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Chapter 25 Main Ideas. Main Ideas. From 1870 to 1900, the American population doubled, and the population in the cities tripled. The major factor in drawing country people off the farms and into the big cities was the availability of industrial jobs.
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Main Ideas • From 1870 to 1900, the American population doubled, and the population in the cities tripled. • The major factor in drawing country people off the farms and into the big cities was the availability of industrial jobs. • However, the move toward urbanization produced lots of trash. People in rural areas had always reused everything or fed “trash” to animals, but city dwellers, with their mail-order houses like Sears and Montgomery Ward which made things cheap and easy to buy, could simply throw away things that they didn’t need anymore.
Main Ideas • Until the 1880s, most of the immigrants had come from the British Isles and western Europe (Germany and Scandinavia) and were quite literate and accustomed to some type of representative government. This was called the “Old Immigration.” • But by the 1880s and 1890s, this shifted to the Baltic, Italian, Jewish, and Slavic peoples of southeastern Europe, who were more culturally different, hence “NEW Immigration • Many Europeans came to America because there was no room in Europe, nor was there much employment, since industrialization had eliminated many jobs.
Main Ideas • The federal government did little to help immigrants assimilate into American society, so immigrants were often controlled by powerful “bosses” (such as New York’s Boss Tweed) who provided jobs and shelter in return for political support at the polls. • Gradually, though, the nation’s conscience awoke to the plight of the slums, and people like Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden began preaching the “Social Gospel,” insisting that churches tackle the burning social issues of the day. • The “nativism” and anti-foreignism of the 1840s and 1850s came back in the 1880s, as the Germans and western Europeans looked down upon the new Slavs and Baltics, fearing that a mixing of blood would ruin the fairer Anglo-Saxon races and create inferior offspring.
Main Ideas • Finally, in 1882, Congress passed the first restrictive law against immigration, which banned paupers, criminals, and convicts from coming here. • Since churches had mostly failed to take any stands and rally against the urban poverty, plight, and suffering, many people began to question the ambition of the churches, and began to worry that Satan was winning the battle of good and evil. • The Darwinian theory of organic evolution through natural selection affected American religion by creating a split between religious conservatives who denied evolution and “accomodationists” who supported it.
Main Ideas • Americans began to develop a faith in formal education as a solution to poverty, along with the acceptance that a free government cannot function without educated citizens. • The South, still war-torn and poor, lagged far behind in education, especially for African-Americans, so Booker T. Washington, an ex-slave decided to try to change that. He started by heading a black normal and industrial school in Tuskegee, Alabama, teaching the students useful skills and trades. • DuBois demanded that a “talented tenth” – the brightest 10% of the African-American population should be given complete equality now in order to lead the entire race to full social and political equality with whites.
Main Ideas • Colleges and universities sprouted after the Civil War, and colleges for women, such as Vassar, were gaining ground, too. Colleges for both genders grew, especially in the Midwest, and black colleges also were established, such as Howard University in Washington D.C., Atlanta University, and Hampton Institute in Virginia. • Medical schools and science were prospering after the Civil War. • Libraries, such as the Library of Congress, also opened across America, bringing literature into people’s homes
Main Ideas • With the invention of the linotype in 1885, the press more than kept pace with demand, but competition sparked a new brand of journalism called “yellow journalism,” in which newspapers reported on wild and fantastic stories that often were false or quite exaggerated: sex, scandal, and other human-interest stories. • In a reflection of the materialism and conflicts of the new industrial society, American novelists began to turn from romanticism and transcendentalism to rugged social realism.
Main Ideas • The “new morality” reflected sexual freedom in the spreading practice of birth control, soaring divorce rates, more women working outside the home, and frank discussion of sexual topics. • Urban life was stressful on families, who were often separated, and everyone had to work—even children as young as ten years old. While on farms, more children meant more people to harvest and help, in the cities, more children meant more mouths to feed and a greater chance of poverty. As a result, through the course of the late 19th century, family size gradually declined.
Main Ideas • By 1900, a new generation of women activists were present, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, who stressed the desirability of giving women the vote if they were to continue to discharge their traditional duties as homemakers in the increasingly public world of the city. • Concern over the popularity (and dangers) of alcohol was also present, marked by the formation of the National Prohibition Party in 1869. • Art was largely suppressed during the first half of the 1800s and failed to really take flight in America, forcing such men as James Whistler and John Singer Sargent to go to Europe to study art.
Main Ideas • Music reached new heights with the erection of opera houses and the emergence of jazz. • During industrialization, Americans increasingly shared a common and standardized popular culture.
1. What was the most important factor that drew rural people off the farms and into the big cities during the period 1865–1900?(A) The availability of industrial jobs(B) An agricultural system that was suffering from poor production levels(C) The compact and dense nature of those urban communities(D) The advent of new housing structures such as dumbbell tenements(E) The lure of cultural excitement
2. What occurrence directly spurred the abandonment of wood construction for brick and steel in the downtown districts of most American cities?(A) The great Chicago fire of 1871(B) The development of the electric elevator and the skyscraper(C) Cheaper brickmaking and the replacement of iron by more durable steel for construction purposes(D) The changing preference of architects such as Louis Sullivan toward designing steel and brick structures(E) The collapse of numerous wooden tenements in New York City during the 1880s
3. All of the following characterized the New Immigrants who came to the United States from 1880 to 1900 EXCEPT(A) they were culturally different from previous immigrants to America.(B) they attempted to preserve their Old Country culture in America.(C) they were subjected to discrimination and violence by nativist Americans because they practiced different religions and some were politically radical.(D) they made substantial efforts to convert Americans to Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, or Judaism.(E) some New Immigrants emigrated in response to violent religious persecutions organized by government officials and carried out by their countrymen.
4. Why did urban life appeal to others more than rural life?
7. Why did people fear the nation was turning into a "dumping ground" and not a "melting pot"?
8. What was "American fever"? Why did so many Europeans leave their continent?
9. How did the "big bosses" of urban political machines take advantage of immigrants?
10. How did "Christian sociologists" foreshadow the progressive reform movement?
11. Who was Jane Addams? Explain settlement houses and their purpose in society.
12. Why did so many women join the workforce in the 1890s? What jobs did they hold
14. What was the American Protective Association and what did it do?
15. What were some of the first restrictive laws against immigration?
17. Who were liberal Protestants? What did they stress and reject?
18. What was Darwin's ideas on natural selection? How did churches respond to his ideas?
19. How did education increase in importance in the late 1800s?
21. Explain the growth/importance of colleges and how the Morrill Act of 1862 helped this growth.
22. Why was the press becoming less offense and creating noncontroversial material?
