Native Americans in German popular culture immigrants underwent less of a close synthesis and interaction than, for example, Scottish Americans, with some notable exceptions such as Ben Reifel. Prominent German-Americans with a certain role in the image-building of Native Americans include the painters Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) and Louis Maurer (1832–1932). Important contribution in the humanities include anthropologist Franz Boas (1858–1942) and Native American Renaissance writer Louise Erdrich (born 1954). Germans still have an easygoing approach to using blackface or redface; there is a varied and continuing tradition of temporarily immersing oneself in different customs that is part of Carnival. "Indianerhobby" reenactment or living history is in
Scottish Americans rebellious colonies. According to the historian Arthur Herman: "Americans built their world around the principles of Adam Smith and Thomas Reid, of individual interest governed by common sense and a limited need for government." Nineteen of the fifty-six delegates who signed the Declaration of Independence came from Scotland or Ulster or, like the Scottish-tutored Thomas Jefferson, had ancestors there. Other founding fathers like James Madison had no ancestral connection but were imbued with ideas drawn from Scottish moral philosophy. Scottish Americans who made major contributions to the revolutionary war included Commodore John Paul Jones, the "Father of the American Navy",