Day 106: America Moves to the CityBaltimore Polytechnic Institute

February 12, 2014A/A.P. U.S. History

Mr. Green

The Students will be able to analyze the impact of the cultural changes in the late 19th century by describing the moral and intellectual trends

Objective

Objectives: Students will:Describe the rise of the American industrial city, and place it in the context of worldwide trends of urbanization and mass migration (the European diaspora).Describe the New Immigration, and explain how it differed from the Old Immigration and why it aroused opposition from many native-born Americans.Discuss the efforts of social reformers and churches to aid the New Immigrants and alleviate urban problems, and the immigrants’ own efforts to sustain their traditions while assimilating to mainstream America.

AP FocusIndustrialization sparks urbanization, and cities become magnets for immigrants. Those who can afford to leave behind the hustle and bustle of urban life move to the budding suburbs. See the table in The American Pageant (13th ed., p. 560/14th ed., p. 598). Demographic Changes is an AP theme.The late nineteenth century sees a surge of immigration, now from eastern and southern Europe. Most encounter living and working conditions not appreciably better than what they had left. The tenement floor plan (13th ed., p. 561/14th ed., p. 599) shows typical living conditions for impoverished urban workers.

America Moves to the City

CHAPTER THEMESIn the late nineteenth century, American society was increasingly dominated by large urban centers. Explosive urban growth was accompanied by often disturbing changes, including the New Immigration, crowded slums, new religious outlooks, and conflicts over culture and values. While many Americans were disturbed by the new urban problems, cities also offered opportunities to women and expanded cultural horizons.

Chapter Focus

1890s Decade Chart due on Wednesday

Announcements

Liberal Protestantsrejected biblical literalismstories as models for behavior

Roman Catholics1900-largest single denomination

JudaismSalvation Army-from EnglandChurch of Christ, Scientist-heal the sickYMCA, YWCA

Churches Confront the Urban Challenge

Natural Selectionnature blindly picked organisms for survival or death based on random, inheritable variations they possessed

1875many scientists embraced theory of organic evolution

Clergy response to DarwinInitially, most rejected Darwin2 groups by 1875

Scripture as the infallible Word of Godgave rise to fundamentalism in 20th century

accommodationists tried to reconcile Darwinism with Christianity

Science began to explain more of the external world

Darwin Disrupts the Churches

By 1870, more states made grade school education compulsoryPrior to the Civil War, there were few public high schools, mainly

private academiesBy 1900 there were 6,000 public high schools with free

textbooksTeacher training schoolsKindergartens from GermanyCatholic parochial schoolsChautauqua movement

nationwide public lecturesIlliteracy rate

20% in 187010.7% in 1900

The Lust for Learning

Headed the Black normal and industrial school in Tuskegee, AL

Taught trades to gain self respect/economic security

AccommodationistWashington did not challenge white supremacyAvoided issue of social equality economic independence would be the answer

George Washington Carver

Booker T. Washington and Black People

W.E.B. Du Bois did not support Washington’s positionArgued Washington condemning African-American race to manual labor and inferiorityDemanded complete equality for blacksFounded the NAACPtalented tenth

Differences between the two highlights the contrasting lifestyles of the North and South

Morrill Act of 1862provided grant of public lands to the states for educationLand Grant Colleges-state universities

Hatch Act of 1887extended Morrill Actfederal money for agricultural experiment stations

Philanthropic collegesCornellStanfordUniversity of Chicago

UniversitiesJohns Hopkins

Hallowed Halls of Ivy

Education moved away from a religious framework to more practical and specialized instruction

Elective systemField of concentrationSpecializationMedicine

Louis Pasteur Joseph ListerWilliam James-pragmatismtruth of an idea to be tested by its practical consequences

The March of the Mind

Growth of the public libraryCarnegie contributed $60 million for 1,700 libraries

By 1900-9,000 free circulating libraries in U.S.Causes for demand in literature

LinotypeSensationalism

sex, scandal, human-interest storiesYellow Journalism

William Randolph HearstJoseph Pulitzer

The Appeal of the Press

Henry Georgesingle-tax idea100% tax on windfall profits from selling property

Edward Bellamy“Looking Backward”

Main character wakes up in the year 2000 to see America a socialist state

Apostles of Reform

“Dime novels” or paperbacksvirtue triumphed

General Lewis WallaceBen Hur: A Tale of the Christanti-Darwinist crowd

Horatio Algerjuvenile fictionsurvival of the purestnon-drinkers, non-smokers, nonswearers

Walt Whitman“O Captain! My Captain!”

Emily Dickinsonpublished after her death

Postwar Writing

Samuel Langhorne ClemensMark TwainThe Adventures of Tom SawyerThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Stephen Crane“Red Badge of Courage”

Charles Francis AdamsHistory of the US. During the Admin of Jefferson and Madison

Paul Laurence Dunbar-PoetCharles W. Chesnutt

realismblack dialect

“Sister Carrie”

Literary Landmarks

Anthony Comstock“Comstock Law”

sexual purity-confiscated “obscene pictures, items used for abortions

Increases in divorce ratesWomen had a sense of a new morality as a

result of working women’s independence

The New Morality

Emotionally isolated placesincrease divorce ratework habitsfamily size

National American Woman Suffrage AssociationLinked suffrage to traditional definition of women’s roles

Most states by 1890 permitted wives to own/control property after marriage

Excluded African-Americans

Families and Women in the City

Increase in liquor consumption after the Civil Warimmigrants accustomed to the Old Country

Women’s Christian Temperance UnionFrances E. WillardCarrie Nation

Anti-Saloon leagueAmerican Society for the Prevention of Cruelty

to AnimalsRed Cross-1881

Prohibiting Alcohol and Promoting Reform

VaudevilleMinstrel showsCircusBaseballBasketballFootballBoxingCroquet

condemned for showing female ankles and flirtation

Safety Bicycle

The Business of Amusement

1. What new opportunities and social problems did the cities create for Americans?2. In what ways was American urbanization simply part of a worldwide trend, and in what ways did it reflect particular American circumstances? How did the influx of millions of mostly European immigrants create a special dimension to America’s urban problems?3. How did the New Immigration differ from the Old Immigration, and how did Americans respond to it?4. How was American religion affected by the urban transformation, the New Immigration, and cultural and intellectual changes?

Discussion-Review

6. How did American social criticism, fiction writing, and art all reflect and address the urban industrial changes of the late nineteenth century? Which social critics and novelists were most influential, and why?

7. How and why did women assume a larger place in American society at this time? (Compare their status in this period with that of the pre–Civil War period described in Chapter 16.) How were changes in their condition related to changes in both the family and the larger social order?

8.What was the greatest single cultural transformation of the Gilded Age?

9.In what ways did Americans positively and enthusiastically embrace the new possibilities of urban life, and in what ways did their outlooks and actions reflect worries about the threats that cities presented to traditional American democracy and social ideals?

Continued

Begin Reading first ½ of Chapter 26

Homework