chapter 25 APUSH
18th Amendment
(1819) was the culmination of the prohibition movement. Amendment 18 (AKA "Prohibition") simply banned alcohol in the U.S. It was short-lived.
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
(1874) was more aggressive. It was led by Francis E. Willard and Carrie A. Nation whose trademark was to literally walk into a bar and chop it up with a hatchet.
Joseph Pulitzer
(New York World) mastered sensational reporting, called yellow journalism after his comic "The Yellow Kid."
William Randolph Hearst
(San Francisco Examiner) was also a yellow journalism editor and put together a newspaper empire made of a chain of newspapers. Daily newspapers immensely helped unify the U.S. People were now much more on the "same page," literally, as someone in another section of the nation. Notably, this is when the popularity of national sports, especially baseball, took off since one could follow his team each day. Drawbacks rose however: one as the influence of advertisers in the expanding newspaper business; another was that reporting was focussed more on selling papers than on accuracy (a "juicy" story was better than an accurate story). The establishment of the Associated Press (AP) and their accuracy helped balance the yellow journalism.
Old Immigration
1880, most immigrants to America were from "Old Immigration." They came from northern and western Europe—Britain, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia. They largely came from nations with some democratic backgrounds and were of the fair-skinned Anglo-Saxon type. They were Protestant (except for the Irish and a few Germans). They were generally better educated and with a bit of money behind them.
Henry Street Settlement
A well-known spin-off of Hull House was the Settlement in New York run by Lillian Wald. Settlement houses became hot-beds for activism.Women in particular began to be active in issues, particularly in addressing discrimination against women for jobs.Jobs for women, were few to begin with, and depended on a woman's race, ethnicity, and class. Each "brand" of woman was pigeon-holed into a certain group of jobs.Still, the big cities generally offered more opportunities in jobs and entertainment than the small towns back home.
Jane Addams
Addams founded Hull House in Chicago (1889). It was a "settlement house"—immigrants came there for counseling, literacy training, child care, cultural activities, and the like.
NAACP
DuBois was a Harvard intellectual. He criticism was that Washington's method put blacks in a little box of manual labor only. DuBois help start this organization (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and called for the "talented tenth" of the black community to be given full access and equality. On a day-to-day level, many blacks related much better to Washington and his practical approach.
Edwin L. Godkin
Magazines were popular, such as Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, and Scribners. Editor of the liberal magazine Nation was very influential.It was read by intellectuals and thinker-types and was reform minded.It pushed for civil service reform (government jobs based on talent, not connections), honest government, and a mild tariff.
Dwight Lyman Moody
Moody Bible Institute and pushed for Christian charity and kindness. His goal and achievement was connect biblical teachings and Christianity to modern city life.
Brooklyn Bridge
New York's Bridge was completed in 1883. The suspension bridge came to symbolize American ingenuity, technology, commerce, and can-do attitude.
Carrie Chapman Pratt
She changed the argument from "women deserve to right to vote since they're equal" to "women deserve the right to vote in order to carry out their traditional roles and homemakers and mothers." This new argument linking voting to traditional women's roles seemed to pay dividends. Western states, which had always been more accepting of an independent woman, began to give women the right to vote (Wyoming being the first).
Kate Chopin
The switch to realism was spawned by the industrial revolution and growth of cities. she wrote openly about adultery, suicide, and the ambitions of women in The Awakening (1889).
New Immigration
They came from southern and eastern Europe—Poland, Italy, Slovakia, Croatia. They largely came from nations with little democratic traditions. They were usually Catholic, uneducated, and were generally penniless. In 1880 they made up 19% of immigrants; 1910 they were up to 66% of immigrants. They generally came to areas consisting of their home-country neighbors. Places popped up like "Little Italy" and "Little Poland." Americans felt these newcomers could not or would not melt into the American way of life. the main reason for emigrating to America, as usual, was economic opportunities
reconcile science with religion
With new topics like evolution, universities began to struggle to reconcile science with religion. The "solution" was to drop moral instruction. The curriculum changed as well.Traditionally, the curriculum consisted of languages, notably Latin and Greek for bible study, and grammar or rhetoric. Universities in America had been started to train preachers.Now, the movement was toward a more practical curriculum. Also, the elective system became very popular as it gave students choices of classes.The reform of education jumped forward when chemist Dr. ChARLES W. ELIOT was named president of Harvard. Symbolically, he changed Harvard's motto from Christo et Ecclesiae (for Christ and Church) to Veritas (Truth).
