Deep impact: The cultural policy of the United States in France, 1948 to 1952

This dissertation combines a study of Franco-American relations with an analysis of cultural reception and transmission. Specifically, I examine cultural programs of the United States in France that sought to increase support for American policy goals as well as promote the American way of life, which I identify as a collection of signs and representations encompassing material prosperity, consumer lifestyles, productivity, and anti-Communism.; The first two chapters of the dissertation examine the program of exhibits and labor information carried out by the United States. Permitted by a bilateral clause in the Marshall Plan, the United States conducted an extensive program reaching from small villages in the Massif Central to the floor of the Renault factory outside of Paris. I argue that because American planners were unfamiliar with the political culture of rural France and French labor, these exhibits failed to gain support to the desired extent for U.S. policy goals, including productivity and non-Communist labor movements. Rather, I show how these exhibits acted as metonyms for modernity which in turn strengthened French discourses about the threat of Americanization.; The final chapters of the dissertation provide an analysis of the cultural presence of the United States in France. I examine the promotion of transatlantic tourism to France to discern how national identity was articulated and displayed. I argue that French tourism publicity in the United States hypostatized French national identity by presenting French vacations as an opportunity for middle-class American consumers to increase their cultural capital. In turn, the unprecedented number of American tourists in France necessitated the creation of spaces and places of tourist leisure premised on the perceived lack of culture of middle class Americans. I also examine several mass-circulation French and American periodicals like Sélection du Reader's Digest and Réalités which attempted to promote the American way of life. I conclude that these publications provoked apprehension and concern among French politicians (non-Communist and Communist alike) who viewed them as threats to sovereignty and legitimacy. The dissertation concludes with an assessment of the cultural policy of the United States and a discussion of the relationship between the Marshall Plan and Americanization.