What Is Life Like: Good Side
1870 – 1900 Population doubled and in Cities it tripled Sky Scrapers (Lois Sullivan-Form follows function) were
being built (1st in Chicago 1885) 10 stories Electric Trolleys 1st Subway by 1900 in Boston Women could make more money Electricity, Indoor Plumbing, Telephones Departments Stores like:
– Macey’s (New York– Marshall Fields (Chicago)
Bad Side of City Life
Lots of trash Brought about Consumerism Criminals were every where Impure Water Animal Poop was dropped everywhere Uncollected garbage NO Sewage system (thrown out on the street) Unwashed bodies Worst of all were the SLUMS (1879 Dumbbell tenement)
7-8 Stories High Air shafts prov.
Little clean air 1 toilet per floor Many people try
to work there way up & out of them
"The Great Fire at Chicago“ 1871
What is arguably the most famous disaster in American history began around 9 p.m. on Sunday evening, October 8, and did not end until early Tuesday morning. Although the fire originated on the Near West Side, it soon leaped across the South and then the main branch of the river, driven by a strong wind from the southwest. The overmatched and exhausted fire department, which had finally put out a major blaze only hours before, was helpless to stop it. All local residents could do was grab a few precious possessions and flee for their lives. By the time the fire burned itself out, the downtown and most of the North Side lay in ashes.
New Immigrants
Back in the 1850’s most came from British Isles & Western Europe (knowledge of Rep Gov), very literate
New Immigrants were from = Baltic & Slavic, Jews, Italians
Southeastern Europe, not educated, un-democratic
By 1900’s these immigrants made up 60%
Why America?
No room in Europe No Employment Some were Persecuted aka the Jews They thought America had plenty of food (3 meals a
day) Really Americans lied to get cheap labor & more
money Many new immigrants stayed for a short time then
went back home after making money Most children of immigrants plunged into American
life
Reactions to the Immigrants:
Jane Adams = Hull House 1889 (Taught children & Adults) English, Counseling, Child Care, Cultural Activities
– Won Nobel peace price 1931
Preachers Walter Rauschenbusch & Washington Gladden = Social gospel– Churches should step up & help (Christian Socialists)
Federal Govt. did little to help– Boss Tweed Scandal?
Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement =New York 1893, like Hull House
Florence Kelly = fought for women workers and against child labor
Nativists
Old Immigrants from the 1840’s and 1820’s ? Did not want mixing of blood (ruin the Anglo Saxon Race) New Immigrants were hated simply put:
– Work for low wages– Dangerous doctrines like socialism and communism – APA – American Protective Association (Anti-Foreign
Organizations) Anti Catholic – Nuns – So 1882 Congress decides to ban all: paupers, criminals, &
convicts from coming here– 1917 Literacy tests were passed for immigrants – 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
Engraved on the Statue of Liberty
Give me your tired, your poorYour Huddled masses
yearning to breathe free The Wretched refuse of your
teeming shore
Satan Winning the Battle
YMCA and YWCA also was created Salvation Army was born trying to help the poor By 1890 over 150 Religions to choose from Churches were not doing their job (poverty) Dwight Lyman Moody = kindness & forgiveness
– Founded Moody Bible Institute Chicago 1890– Mary Eddy Baker = Preached a form of Christianity that
could heal sick people
Lust for Learning: Education
1859= Charles Darwin “Origin of Species” Modernists jumped on this bandwagon and refuse
to believe the Bible was factual (just some moral stories)
Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll denounced creationism Many people combined the new and old religions
to form their own
Education = taxpayers start paying for textbooks 1900 = 6,000 high schools Catholic schools are becoming popular Chautauqua movement 1874 = help educate
through public lectures and famous writers, at home studies
Some school compulsory laws enacted by 1870 Education = way out of poverty
Booker T Washington
• Ex Slave
•Founded the Tuskegee Industrial School for Black Americans
•Believed for blacks education was the 1st step before gaining more rights
•George Washington Carver = one of his students famous chemist (peanuts, soybeans, sweet potatoes)
Shampoo
To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of preservating friendly relations with the southern white man who is their next door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down, making friends in every manly way of the people of all races, by whom you are surrounded.
Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise Speech
W. E. B. Du Bois
•1st Black to get a PHD from Harvard
•Demanded complete equality
•Rejected BTW ideas
•Founded the NAACP in 1910
Colleges for Everyone . . . . Morril Act 1862 Gave Public Lands for Education
Women– Vassar in NY
Both Genders– Mainly in the Midwest
Black colleges – Howard University in D.C. – Atlanta University – Hampton Institute in VA
John Hopkins- Baltimore – 1st high-grade grad.
school
Morrill Act of 1862– Grants of public lands to
states for education Hatch Act of 1887
– Fed. Funds for ag. at land-grant colleges
Private donation colleges: – Cornel University- Ezra
Cornell and Andrew White – Stanford University- Leland
Stanford Jr.– University of Chicago:
Rockefeller
Moves in Medicine and Science
Medical Schools and Science prosper
Antiseptics: – Louis Pasteur and Joseph
Lister (Listerine Mouth Wash) Development of Psychology
– William James * Pragmatism – Truth should be
tested by its practical consq.
William James
Libraries
Library of Congress – Opens in 1800– 13 acres of floor space
Andrew Carnegie – Donates $60 million to
public libraries
Journalism
Linotype 1885– Press keeps pace with demand– Sparked yellow journalism
Journalistic tycoons Sex & Scandals
– Joseph Pulitzer New York World
– William Randoph Herst San Francisco ExaminerHenry George – Progress &
Poverty
New Morality
Victoria Woodhull – 1871 Free Love Printed Propaganda (Henry Ward Beecher had an
affair) Women headed to: Dance halls, clubs,Bith Control Anthony Comstock fought a/g the New Morality =
Comstock Law – made it illegal to send lewd or sexual pictures through the mail Confiscated– Obscene Pics, abortion pills, – Soaring Divorce Rates, Frank Discussions on Sex
Women
NAWSA – 1890 National American Woman Suffrage Association– Founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony – Main arg. For getting the vote was: Women needed this in
order to continue to discharge their traditional duties as homemakers & moms in the public world & city (NOT b/c men & women were equal)
* WCTU 1874 (Women Chrisian Temperance Union
Writers
Stephen Crane – Maggie: Girl of the Street (Hooker)
Henry James – Daisy Miller and Portrait of a Lady
Jack London – The Call of the Wild, White Fang,
and The Iron Heel
Frank Norris– The Octopus
Paul Laurence Dunbar Jack London
Post War Writing: Realism
General Lewis Wallace – Ben Hur – Combat beliefs of Darwinism
Walt Whitman– Leaves of Grass
Emily Dickinson – Famed hermit poet
Kate Chopin – The Awakening
Mark Twain – Tom Sawyer, The Adventures
of Huckleberry FinnMark Twain