Chapter 27

1. By: Joel and Whitney Chapter 27

2. The Urban Frontier • From 1870 to 1900, the American population doubled, city population tripled. • Cities expanded. Famous architects like Louis Sullivan perfected skyscrapers (first appearing in Chicago in 1885). • Department stores like Macy’s (in New York) and Marshall Field’s (in Chicago) provided urban working-class jobs and attracted urban middle-class shoppers. • Crime increased in cities and impure water, uncollected garbage, unwashed bodies, and droppings made cities smelly and unsanitary. • Wealthy city-dwellers fled to suburbs in order to escape the city.

3. The New Immigration • Until the 1880s, most immigrants came from the British Isles and western Europe (mostly from Germany and Scandinavia). These immigrants were literate and accustomed to some type of representative government. • After the 1880s, most immigrants consisted of the Baltic and Slavic people of southeastern Europe, who were basically the opposite of most immigrants that arrived prior to the 1880s.

4. Southern Europe Uprooted • Many Europeans came to America because there was no room in Europe and there wasn’t many jobs due to industrialization. • However, many that immigrated to America stayed for a short period of time and then returned to their homeland. The immigrants that remained (including persecuted Jews, who propagated in New York) tried very hard to retain their own culture and customs.

5. Reactions to the New Immigration • The federal government did little to help immigrants assimilate into society. As a result, immigrants were often controlled by powerful “bosses” (such as New York’s Boss Tweed) who provided jobs and shelter in return for political support which created corruption. • However, the nation’s conscience gradually awoke to the problems in the slums. People like Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden began preaching the “social gospel,” insisting churches tackle the social problems of the time. • Among the people who were deeply dedicated to uplifting the urban masses was Jane Addams, who founded Hull House in 1889 to teach children and adults the skills and knowledge they would need to survive and succeed in America. • The new cities also gave women, mostly single women, (working mothers and wives were considered appalling) opportunities to earn money and support themselves.

6. Narrowing the Welcome Mat • The “nativism” and antiforeignism of the 1840s and 50s came back in the 1880s when the Germans and western Europeans looked down upon the Slavs and Baltics and feared that mixing of blood would ruin the fairer Anglo-Saxon races by creating inferior offspring. • Anti-foreign organizations like the American Protective Association (APA) rose up against new immigrants and labor leaders who tried to stop new immigration, since immigrants were frequently used as strikebreakers. • Finally in 1882, Congress passed the first restrictive law against immigration, which banned paupers, criminals, and convicts from coming to America. • In 1885, another law was passed banning the importation of foreign workers under usually substandard contracts. • Literacy tests for immigrants were proposed and resisted until they were finally passed in 1917. The 1882 immigration law barred the Chinese from coming in. • In 1886 America received the Statue of Liberty, given as a gift from France.

7. Churches Confront the Urban Challenge • Since churches had failed to take any stands or rally against the urban poverty, plight and suffering, many people questioned the ambition of the churches and worried that Satan was winning the battle of good vs. evil. • However, a new generation of urban revivalists stepped in. For example, Dwight Lyman Moody who proclaimed the gospel of kindness and forgiveness and adapted the old-time religion to the facts of city life. • Roman Catholic and Jewish faiths were gaining a lot from the new immigration. • The Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science), founded by Mary Baker Eddy, preached that Christianity healed sickness. • YMCA’s and YWCA’s also developed.

8. Darwin Disrupts the Churches • In 1859, Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species, which set forth the new doctrine of evolutionism and attracted the ire and fury of fundamentalists. • Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll denounced creationism after being widely persuaded by the theory of evolution. - Although, other people put together their own interpretations and combined the two theories.

9. The Lust for Learning • More public schools were created with free textbooks that were funded by taxpayers. • Catholic schools grew in popularity and in number. • To partly help adults who couldn’t go to school, the Chautauqua movement, a successor to the lyceums, was launched in 1874. This movement included public lectures to many people by famous writers and extensive at-home studies. • Americans began to develop a faith that formal education was a solution to poverty.

10. Booker T. Washington and Education for Black People • The South, war-torn and extremely poor, lagged behind in education, especially for Blacks. So, Booker T. Washington, an ex-slave, helped by starting a black normal and industrial school in Tuskegee, Alabama, that taught the students useful skills and trades. • One of Washington’s students was George Washington Carver who later discovered hundreds of new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybeans. • However, W.E.B. Du Bois, the first Black to get a Ph.D. from Harvard University, demanded complete equality for Blacks and action now. So, he founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910.

11. The Hallowed Halls of Ivy • Colleges and universities sprouted after the Civil War, and colleges for women, such as Vassar, were gaining ground. • The Morrill Act of 1862 had provided a generous grant of public lands to the states for education. This act was extended by the Hatch Act of 1887, which provided federal funds for the establishment of agricultural experiment stations in connection with the land-grant colleges. • Private donations went towards the establishment of colleges, including Cornell, Leland Stanford Junior, and the University of Chicago funded by John D. Rockefeller. • John Hopkins Universitywas known as the nation’s first high-grade graduate school.

