AHC: Keep the US as anglo-cultured as Australia

This is a US that can still become independent but retain more features of British culture such as Australia has. Closer vocabulary and colloquialisms, more shared popularity among sports such as cricket and rugby etc.

This is not to say that Australia doesn't have its own culture btw just that it retains stronger British influences.
 
Severely limiting non-British immigration is probably the most obvious way to do it, maybe the quota laws are passed earlier and more strictly enforced. Also cricket was sort of popular at one point in the 19th century US (the first international cricket game was US vs Canada), but it got rapidly overtaken by baseball, so just find a way to kill baseball in its infancy and cricket will likely take its place. Also Britain needs to remain the top global power for a longer period of time, historically the US lost a lot of British-influenced culture (like the "Mid-Atlantic Accent", essentially upper class Americans trying to sound like Brits) as Britain got weaker and we got stronger.
 
Wasn't the US very Francophile, and for that matter actively anti-British culturally speaking, after the ARW? Heck, the M1795 Springfield was a near-copy of the Charleville. Reducing that Francophilia might help. The US, and especially the east coast upper-class, became very Anglophile again later on, but I would assume that by then many of the effects you want to remove were established.

Of course, another way to be "independent" is the Canadian model: no revolution, dominion status, and eventual independence.
 

samcster94

Banned
This is a challenge, but not impossible. Personally, I think a Republican(no king) U.S. could do it, but would be trickier. The war of 1812 would have to not happen most likely to get what the OP wants(as well as avoiding the Civil War over slavery, and a peaceful route is chosen instead).A Federalist wank would have a shot even if much milder than OTL Australia.
The Republic of Ireland fits exactly what the OP wants, yet has no monarchy at all(of course it is physically closer and shares a border with the U.K. via NI), even South Africa has a bit of what the OP wants(even with obviously different demographics).
 
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There's a fundamental tension between independence and British identity. Firstly, British people have a lot less interest in moving to a place that has just gone to war against them, especially when there are so many other places in the world still owned by the Brits. Secondly, the newly independent country is going to seek to actively create a non-British identity.
 

Driftless

Donor
Wasn't the US very Francophile, and for that matter actively anti-British culturally speaking, after the ARW? Heck, the M1795 Springfield was a near-copy of the Charleville. Reducing that Francophilia might help. The US, and especially the east coast upper-class, became very Anglophile again later on, but I would assume that by then many of the effects you want to remove were established.

Of course, another way to be "independent" is the Canadian model: no revolution, dominion status, and eventual independence.

I'm not at all sure about the depth of the Francophile situation, but there was something there.... Even the excess of the Reign of Terror and Napoleon's empire didn't completely devalue US admiration for things French. Much of the US Midwest and Mississippi Valley still retains numerous French place names going back 300 to 400 years and a significant number of the early notable citizens were French heritage, and rose to wealth and prominence through the fur trade business. Some of our members here can elaborate better than I can, but there was a significant admiration within the US military from the ARW through WW1, with a blink during the days after the Franco-Prussian War. Admiration for Napoleonic artillery, uniforms (both sides in the US Civil War had baggy pantalooned Zouave units and everybody wore kepi's of some type). Even into and after WW1, some of US artillery equipment and doctrine gave a nod to the French.
 
There's a fundamental tension between independence and British identity. Firstly, British people have a lot less interest in moving to a place that has just gone to war against them, especially when there are so many other places in the world still owned by the Brits. Secondly, the newly independent country is going to seek to actively create a non-British identity.

IOTL a fair amount of Brits/English still came over:

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Only behind Germany and Ireland during the first mass immigration era. I can assume with a more friendly parting even more Brits would have come over.
 
IOTL a fair amount of Brits/English still came over:

View attachment 329179

Only behind Germany and Ireland during the first mass immigration era. I can assume with a more friendly parting even more Brits would have come over.

How do you have a more friendly parting? The Brits would never let them go without a war, and the peace party in Britain that settled the war was highly sympathetic. It is not enough for the UK to be the third destination. It needs to be first to be as British as Australia.
 
How do you have a more friendly parting? The Brits would never let them go without a war, and the peace party in Britain that settled the war was highly sympathetic. It is not enough for the UK to be the third destination. It needs to be first to be as British as Australia.

Not necessarily third but perhaps 2nd would be enough.

Think about it, despite the numbers I'd say the US is currently a lot more similar to the UK culturally than Germany. The elites in the US have historically had family ties to Britain more than they ever did Germany.

The rate at which many Americans shed/shunned their German heritage following the world wars dwarfed the post-revolution period with the British.
 
Best way would probably be to avoid the ARW as it is, have several Dominion like entities evolve and turn the Empire into a Commonwealth like federation.
 
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