22 - Flowers for Washington: Cultural Production, Consumption, and the United States in the World

Summary

Here one way to bookend the nineteenth century that reveals the changing position of the United States in the world: the century began with the 1814 burning of the White House and the ignominious fleeing of the president from the still mosquito-ridden District of Columbia. It ended with the 1912 planting of flowering Japanese cherry trees within a short walk of the White House. The flickering flames of 1814 were a reminder that the new nation was not so isolated as some might have wanted to believe. A century later, the perfume of those cherry trees provided scented evidence of the consumerist fascination with foreign places, products, and peoples.