7 Social Changes During Wilson

8/3/2019 7 Social Changes During Wilson

1/3

#7 pages 629-633, 644-647

Social and Cultural Change

Victorian age faded as Americans turned to European ideas of freedom of theindividual.

-Automobiles- Henry Fords Assembly line and mass production made Americ a

more mobile. Plant was in Michigan. Ford produced more than 260,000 cars-Model T

-Ford announced he would pay his workers 5 dollars a day-three times what an

average worker was making at that time. He realized he could make more money

selling many low priced vehicles than a few expensive ones.

-5 dollar a day program would help fix the problem of absentee workers and high

turnover

Electricity

Electricity helped bring about new products, especially made by General Electric

to help ease domestic work. Toasters, stoves, washing machines, etc

Wright Brothers made the first flight in 1903

Wireless telegraphy to help with marine navigation-Titanic sinking showed that we

needed radio communications for ships. Congress passed a bill mandating the navy

to use radio.

Artistic and Social Ferment

International Exhibit of Modern Art in 1913-Americans flocked to see paintings-

American artists were prompted to start new forms of expression

The Masses- a magazine that criticized conventional values,

The New Republic-journal of political and cultural commentary

Heterodoxy club-women joined together to establish feminism- a step away from

tradition-small percentage of women adopted the new feminism-they wore shorter

skirts, smoked, wore makeup- cut their hair short-bob, The flapper. During 1910and 1920s-women saw greater opportunity

Americans at Play

-Mass Entertainment-Boxing. Arthur John Jack Johnson-became first African

American heavyweight champion in 1908- Americans viewed him negatively


2/3

because they wanted whites to reclaim that title-he ended up fleeing the country

because he was accused of transporting women

-Baseball

Vaudeville and Motion Pictures- Vaudeville were routines aimed at entertaining

the whole family. Motion pictures began to challenge these shows as the price of

admission to films became cheaper. Movies would emerge as mass entertainment

in the twenties.

Movies- Charlie Chaplin became very popular.

More than 10,000 theaters by 1912

Mary Pickford became Americas Sweetheart-damsel in distress

-Hollywood emerged because of its nice climate as the capital of movies

Social Change during Neutrality Period (prior to US entering WWI)

David Wark Griffiths Birth of a Nation film based on the novel The Clansman-

portrayed the civil war and reconstruction periods- portrayed African Americans who

terrorized whites and Klansmen as heroes.- African Americans tried to have the film

banned but were unsuccessful.

-Revived Klan membership

-Wilson and Democrats were unsympathetic to blacks during this time.

-White house did back away from segregation in the federal government

-Guinn v. United States-1915- Supreme Court ruled that Oklahomas grandfather

clause was unconstitutional- Oklahoma had exempted whites from taking their

literacy test if the whites grandfather had voted- court ruled they cannot do that-

small victory for blacks,

The Great Migration

-Southern Segregation caused migration and Southern Agriculture suffered

natural disasters such as the Boll Weevil-an insect that destroyed cotton- causedBlacks to Migrate to northern cities in large numbers=Great Migration. Between

1914 and 1920 more than 600,000 blacks migrated North

-Blacks found a better life in North but it wasnt perfect- they worked in coal

mines, steel mills, Chicago, Pittsburg, Detroit, etc


3/3

-Blacks did encounter discrimination in housing and public services even in

the North

Shifting Attitudes about Sex

-Increase in divorce rate, decrease in the size of families- had sex before marriage,

homesexual marriages outlawed-but some college women had parthernships with

other women.

-Comstock Law- 1873-barred birth control and information on birth control

distributed,

-Many states made it a crime to sell condoms.

Margaret Sanger- home nurse turned activist- realized women suffered from

disease and poverty because they had so many children- she coined the term

birth control and published Women Rebel- she felta womens right to have birth

control would enable her to have equal footing with men. She founded a clinic inBrooklyn that provided information on Birth control-it was shut down-she appealed

to a higher court and won the right of doctors to prescribe birth control. She

organized Birth Control League

Documents

7 Social Changes During Wilson