Urbinization 515-528 Flashcards
F.W. Woolworth
Opened first “Five and Ten Cent Store” in Utica NY 1879
How did department stores transform the concept of shopping?
Bought together products that were sold in seperate stores to one store, sought to create an atmosphere fo wonder/excitement, and took advantage of economies of scale to sell merchandise for lower than many individual competing shops
The National Consumers League
Formed by Florence Kelly in attempt to mobilize power of women as consumers to force retailers & manufacturers to improve wages & working conditions for women workers.
Leisure
Time spent amusing oneself in nonproductive pursuits
Simon Patten
Economist. Challenged the centuries-old assumption that the normal condition civilization was a scarcity for goods. “We are now in the transition stage from this pain economy to a pleasure economy.”
Alexander Cartwright
Member of a NYC baseball club 1840s. Defined many rules and features of baseball.
George M. Cohan
Irish entertainer, first great creater of musical comedies
Irving Berlin
Veteran of the Yiddish theater, wrote more than 1k songs for musical threater
What was Vaudeville?
A form of theater adapted from French models, the most popular urban entertainment in the first decades.
D.W Griffith
Carried the motion picture into a new era with his silent epics
Saloons
Often ethnically specific, b/c they served particular neighborhoods dominated by specific national groups. Political centers usually. Important setting for the leisure time of working men, where workers could encounter a regular circle of friends.
William Randolph Hearst
Controlled nine important newspaper chains and two magazines
Joseph Pulitzer
Popularized “yellow journalism”- lurid style of reporting presented in bold graphics designed to reach a mass audience
Ashcan School
Produced work startling in its naturalism and stark in its portrayal of the social realities of the era.
Pragmatism
Pragmatists believed that modern society should rely for guidance not on inherited ideals and moral principles but on the test of scientifc inquiry. No idea or institution (not even religious faith) was valid, they claimed, unless worked and unless it stood the test of experience.