Emily Dickinson
became famous as a poet after she died and her writings were found and published.
Booker T. Washington
developed a plan for bettering the lots of blacks. He developed the TUSHEGEE INSTITUTION in Alabama. It was a normal school for black teachers and taught hands-on industrial trades. He felt the way for blacks to advance in the South was through bettering themselves economically. Social justice would come later. his largest critic was W.E.B. DuBois.
dumbbell
early godsend was these apartment. Getting clean air into the tenement apartments was a problem. The dumbbell apartment had an air shaft vertically down the through the building to let in air. It wasn't perfect, but was much healthier than a cubicle box shaped apartment with no air shaft. People usually moved up and out of the slums. The slums would then be re-inhabited by the next wave of immigrants. A notable statistic occurred in 1920: for the first time, America was more urban than rural. That is to say, more people lived in cities (of 2,500 people or more) than in the country.
William Dean Howells
editor of Atlantic Monthly, wrote about common people and controversial social topics.
Black colleges
emerged, like Howard University in Washington D.C. and Atlanta University. Two laws helped the growth of colleges: the Morrill Act (1862) and then the Hatch Act (1887). They provided money to states for "land-grant colleges." A focus was on agricultural research at the universities.They gave birth to 100+ colleges and universities, such as University of California, Texas A&M, and Ohio State. Philanthropy or private donations went a long way for colleges. Examples included Cornell, Stanford University from railroad tycoon Leland Stanford, and the University of Chicago from John D. Rockefeller. Johns Hopkins University became the first top-rate graduate school.
American Protective Association (APA)
gained millions of members and urged voting against Catholics. Eventually laws followed people's feelings.The first law restricting immigration to America was passed in 1882. It banned paupers (a very poor person), criminals, and convicts.Another law in 1885 forbade importing workers under contract at substandard wages.Other laws banned more "undesirables" and literacy tests kept many immigrants out until 1917.A red-letter law was passed in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act. It banned the immigration of Chinese. This was the first immigration law to specifically target and ban a specific ethnicity.
Henry Adams
grandson of John Adams, wrote a history of the early U.S. and The Education of Henry Adams, his best known.
Cities grew
grew outward thanks to the electric trolley. grew upward thanks to skyscrapers. rapid growth of cities had negative effects as well, mainly in sanitation.
Horatio Alger
he was a very influential writer. He wrote rags-to-riches stories, usually about a good boy that made good. They all championed the virtues of honesty and hard work that lead to prosperity and honor. His best known book was titled Ragged Dick.
Theodore Dreiser
his novel Sister Carrie. In a nutshell, it's about the struggles of a young woman who wants to leave boring country life for the hustle-bustle of Chicago. She finds upward mobility by sleeping with men she thinks are her ticket up the social ladder. Notably, Dreiser was a "realist" writer—Carrie's life and Chicago are written about plainly, without "sugar coating", and rather depressingly.
Boss Tweed of the Tammany Hall district
in New York City, pretty much ran the immigrants' lives.
Chataqua movement
it was a series of lectures, a descendant of the earlier "lyceum" circuit. Many well-known speakers, like Mark Twain, spoke. Stats reflect the benefits of education: the illiteracy rate fell from 20% (1870) to 10.7% (1900). Booker T. Washington and Education for Black PeopleIn the post-war South, many still struggled, especially blacks. They were largely poor and poorly educated.
Ida Wells
led a nationwide push against lynching and helped start the National Association of Colored Women (1896).
Sears and Montgomery Ward
mail order catalogs. Companies Ward sent catalogs yearly and people could buy anything in the catalog and have it sent to their rural homes
Frank Norris
novels criticized corrupt business. The Octopus (1901) was about railroad and political corruption and The Pit was about speculators trading in wheat. Two black writers gained prominence using black dialect and folklore.
Library of Congress
opened in 1897 and Andrew Carnegie had given $60 million to build local libraries across the U.S. Newspapers were on the rise as well with the invention of Linotype. People were hungry to read the latest goings-on.
free compulsory eduction
paid for by taxpayers, was a reality, but generally only up to the 8th grade. High schools were now growing and were to 6,000 in number by 1900. Other areas of education grew: (a) kindergartens, (b) "normal" (teacher training) schools, and (c) the fast growth of parochial schools (especially Catholic).
