URBANIZATION: 1865-1900
F. Class distinctions became most pronounced in
America history by 1900
1. New class of super-wealthy
: the nouveau riche
a.1890: Wealthiest 1% of families owned 51% of real and personal property
b.Meanwhile, 44% of familes at the bottom owned 1.2% of all property.
2. Wealthy (incl. nouveau
riche) and well-to-do = 12% of families; 86% of wealth.
a. Poorer & middle classes = 88% of families but
owned only 14% of wealth.
b. Traveled to Europe as children, attended colleges or academies,
owned more
than one house, boats, carriages, and automobiles.
c. Employed several servants.
d. Believed in identify-of-interest idea of social order.
3. Middle class
a. Lower end: salesmen, clerks and government workers; teachers
b. Upper end: lawyers and doctors
c. Mostly WASP (but poorer in South, West, and Midwest)
d. Usually lived in relatively large homes; employed at least one domestic
servant.
e. "Respectable" women didn't debate public issues; didn't attract attention
to themselves.
-- No middle ground existed between purity and immorality.
4. Workingclass
a. Usually Catholic (esp. Irish), foreign (esp. E & S Europe), or black
b. Between 23% and 30% of work force out of work for some period every
year.
c. In 1900, nearly 20% of children under 15 worked in non-agricultural
work.
d. About 20% of women worked, most were young—between school & marriage.
G. Cities had deplorable conditions.
1. Rampant crime: prostitution,
cocaine, gambling, violent crime.
2. Unsanitary conditions
persisted as cities could not keep up with growth
3. Perfection of "dumbell"
tenement in 1879; 7 or 8 stories high with little ventilation
while families were crammed into each floor (50% of New York City housing)
II. "New Immigration" occurred after 1880
A. Between 1850 & 1880, over 6 million immigrants
came to U.S. (part of "Old Immigration")
1. Most Anglo-Saxon who
came from Britain & Western Europe (Germany, Scandinavia)
-- Most were literate and easily adapted to American society
2. Before 1880 the stereotype
of immigration was German and Irish
a. Germans seen as sturdy, hardworking, serious people.
i. Constituted largest number of immigrants in 19th century.
ii. After upheavals of late 19th c., seen as socialists, anarchists,
and communists.
iii. Germans could be Protestant, Catholic or Jewish.
iv. Some joined Republican party and gained respectablility among WASPs
b. Irish seen as dirty, drunk, immoral, Catholic, and violent
i. 2nd in numbers to German immigrants by end of
century (though largest in number
between 1840-1860)
ii. Became America’s first proletariat; could not afford land.
iii. Climbed to middle-class through politics.
iv. Most were Democrats and gained political stereotypes: bossism,
herd voting,
corruption (although it was widespread in both parties).
-- Civil service reform largely a nativist, class reaction against Irish.
B. "New Immigtaion": Between 1880 amd 1920
about 27 million immigrants came to
the U.S.; about 11 million went back.
1. Most came from
Eastern and Southern Europe (Italians, Jews, Poles, Greeks, Hungarians,
Croat/Slovenian, Slovaks, and Bulgarian/Serbian/Montenegrin, Czech)
2. By 1910 1/3 of Americans
either foreign born or had one parent foreign born.
(only 19% in 1890).
a. Most came through Ellis Island in New York harbor from 1882-1954
-- Others came through Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Galveston,
Mobile, New Orleans, and West Coast ports.
b. Came to live in enclaves in NY & Chicago where their numbers were
larger
than their Old World cities.
3. Many were Orthodox Christians
or Jewish (from Eastern Europe)
4. Came from countries with
little democracy.
5. Heavily illiterate
C. Struggled to maintain their cultures in America
1. Many Catholic parochial
schools & Jewish Hebrew schools established
2. Foreign-language newspapers,
theaters, food stores, restaurants, parishes, social clubs.
3. 1st generation Americans
often rejected culture of parents and became mainstreamed
D. Why immigration from Eastern & Southern Europe?
1. Overpopulation in Europe
and rapid industrialization left many with either no
where to go or forced many to change their customary occupations.
2. America seen as a land
of opportunity (conditions in Europe dismal)
-- Statue of Liberty erected in NY harbor, a gift from the French.
-- "Give us your tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to breath
free/
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." -- Emma Lazarus
3. Industrialists sought
low-wage labor, railroads sought buyers for their land grants,
states
wanted more population, and steamship lines wanted more business.
