United States History Since 1865: World War I and US Popular Culture (copy)

Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I, 1916 - 1920

• Sergeant Alvin C. York: Captured 132 prisoners and killed 25 German machine-gunners and put 35 machine guns out of action.

Overview: 1916-1920

• Focus is on the US during World War I.

• Also covers US popular culture from 1900-1920.

U.S. Popular Culture: 1900 – 1920

• Sports: Football & Baseball

• Movies and Theatre

• Music: Ragtime, Blues, & Jazz.

America and The First World War: 1914 – 1918

• Europe’s Descent Into War: 1910 – 1914

• The Horror of Modern War: 1914 – 1916

• American Neutrality: 1914 – 1917

• America in the War: 1917 – 1918

• The Negotiated Peace: 1919 – 1920

Increased Leisure Time

• The common American gained more leisure time between 1890 and 1920.

• Average work week in 1890: 60 hours.

• Average work week in 1920: 51 hours.

• A drop of 9 hours leads to more time for family, sports, recreation, etc.

Popular Pastimes and the Arts

Football

• Evolved from “association football” (soccer) and rugby.

• The first “American – style” football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton.

• Walter Camp, a Yale football player, is considered the “Father of American Football.”

  • From 1880 to 1882, he proposed rule changes:

    • Reduce team size from 15 to 11 players.

    • Having a “line of scrimmage” where the play begins.

    • “Snapping” the ball from the “center” to the “quarterback.”

    • System of “downs” – limited each team to three “downs” to advance the ball 5 yards (current rule is 4 downs to advance 10 yards).

• Remained primarily a college sport for its first 50 years.

  • Rivalries: Stanford & Cal (U.C. Berkeley), Harvard & Yale, Michigan & Michigan State.

  • Early concerns about violence.

    • Concussions and serious injuries were common.

    • In 1905, a national scandal occurred due to deaths in college football – 19 fatalities that year.

    • President Theodore Roosevelt held a meeting on October 9, 1905, with representatives from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale to reduce injuries.

    • On December 28, 1905, 62 schools met in New York City to discuss rule changes, leading to the establishment of an intercollegiate sports organization, later renamed the “National Collegiate Athletic Association” (NCAA) in March 1910.

      • The NCAA was instrumental in:

        • Regulating the sport.

        • Reducing and eliminating injuries.

Professional Football

• Professional football “athletic clubs” formed in the 1890s.

  • The first “professional” football player: William “Pudge” Heffelfinger - paid 500 dollars to play for a Pittsburgh-area athletic club in a game on November 12, 1892.

• An early professional football league was established in 1902 when several baseball clubs formed football clubs to play in the league, including the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Athletics (now the Oakland Athletics.)

• On September 17, 1920, the American Professional Football Association (APFA) was organized in Canton, Ohio.

  • Jim Thorpe, famous American athlete and gold medal Olympian, was elected its first president.

  • Renamed the National Football League for its 1922 season.

  • Some of its first teams were the Decatur Staleys (now the Chicago Bears) and the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals).

Baseball

• Sometimes called “the National Pastime.”

• Brief History:

  • Earliest mention of baseball in America was in 1791 Massachusetts.

  • It is considered a myth that it was invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839.

  • The first team to play baseball under modern rules was the New York Knickerbockers, an amateur club founded on September 23, 1845. They also instituted the Knickerbocker Rules for playing the game.

  • An early league was formed in 1857, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) – consisted of 16 New York area clubs. They established three standards of the game:

    • 90 feet between the bases.

    • Nine (9) – man teams.

    • Nine (9) inning games

  • Professional Clubs/Teams:

    • The NABBP continued as an amateur league for 12 years until 1869.

    • Baseball’s first professional team was the Cincinnati Red Stockings, which started playing in 1869.

    • For the next 30 years, professional baseball grew with teams established all over the country.

Major League Baseball (MLB)

• Founded in 1903, with two distinctly separate, independent leagues:

  • The National League (NL).

  • The American League (AL).

• Baseball became very popular in the U.S.!

