Education, Jim Crow, and entertainment

1. Education, Jim Crow, and entertainment

2. In 1870, only 2% of all 17 year olds graduated from high school • By 1900 – 32 states had laws that required children between the ages of 8 and 14 to attend school • By 1910, 60% of American children attended school with more than a million students in high school

3. In an effort to limit child labor, parents pushed for local governments to provide funding for schools • Literacy – the ability to read and write • Goal of immigrants • Schools worked to assimilate immigrants into daily life • Assimilation – process by which people of one culture become part of another culture

4. Segregation (separation) of the races meant different educational experiences • African Americans, Mexicans, and Native Americans • Only a small percentage of Native Americans were receiving formal schooling in 1900

5. Colleges • 1880-1900 – 250 new colleges and universities opened • Wealthy people supported them • 1885 – Leland Stanford – Stanford University • John D. Rockefeller gave a total of $40 million to the University of Chicago

6. Women and College • Philanthropists – gave money to establish women’s colleges • For example, Vassar College in New York in 1865 • However, some schools would not allow men and women together • Women’s schools were opened along side the men’s schools • Brown College (Pembroke), Harvard (Radcliffe)

7. Some schools did allow men and women to study together • Oberlin • Knox • Antioch • Cornell • Boston University • Most scholarships went to men

8. Fear that college would make women unmanageable and unmarriageable

9. African Americans and College in the 1800s • 1890 – only 160 African Americans were attending white colleges • All African American colleges • 1856 – Wilberforce University in Ohio – nation’s oldest private African American School

10. Founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama • Taught students to focus on vocational skills • Said whites would accept once blacks succeeded economically • 1901 Up From Slavery • 1901 – invited to the White House by Theodore Roosevelt Booker T. Washington

11. Graduated from Fisk University in Nashville and went on to become the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard • Niagara Movement – called for full civil liberties, an end to racial discrimination, and recognition of human brotherhood • Disagreed with Booker T. Washington • Eventually worked for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) W.E.B. Dubois

13. Popular amusements in the Late 1800s • Saloons – most popular • Dance halls • Cabarets – musical shows • Trolley parks – amusement parks built at the end of trolley lines • Moving pictures – 1903 – The Great Train Robbery • by 1908 – 8,000 nickelodeons (1st movie theatres) - 5 cents

14. Vaudeville • Inexpensive variety show that first appeared in the 1870s • Comedy, dance, ventriloquists, jugglers, trapeze artists • Click for a Video

15. Sports • Boxing – Jack Johnson vs James Jeffries in the “Fight of the Century” • Horse Racing • Baseball – most popular – New York Knickerbockers one of first clubs • 1869 – first professional team – Cincinnati Red Stockings • Football – adapted from European game • Basketball – invented by Dr. Naismith to keep athletes fit during the winter months

16. Sports continued… • Ice skating • Bicycling • Women began wearing shirtwaists (ready-made blouses that tucked into shorter or split skirts • Dress code made women’s sports difficult

17. Newspapers • Comics, sports sections, Sunday editions, women’s pages, etc. • Yellow Journalism – sensational news, sometimes invented facts • Joseph Pulitzer • William Randolph Hearst

18. Magazines • McClure’s, Cosmopolitan • Mark Twain The Gilded Age, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

19. African American Influences • Negro Spirituals • Minstrel Shows – white actors performed in “black face” • Ragtime and Jazz – Scott Joplin – St. Louis

20. African americans in the South • Voting restrictions • By 1890s, had to own property and pay a fee to vote (poll tax) • Literacy tests • Grandfather clauses – passage of a piece of legislation that exempts a group of people from obeying a law provided they met certain conditions before that law was passed (people could vote if their ancestors had voted – allowed poor whites to vote)

21. Segregation • Jim Crow Laws – named after a minstrel song and dance routine • Began to appear a few years after the end of Reconstruction • Dominated every aspect of daily life • Separation of blacks and white in schools, parks, public buildings, hospitals, transportation systems, water fountains, public toilets • Different sections at theaters

23. Plessy Vs. Ferguson • 1896 • Separate, but Equal ruling • Homer Plessy felt his rights were violated when he was not able to ride on train in Louisiana with whites • The Supreme Court ruled that segregation can exist, but facilities must be equal

25. Lynching • Illegal seizure and execution of a person, usually by hanging • 1882-1892 – 1,200 black people were lynched • GO TO www.withoutsanctuary.com and see the postcards of lynchings. • Click here for a video about the postcards

27. Northern Discrimination • Segregation existed in the north • Competition for jobs led to problems • 1900 – race riot in New York City • 1908 – race riot in Springfield, Illinois

28. NAACP • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 1910 • By 1914 – 6,000 members • 1914 – Supreme Court ruled grandfather clauses unconstitutional

29. Department stores – wide variety of goods in larger quantities (for example, Macy’s 1858) • Farm families wanted access too • RFD – Rural Free Delivery from the Post Office (started in 1896) • Mail order catalogs (Montgomery Ward, Sears and Roebuck

30. Women • After the Civil War – took part in voluntary roles • Women’s clubs • Dating started to occur outside the home • “New women” • Pushed for more information about birth control • Margaret Sanger – New York Nurse who supported birth control