4. Persecution of minorities
in Europe
a. Jews savagely persecuted in Russia in 1880s esp. in Polish areas
i. Most fled to NY.
ii. Resented by German Jews who had arrived decades earlier as well as
WASPs
iii. Most had lived in cities in Europe as tailors or shopkeepers
iv. Difficult to assimilate since they lived together in slum enclaves.
b. Ethnic & religious minorities in Europe faced conscription, economic
hardship and
persecution.
5. About 25% of 20 million
who came between 1820 & 1900 went back to Europe.
a. Earned enough money to improve their lives in the Old World
b. Had no intentions of Americanizing.
E. Chinese immigration (not considered part of "New Immigration")
1. Burlingame Treaty
in 1868 between U.S. and China allowed unrestricted
immigration to work on the transcontinental railroad
a. Sec. of State Seward hoped to open Chinese markets to U.S. goods.
b. By 1870, accounted for 9% of California population; 75,000
2. Chinese in America
a. Came to work gold fields and build the transcontinental railroad.
b. Highest percentage of immigrants in America who returned home.
c. Chinatowns developed with mostly all single men
-- The few Chinese women who came were turned into prostitutes
d. Most worked as cooks, laundrymen, or domestic servants.
3. After railroad completed,
Chinese immigration continued causing intense friction with white
workers in California, esp. Irish led by Denis Kearney in San Francisco.
a. Bad economic times stemming from 1873 Panic a major cause.
b. Employers used Chinese workers as a hedge against unionization.
c.
"Coolies"
terrorized in streets: many killed, others had pigtails sheared off.
-- Also persecuted in mining towns in Colorado
4. Workingmen’s Party
of California -- led by Kearney
a. Formed in 1877 called for exclusion of Chinese from California and
the U.S.
i. Emerged into large party; earlier helped draft California constitution
in late-1840s
ii. Claimed Chinese were taking jobs from American workers.
b. California Constitution denied Chinese jobs on public works projects
and stated they could not work for companies in the state.
c. Influenced national policy.
5. Chinese Exclusion
Act (1882): Ended Chinese immigration (lasted until 1943)
III. Reaction to New Immigration
A. Political machines catered to new immigrants
1. Bosses often traded jobs
and services for votes creating powerful immigrant
voting blocks for their own purposes.
-- Provided employment on city’s payroll, found housing for new arrivals,
gave gifts of food and clothing to the needy, helped with legal counseling,
and
helped get schools, parks, and hospitals built in immigrant neighborhoods.
2. Tammany Hall in
NYC most infamous political machine
a. George Washington Plunkett a minor boss in the Tammany machine
gained notoriety for his pandering to immigrants and corruption.
i. Plunkett would get word from civil boards about imminent projects
and he would
secretly buy land and resale it to the city at a higher price.
ii. He called it "honest graft"
3. Reformers infuriated
by these practices; wanted to curb power of political machines
B. Social Crusaders attempted to improve the "shame
of the cities"
1. Motivation: fear of
violent revolution among the working class.
2. Social Gospel
advocates emerged
a. Christianity should improve life on earth rather than waiting for
the afterlife.
i. Sought to improve problems of alcoholism & unemployment
ii. Tried to mediate between managers and unions
iii. Did much to spark the Progressive reform at the turn of the century.
b. Walter Raushenbusch
c. Washington Gladden -- Sought to open branches in working class
districts.
d. Salvation Army: arrived from England in 1879
-- Appealed to the poverty stricken; free soup most obvious contribution
3. Settlement
House Movement
a. Primarily a women’s movement of white, northeastern and midwestern stock,
college
educated and prosperous.
i. Teaching or volunteerism were almost the only permissible occupations
for a young
woman of her social class.
ii. Women prohibited from involvement in politics (Victorian ideal &
cult of domesticity)
b.
Jane
Addams (1860-1935) ("St. Jane")
i. One of first generation of college-educated women
-- She believed living among the poor would give meaning to lives of young
educated
women who needed firsthand experience with realities poverty in the city.
ii. Est. Hull House in Chicago (along with Ellen Gates Starr) --
American settlement
house where immigrants were taught English, offered classes in nutrition,
health, and
child care, discussed the day’s events, and could hold celebrations.
-- Helped immigrants cope with American big-city life; provided child-care
-- Became a model for other settlement houses in other cities.
iii. Condemned war as well as poverty and won Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
c. Lillian Wald -- Henry Street Settlement in NY.
d. Settlement houses became centers of women’s activism and social reform.
i. Florence Kelley most important figure
-- Won legislation regulating hours and working conditions for women and
children
(also sought to help African Americans)
-- Served 3 decades as general secretary of Nat’l Consumers League.
