APUSH chapter 18

• Consumer Culture- Modernization & industrialization encouraged the wealthy to spend their money. Shopping for the sake of shopping became a thing.

• Plessy v Ferguson- Homer Plessy sued b/c he was forced to sit in the “black” car of the train even though he was only 1/8th black. Court ruled that the 14th Amendment was not violated b/c African Americans were “separate but equal”

• Jim Crow Laws- Allowed for racial segregation under “separate but equal”. Used for schools, restaurants, trains, etc.

• YMCA- Helped to assimilate young men and immigrants to urban life through different services. “Muscular Christianity.”

  • Negro Leagues- Baseball teams entirely made up of African Americans as they couldn’t join white leagues.

• Sierra Club- Founded by John Muir- wanted time preserve American mountains 

• National Park Service- Set aside land for national parks.

  • Antiques Act- allowed president to set land apart for monuments w/o asking Congress 

• National Audobon Society- Environmentalists who wanted to preserve land for endangered animals.

• “Solitude of Self” - Women’s suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s argument that rejected the claim that women did not equal rights because they were under the protection of man

• Captured one of the conundrums of industrialization: labor brought both freedom and risk, working-class women very vulnerable to detrimental effects of industrialization.

• Comstock Act (1873) - Made circulation of info about sex and birth control illegal. 

• Act made in response to parents’ fear that that young people were receiving sexual content through the mail and about the newfound rising of pornography.

• Booker T. Washington - 

• Educational Project in South: Tuskegee Institute.

• Vouched for “Industrial” education.

• Atlanta Compromise: Speech made by Booker T. Washington to present the gradual racial progress in the South- Whites were very fond, interpreting it to be an approval of segregation.

• Leading voice of African Americans.

• Had the ideal that economic success, hard work, and education would disintegrate white prejudice and oppression. 

• Education- Colleges started to become accessible as new ones sprung up due to the Morrill Act and wealthy Philanthropists

  • Liberal Arts- New courses and degrees were offered; economics, poli sci, English, Astronomy etc.

• WCTU- Women’s group with the motive “Do Everything”. Fought for women’s vote, temperance under “home protection”, safer streets, poverty, unemployement, child labor, & other industrial problems. (Nothing about race nor immigration) Led by Frances Willard.

• National Association of Colored Women- Challenged Southern education; making the Confederacy look like it was good. Group was made up of colored women and aided orphans, elderly, advocated for temperance, and public health.

• NAWSA- Women’s suffrage movement; reunited after Reconstruction.

  • Anti-Suffragists- Argued giving women the vote was too expensive and would undermine women’s power as reformers (now they would be competing against all other male voters)

• Feminism- Full political, social, and economic rights for all women; opened Heterodoxy Club; strongly opposed Orthodox ideas.

• Social Darwinism- Based on Natural Selection; poor were poor b/c they didn’t work as hard. Rich were rich b/c they worked hard.

  • Eugenics- Argued mentally disabled people shouldn’t be able to reproduce; wanted to create a “perfect” race.

• Artistic Movements- Modernism and Naturalism; challenged traditional ways of art

• American Protective Association- Founded by Protestants; fought against Catholics and Jews, deeming themselves to have the “knowledge of God” and their duty was to “bestow their knowledge upon” other religions. Nativist movement.

• Social Gospel- Protestant movement which saw it as their duty to help those in need; welfare system b/c God gave them the willpower to do so.

  • APP vs Social Gospel

    • APP was a Protestant group that saw themselves as higher, so they needed to educate those “below” them; basically; Protestants that thought other religions were bad.

    • Social Gospel was much the same, but b/c God made them higher beings, it was their job to help the poor.

• Fundamentalism- Only cared about heavenly redemption; focused on “fundamental” bible.

Summary: With a boom in industry, the wealthy saw themselves much wealthier than before. This led to consumer culture and a new focus on “beautifying cities” and just making life more enjoyable for themselves. Many went to sports, while others went to national parks; through preservation by the Sierra Club or National Park Service. Though the rich whites had leisure, the same could not be said about African Americans, who suffered from the segregation presented through the Jim Crow Laws, Plessy  v. Ferguson or Negro Leagues; and Women, who led many reforms. Women created and led the WTCU, National Association of Colored Women, and NAWSA, striving reform in women’s suffrage, child labor, temperance/prohibition, feminism, work conditions, etc. (Passed Comstock Act- prohibited sexual material) Women were no longer members to the side, rather fully fighting for their rights in industrial times. African American leader Booker T. Washington argued that for African Americans to assimilate and become as powerful as the White man, they needed to get an “industrial education”, contradicting the many new liberal arts schools and courses which had opened. Americans began to think more freely, inviting new artistic movements, like Naturalism and Modernism. This free thinking also allowed for the oppressive American Protective Association, which deemed non-Protestants as lower beings, but also the Social Gospel, which used this Protestant “heavenly” power to aid those in need. Wealthy people also started to develop ideas in Eugenics, creation of a “perfect race” and Social Darwinism, stating poor people were poor due to laziness.