19 Flashcards
What were the three great forces of change in America?
Industrialization, immigration, and urbanization.
Scott Joplin
Renowned ragtime black composer. Wanted to write opera
Who led the exodus to the cities?
Young farm women. Because the mechanization of farming was male work. Same time, rising sales of factory-produced goods through mail order reduced rural needs for women’s labor. They competed for city jobs with immigrants, blacks, and city-born white women.
Describe the old immigrants.
German was largest. The British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia. Protestants but some Irish and German Catholics.
What made it easy for old immigrants to blend into rural American society?
Their mostly English-speaking language, high level of literacy, and occupational skills.
Describe the new immigrants.
Southern and Eastern Europe. Italians, Greeks, Croats, Slovaks, Poles, and Russians. Mostly poor and illiterate peasants. Left autocratic countries and unaccustomed to democratic traditions. Largely Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and Jewish. Went to cities.
What are the pushes (negative factors) that led people to immigrate to America?
- poverty of displaced farmworkers driven from land by the mechanization of farmwork
- overcrowding and joblessness in European cities as a result of population boom
- religious persecution, Jews in Russia
What are the pulls (positive) for immigrants to come to America?
- country’s rep for political and religious freedom
- economic opportunities afforded by the settling of the Great Plains
- abundance of industrial jobs in U.S. cities
- introduction of large steamships and inexpensive one way passage in ship made it possible
Describe the conditions of ships that immigrants were on.
Poor food, lack of privacy and rudimentary sanitary facilites. Arrived tired, fearful, and sometimes sick.
Chain migration
Tendency to relocate near friends or relatives of one’s original town
Why did native-born whites begin to stigmatize immigrants as racially different and inferior?
Feared loss of privileges and status that were associated with their white skin color
Describe ghettos.
Ethnic neighborhoods. Crowded, unhealthy, and crime ridden. Became locked here when laws, prejudice, and community pressure prevented the tenement inhabitants from renting elsewhere.
How were blacks discriminated against in cities?
Were driven out of skilled trades and excluded from most factory works. So took menial jobs with low pay: little income for housing. Racist city-dwellers used high rents, real-estate covenants (agreements not to rent/sell to blacks), and neighborhood pressure to exclude them from areas inhabited by whites.
During the 19th century, upper/middle class Americans decided to live:
outside of the city and into the suburbs to escape the problems of the city.
What factors promoted suburban growth?
- abundant land available at low cost
- inexpensive transportation by rail
- low-cost construction methods
- ethnic and racial prejudice
- American fondness for grass, privacy, and detached individual houses
How did people like Beecher and advice-book writers justify the position of society’s wealthier members?
Appealed to Victorian morality, a set of social ideas embraced by the privileged classes of England and America during the long reign of Britain’s Queen Victoria.
Phillips Brooks, E. L. Godkin
Brooks = minister to Boston’s Trinity Church, Godkin = editor of The Nation. Argued that financial success of middle/upper class was linked to superior talent, intelligence, morality and self-control. Ideal of separate spheres = women driving force for moral improvement.
Victorian world view
Based on manners and morals.
- human nature = malleable
- emphasized social value of work
- importance of good manners + value of literature and fine arts = truly civilized society
Who wrote The American Woman’s Home?
Catharine Beecher, sister of Henry Ward Beecher. Morals! Manners! Proper behavior! Widened the gap that income disparities opened between rich and poor.
What was the new role women had, added to their traditional role as director of the household?
Foster an artistic environment that would nurture family’s cultural improvement. Decorating, seeking to make the home a refuge.
Who were some entrepreneurs who built giant department stores?
Rowland H. Macy, Marshall Field, John Wanamaker. Helped overcome middle/upperclass reluctance to spend by price wars. Functioned like a social club and home away from home.
How did the number of US colleges increase during the late 1800s?
- land grant colleges established under Morrill acts of 1862+1890
- universities founded by wealthy philanthropists
- founding of new colleges for women
Morrill Land Grant Act
Public funds generated from state sales of public lands
