Technological Advancements, Education, and Social Issues in the Early 20th Century
Advances in Science and Technology
Advances in science and technology helped solve urban problems, including overcrowding.
American cities continue to depend on the results of scientific and technological research.
The Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge connected Brooklyn to Manhattan in 1883 and took 14 years to build.
E.F. Farrington, a mechanic, described the working conditions inside the caisson as unreal and confusing, comparing it to Dante's Inferno.
Trains ran across the bridge 24 hours a day and carried more than 30 million travelers each year.
Technology and City Life
Engineering innovations, such as the Brooklyn Bridge, laid the groundwork for modern American life.
Cities expanded both outward and upward.
In 1870, 25 American cities had populations of 50,000 or more; by 1890, 58 cities reached that number.
By the turn of the 20th century, four out of ten Americans lived in cities due to increasing industrial jobs.
Technological advances addressed the needs for communication, transportation, and space.
Skyscrapers
Skyscrapers were made practical by the invention of elevators and the development of internal steel skeletons to bear the weight of buildings.
Louis Sullivan designed the ten-story Wainwright Building in St. Louis (1890-1891).
The skyscraper, America's greatest contribution to architecture, solved the problem of limited and expensive space.
Daniel Burnham designed the slender 285-foot Flatiron Building in 1902.
Skyscrapers became symbols of a rich and optimistic society.
Electric Transit
Changes in transportation allowed cities to spread outward.
Richmond, Virginia, became the first American city to electrify its urban transit in 1888.
Intricate networks of electric streetcars (trolley cars) ran from outlying neighborhoods to downtown offices and department stores.
New railroad lines also fed the growth of suburbs, allowing residents to commute to downtown jobs; New York's northern suburbs supplied 100,000 commuters each day.
Some cities built elevated or "el" trains, while others like New York built subways.
These transit systems enabled cities to annex suburban developments.
Engineering and Urban Planning
Steel-cable suspension bridges brought cities' sections closer together and offered recreational opportunities.
John Augustus Roebling designed the Brooklyn Bridge with an elevated promenade for leisure.
The need for open spaces in crowded cities inspired the science of urban planning.
Urban Parks
City planners sought to restore serenity by designing recreational areas.
Frederick Law Olmsted spearheaded the movement for planned urban parks.
In 1857, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux created "Greensward," which became Central Park in New York City.
Central Park featured boating, tennis facilities, a zoo, and bicycle paths, serving as a rustic haven in the city.
Olmsted planned landscaping for Washington, D.C., St. Louis, and Boston's "Emerald Necklace."
Boston's Back Bay area, originally a 450-acre swamp, was drained and developed into an area of elegant streets and cultural attractions.
City Planning
Chicago's explosive growth led to unregulated expansion.
Daniel Burnham oversaw the transformation of a swampy area into the White City for Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
Burnham’s plan included majestic exhibition halls, statues, the first Ferris wheel, and a lagoon that greeted over 21 million visitors.
Burnham left Chicago an overall plan for the city, featuring elegant parks along Lake Michigan.
The Chicago Plan
Burnham designed the "White City" for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
His greatest legacy was his idea for a lakefront park system with beaches, playing fields, and playgrounds.
Most cities sprinkled neighborhood parks for local recreation.
Burnham advocated moving harbors away from central business districts for public use.
He redesigned the street pattern to create a grand plaza, unifying the city.
New Technologies
New developments in communication brought the nation closer together.
In addition to the railroad network, advances in printing, aviation, and photography helped to speed the transfer of information.
Revolution in Printing
By 1890, the literacy rate in the United States had risen to nearly 90 percent.
Publishers produced increasing numbers of books, magazines, and newspapers.
American mills began to produce cheap paper from wood pulp.
The electrically powered web-perfecting press printed on both sides of a continuous paper roll, cutting, folding, and counting the pages.
Lower costs made newspapers and magazines more affordable, with newspapers costing a penny a copy.
Airplanes
Orville and Wilbur Wright experimented with engines powerful enough to keep "heavier-than-air" craft aloft.
They built a glider and commissioned a four-cylinder internal combustion engine.
Their first successful flight was on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, covering 120 feet in 12 seconds.
Garden City
British city planner Ebenezer Howard wrote of a planned residential community called a garden city.
Howard wanted to combine the benefits of urban life with easy access to nature.
His city plan was based on concentric circles, with a town at the center and a wide circle of rural land on the perimeter.
The town center included a garden, concert hall, museum, theater, library, and hospital.
