Egyptomania in the United States

Though very few Americans could afford a trip to Egypt during the peak of Egyptomania and only made contact with Egyptian culture through literature, art, and architecture, the fascination with ancient Egypt was manifest through American literature, architecture, art, film, politics and religion. Particularly influential were Vivant Denon's Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Égypte, the Institute of Egypt's Description de l'Égypte, and Verdi's Aida.

Later on in the 1920s, the discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun considerably revived American interest in Egypt, which was manifest in some architecture of the time, such as Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Fred F. French Building in New York.

In culture

American literature, visual art and architecture absorbed what was becoming general knowledge about ancient Egyptian culture, making use of this knowledge in contemporary debate about national identity, race, and slavery. Elements of Egyptian culture became particularly symbolically charged. The mummy, for example, represented an American (or perhaps broadly Western) fascination with the living dead and reanimation. This went so far that 'mummy unwrapping parties' were organized.

Beyond entertainment, Egyptian mummies were also imported into the United States for industrial purposes, such as the manufacture of paper from their linen wrappings. This practice raised ethical debates.

The figure of Cleopatra, hieroglyphic writing and deciphering, and the pyramid as a maze are other examples of how ancient Egypt has captivated Western imaginations, and specifically in the United States since the nineteenth century. Literary works that make use of these symbolic references to Egypt include "Some Words With a Mummy" by Edgar Allan Poe, "Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy's Curse" by Louisa May Alcott or The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The impact of ancient Egyptian culture in architecture is called the Egyptian Revival, an expression of neoclassicism and later on Art Deco especially in the United States. Egyptian images, forms and symbols were integrated in the contemporary style. This influence can best be seen in the architecture of cemeteries, such as the use of obelisks as headstones, and prisons.

Egyptian Revival symbols and architecture was used for cemetery gateways, tombstones, and public memorials in the 19th and early 20th century. In the American South, Egyptomania took on a distinctive ideological dimension. Beyond architectural trends, some Southern intellectuals and pro-slavery theorists invoked Ancient Egypt as a historical precedent for a hierarchical, slave-based civilization. They portrayed Egypt as a model of social order and cultural refinement, using its legacy to justify the Southern plantation system. This symbolic appropriation of Egypt supported the narrative of slavery as a “natural” and “civilized” institution. Egyptian motifs were also adopted in Southern funerary architecture and public monuments, especially in cities like Richmond and Memphis, where the Nile became a metaphor for the Mississippi. Pyramid Mausoleums, flat-roofed mastabas, lotus columns, obelisks, and sphinxes were popular in 19th century rural or garden cemeteries. For example, the gateways of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts and Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut were constructed in the Egyptian Revival style.

Other examples of this influence are Luxor Hotel, Washington Monument, several theaters and movie palaces, and many other buildings. Movies such as The Mummy (1999) (itself a remake of a 1932 Boris Karloff film) and its sequels demonstrate that ancient Egypt and the discovery of its secrets are still of interest for contemporary western minds. Scholarly texts about this phenomenon in American culture include Scott Trafton's Egypt Land (2004) and M. J. Schueller's U.S. Orientalism (1998).