhouse of the world. America accepts her responsability to help the rest of the world, to help fight and save the world, and to help rebuild. The great flowering of American pop culture, one of the great creative happenings in all history, begins, especially beginning in the 1920's in the Jazz Age and the age of Louis Armstrong.
V: The Early Rise (1946-1957)
Not America's rise, but the World's! The World Wars are over! The rebirth of the World begins! America leads NATO and the hope of the world in rising above the World Wars into a bright new future! The age of Chuck Yeager and the Jet Age, the age of Charlie Parker and bebop, the age of Elvis and early Rock and Roll, the age of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole! An early version of the American Golden Age is here!
VI: The American Golden Age (1958-1990)
The American Golden Age! The age of NATO and the recovery of Japan! Explorer 1, America's successful response to Sputnik, launches the Space Age in the Free World! The age of Gemini and Apollo, Viking and Voyager, the age of John Coltrane, Miles Davis and the beatniks, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and the Hippies, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, Jim Henson and Star Trek! America leads the rebirth of the world!
America in this age is like a genius teenager who's read every book in the library- full of youthful optimism and hope, learned from everyone from the Italians to the Jews to the Irish to west Africans, learned from Beethoven and Michelangelo and Newton, learned from a hundred cultures and far ahead of any other civilization that is less than 200 years old! For before 1776, we were not even Americans yet- we were Englishmen, and mostly just small farmers at that!
*My own 'One Bright Shining Moment When Men Could fly', focusing on the early Space Age, tells the story of the beginning of this age, as well as its roots, from the point of view of the wider world, as world history, through Gordon Cooper's Mercury flight in 1963!
VII: America's Mental Crisis (1992-present (2022))
The American Golden Age ends. Exhausted mentally, America enters into a deep clinical Depression. The job is done; the rest of the world no longer needs us. Japan, South Korea, India, China and the European Union now lead world civilization. The American Golden Age still lives on in Japan and Europe; Japan, South Korea, India and the new Asia are creating more beautiful ages still! China's government is flawed, but not too horrible, and there is so much hope and potential there, while Japan, South Korea, India and the entire European Union all have democracies as good as any America ever had. America has fallen off to the side in our own massive psychological funk. For a few years in the late 1990's people try to recapture happiness in the age of Britney and N*SYNC; but we have to fight for it and it does not last. But this is only in America. The beautiful new future America built in the American Golden Age lives on in places like Japan and the European Union, and the rebirth is still yet growing. It will return to America; but not just yet. Pray for America; the rest of the world is just fine. The future belongs to Asia now; Japan, South Korea and India will lead the world now.
But America is not done yet. America is still prosperous and free. Even well into the era of the mental crisis, past 2004, America still makes a few of the greatest movies ever made- Avatar, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Pixar's Up- and still leads the world in space exploration! Nations and civilizations often go through the same kinds of things as individuals. This is the first time in our civilization's history that America has doubted youthful optimism- America's equivalent of the time in a young adult's life when the full burden of adulthood is felt for the first time, and you begin to doubt youthful optimism. With, in America's case, the first time since the American Civil War that America has faced a problem that is as painful and difficult for America as it is for our allies out there who we are trying to save. Young people, and young countries, are much stronger when they are trying to save someone else than when they have to save themselves. In the World Wars and the Cold War, it was far worse for Europe than it was for America. This is as hard for America as it is for our allies- or harder. And that is hard for a young, teenage nation to face. And so we are doubting our youthful optimism for the first time in our history as a nation and a young civilization. And the effort of the World Wars and the Cold War left us tired. And so America has clinical depression. But America is not done yet. We will work our way out of this in time, as every young person who goes on to become a successful adult does, for we all have to face this stage in our life. America is not done yet. America is still prosperous and free. We still make a few works of creative genius, like the Black Panther movies and the television show The Orville. And the world will not forget what America did for the world! Japan, South Korea and India will lead the world now, but America's place in the world is secure! And one day we will pull out of this mental crisis!
*1991 is a transitional year
XI: The Future: America's Maturity
When America does pull out of this mental crisis, in time, with it will come full maturity. And we will see America not as a teenage genius but as a fully mature civilization for the first time. We will see what America is like when America becomes America's equivalent of Marcus Aurelius's Rome. That is still in the future. But it is out there. For the mental crisis is growing pains. We will pull out of this, and when we do, America will have grown. And we will see a fully mature America for the first time! We will see the United States as a fully mature civilization for the first time! The promise is there! For every successful adult has gone through that stage of their life and growth, and pulled out of it, and America will too! Ameria's full maturity is ahead!
Rejoice! For the future still lives, though America no longer leads it! We look to Japan, South Korea and India now!
God loves you! Keep your head up and look to the light! We'll get through this!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson