Urban America

Urban America The Rebirth of Reform

Learning Targets

Know the work and ideas of Henry George. Know the work and ideas of Lester Frank Ward. Know the work and ideas of Edward Bellamy. Know what “naturalist” believed. Know what Washington Gladden believed. Know what Walter Rauschenbusch believed. Know what the Salvation Army did for people. Know what Dwight L. Moody believed. Know the work of Jane Addams and Lillian Wald. Know what Booker T. Washington did.

Solutions to “Gilded” America

Some people took action. Some people provided new ideas.

Action

Lillian Wald established the Henry Street Settlement offering medical care, education, labor organization, and social and cultural programs.

Action

Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute, a school for African Americans.

Action

Jane Adams opened the Hull House in Chicago, a settlement house.

Social Critism

-Henry George on Progress and Poverty Henry George published Progress and Poverty. Land, he argued, was the basis of wealth, and people

could grow wealthy just by waiting for land prices to rise. George proposed a “single tax” on this unearned wealth

to replace all other taxes.

Social Critism

-Reform Darwinism Lester Frank Ward published Dynamic Sociology. Ward’s ideas came to be known as Reform Darwinism. Government, he argued, could regulate the economy,

cure poverty, and promote education more efficiently than could competition in the marketplace.

“Naturalists” believed that evolution did not apply to society. They believed that some people were simply caught in circumstances that they could not control.

Social Critism

-Looking Backward In 1888 Edward Bellamy published Looking Backward,

2000-1887, a novel about a young Bostonian who falls asleep in 1887 and awakens in the year 2000 to find that the United States has become a perfect society.

Helping the Urban Poor

-The Social Gospel An early advocate of the Social Gospel, Washington

Gladden, tried to apply what he called “Christian law” to social problems.

Walter Rauschenbusch he believed that competition was the cause of many social problems, causing good people to behave badly.

Helping the Urban Poor

-The Salvation Army and the YMCA Salvation Army in 1878. It offered practical aid and

religious counseling to the urban poor.

Helping the Urban Poor

-Revivalism and Dwight L. Moody Dwight L. Moody, was president of the Chicago YMCA in

the late 1860s. He was a preacher and a revivalist.

Review Questions What were the work and ideas of Henry George? What were the work and ideas of Lester Frank Ward? What were the work and ideas of Edward Bellamy? What did “naturalist” believe? What did Washington Gladden believe? What did Walter Rauschenbusch believe? What did the Salvation Army do for people? What did Dwight L. Moody believe? What was the work of Jane Addams and Lillian Wald? What did Booker T. Washington do?