-- Pioneer of occupational safety legislation.
-- Socialist views.
4. American Red Cross
launched in 1881 under leadership of Clara Barton who
had been an "angel" of the Civil War battlefields.
5. Municipal Housekeeping:
concentrated on the quality of life in poor neighborhoods.
-- Street cleaning, slaughterhouses and butchering, sanitation in public
schools, pure milk
and water, and suppression of vice.
6. American Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to animals founded in 1866.
7. YWCA founded in 1858
-- eventually became a boon to young women in urban areas.
C. Antiforeignism or "nativism"
1. Nativists viewed Eastern
and Southern Europeans as culturally and religiously
exotic and often treated them badly.
a. Alarmed at high birthrates common among people of low standard of living
b. More alarmed at prospect of mongrelized America with a mixture
of "inferior" South European blood.
c. Angry at immigrant willingness to work for "starvation" wages.
d. Concerned at foreign doctrines e.g. socialism, communism & anarchism.
2. Antiforeign organizations
a. American Protective Association (APA) formed in 1887
i. Urged voting against Roman Catholic candidates for office
ii. Soon, claimed a million members.
b. Labor leaders infuriated at use of immigrants as strike breakers.
3. Rev. Josiah Strong:Our
Country, 1885
a. Congregational minister who condemned cities as wicked places
b. Disliked immigrants and their impact on cities
c. Also condemned real city problems such as low worker wages leading
to gambling, robbery, and extortion for survival.
IV. The New Morality
A. Many WASPs concerned moral principles (middle-class
Victorian ideals) now under attack
1. Victoria Woodhull’s
periodical Woodhull and Clafin’s Weekly included much
feminist propaganda including appeals for women’s suffrage, equal rights,
and "free love."
B. "Comstock Law" of 1873 passed by Congress
forbade publishing of material
provocative
sexual material.
V. Prohibition of Alcohol
A. Liquor consumption increased in years following
Civil War.
1. Immigrant groups resisted
temperance or prohibition laws.
2. Saloons in late-19th
century were exclusively male.
B. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
organized in 1874
1. Led by Francis
Willard
a. Increasingly saw drunkeness as a result of poverty, not cause of it.
b. Put enormous pressure on states to abolish alcohol; somewhat successful.
2. Most important female
organization in the 19th c. and most powerful lobbying group.
3. Championed planned
parenthood.
4. Most important women's
suffrage group in late 19th c. (incl. blacks and Indians)
5. Supported 8-hr work day
and supported Knights of Labor
C. Carrie A. Nation used her hatchet
to smash saloon bottles and bars
-- Her actions hurt the
prohibition movement (she was arrested over 30 times)
D. Anti-Saloon League formed in 1893
1. Picked up WCTUs fight
but had more political connections to get legislation passed.
2. By 1900, 25% of Americans
living in communities with restrictions on alcohol.
E. Statewide prohibition laws was now sweeping new
states during the Progressive Era.
-- In 1919, 18th
Amendment made alcohol illegal (lasted only 14 years).
VI. Women’s fight for liberation and suffrage
A. Woman growing more independent in the urban environment
1. Less children born as
couples used birth control increasingly; marriages delayed.
2. Extra children not economically
feasible
B. National American Women’s Suffrage Association
(formed in 1890)
1. Women’s rights movement
had split after Civil War.
a. National Women’s Suffrage Association founded in 1869
i. Included Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony.
ii. Exluded men; opposed black suffrage until women could vote.
b. American Women Suffrage Association led by Lucy Stone.
i. Included men
ii. Supported black suffrage as stepping-stone to female suffrage.
iii. Worked for suffrage at state level rather than national level.
-- Successful in gaining suffrage in Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870)
2. The rival NWSA and
the AWSA merged in 1890 to form the WAWSA
3. Women’s rights movement
unable to make headway between 1896 and 1908.
C. WCTU—most important suffrage organization
for women prior to 1910s
1. In 1876 focused energies
toward achieving of female suffrage.
2. Claimed drunkeness
ruined homes and could be abolished only through temperance
legislation,
which men alone would not enact.
3. Narrowed focus to prohibition
after Willard’s death in 1898.
D. Gains for women
1. Women increasingly
permitted to vote in local elections esp. issues related to schools.
2. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah
and Idaho granted full suffrage
-- In California, liquor lobby defeated suffrage; believed (correctly)
women would seek to
outlaw liquor.
3. Most states by 1890 passed
laws to permit wives to own or control their property
after marriage.
VII. Churches confront urban challenge
A. Protestant churches suffered heavily from population
shift to the city.
B. Dwight Lyman Moody: Urban revivalist (sometimes
considered part of Social Gospel)
-- Urban circuit rider adapted
old-time religion to the facts of city life.
C. Catholic Church: kept the common touch better
than many of leading Protestant churches.
D. Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian
Science) est. by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879
-- Preached that the true
practice of Christianity heals sickness
VIII. Charles Darwin disrupts the Churches
A. Origin of the Species (1859) brought
forth theory that humans had slowly evolved from
lower life forms -- soon
summarized to mean "survival of the fittest."
1. Cast serious doubt on
the literal interpretation of the Bible, esp. creationism
2. Conservatives or "Fundamentalists"
stood firmly on the Scripture as the inspired
and infallible Word of God; condemned the "bestial hypothesis" of Darwinians.
3. "Modernists" refused
to accept the Bible in its entirety as either history or science.
-- Henry Ward Beecher
C. Rifts occurred as a result in post-Civil War
churches and colleges.
IX. Education
A. Public education continued to gain strength
1. Tax-supported elementary
schools adopted on a nationwide basis before Civil War.
-- Ideal that free gov’t cannot function successfully if people were ignorant.
2. By 1870, more and more
states making at least a grade-school education compulsory.
-- Helped check abuses of child labor.
3. Public high schools spread
significantly by 1880s and 1890s.
B. "Normal schools" (teachers-training schools)
expanded after Civil War
C. Kindergarten also saw wide support (earlier
borrowed from Germany)
1. Private Catholic parochial
schools spawned from New Immigration, fast became a pillar
of U.S. education system.
D. Chautauqua movement launched in 1874 in
NY to educate adults through nationwide
lectures that often featured
well-known speakers inc. Mark Twain; often held in tents
-- Chautauqua courses of
home study made available; 100,000 enrolled in 1892 alone.
E. Illiteracy rate dropped from 20% in 1870 to 10.7%
in 1900.
-- Education in cities generally
more effective than in rural America.
X. Higher education
A. By 1900, 25% of college graduates were women.
B. Morrill Act of 1862 granted public lands
to states for support of education.
1. "Land-grant colleges"
mostly became state universities; also supplied military training.
C. Hatch Act of 1887 supplemented Morrill
Act
1. Provided federal funds
for est. of agricultural experiment stations in connection with
land grant colleges.
2. Sought research for breeding
disease-resistant strains of plants and animals, increased
productivity, development of new crops, and new uses for overabundant crops.
D. Philanthropy supplemented federal funds for higher
education: Cornell, Stanford, Univ. Chicago
E. William James: served 35 years on faculty
at Harvard.
1. Principles of Psychology(1890)
helped est. modern discipline of behavioral psychology.
2. Pragmatism
(1907) most famous work
a. Described America’s greatest contribution to the history of philosophy.
b. Truth was to be tested, above all, by the practical consequences of
an
idea, by action rather than theories.
XI. The Press
A. Newspapers
1. Editorials akin to Greeley
were diminishing.
2. Sensationalism was climbing
as public thirsted for sex, scandal, and other human
interest stories.
3. Joseph Pulitzer:Yellow
Journalism attributed to his newspapers
4. William Randolph Hearst
also built up a powerful chain of newspapers
-- Like Pulitzer extremely sensationalistic in his editing for increased
circulation.
5. Syndicated news such
as the emerging Associated Press helped check sensationalism.
C. Reform Press (some sought panaceas, others focused
on specific reform)
1. The Nation,
founded
by Edwin L. Godkin in 1865, became era's most influential journal.
a. Liberal and highly intellectual, read largely by professors, preachers,
and publicists.
b. Advocated civil service reform, honesty in gov’t, and a moderate tariff.