  • Attendance doubled around the country between 1903 and 1910.

  • Baseball heroes became some of America’s first celebrities:

    • George Herman “Babe” Ruth Jr.

    • Ty Cobb.

    • “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.

Chicago “Black Sox” Scandal (1919 – 1921)

• The first major challenge to America’s love affair with the sport.

• Background:

  • In 1919, the Chicago White Sox was one of the best teams in baseball.

  • Despite being a superior team, the players deeply resented their owner Charlie Comiskey for being a stingy miser.

    • He had a reputation for being cheap/ underpaying his players. (Some say the White Sox were the lowest paid players in the league.)

    • The team got its nickname, the “Black Sox” because of Comiskey’s stinginess!

      • During their games, the player’s uniforms would get extremely dirty and grimy.

      • Laundry service, however, was not provided in their contracts – Comiskey charged his players a fee to clean their uniforms!

• The Conspiracy:

  • On September 21, 1919, White Sox player Charles “Chick” Gandil and other team members met in a New York hotel and discussed the upcoming World Series.

  • A number of the players eventually agreed to conspire with some gamblers to “fix” the game; to deliberately lose the World Series to their opponents the Cincinnati Reds.

    • Chicago was heavily favored; the odds were against the Reds.

    • The players were to be given 100,000 to split among themselves.

  • Some of the players involved in the conspiracy were:

    • “Chick” Gandil.

    • Eddie Cicotte.

    • “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (His involvement is disputed!)

• The 1919 World Series (October 2nd – 9th, 1919):

  • The Chicago White Sox played miserably against the Reds.

  • There were rumors in the press that the series had been “fixed.”

  • The gamblers began to tell the players involved in the “fix” that they couldn’t deliver the promised payments – the money was in the hands of the “bookies”.

  • On October 9th, 1919, the Cincinnati Reds won the series (5 to 3)!

• The Investigation and Trial:

  • Rumors and stories of corruption followed the White Sox team as they played during the 1920 season.

  • In September 1920, a grand jury was convened to investigate.

    • Eddie Cicotte confessed.

    • Comiskey decided to suspend seven of the eight “conspiring” players even though it meant that the team now had no chance to win the American league pennant.

    • On October 22, 1920, the grand jury indicted eight (8) White Sox players and five (5) gamblers on the charge of “conspiracy to defraud.”

  • The Trial (June 27, 1921):

    • The players were put on trial in Chicago – both Cicotte and Jackson recanted their confessions.

    • The jury deliberated and quickly returned verdicts of “not guilty”.

• The Landis Commission (1921):

  • Many of the team owners wanted major changes in the management and regulation of the game of baseball.

  • They selected federal judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis to be the first “Commissioner of Baseball”

    • He was given virtually unlimited authority over all people involved in “Major League Baseball.”

    • He remained in this position for the next 24 years until his death; from 1920 to 1944!

  • The Ban (August 3, 1921):

    • Landis suspended indefinitely (banned for life) the eight (8) accused White Sox players from all professional baseball

    • Landis let it be known that any professional league player who participated in these games would also “banned for life.”

• Aftermath:

  • Many of the banned players professed their innocence for the rest of their lives.

  • The White Sox became an inferior, losing team.

  • Cultural Effect:

    • Baseball and America “grew up”!

    • People realized that the game was a big business, run “for profit.”

    • It has become a thing of myth, legend!

    • The scandal has been immortalized in novels, history books, journal articles, songs, and movies.

      • “Eight Men Out” (1988)

      • “Field of Dreams” (1989)

Movies and Theatre

Movies

• Began in the 1890s.

• In May 1891, a short 3-second film called “Dickson Greeting” became the first American motion picture shown to a public audience.

• Commercial Cinemas:

  • At the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Thomas Edison introduced his coin-operated “kinetoscope” to the public.

  • On April 14th, 1894, a public Kinetoscope parlor opened in New York City becoming the first commercial motion picture house.

  • In 1896, the Vitascope Hall opened in New Orleans, Louisiana.

