Arnie:

I think it's referred to as the Victorian age or era, and I think the US took many if not most (all?) of its social cues out of a common sense of common cultural origin. Gilbert & Sullivan and Dickens were constantly being pirated, the Robber Barons of industry were busy getting their daughters married into English aristocracy, the works of Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Shakespeare, and many others were being devoured over here. there has indeed been a special relationship across the Atlantic that has marked, and continues to mark both of us. I think we've been obsessively involved in a myriad of ways across arts, science, and technology. And of course we fought the last two BIG wars more or less on the same side.

I've talked to many Americans who were in love with everything about England, that is, until they actually went there.

But my favorite story is of a hiking buddy I had when I still lived in Boston. His father went over to England on business, having never been, and told the rest of the family that he'd research their origins if he found the time. Comes the return, they all go to Logan Airport to pick him up, he gathers them into his arms and announces "We're WELSH!"

The family name was James.