2. Henry George:
Progress
and Poverty (1879)
a. Though available land still plentiful, increased demand increased property
values, making land speculators rich.
b. A single tax of 100% on those with land appreciation would
eliminate speculation
i. Everyone would be able to buy land.
ii. Workers would become farmers; resulting labor shortage would
increase wages and end unemployment.
iii. Poverty and crime would end
iv. His ideas horrified the wealthy
3. Edward Bellamy: Looking
Backward (1888)
a. Socialistic novel: hero, falling into a hypnotic sleep, awakens in 2000.
b. "Looks backward" and finds social and economic injustices of 1887 have
been erased
under an idyllic gov’t, which has nationalized big business to serve the
public interest.
i. Money abolished; no more unemployement, strikes, violence, etc.
ii. Not unlike Star Trek’s futuristic utopian setting (on earth)
c. Bellamy clubs (Nationalist clubs) emerged to discuss his mild utopian
socialism
-- Heavily influenced Populist movement.
4. Henry Demarest
Lloyd -- Wealth against Commonwealth (1894)
a. One of first anti-big business tracts to come from a member of the elite.
b. Influential model of investigative journalism: grew into muckraking
in 20th century
c.Criticized Standard Oil for corrupting the political system.
d. His remedy was socialism gained through peaceful means.
5. Thorstein Veblen --
The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
-- Assailed the nouveau riche
6. Jacob A. Riis -- How
the Other Half Lives (1890)
a. Exposed the dirt, disease, vice, and misery of the rat-infested New
York slums
b. Heavily influenced Theodore Roosevelt
7. Charlotte Perkins
Gilman: Woman and Economics (1898)
a. Considered a classic masterwork of feminist literature.
b. Called on women to abandon their dependent status and contribute to
the larger
life of the community through productive involvement in the economy.
c. Advocated centralized nurseries and cooperative kitchens to facilitate
women’s participation in the work force.
-- Anticipated day-care centers & convenience-food services of a half-century
later.
8. Coin Harvey’s Financial
School advocated silver standard/soft money
9. By century's end,
sweeping panaceas had lost appeal; reformers worked to solve
specific
problems thus leading to Progressive Movement
XII. Post-Civil War literature
A. Horatio Alger: Juvenile fiction designed
to instill idea of America as "land of opportunity"
1. Stressed virtue,
honesty, and industry were rewarded by success, wealth, & honor.
2. Main characters
in his books depicted rags to riches stories.
B. Walt Whitman
1. Revisions of Leaves
of Grass
2. "O Captain! My Captain!"
inspired by the assassination of Lincoln.
C. Emily Dickinson: One of America’s most
gifted lyric poets
D. Realist school
1. Romantic sentimentality
of pre-Civil War era giving way to a rugged realism that reflected
the materialism of an industrialized society.
2. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
a. Masterpieces: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and
The
Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
b. Captured frontier realism and humor in the authentic American dialect
which changed
American literature.
3. Bret Harte (1836-1902):
Gold rush stories made him famous
4. William Dean Howells:
editor
in chief of Atlantic Monthly
-- Wrote about ordinary people and about contemporary and sometimes controversial
social themes (such as divorce)
5. Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
a. Wrote about the rough life in urban and industrial America
b. Red Badge of Courage (1895): story of a bloodied young
Civil War recruit
under fire; written entirely from the printed Civil War records.
6. Henry James (1843-1916)
-- brother of William James
-- Frequently made women his central characters and explored their inner
reactions
to complex situations that marked him as a master of "psychological realism."
XIII. Art in the late 18th century and early 20th century
A. Realist school
1 Winslow Homer (1836-1910):
Preeminent marine painter; The Gulf Stream
2. James McNeill Whistler
(1834-1903): portrait painter
3. Thomas Eakins -- realism
B. Ashcan School ("Ash Can School")
-- progressive era realism formed in 20th century
1. Painting should reflect
life as it happened, and should celebrate the vitality of urban
experience for ordinary people.
2. Later organized 1913
Armory Show which presented European abstract art to Americans
for the first time.
Bibliography:
Bailey, Thomas A., Kennedy, David M.: The American Pageant, 10th
edition, Lexington,
Massachusetts: D.C. Heath, 1994
College Board, Advanced Placement Course Description: History --
United States, European
History, College Entrance Examination Board,
1996
Foner, Eric & Garraty, John A. editors: The Reader’s Companion
to American History, Boston:
Houghton MifflinCompany, 1991
Nash, Gary : American Odyssey, Lake Forest, Illinois: Glencoe,
1992
Painter, Nell Irvin, Standing at Armageddon: The United States,
1877-1919, New York: W.
W. Norton, 1987
Schultz, Constance G., The American History Videodisc Master Guide,
Annapolis,
Maryland:
Instruction Resources Corporation, 1995
Yanak, Ted and Cornelison, Pam, The American History Fact-Finder,
Boston:
Houghton-Mifflin, 1993