The circle around the town center included a park, shopping center, a conservatory, residential area, and industry.
Six wide avenues radiated out from the town center.
In 1903, Letchworth, England served as the model for Howard’s garden city.
Aviation Pioneers
Orville and Wilbur Wright opened a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, and used the profits to fund experiments in aeronautics.
By 1918, the Postal Service began airmail service.
Early Airplane Engines
The design of lighter engines was the most important development in early aviation history.
Date | Name of Engine | Approximate Weight per Unit of Horsepower |
|---|---|---|
1880s | Otto | |
1903 | Wright | |
1910 | Gnome | |
1918 | V-12 Liberty | |
1944 | Wright Cyclone |
Photography Explosion
Before the 1880s, photography was a professional activity due to the time and weight of equipment needed.
New techniques eliminated the need to develop pictures right away.
George Eastman developed flexible film coated with gelatin emulsions and allowed photographers to send film to a studio for processing.
In 1888, Eastman introduced the Kodak camera for $25, including a 100-picture roll of film.
The camera also helped to create the field of photojournalism, allowing reporters to photograph events as they occurred.
Expanding Public Education
Reforms in public education led to a rise in national literacy and the promotion of public education.
The public education system is the foundation of the democratic ideals of American society.
Compulsory attendance laws, though slow to be enforced, helped fill classrooms at the turn of the 20th century.
William Torrey Harris
William Torrey Harris promoted the ideas that schools should prepare students for full participation in community life.
Schools for Children
Between 1865 and 1895, states passed laws requiring 12 to 16 weeks annually of school attendance for students between 8 and 14.
The curriculum emphasized reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Strict rules and physical punishment made many students miserable.
Kindergartens, initially created outside the public school system for childcare, became increasingly popular and were added to public school programs. The number of kindergartens surged from 200 in 1880 to 3,000 in 1900.
Opportunities differed sharply for white and black students. In 1880, about 62 percent of white children attended elementary school, compared to about 34 percent of African-American children.
The Growth of High Schools
The economy demanded advanced technical and managerial skills.
Keeping workers loyal to capitalism required society to provide ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.
By early 1900, more than half a million students attended high school.
The curriculum expanded to include courses in science, civics, and social studies.
New vocational courses prepared male graduates for industrial jobs and female graduates for office work.
Education for Immigrants
Immigrants were encouraged to go to school where they quickly became "Americanized."
Some people resented the suppression of their native languages in favor of English.
Catholic communities often set up parochial schools to give their children a Catholic education.
Thousands of adult immigrants attended night school to learn English and to qualify for American citizenship.
Employers often offered daytime programs to Americanize their workers.
Expanding Higher Education
Between 1880 and 1920, college enrollments more than quadrupled.
Colleges instituted major changes in curricula and admission policies.
The research university emerged—offering courses in modern languages, the physical sciences, and the new disciplines of psychology and sociology.
Professional schools in law and medicine were established.
Higher Education for African Americans
After the Civil War, thousands of freed African Americans pursued higher education, despite their exclusion from white institutions.
Blacks founded Howard, Atlanta, and Fisk Universities.
Private donors could not educate a sufficient number of black college graduates to meet the needs of the segregated communities.
By 1900, out of about 9 million African Americans, only 3,880 were in attendance at colleges or professional schools.
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington believed that racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society.
Washington headed the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, which aimed to equip African Americans with teaching diplomas and useful skills in agricultural, domestic, or mechanical work.
W.E.B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois disagreed with Washington’s gradual approach and founded the Niagara Movement.
He insisted that blacks should seek a liberal arts education so that the African-American community would have well-educated leaders.
Du Bois proposed that the most “talented tenth” of the community attempt to achieve immediate inclusion into mainstream American life.
Segregation and Discrimination
Today, African Americans have the legacy of a century-long battle for civil rights.
African Americans led the fight against voting restrictions and Jim Crow laws.
African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican residents, and Chinese immigrants encountered bitter forms of oppression.
African Americans Fight Legal Discrimination
As African Americans exercised their newly won political and social rights during Reconstruction, they faced hostile and often violent opposition from whites.
By the turn of the 20th century, Southern states had adopted a broad system of legal policies of racial discrimination and devised methods to weaken African-American political power.
Voting Restrictions
All Southern states imposed new voting restrictions and denied legal equality to African Americans.
Some states limited the vote to people who could read and required registration officials to administer a literacy test to test reading.
Black applicants were often asked more difficult questions or given a test in a foreign language.
