Chapter 25
"Nativism"
"nativism" (bias against foreigners) reappeared from its 1840's roots. By the 1880's it was the "New Immigrants" being looked down upon.
Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893)
(1893 in Chicago) revived classical architectural forms and setback realism or Louis Sullivan's new "form follows function" style.
NAACP (1910)
(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.
Florence Kelley
A lifelong fighter for the welfare of children, women, blacks, and consumers. General secretary of the National Consumers League.
Lillian Wald
A well-known spin-off of Hull House was the Henry Street Settlement in New York run by Lillian Wald.
"Dumbbell" tenements
An early godsend was the "dumbbell" 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.
Louis Sullivan
Architect 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.
Theodore Dreiser (Sister Carrie, 1900)
Author Theodore Dreiser captured big-city life (for both good and bad) in 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.
Mark Twain
Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 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."
Boss Tweed
City bosses, such as the infamous Boss Tweed of the Tammany Hall district in New York City, pretty much ran the immigrants' lives.
Booker T. Washington
Developed a plan for bettering the lots of blacks. He developed the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. It was a normal school for black teachers and taught hands-on industrial trades.
Horatio Alger
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.
Hull House (1889)
It was a "settlement house"—immigrants came there for counseling, literacy training, child care, cultural activities, and the like.
Chautauqua movement
It was a series of lectures, a descendant of the earlier "lyceum" circuit. Many well-known speakers, like Mark Twain, spoke.
Jane Addams
Most notable of social reformers of the late 1800's was 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. A well-known spin-off of Hull House was the Henry Street Settlement in New York run by Lillian Wald.
American Protective Association, 1887
Nativist organizations emerged (reminiscent of the old Know Nothing Party of the 1840's and 50's). The American Protective Association (APA) gained millions of members and urged voting against Catholics.
"Social Gospel"
Protestant clergy called for Christian charity. They called for the "social gospel" where churches should address social issues and problems.
Carnegie libraries
The Library of Congress opened in 1897 and Andrew Carnegie had given $60 million to build local libraries across the U.S.
Immigration restriction laws, 1882 and 1885
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.
W. E. B. DuBois
Washington's largest critic was W.E.B. DuBois. DuBois was a Harvard intellectual. He criticism was that Washington's method put blacks in a little box of manual labor only. DuBois helped start the NAACP
Emily Dickinson
became famous as a poet after she died and her writings were found and published.
Henry James
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).
Ida B. Wells
led a nationwide push against lynching and helped start the National Association of Colored Women (1896).
Anthony Comstock
made it his mission to stop all moral threat. Armed with the "Comstock Law," he collected dirty pictures and pills/powders he said abortionists used.
Edward Bellamy (Looking Backward, 1888)
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.
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
revised his classic "Leaves of Grass." He also wrote "O Captain! My Captain!", inspired by Lincoln's assassination.
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. He felt the way for blacks to advance in the South was through bettering themselves economically. Social justice would come later.
Gen. Lewis Wallace (Ben Hur, 1880)
wrote Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It countered Darwinsm with faith in Christ and sold 2 million copies.
Henry George (Progress and Poverty, 1879)
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.
Stephen Crane (Red Badge of Courage, 1895)
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.
William 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).
Bret Harte
wrote of the West in his gold rush stories, especially "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat."
