I'd honestly never heard of this before, but I was intrigued enough to use my librarian's skills to track down a book which covers this:
*O Strange New World; American Culture: The Formative Years*, by
Howard Mumford Jones (published 1964)
The book is apparently out of print now, but I'll see if I can snare it via interlibrary loan. Sounds like interesting reading!
--
Nanaea