Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
*United
The America of the trilogy is an isolationist, xenophobic nation, filling rapidly with a flood of European immigrants, ready to exploit the strength of their bodies in its mines and mills, but fearful of the radical ideas (Marxism, socialism, and anarchism) they bring with them from a rebellious continent. Everywhere the landscape is the same: Big companies owned by the rich use the poor as if they were parts of a machine. Workers who speak out, or who wear themselves out through overwork, are replaced. The reality of America as portrayed by Dos Passos contrasts sharply with the idea of America as envisioned by the nation’s Founders or as imagined by average citizens.
*Goldfield. Nevada mining town where labor organizer Fainy “Mac” McCreary works for a socialist newspaper, the Nevada Workman. There is no romantic Wild West here; rather, the town is the scene of one of the great “free speech” fights that erupted between mine workers and owners throughout the West in the early years of the twentieth century. Although free speech is guaranteed to every citizen by the Bill of Rights, Mac and the other members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) are frequently jailed for voicing unpopular ideas about the need for workers to organize to secure for themselves fundamental human rights. The sites of strikes or struggles between management and labor are the famous “battles” of Dos Passos’s second American Revolution.
Mac’s bookstore. Mexico City shop that illustrates how easily even a class rebel like Mac McCreary can slip into the comfortable life of the petty bourgeoisie. Mac owns the store, but Concha, the Mexican woman with whom he cohabits, actually runs it, leaving him little to do besides read and discuss politics with his cronies. The bookstore is a microcosm of capitalism at work, and it has made him–without his even realizing it–a small-time caricature of the capitalists he professes to hate. The small bit of money he has invested in the business allows him to exploit Concha, who here represents three groups that have historically been exploited in America: foreigners, the poor, and women. Mac himself lives on the labor of others, and when the bookstore fails and he is forced to flee, he discards the unfortunate Concha in the same way that wealthier capitalists discard superfluous workers.
Ocean City. Largely undeveloped Maryland coastal town where young J. Ward Moorehouse begins his career working for Colonel Wedgewood’s Ocean City Improvement and Realty Company. Ocean City is the dark side of the American Dream, a place where promised easy money never materializes.
*San Juan Hill. Site of an 1898 battle in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in which future president Theodore Roosevelt was involved. One of the most persistent false images in American history is that of Roosevelt charging up the hill on horseback at the head of his volunteer troop of “Rough Riders.” As he does throughout U.S.A., Dos Passos strips away the legend to reveal the truth: that Roosevelt ascended the hill on foot (only a fool would lead a cavalry charge up a hill) and that the hill had already been captured by U.S. Army regulars advancing up its opposite side. Because the legend is so firmly enshrined in the American imagination, the implied ironic analogue in Dos Passos’s description seems inescapable.
*Bingham. Utah mining center that is the site of a bitter labor battle between the IWW and the Utah Copper Company in 1912. IWW organizers, including the legendary Joe Hill, win shorter hours and higher wages for the downtrodden miners. For Dos Passos and his characters, the names of strikes resonate in the same way that the names of battles might resonate for a soldier. Names such as Bingham, Goldfield, Lawrenceville, and Coeur d’Alene become part of a working-class hero’s “service record.”