Ch.18 Victorian Society, 1870's-1910
Crisis of Masculinity
-concern about loss of "manliness" and virility -lack of frontier (where a man could prove himself) = "soft" Anglo-Saxon men -lower vs. middle classes (working class man cant conform to gender norms, physical labor justified their manliness) -industrialization = loss of individuality (more machines, men are cogs in a wheel)
The "New Woman"
-for younger women -bicycles -go to college, work -no chaperones
Also Called Guilded Age
-lots of change -economic growth -guilded= coated in gold -tells us that it seems great on the outside but there might be problems underneath
Thomas Edison
-makes an invention factory -little invention every 10 days, big invention every 6 months (creativity onto the machine mindset) -invents the light bulb -lots and lots of inventions
The Gilded Age, 1870's-1910
gilded= coated in gold -period of individuals becoming fabulously wealthy (John D Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie) -industrialization, rigid, gender roles, and increasing gap between rich and poor -hierarchical society (class, race and gender) (to create order -also called Victorian era
5 Themes
-New Tech -New economic order = factories and unskilled workers -Mass consumer society and culture of consumption -middle class ideal of family became dominant -growth of monopolies and corporate power
Why do we call this the Victoria period?
-Ruled by Queen Victoria of England -similar culture in England as here
How to Overcome the Crisis
-boxing (ex. John L. Sullivan) adopted by middle class men from lower class men -Teddy Roosevelt said men need to go out and prove themselves
How do women respond to Proper gender roles?
-Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony -women's suffrage rights -activists -fought for right to vote for women, abolitionist movement, then they came back to promoting themselves because black and white men could vote -separates white and black women groups
The Machine Age
-mechanization = second round of industrialization in US -could buy canned food, clothing -Key developments: 1. electricity (could harness it, in wealthy homes and factories) 2. Internal combustion engine -invented originally by Germany -driven by vaporized gasoline, not horses -Henry Ford took this engine and applied american manufacturing to it (sold lots of cars using the assembly line production method) $490 so he paid his workers more so that they could buy the car 3. New uses for chemicals
Victorian Gender Roles
-men = public (business, politics, etc.); women = private (home) -men = primary authority in the society and in the family; women = subordinate to men -men= physically and mentally superior; women = morally superior to men -women supposed to be chaste, motherly, gentle and unconcerned with politics or intellectual pursuits; said that their blood would go to their brains away from their womb and so they would not be successful at having children -home becomes a refuge for men in the competitive world
Sexual Puritanism and Sex Trafficking
-modesty, completely covered up, conservative dress -obsessed with sex, told only to have sex for children -prostitution becomes very popular, brothels, burlesques -hysterical women = depression, anxiety, sad; told there was something wrong with them because they weren't happy with their womanness -rise of the dominance of the middle class = only middle class could conform to gender roles
