C25 - America Moves to the City 1865-1900 Flashcards
nativism
Antiforeignism. Many Americans did not welcome new immigrants, especially from Eastern and Southern Europe who were coming to America in the 1880s.
Some viewed them as not as smart or not as good. Some saw these immigrants coming to happily work low-wage jobs, which got in the way of the Labor movement’s goals of pushing for higher wages, etc.
Some blamed them for bad conditions in large American Cities.
1882: First federal laws restricting immigration. Criminals were not allowed in and shippers had to pay to send them back. Then certain foreign workers under contract weren’t allowed in, along with insane, polygamists, anarchists, alcoholics, and people with contagious diseases. Many pushed for a literacy test too.
social gospel
The movement applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, bad hygiene, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war
yellow journalism
Yellow journalism, or the yellow press, is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers.
Exaggeration and sensationalism are 2 examples.
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Formed in 1874 to fight for Prohibition (laws to make drinking alcohol illegal).
Modernist
People who believed in Charles Darwin’s idea of evolution.
philanthropy
Charitable work and giving
Florence Kelley
Fought for workers, women’s, children’s, blacks’, and consumers’ rights. Led the women of Hull House to lobby successfully for an anti-sweatshop law in 1893.
Moved to Henry Street Settlement in NY and served for 3 decades as leader of the National Consumers League
Hull House
Started in Chicago by Jane Addams in 1889. A settlement house, a place where people in the city came together to solve social problems.
Offered English teaching to immigrants, childcare, cultural activities.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Major feminist. In 1898 published: “Women and Economics”. Called on women to abandon their dependent status and contribute to the economy by getting jobs.
James Addams
Started the Hull House in Chicago and worked to improve the lives of people (including immigrants) who lived in cities.
Given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
She was anti-war and anti-poverty.
Horatio Alger
1866, this Puritan preacher left the pulpit to become a writer. Wrote over 100 fictional novels usual with themes following his formula that virtue, honesty and industry would be rewarded by success, wealth and honor.
Comstock Law
1873 this crusader used a new federal law, the Comstock Law, to crusade against immoral activities. He proclaimed himself a defender of sexual purity.
His antics along with Woodhull’s on the other side of the debate brought to light the late-1800’s debate related to sexual attitudes and the place of women.
Charles Darwin
Published his book in 1859: On the Origin of Species. He held the view of “survival of the fittest”.
Theory of evolution: said that humans evolved from lower forms of life.
This theory contradicted some teachings of the Bible.
Split formed between “Fundamentalists or Conservatives” who believed in the literal interpretation of the Bible and “Modernists” who believed in Darwin’s theory.
evolution
Charles Darwin’s theory of how humans develop. His theory contradicted the Bible.
New Immigration
In 1880s immigrants started coming from different areas of Europe, like Eastern Europe and Southern Europe - Poland, Italy, etc.
Some Americans distrusted these different immigrants. They were used to immigrants from Germany, Britain and Western Europe.
