Chapter 17 Marking Modern American Culture 1880-1914

Darwinism and Its Critics

Social Darwinism

Competition was a law of nature
- The success of the wealthy demonstrated they were “naturally selected.”
- Survival of the fittest, but for society
Controversy
- Some argued it was an excuse for the excesses of industrialization
- Evolutionary theories used as the basis for Eugenics

Science vs. Faith

New scientific, literary, and artistic ideas posed a challenge to religious faith
- Some Americans argued science would sweep away religion
- American religious practice remained vibrant
Religious groups developed creative new responses to the era of industrialization

Immigrant Faiths

Catholic elementary schools instead of public schools
- Some Catholics and Jews fell away from religious practice
Many native-born, prosperous American Jews embraced Reform Judaism
- Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe kept traditions

Protestant Innovations

American Protective Association (APA)
- Nativist and anti-Catholic group
- Advocated all public school teachers to be Protestants
- Against Catholics holding public office
- Immigration restrictions
Protestants still accounted for 60% of Americans

The Social Gospel

The movement to renew religious faith through dedication to public welfare and social justice
- Salvation Army
Protestants fundamentalists
- Based on their belief in the essential truth of the Bible and its central place in Christian faith

Realism in Literature

American authors rebelled
- No more happy endings
- Harsh reality of an uncaring universe echoing the ideas of Social Darwinism
Mark Twain
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), he condemned slavery and racism
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), he bitterly critiqued America’s idea of progress

The African American Experience

It was a struggle for wealthy African Americans to find seats in first-class railcars because white ladies and gentlemen opposed racial equality
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
- The Supreme Court decided segregation was constitutional as long as accommodations were “equal.”
- In reality, segregated facilities were inferior
This court decision upheld Jim Crow legislation that segregated all public and commercial spaces
Showed that racial and class injustices shaped business and consumer culture

Masculinity and the Rise of Sports

Change in gender expectations for men
- Traditionally, men were their own bosses and worked with their hands
- More and more men worked in salaried positions or for wages
“Brain Work”
- Office jobs
  - Men no longer used their muscles
- Athletics became a way to combat this

YMCA

Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)
- Promoted physical fitness
- Introduced in Boston in 1851, the YMCA combined vigorous activities with an evangelizing appeal
Offered working-class men an opportunity for leisure activities
- Developed new indoor games of basketball and volleyball

The Great Outdoors

Victorian culture seen as claustrophobic
- The outdoors took on a new meaning: instead of danger and hard work, it reflected leisure and renewal
Conservation movement
- Sierra Club (1892) dedicated to preserving and enjoying Americans great mountains
National and state governments set aside more public lands for preservation and recreation
Conservationists also worked to protect wildlife
- Preservation efforts resulted in the passage of the Lacey Act in 1900, the creation of the National Audubon Society in 1901
Antiquities Act (1906)
- Gave presidents the ability to set aside “objects of historic and scientific interest”
In 1908, Roosevelt used that power to preserve the Grand Canyon

Changing Families

The average family continued to get smaller in the post-Civil War decade
- Declining birth rates
Several factors limited childbearing
- Americans married at older ages
- By the late nineteenth century, couples also used a range of other contraceptive methods, such as condoms and diaphragms
Comstock Act
- Federal law that banned “obscene materials” from the US mail
- The law prohibited the circulation of almost any information about sex and birth control

Expanding Opportunities for Education

The value of education
- A high school education was particularly valuable for boys from affluent families who hoped to enter professional or managerial work
- Daughters attended in even larger numbers than their brothers
By 1900, 71% of Americans between the ages of five and eighteen attended school
- Public officials eventually adopted and enforced laws requiring school attendance

African American Education

In the South, one of the most famous educational projects was Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, founded in 1881
- Washington, born in slavery, not only taught but also exemplified the goal of self-help
- His 1895 Atlanta Compromise address intended to show racial progress in the South and seemed to support segregation
  - Hoped that education, hard work, and economic success would erase white prejudice

Women’s Temperance Activism

During industrialization, middle-class women sought to expand their place beyond the household, building reform movements and taking political action
- Women frequently made maternalism arguments; they justified their work based on their roles as mothers
One of the first places women sought to reform was the saloon
- The Woman Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
- It became the leading organization advocating prohibition of liquor

Women, Race, and Patriotism

The Daughters of American Revolution, founded in 1890, devoted themselves to celebrating the memory of Revolutionary War heroes
- United Daughters of the Confederacy, founded in 1894, extolled the South’s “Lost Cause.”
- Presented Civil War in a different light
African American women did not sit idle and in 1896 created the National Association of Colored Women
- A network of local women's clubs that focused their attention on community support
One of the most radical voices was Ida B. Wells
- Launched campaign against lynching
- Her investigations revealed that labor disputes, economic competition, and consensual relationships between white women and black men, not interracial rape, were the reasons why white mobs lynched black men
Founded in 1900, the Women’s Convention of the NBC promoted and funded night schools, health clinics, kindergartens, daycare centers, and prison outreach programs

Women’s Rights

Although it divided the two rival organizations during Reconstruction, the movement for women’s suffrage reunited in 1890 in the National American Women's Suffrage Organization (NAWSA)
Soon afterward, suffragists won victories in the West, winning in Colorado in 1893 and Idaho as well as Utah in 1896
- By 1913, most women living west of the Mississippi River had the ballot
Ironically, the prominence of the movement also encouraged women and men to oppose it
- Anti Suffragists argued that women voters would just double their husband’s votes
By the 1910s, some women took a stand for feminism— women’s full political, economic, and social equality
A famous site of sexual rebellion was New York Greenwich Village
- Radical intellectuals, including many gays and lesbians, created a vibrant community
As women entered the public sphere, feminists argued that they should not just fulfill Victorian expectations of self-sacrifice for others
- They should work on their own behalf