Charles Darwin
published On the Origin of Species in 1859. His theory of evolution argued that higher forms of life had evolved from lower forms of life via random mutation and survival-of-the-fittest.At first, scientists rejected Darwin's views. Many people followed Frenchmen Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's version of evolution saying things that happened during an organism's life could be the surviving factor (not necessarily genetic mutation). By the 1920's, Darwin's view was largely accepted by scientists. Darwin's review thus rejected divine creation. Three groups were now in a culture war..."Fundamentalists" believed the bible as it is written, without any errors. They accepted Genesis 1:1 that states, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."Liberal Christians blended evolution with divine creation. They justified evolution as acts of God."Modernists" rejected religion and accepted Darwin's theory of evolution and his rationale for the beginnings of life and of life's variety.
Edward Bellamy
published the novel Looking Backward. It's character fell asleep and awoke in the year 2000 to an ideal society. His solution was that the government had taken over all business, communist/socialist-style, and everything was rosy. Intellectual-types enjoyed discussing the book and its ideas. Postwar WritingPeople read like wildfire after the Civil War. "Dime novels" were very popular, especially about the Wild West with characters like "Deadwood Dick."
21st Amendment
repealed the ban on alcohol.
Walt Whitman
revised his classic "Leaves of Grass." He also wrote "O Captain! My Captain!", inspired by Lincoln's assassination.
Mary Baker Eddy
started the CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST. (AKA "Christian Science"). The main belief of Christian Science was healing through prayer, not through medical treatment. Membership in the YMCA or YWCA (the Young Men's/Women's Christian Association) grew quickly. They mixed religion with exercise and activity. (very gay)
George Washington Carver
studied the peanut, sweet potato, and soybean there and came up with many uses for them: shampoo, axle grease, vinegar, and paint.
Mark Twain
took that pseudonym since he'd worked on a Mississippi riverboat as a boy and that was the captain's yell to mark the depth. He was already famous with the story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". He traveled through the West and wrote Roughing It (1872) recounting the trip. It was a mix of truths, half-truths, and tall tales, and readers loved it. He co-wrote with Charles Dudley Warner The Gilded Age (1873) that laid bare the questionable politics and business of the day. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) told of the likable huckster and school-skipper and his gal Polly. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) told of buddies runaway Huck and runaway slave Jim as they rafted down the Mississippi. The book was immensely popular and influential. Ernest Hemingway later said, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn."
Statue of Liberty
was given to the U.S. by France during the days of such anti-foreigner feelings. Poet EMMA LAZARUS words were inscribed on the bottom: Give me your tired, your poor Your huddled masses yearning to be free,..."
Louis Sullivan
was the father of the skyscraper. He used steel, concrete, newly invented elevators, and the motto "form follows function." A bit ahead of his time, his techniques would later influence Frank Lloyd Wright and become accepted.
social gospel
where churches should address social issues and problems. Leading preachers of the social gospel were Walter Rauschenbusch (German Baptist) and Washington Gladden (Congregational).
Salvation Army
which helped anyone struggling to make a go of things by doling out soup.
Louis Pasteur (pasteurization) and Joseph Lister's (antiseptics)
work helped move medicine from superstition to science. People now understood germs and life expectancy rose.
Gen. Lewis Wallace
wrote Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It countered Darwinsm with faith in Christ and sold 2 million copies.
Henry George
wrote Progess and Poverty which examined the relationship between those two concepts. His theory was that "progress" pushed land values up and thus increased poverty amongst many. His solution to the distribution of wealth was to propose a 100% tax on profits—a very controversial proposal.
Harlan F. Halsey
wrote about 650 dime novels and became rich.
Jack London
wrote about the wilderness in The Call of the Wild (1903), White Fang, and The Iron Heel.
Stephen Crane
wrote brilliantly and realistically about industrial, urban America in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893). It old of a girl-turned-prostitute and then suicide. His most famous work was The Red Badge of Courage (1895) about a Civil War soldier and his sacrifice.
Henry James
wrote influentially on psychology with books like Principles of Psychology and Pragmatism (saying America's contribution to any idea was its usefulness, or not). brother of philosopher William James, usually wrote about innocent Americans, normally women, thrown amid Europeans. His best works were Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), and The Bostonians (1886).
Bret Harte
wrote of the West in his gold rush stories, especially "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat."
Paul Dunbar
wrote poetry, notably with "Lyrics of Lowly Life" (1896).