The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture. It is particularly used to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the United States; the melting-together metaphor was in use by the 1780s.

After 1970 the desirability of assimilation and the melting pot model was challenged by proponents of multiculturalism, who assert that cultural differences within society are valuable and should be preserved, proposing the alternative metaphor of the mosaic or salad bowl – different cultures mix, but remain distinct.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the metaphor of a "crucible" or "(s)melting pot" was used to describe the fusion of different nationalities, ethnicities and cultures. It was used together with concepts of the United States as an ideal republic and a "city upon a hill" or new promised land.^{[citation needed]} It was a metaphor for the idealized process of immigration and colonization by which different nationalities, cultures and "races" (a term that could encompass nationality, ethnicity and race) were to blend into a new, virtuous community, and it was connected to utopian visions of the emergence of an American "new man". While "melting" was in common use the exact term "melting pot" came into general usage in 1908, after the premiere of the play The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill.

Madeline Bell (born July 23, 1942, Newark, New Jersey) is an American soul singer, who became famous as a performer in the United Kingdom during the 1960s, having arrived from the US in the gospel show Black Nativity in 1962, with vocal group The Bradford Singers.

She worked as a session singer, most notably backing for Dusty Springfield, and can be found on early Donna Summer material as well.^{[citation needed]} Her first major solo hit was a cover version of Dee Dee Warwick's single "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me", which performed better on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart than the original.

Madeline then joined contemporary pop combo Blue Mink, with whom she had a number of Top 20 hits with Philips Records in the UK, including "Melting Pot", "Our World", "Randy", "Banner Man", "Good Morning Freedom", "Sunday", "By The Devil I Was Tempted" and "Stay With Me". Before joining Blue Mink in late 1969 she sang solo, and her cover version of "Picture Me Gone" is still a Northern Soul favourite today, as is "What Am I Supposed To Do", from 1968, a two-minute B-side tune co-written with future Led Zeppelin member John Paul Jones, then working as one of London's most in-demand session bassists (Bell also sang backup on Joe Cocker's "Bye Bye Blackbird" in 1969, which featured a guitar solo from another Led Zeppelin member, Jimmy Page) Jones later arranged, produced and recorded Bell's 1973 RCA album Comin' Atcha. She sang backing vocals on Rod Stewart's 1971 song "Every Picture Tells A Story", and contributed to the soundtrack of the romance film A Touch of Class (1973).