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Discover the transformation of education and entertainment in America at the turn of the twentieth century. Explore the expansion of educational opportunities, the changing roles of women, forms of entertainment, and the challenges faced by African Americans under Jim Crow laws. Witness the impact of new forms of transportation and leisure time on entertainment choices and the development of cultural and social norms during this dynamic period in American history.
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American HistoryUnit 12America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century • Topics discussed in this unit: • Education • Entertainment • Life for African Americans under Jim Crow laws • The changing role of women.
The Expansion of Education • In the nineteenth century, education was out of reach for many Americans, but by the turn of the century more and more Americans were able to take advantage of educational opportunities. • Educational opportunities were not available to all Americans on an equal basis. • Women, African Americans, and Native Americans still faced significant discrimination.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the vast majority of Americans attended at least a few years of public schooling in order to learn to read, write, and do basic arithmetic. • Public schools not only provided education for immigrant children, but they also played a major role in assimilating immigrants, helping them become part of American culture.
The Expansion of Education • As more students completed high school, more opportunities developed for them to attend institutions of higher learning.
The Expansion of Education • Between the years 1880 and 1900, around 150 new colleges and universities opened their doors. • By 1915, even some middle-class families were able to send their children to college.
Women, too, began to have opportunities to receive a higher education as many colleges formed associated women’s schools. • This wide availability of higher education would come to distinguish the United States from other industrialized nations.
The Expansion of Education • Unfortunately this education was not equally available to everybody. • African-American children generally attended separate schools that were very inferior to those of their white counterparts.
Native American children could only attend schools if they left the reservation and their families to attend special boarding schools that forced them to give up their language, dress, customs, and culture.
The Expansion of Education • As far as higher education went, there were few colleges and universities who would admit African Americans, yet there were many African Americans who wanted higher educational opportunities. • Only a few institutions—Oberlin, Bates, and Bowdoin—accepted African-American students, and there were also several segregated African-American schools founded during Reconstruction, including Fisk University and Howard University.
The Expansion of Education • Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois represented two differing views on African-American education. • Washington believed in vocational education that would provide African Americans with a way of making a living because they needed economic equality to gain social equality. • W. E. B. Dubois did not agree. He argued that African Americans needed to gain social and political equality and civil rights through educated leaders who took pride in their heritage.
New Forms of Entertainment • From 1880 to 1915, Americans who had more money and leisure time began to flock to new forms of entertainment.
New Forms of Entertainment • With new forms of transportation and more leisure time and more money, many Americans began to look for new forms of entertainment to take them away from the dirty, crowded streets where they lived and work. • These forms of entertainment included vaudeville shows and, sometime later, movies. • They also included visits to the circus and tips to amusement parks.
New Forms of Entertainment This was the grand era of amusement parks such as Coney Island’s Luna Park.
New Forms of Entertainment Sports provided people with another form of inexpensive entertainment, and fans flocked to baseball, football, and basketball games in particular.
New Forms of Entertainment • Other more personal forms of entertainment included the reading of newspapers, magazines, and dime-store novels. • Musical diversions included concerts, dances, or simply gathering around the piano at home. • The invention of the player piano and the phonograph helped spread the development of new musical styles such as jazz and ragtime.
The World of Jim Crow • African Americans lost many of the rights they had gained during Reconstruction. • In the South, Jim Crow laws were designed to keep African Americans subservient. • In the North, there was less legal discrimination, but still not full equality in practice. • African Americans began to band together to work for civil rights.
The World of Jim Crow • After the end of Reconstruction, Southern whites began to introduce laws to keep freed slaves and other African Americans subservient in society. • First, they restricted the voting rights of African Americans by requiring literacy tests or poll taxes that they knew African Americans could not pass or afford.
Jim Crow • Most Southern states also introduced Jim Crow laws to enforce segregation. • These laws required the separation of African Americans and whites in schools, parks, public buildings, hospitals, and on transportation systems.
The World of Jim Crow • Even public facilities such as bathrooms and water fountains were segregated. • The Supreme Court held up this idea of segregation in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which stated that separate but equal facilities are Constitutional.
The World of Jim Crow Facilities, though, were hardly equal, which was difficult to prove in court. In the North, discrimination was less blatant but was still ever present, sometimes erupting in race riots. Violence was not unusual as African Americans were frequently attacked or—much worse—lynched.
The World of Jim Crow • As discrimination and violence became increasingly common, black leaders began to seek solutions for the race problems. • In 1905, many black leaders met to discuss the problem at the Niagara Conference in Ontario, Canada.
Out of this conference came the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
The World of Jim Crow • The NAACP became a vital force in the fight for civil rights throughout the twentieth century. • African Americans also began to form mutual-aid societies to help the advancement of their people. • African-American intellectuals published scholarly articles and literature, African-American businesses sprang up everywhere, and Booker T. Washington established the national Negro Business League in 1900.
The Changing Roles of Women • With new inventions to make housework easier, women found their roles in society changing. • These changes fueled a debate over the proper role of women in the workplace, in education, and in the public arena.
The Changing Roles of Women • At the turn of the century, there was wide debate throughout society on “the women question.” • For many women, the question boiled down to a few demands: Women should be able to vote, control their own property and income, and obtain an education and professional job.
The Changing Roles of Women • Women’s role in the home had changed. Although there was still necessary work, it no longer took as many hours to take care of a home and family. • Few women needed to bake homemade bread or make their family’s clothes because ready-made items were less expensive and easily available. • Even rural families could receive many ready-made articles with rural free delivery from the post office and mail order catalogues from Sears and Montgomery Wards.
The Changing Roles of Women • Many women worked in factories, as domestic servants, or as teachers or nurses either because their families needed the funds or because they wanted to work. • Most but not all women stopped working after marriage. • The invention of the typewriter and telephones provided more work opportunities for women as secretaries or operators.
Wealthier women put their energies into volunteer work to improve society. • They joined clubs of common interest and worked for causes such as temperance and girl’s education.
The Changing Roles of Women • Women’s groups established libraries and helped each other in speaking, writing, and finance. • The National Women’s Suffrage Organization began to strive toward gaining the vote for women in 1890 and would succeed thirty years later. • Although many women disagreed with some of the ideas of the “New Women” and her dress, hairstyles, occupations, and pastimes, suffrage was the issue on which nearly all of them could unite.
