Chapter 8
Part 4
Pages 292-297
The Dawn of Mass Culture
Terms to Know
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Joseph Pulitzer
William Randolph Hearst
Ashcan School
Mark Twain
RFD
By 1900
• Most Americans enjoyed more leisure time
• New Activities
• New Nationsl advertizing and products
New Activities
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Amusement Parks
Bicycling
Tennis
Spectator sports
Amusement Parks
• Big cities had
• Small playground, playing fields and
usually on the outskirts some had
amusement parks
• Coney Island 1894
• Ferris wheel, other rides, games, iicnic
areas
Bicycling
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A craze (in Europe too) by the 1890’s
Women too
No more corsets
Invented split sh\kirts, bloomers
No more chaperones!
Tennis
• Invented in Wales 1873
• 1874 First match in U.S.
• Some thought that the first nets in the U.S.
were to catch birds!
New Snacks
• National advertizing meant new national
products
• Hersey’s chocolate bars by 1900
• Coca Cola was invented by an Atlana
pharmacist as a cure for headaches in
1886
Spectator Sports
• 1880s Boxing
• 1850’s Baseball
• First salaried team: the Cincinnati Red
Stockings 1869
• 1876 The National League
• 1900 The American League
• 1903 First World Series: The Boston
Pilgrims beat the Pittsburg Pirates
African Americans
• Were excluded
• But had their own teams and leagues
• 1947 Jackie Robinson
The Spread of Mass Culture
• New lending Libraries: The poor man’s
univesity
• Museams
• Books, magazines, newspapers
• Motion pictures
• Increased education
• National advertizing
Joseph Pulitzer
• A Hungarian immigrant
• Bought The New York World in 1883
• First to hav e a large Sunday edition
• Comics, Sports coverage, women’s
section
• Emphasized “sin, sex, sensationalism.”
William Randolph Hearst
• 1895 bought the New York Morning
Journal
• Tried to out do Pulitzer
• Scandals,sensational press
The Arts
• By 1900 most big cities had at least one
art gallery
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Realism was in vogue
Tried to portray life as it really was
True for literature as well
Not very pretty
Realism
• The Ashcan School
• Early 10th century
• Depicted gritty realism of urban life, work
• By 1900 the Europeans were into abstract
Art (impressionism and beyond)
Popular fiction
• Light fiction was the most popular
• Dime novels: crime stories and western
adventures
Realism in Literature
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Sarah Orne Jewett
Theodore Drieser
Stephen Crane
Jack London
Willa Cather
Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry
Finn
Mass Consumption
• Department Stores: Marshall Fields first in
1865
• Chain Stores: Woolworth 1870’s (a five
and dime store)
• By 1911 had 596 stores
Advertizing
• 1865 $10 million spent on ads
• By 1900 $95 million
• Created new National Products
Catalogues'
• Montgomery Wars 1872
• Sears Robuck 1886
• Brought the department store to small
towns
• Old catalogues were useful in the
outhouse as well
RFD
• Rural Free Delivery
• The U.S. Post Office offered free delivery
to rural areas
• By 1910 10 million americans shopped by
mail
The Theater
• Vaudeville: Live variety shows
• The Motion Picture by the 1880s
• Then silent movies
• By 1927 the first talkie