Yankee ingenuity is a self-made stereotype of inventiveness, technical solutions to practical problems, "know-how",

self-reliance "Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false con ...

and individual enterprise associated with the

Yankee The term ''Yankee'' and its contracted form ''Yank'' have several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the United States. Its various senses depend on the context, and may refer to New Englanders, residents of the Northern United St ...

s, who originated in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

and developed much of the

industrial revolution in the United States The Industrial Revolution in the United States was an epoch during the first 100 years of United States history where the economy progressed from manual labor and farm labor to a greater degree of industrialization based on labor. There were ma ...

after 1800. The stereotype first appeared in the 19th century. As Mitchell Wilson notes, "Yankee ingenuity and Yankee git-up-and-go did not exist in colonial days." Yankee ingenuity characterizes an attitude of make-do with materials on hand. It is inventive improvisation, adaptation and overcoming of shortages of materials. The term "Yankee ingenuity" originated from the construction of the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

across rural

upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...

. Work began in 1817. The canal opened October 26, 1825. The term was common worldwide in the wake of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, as American forces employed engineering solutions to military problems. Doug Stewart notes of the

jeep Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...

: "the spartan, cramped, and unstintingly functional jeep became the ubiquitous World War II four-wheeled personification of Yankee ingenuity and cocky, can-do determination." Today it refers broadly to a typically American pragmatic approach to problem solving instead of traditional methods.

An example of Yankee Ingenuity would be the use of a pole saw to cut brush in the absence of a more appropriate tool.

References

{{Authority control English phrases Society of the United States Erie Canal Stereotypes

See also

References