    • It was one of the first theatres dedicated to showing motion pictures.

    • It showed films two (2) times a day.

  • “Nickelodeons”:

    • They were the first type of “movie” theatre dedicated to showing moving pictures.

    • They got their name for charging only a nickel (5 cents).

    • The very first nickelodeon opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 19, 1905.

    • Numbers & Audience:

      • Became very popular in the U.S. from 1905 to 1915.

      • By 1910, there were ten (10) thousand theatres throughout the country with weekly audiences of 10 million customers.

    • Films:

      • Length (Time): 10 – 15 minutes.

      • Topics/Subjects: “Scenics”, song and dance acts, comedies, and melodramas.

      • Notable Film: “The Great Train Robbery” (1903)

        • Length: 12 minutes.

        • Considered to be the first Western & Action film.

    • Technology: Silent; accompanied by an organ or a piano.

    • Size: Held 200 – 1000 people.

    • Significance: Origin of modern “movies” (motion pictures)/cinema.

  • Full – length Feature Films:

    • Focus was on length, at least 40 minutes.

    • First American-made feature films:

      • Oliver Twist (1912)

      • Cleopatra (1912)

      • Richard III (1912)

    • By 1915, over 600 feature films were being produced annually in the United States.

    • Price: 10 cents or more

    • Technology: Silent; accompanied by an organ or a piano.

    • Notable Film: Birth of a Nation (1915)

      • Directed and co-produced by D.W. Griffith.

      • Subject: Story of two American families in the Civil War/Reconstruction eras.

      • It’s famously known for its very negative depiction of African-Americans.

      • It also glorified the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.).

      • Reception:

        • Controversial.

        • However, also very popular and commercially successful.

      • Length (Time): Three (3) hours!

      • Ticket Price: 2.20 a ticket.

      • Legacy:

        • Considered to be a landmark by film historians.

        • D.W. Griffith became recognized as a pioneer in modern filmmaking techniques - the “Father” of Hollywood.

Live Theatre/“Vaudeville” (1900 – 1915)

• Shows consisted of “variety entertainment”:

  • Skits.

  • Song and Dance acts.

  • Acrobats.

  • Comics/Comedians.

• Ancestor of “talk shows,” “improv clubs,” and “stand-up” comedy.

Music

Changes in American Tunes

• Influence of African-American rhythms seen in:

  • Ragtime.

  • Blues.

  • Jazz.

Ragtime

• Music style that was popular from 1890 to 1915.

• Definition: Type of written piano music with syncopated rhythms.

• Origin: Combination of European and African musical traditions.

• Classic Ragtime: Formalized dance steps.

• Founding Father of Ragtime: Scott Joplin (1868 – 1917).

  • His first big hit was the “Maple Leaf Rag” (1899).

  • Other famous Joplin pieces:

    • “Palm Leaf Rag.”

    • “Original Rags.”

    • “The Entertainer”.

• Other Ragtime Artists:

  • James Scott

  • Joseph Lamb

  • Irving Berlin - He wrote the immensely popular “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1911).

    • Berlin wrote this song when he was only 23 years old!

    • It was called: “The musical sensation of the decade.”

    • Why popular?

      • In the age before radio and television, people would gather around the piano and sing.

      • Piano music was printed on sheets of paper that sold at five (5) to ten (10) cents each.

      • Berlin’s song sold 1,500,000 copies of sheet music in its first year and a half!

• Ragtime inspired a social-dance craze:

  • “Fox trot.”

  • “Bunny hug.”

  • “Kangaroo dip.”

Blues

• Type of Southern Black folk music:

  • Vocal and Instrumental.

  • Theme: Disappointment and trouble.

• It was transported to Northern cities.

• Artists:

  • W.C. Handy.

  • Gertrude Rainey.

  • Bessie Smith.

Jazz

• Unique improvisational music.

• Type: Instrumental.

• Origin: New Orleans.

• Artists:

  • Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton.

  • Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.

• Establishment of Jazz Clubs: In cities all over the country (Detroit, Chicago, New York).