4. The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era Flashcards
American Dream
= idea that there is something unique about the US - when you go there you can achieve things which would not be possible anywhere else, all you need to do is work hard and you can get ahead in life and your children are guaranteed to have a better life than you do - guaranteed to have a better life than in Europe
The Gilded Age is the origination of the American Dream, started by Gold Rush and confirmed by venture capitalism
Old Dream:
- Puritan dram of slow accumulation of wealth by the predestined but modest deserving, or central promise of independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
New Dream:
- capitalism, in excessive form, instant wealth and outrageous fortune, flaunted and performed
Statue of Liberty
= gift from France for 100th anniversary of American independence, 11 years in the making
» symbol of mythologisation of America as land of opportunity gains new instensity, fuels immigration
Robber baron
= owner of the powerful corporations
- wealth through exploitation (extortion of prices) and monopoly (cartels and trusts)»_space; name robber - thief
- Vanderbilt (railroads, shipping), Morgan (banking), Rockefeller (oil), Carnegie (steel)
Gospel of Wealth
= Article written by Carnegie
> argued that very wealthy men like him had a responsibility to use their wealth for the greater good of society
> respectability through philanthropy which targets the deserving poor
Temperance
Corrective to corruption: temperance movements
Key activist: Susan B. Anthony
Social change led by women: figures in larger battle for female rights trying to claim some power for themselves and organise things differently
- argue that political collapse is a sign of moral collapse, so they need to re-educate people and put them on the road to improvement
- are specifically focusing on alcohol, they say that the source of collapse is alcohol»_space; temperance becomes a synonym for the attempt to ban alcohol entirely - alcohol was the drug of choice for wokring class people because it was produced cheaply > men would spend moeny on alcohol in order to forget their misery, women didn’t work so through these movements they’d try to get the money for themselves in order to support their families (solution: get rid of alcohol)
Prohibition
Progressive Era - righting wrongs
- drinking alcohol is illegal
- led by protestants and women (temperance movement): alcohol regarded as cause for domestic violence, immorality, corruption, money wastage, diseases
- backfires:
- illegal alcohol consumption
- huge amounts of smuggling by gangs (starting of mobs)
- speakeasies: underground bar, covered secret bar where alcohol is consumed»_space; allow for the proliferation of subcultures
- little proof that consumption or criminality fell very much
Ellis Island
mythical locus, opens in 1892
- where all (white) Europeans arrive
- island off the coast of NY, where people are medically examined and where they’re told whether or not they’re allowed to enter the country
Impact of immigration (the dream)
Thomas Edison
An American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures
Emblematic for inventions
the dream - technology and industry
Teddy Roosevelt
Iconic figurehead for righting wrongs in the Progressive Era
- Republican
- embodiment of American bluster: adventurous, confident, assertive
- Square Deal 1899: renewal of the social contract - proposes the 3 C’s
- control of corporations
- consumer protection
- conservation: integrates idea of nature in naitonal identity through national parks
- founds new, unsuccessful party: Progressive Party
Taylorism
= invention of the assembling line - idea in roder to create something, instead of having one person create it from start to finish, everyon does a little bit and that speeds up production massively
> increasing mechanisation of labour: allows them to produce much faster than anywhere else
the dream - technology and u=industry management
Fordism
alternative model for capitalism
> capitalism with the sense that ‘as a company, you need to make sure that people have money in the first place’
> fair wages to ensure there is a market - you need to give your employees a fair wage so that they buy the things you are producing
Eugenics
= becoming so persuaded by the accuracy of science to govern things that you start looking at people like breeding stock “there must be a reason why some people do better than others and it must be breeding”
- attempt tp make sure they breed the right people (if you’re upper class, you’re breeding for looks and intelligence, working class breeds for obedience)
- forced sterilisations of undesirables (natives, Blacks, mental or physical issues), from 1907, law in 31 states (not federal)
overcorrection progressive era