12. The March of the Mind • College education began to change. The freedom of teachers was threatened as teachers were fired for teaching evolution or expressing hostility to high taxes. • After the Civil War, medical schools and medical science began to prosper. This left to the improvement in public healthcare. • Healthcare was also affected by foreign discoveries, such as Louis Pasteur’s pasteurization and Joseph Lister’s Listerine. • Intellectuals such as William James also had considerable affects on American culture. James wrote of behavioral psychology, the philosophy and psychology of religion, and pragmatism (truth was tested by practical consequences of an idea).

13. The Appeal of the Press • Books continued to be an important aspect of life at the time. Contributions by philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie allowed for the building of public libraries, especially in Boston and New York. • The invention of the Linotype in 1885 greatly increased newspaper production. Newspaper production was becoming vulgar and circulation grew. • Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph became journalistic tycoons. They both championed many worthy causes, but also manipulated to press for increased circulation. Their reign ended with the introduction of syndicated material and by the Associated Press in the 1840s.

14. Apostles of Reform • People also used publication to bring about reform. In the moderately circulated Nation Edwin L. Godkin crusaded for civil-service reform, honesty in government, and moderate taxing. • Henry George, in Progress and Poverty, wrote that the pressure of growing population on a fixed supply of land pushed up property values, which was unfair. His book sold about 3 million copies and he lectured in America and Britain. • Edward Bellamy published Looking Backward, a novel about a future idyllic government, with nationalized big business to serve the public interest.

15. Postwar Writing • Both literacy and book reading increased after the Civil War. Writers such as General Lewis Wallace and Horatio Alger wrote novels that branched off of the writers morality and religion. Their books sold millions and had huge effects on society. • Poets such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Sidney Lanier were also popular. Their post-Civil War works had great impacts in the world of poetry

16. Literary Landmarks • Kate Chopin was a feminist author, publishing The Awakening in 1899, but was not known for her work until after her death. • Mark Twain, becoming famous upon the publishing of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and The Innocents Abroad, went on to become one of America’s most well known authors. Twain’s most famous works are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. • Ben Harte became famous for his gold rush stories like “The Luck of Roaring Camp”. But he was not able to match neither the excellence or the popularity of his first stories. • William Dean Howells became famous as the editor in chief of the Boston-based Atlantic Monthly and wrote novels about ordinary people and social themes (A Modern Instance dealt with divorce). • Stephen Crane wrote of the underside life in urban, industrial America (Maggie: A Girl of the Streets was about a prostitute driven to suicide). • Henry James wrote many novels about the confrontation of innocent Americans with subtle Europeans and wrote about the feminist movement in The Bostonians. • Jack London and Frank Norris wrote of contemporary life and social problems. • Theodore Dreiser wrote Sister Carrie, about a poor working girl who’s disregard for prevailing moral standards caused the book to be withdrawn form circulation.

17. The New Morality • Victoria Woodhull proclaimed her belief in free love and with her sister published Woodhull and Clafin’s Weekly and shocked respectable society when charging a famous preacher with an adulterous affair. • Anthony Comstock declared war on the “immoral” and went to great lengths to defend sexual purity, claiming that he drove at least 15 people to suicide. • Switchboard and typewriters became the tools of women’s liberation and the “new morality” was reflected in rising divorce rates, birth control, and the discussion of sexual topic.

18. Families and Women in the City • The urban environment was hard on families, who were separated from the “clan, kin, and village” they had known, and the era of divorce was launched. • In cities, fathers, mothers, and children were forced to work and the struggle of the family led to dropping birthrates and a smaller family size. • Women were gaining independence and feminists was promoted in literature like Charlotte Gilman’s Women and Economics. • Feminists began to demand a vote and the National Women’s Suffrage Association was formed in 1890. • Wyoming Territory granted the first unrestricted suffrage to women in 1869 and most states permitted wives to own or control their property after marriage by 1890.

19. Prohibition of Alcohol and Social Progress • Liquor consumption increased after the Civil War and immigrant groups were against restrictions. • The National Prohibition party was organized in 1869, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was organized in 1874, and the Anti-Saloon League was formed in 1893 • Frances E. Eillar and Carrie A. Nation were female advocates of the movement. • Statewide prohibition was increasing, and in 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment prohibition was made national.

20. Artistic Triumphs • Several portrait painter of distinction, like James Whistler, John Singer Sargent, George Inness, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens emerged and changed the art world of the time. • The Metropolitan Opera House of New York, were the newly rich flaunted their wealth, was erected in 1883. • The phonograph was in over 150,000 homes by 1900, changing the way Americans listened to their music. • Henry H. Richardson was a famous American architect whose style became known as “Richardsonian”.

21. The Business of Amusement • The circus became popular when Phineas T. Barnum and James A. Bailey joined hands to put on the “Greatest Shown on Earth” • “Wild West” shows became very popular. “Buffalo Bill” and Annie Oakley were popular westerns. • A league of professional baseball players was formed in the 1870s and in 1888 an all-star team toured the world. • Other spectator sports such as football and boxing also emerged. • Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith and became enormously popular over the next century.