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Chapter 33

Chapter 33. Teddy Roosevelt's Americans The Middle Class Comes of Age 1890–1917. New Kind of President. Human whirlwind Fast rise to top Theodore Roosevelt personifies period Enjoys presidency and life Dominates center stage Extremely active life Strenuous Life

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Chapter 33

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  1. Chapter 33 Teddy Roosevelt's Americans The Middle Class Comes of Age1890–1917

  2. New Kind of President • Human whirlwind • Fast rise to top • Theodore Roosevelt personifies period • Enjoys presidency and life • Dominates center stage • Extremely active life • Strenuous Life • Roosevelt sickly as a child • Uses body building to grow stronger • Prolific writer, family man • Brings showmanship to presidency • Patrician • From old money • Does not need to work • American personified • Middle class embraces Roosevelt • Critics unsuccessful in attacking him • Wins support of African Americans • Suffragists appeal to him for help

  3. The Middle Class • America at the turn of the century • Middle class shapes America • Large and conspicuous influence • Gay Nineties, “good old days” • The middle class • Values dominate U.S. culture • Prudish • Protestant • Urban, professional, skilled workers • Creates distinctive lifestyle • Confidently emphasize self-improvement

  4. An Educated People • Foundation of middle class wealth • Use wealth to gain more education • More schools in U.S. at every level especially secondary schools • Schools focus more on job skills • Normal Schools to train teachers • Colleges and Universities • Stressed liberal arts still • Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 • Morrill schools focus on industrial classes • Millionaires endow universities

  5. An Educated People(cont.’d) • Studying for careers • Colleges adopt elective system • Colleges establish professional schools • Women and the new education • Coeducation becomes more common • Also seven major women’s colleges • Women begin entering professions • Religious colleges shape education • Minorities • Also Blacks admitted to northern and western colleges • Jews attended in high numbers • Catholic institutions begun

  6. An Educated People • A hunger for words • More newspapers published • Magazines popular among middle class • Ladies Home Journal • General interest magazines • Depend on advertising to make profit

  7. Leisure • Americans at play • Lake Chautauqua, New York resort • Education, religious programs • Vacations as educational opportunities • Vacations to health resorts • Hydropathy: medical fad • Constant bathing, water drinking • Dr. Kellogg

  8. Leisure (cont.’d) • Health and fitness • William Kellogg invented Post Toasties as health food • Urban population gets less exercise • YMCA for health • New sports craze • Croquet, archery, tennis, roller skating • James Naismith invents basketball, 1891

  9. Leisure (cont.’d) • Bicycles • Most widespread sports craze • Moralists condemn activity • Safety bicycles popular with both sexes • Gibson Girl • Vision of American Womanhood • Not a feminist, was object of adoration • Self-sufficient, independent • Women marry later

  10. Spectator Sports • Professional and collegiate • Developed from middle class money • Football a collegiate sport • Professional baseball • Professional boxing • Baseball • Develops out of children’s game • Towns organize “pick-up” teams • Cincinnati Red Stockings first professional team • Baseball integrated until 1890s • National past time

  11. Spectator Sport (cont’d) • Football • Developed from rugby • Princeton v. Rutgers in 1869 first game • Walter Camp in 1880 established rules • Professors loved it • Made money for universities • Used to raise money and attract students • Some athletes paid on the sly • Game was rough and no pads

  12. Spectator Sports (cont.’d) • Boxing and society • 1860s code of rules adopted for boxing • John L. Sullivan first boxer with national reputation • Crowds come to see boxing matches • Boxers source of ethnic pride • Jack Johnson • White heavyweight champions refuse to fight black Johnson • Southern states forbid Johnson to fight there • Racists charge Johnson under Mann Act • Goes into exile, then serves eight-month prison term

  13. Spectator Sports (cont’d) • Most sports not integrated • Sports and morality • Horse racing declined as seen as gambling • Casinos disappeared rapidly as well • Trying to impose middle class morality

  14. Discussion Questions • How did the lively culture of the gay nineties change the role of women in the United States? • What was Roosevelt’s part in the shaping of American society in the early 20th century? What was the “strenuous life”? • Discuss middle class morality and ideas. How was it imposed? • Examine the rise of sports in the late 1800s. To what changes in society did this rise correspond? How similar were sports then to sports now?

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