Another requirement was the poll tax, an annual tax that had to be paid before qualifying to vote.
To reinstate white voters who may have failed the literacy test or could not pay the poll tax, several Southern states added the grandfather clause to their constitutions.
Jim Crow Laws
Southern states passed racial segregation laws to separate white and black people in public and private facilities; these laws came to be known as Jim Crow laws after a popular old minstrel song.
Racial segregation was put into effect in schools, hospitals, parks, and transportation systems throughout the South.
Plessy v. Ferguson
In 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that the separation of races in public accommodations was legal and did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
The decision established the doctrine of “separate but equal,” which allowed states to maintain segregated facilities for blacks and whites as long as they provided equal service.
The decision permitted legalized racial segregation for almost 60 years.
Turn-of-the-Century Race Relations
African Americans faced not only formal discrimination but also informal rules and customs, called racial etiquette, that regulated relationships between whites and blacks.
These customs belittled and humiliated African Americans, enforcing their second-class status.
Violence
African Americans and others who did not follow the racial etiquette could face severe punishment or death.
Between 1882 and 1892, more than 1,400 African-American men and women were shot, burned, or hanged without trial in the South.
Washington vs. Du Bois
Booker T. Washington argued for a gradual approach to racial equality.
W. E. B. Du Bois denounced this view, demanding full social and economic equality for African Americans.
In 1909 the Niagara Movement, founded by Du Bois in 1905, became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Discrimination in the North
Many blacks migrated to Northern cities in search of better-paying jobs and social equality, but they still faced racial discrimination.
African Americans were forced into segregated neighborhoods and faced discrimination in the workplace.
The competition between African Americans and working-class whites sometimes became violent, as in the New York City race riot of 1900.
Discrimination in the West
Western communities were home to people of many backgrounds, but racial tensions often made life difficult.
Mexican Workers
Railroads hired more Mexicans than any other ethnic group to construct rail lines in the Southwest, and Mexicans were accustomed to the region’s hot, dry climate.
Mexicans were also vital to the development of mining and agriculture in the Southwest..
Excluding the Chinese
By 1880, more than 100,000 Chinese immigrants lived in the United States.
White people’s fear of job competition with the Chinese immigrants often pushed the Chinese into segregated schools and neighborhoods.
Strong opposition to Chinese immigration developed.
The Dawn of Mass Culture
The end of the 19th century saw the rise of a “mass culture” in the United States.
American Leisure
Middle-class Americans from all over the country shared experiences as new leisure activities, nationwide advertising campaigns, and a rise in consumer culture level their original culture and beliefs.
Amusement Parks
Many cities built small playgrounds and playing fields throughout their neighborhoods for their citizens’ enjoyment.
Some amusement parks were constructed on the outskirts of cities, often by trolley-car companies.
The roller coaster drew daredevil customers to Coney Island in 1884, and the first Ferris wheel drew enthusiastic crowds to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
Bicycling and Tennis
The 1885 manufacture of the first commercially successful “safety bicycle,” with its smaller wheels and air-filled tires, made the activity more popular.
The Victor safety bicycle, with a dropped frame and no crossbar, held special appeal to women.
This freed women from the scrutiny of the ever-present chaperone.
Americans also took up sport of tennis as enthusiastically as they had taken up cycling.
Spectator Sports
Americans became avid fans of spectator sports, especially boxing and baseball.
By the turn of the 20th century they had become profitable businesses.
Baseball
New rules transformed baseball into a professional sport.
In 1845, Alexander J. Cartwright organized a club in New York City and set down regulations that used aspects of an English sport called rounders.
The novelish Mark twain called basball the very symbol of drive and push.
Mass Circulation News Papers
American newspapers began using sensational headlines to captivate readers’ attention.
Fine Arts
Some American artists, including Philadelphian Thomas Eakins, began to embrace realism, an artistic school that attempted to portray life as it is really lived.
Popular Fiction
As literacy rates rose, scholars debated the role of literature in society.
Urban Shopping
Growing city populations made promising targets for enterprising merchants.
Department stores.
Marshall Field of Chicago first brought the department store concept to America.
Advertising
An explosion in advertising also heralded modern consumerism. Expenditures for advertising were under $10 million a year in 1865 but increased tenfold, to $95 million, by 1900.
Catalogs and RFD
Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck brought retail merchandise to small towns.
The United States Post Office boosted mail-order businesses. In 1896 the Post Office introduced a rural free delivery (RFD) system that brought packages directly to every home.