Division, Reconciliation and Expansion

Division, Reconciliation and Expansion Unit 6

“The Age of Realism” • America changed from a decentralized, mostly agricultural nation to the modern industrial nation that we know • The North and South developed economically in drastically different ways • Economic, Social, and Cultural differences

Prelude to War North South • Commerce was king • Industrial Revolution and cheap transportation allowed cities to become bustling centers of activity • Education, banking, science, and reform movements • Waves of Immigration • Cotton ruled the economy, defined the region • Slower paced region of plantations and small farms • Plantations • Technological progress had little impact on the South • Believed their lifeblood depended on the institution of slavery

Slavery Debate • Disagreements were nothing new • Controversy was rekindled in 1850 by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act • Required all citizens- of free and slave states- to help catch runaway slaves • Southerners saw the law as just • Northerners considered it an outrage • The Kansas-Nebraska Act made previously free land slave territory and ignited the argument into a fight

Controversy influences Literature • The slavery debate dominated politics and preoccupied the nation • It also influenced Literature • Uncle Tom’s Cabin • By Harriet Beecher Stowe • Further fueled the controversy

Civil War • Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 • Part of a newly formed Republican party which vowed to halt the spread of slavery • South Carolina vowed to secede if Lincoln was elected • Left the union in December of 1860 • Followed by 5 other states • Formed the Confederate states of America

Civil War • Fighting began in April 1861 • Confederate artillery fired on Union troops holding Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor • Both sides expected a short war ending in their own victory • Were surprised by the length (4 years) and devastation of the war

Civil War • Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant in the Spring of 1865 • 620,000 soldiers on both sides had lost their lives • 500,000 had been wounded • The South was in ruins • Lincoln was assassinated just days after Lee’s surrender

Reconstruction • Homestead Act of 1862 • Promised 160 acres to anyone who would live on the land for a certain period of years and make minimal improvements to it • Shifted westward movement into high gear

By 1890 the frontier had disappeared Shaped by three factors Marked the disappearance of • Steady influx of settlers • Burgeoning railroads • Growth of mining and cattle ranching • Great herds of buffalo • The expanse of the open range • The Indian Nations

Expansion • Electricity prompted the second industrial revolution • Urban and industrial growth began to shape modern life • Immigration helped lead to a population increase from 50 million to 76 million between 1880 and 1900 • A handful of men became very wealthy on the backs of the poor working class • Mark Twain called this era “The Gilded Age” • Implies that a thin layer of glitter is used to conceal something of poor quality

Literature! • The majority of Blacks living in slavery in the 1850’s worked on cotton plantations • On these plantations slaves developed a unique style of music • It fused traditional African music with the Bible, Protestant hymns, and popular music of the day • They were called Spirituals • Used as • Moving expressions of faith • Funeral dirges • Work songs • War songs • Laments • Lullabies

Literature! • Thousands of diaries, letters, journals, and speeches were produced during the Civil War • They provided detailed and moving records of what Americans experienced • Literature moved along the same westward path of expansion

Realism • A movement that was a reaction to the harsh reality of frontier life and the devastation of the Civil War • The war had shattered the nation’s idealism • Writers turned away from Romanticism • Began to focus on portraying “real life” as ordinary people lived it • Attempted to show characters and events in an honest, objective, almost factual way

Naturalism • Offshoot of Realism • Depicted real people in real situations • Believed that forces larger than the individual shaped destiny • Nature • Fate • Heredity

Division, Reconciliation and Expansion