Chapter 18 - The Victorians Make the Modern, 1880-1917 Flashcards
Thomas Edison
independent inventor of the lightbulb and phonograph; earned praise from Americans everywhere
John Muir
early American advocate of preservation of wilderness
Booker T. Washington
African American leader of civil rights activism
Frances Willard
leader of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
Ida B. Wells
African American advocate of women’s suffrage and civil rights for blacks
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
American author who became a bitter critic of America’s idea of “progress” (he was anti-slavery, anti-imperialism, anti-racism, etc.)
Billy Sunday
American fundamentalist minister
P.T. Barnum
showman who used the America’s expanding rail network to develop the traveling circus
Alexander Graham Bell
inventor of the telephone
Plessy v. Ferguson
upheld constitutionality of segregation laws - “separate but equal”
Young Men’s Christian Association
promoter of athletic fitness in response to the rise of office work
Negro Leagues
all-black baseball leagues formed by black players and fans who were excluded from white leagues
Sierra Club
organization founded by John Muir that was dedicated to preserving America’s mountains
National Park Service
federal agency that provided comprehensive oversight of the growing national park system
National Audubon Society
national organization formed to advocate for broader government protections for wildlife
Antiquities Act of 1906
enabled U.S. presidents to set aside “objects of historic and scientific interest” as national monuments
Comstock Act (1873)
prohibited circulation of almost any information about sex and birth control
liberal arts
form of education pioneered at Harvard in which students chose from a range of electives and developed skills in research, critical thinking, and leadership
Atlanta Compromise
1895 speech by Booker T. Washington urging whites and African Americans to work together for the progress of all (misinterpreted by whites to be pro-segregation)
maternalism
philosophy between domesticity and modern arguments for equality - the woman’s place is the home, and home is the community
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
anti-alcohol women’s group
National Association of Colored Women
organization founded by African American women for community support
National American Woman Suffrage Association
union of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association; advocated for women’s right to vote until national ratification of suffrage in 1920
feminism
women’s full political, economic, and social equality
natural selection
theory that genetic mutations that are suitable for a species’s environment become dominant in future generations
Social Darwinism
the application of the principle of natural selection to human society
eugenics
science of human breeding - many eugenicists argued that only the “best” quality humans should be allowed to reproduce
realism
literary movement the grew as an effort to reject romanticism
naturalism
literary movement suggesting that humans were only blind victims of forces beyond their control (not shapers of their own destinies)
modernism
literary movement that rejected traditional canons of literary taste
American Protective Association
anti-Catholic political organization of militant Protestants
Social Gospel
movement to renew religious faith through dedication to public welfare and social justice
fundamentalism
Protestant movement that rejected modernism and historical interpretations of scripture and asserted the literal truth of the Bible
