Crafting the “Image of America”: The usia/University of Pennsylvania Certificate in American Studies (1960–68)

This essay examines the history of an academic certificate in American studies that was developed and implemented by Robert Spiller (University of Pennsylvania) at the behest of the US Information Agency, and targeted at non-US citizens outside of the US. The certificate’s genesis and trajectory were rooted in and inflected by contemporary interest in the field of American studies as offering a means of conducting cultural diplomacy by disseminating information about the US, its way of life, and the benefits offered by the democratic system. The history of the program, like that of the field as a whole, thus reveals how American studies assumed an ambassadorial role abroad for the nation in its new capacity as a world power. At the same time, it also shows the fault lines between the images of the nation that scholars and US officials sought to project, and what audiences abroad were most interested in knowing.