James A. Henretta
Eric Hinderaker
Rebecca Edwards
Robert O. Self
America’s History
Eighth Edition
America: A Concise History
Sixth Edition
CHAPTER 18
The Victorians Make the Modern
1880–1916
Copyright © 2014 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
I. Commerce and Culture
A. Consumer Spaces
1. The circus
-P. T. Barnum used rail system for traveling
circus; emphasized female entertainers to draw
women’s attendance; promised middle-class
parents that circus help children develop.
2. First-class rail cars
-fitted with carpets, upholstery, and woodwork;
first-class “ladies’ cars” were opulent and soon
became sites of struggle for racial equality;
prohibited African Americans
I. Commerce and Culture
A. Consumer Spaces
1. The circus
2. First-class rail cars
3. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
-Decision declared that “separate but equal”
facilities for African Americans on railroad cars and
in other public facilities did not violate the
Fourteenth Amendment; securing approval on
segregation, the Plessy decision allowed Jim Crow
laws to stand and expand.
I. Commerce and Culture
B. Masculinity and the Rise of Sports
1. “Muscular Christianity”
-(1851), YMCA was first promoter of physical
fitness in the U.S. for young men; combined
evangelism with gyms; 1900–1917 developed
industrial program; serving on company teams
instilled pride + teamwork; YMCA invented
basketball and volleyball; should working class be
participants?
2. America’s Game
-Baseball, spread in popularity during Civil War,
and became a professional sport after; National
League launched in 1876; employers encouraged
company teams.
I. Commerce and Culture
B. Masculinity and the Rise of Sports
1. “Muscular Christianity”
2. America’s Game
3. Rise of the Negro Leagues
-At the turn of the century, most black players
were barred from professional teams; development
of segregated teams.
4. American Football
-Grew out of Ivy League colleges in 1880s;
Violent—6 player deaths in 1908; eventually,
rules were put in place to protect players;
professional teams developed in Pittsburgh,
Green Bay (WI), and Chicago.
I. Commerce and Culture
C. The Great Outdoors
1. Preservation
-National and state set aside land for
preservation and recreation; extended the reach of
national forests; Wilson created the National Parks
Service (1916); Lacey Act (1900). Antiquities Act
(1906)
2. Environmentalists
-John Muir, an inventor from Wisconsin, founded
the Sierra Club (1892) for exploring and preserving
Pacific Coast; Audubon societies called for
protection of bird species; new laws against
hunting game caused controversy.
II. Women, Men, and the
Solitude of the Self
A. Changes in Family Life
1. The average American family
-Family size decreased in post-Civil War years; in
1800, 7 children average; in 1900, 3.6; farming families
needed many children; families in industrial society
concentrated their resources on helping the children
succeed; couples married at older ages. Birth control.
2. Comstock Act (1873)
-1873, Anthony Comstock secured a federal law
banning “obscene materials” from U.S. mail; applied to
any information about sex and birth control; supported by
those who feared the rising sexual exposure made
available by industrialization.
II. Women, Men, and the
Solitude of the Self
B. Education
1. The rise of high school
-by 1900, 71% of Americans between 5
and 18 attended school; curriculum included literature,
composition, history, geography, biology, mathematics,
ancient and modern languages, and athletics.
2. College
-By 1920, approximately 8% of youth were
attending public universities; state schools
emphasized technical training while private colleges
pioneered liberal arts.
3. African American education
4. Women’s education
II. Women, Men, and the
Solitude of the Self
B. Education
1. The rise of high school
2. College
3. African American education
-Tuskegee Institute (1881) established by
Booker T. Washington; was a school for industrial
education; focusing on training wage earners for
economic success.
4. Women’s education
-In the Northeast and South, women
attended single-sex schools or teacher-training
colleges; Vassar College (1861) gave an education
equal to that of males;; Midwest and West offered
public coeducational universities.
II. Women, Men, and the
Solitude of the Self
C. From Domesticity to Women’s Rights
1. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
-The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU) -1874, led by Frances Willard; advocated
prohibition of liquor; put women at the forefront of
public reform; began national movement against
domestic violence; founded soup kitchens and free
libraries; investigated prisons; advocated for 8-hour
workday and an end to child labor; called for
woman suffrage; supported the Prohibition Party;
2. Women, Race, and Patriotism
II. Women, Men, and the
Solitude of the Self
C. From Domesticity to Women’s Rights
2. Women, Race, and Patriotism
-Daughters of the American Revolution (1890)
excluded black women;
-United Daughters of the Confederacy (1894) was
founded to praise the South’s “Lost Cause”;
-Ida B. Wells organized one-woman campaign against
lynching (1892) but won little support;
-National Association of Colored Women (1896) showed
that black women shared with white women the
determination to carry domesticity into the public
sphere;
-Women’s Convention of the National Baptist Church
(1900) was the largest black women’s group.
II. Women, Men, and the
Solitude of the Self
C. From Domesticity to Women’s Rights
3. Women’s Rights
-Rival suffrage organizations reunited as
the National American Woman Suffrage Association
(NAWSA) in 1890. By 1913, most women living west of
the Mississippi have the vote; antisuffragists organized
National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage
(1911); by the 1910s, some women began to call for
women’s full political, economic and social equality;
Heterodoxy Club (1912) organized in NYC for
intellectuals, journalists, and labor organizers who
supported women’s rights and liberation (called
themselves feminists).
Beliefs of Anti-Suffragists
• Women were high-strung, irrational, and
emotional
• Women were not smart or educated
enough
• Women should stay at home
• Women were too physically frail; they
would get tired just walking to the polling
station
• Women would become masculine if they
voted
18
III. Science and Faith
A. Darwinism and Its Critics
1. Theory
-1859, On the Origin of Species, Darwin argued
that all creatures struggle to survive, some are
born with mutations making them more fit (“natural
selection”)
2. Social Darwinism
-theory developed by Herbert Spencer, British
philosopher; William Graham Sumner claimed the
wealthy were the “fittest”;; critics argued this was
making excuses for the excesses of industrial
society.
III. Science and Faith
A. Darwinism and Its Critics
1. Theory
2. Social Darwinism
3. Eugenics
-Pseudo “science” that argued mentally
deficient people should be prevented from
reproducing; proposed sterilization laws;
associated with “lower races,” which led to
increased discrimination.
III. Science and Faith
B. Realism in the Arts
1. Naturalism
-Suggested that human beings were victims of
forces beyond their control (impulses and desires);
Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
(1893); Jack London’s story, “The Law of Life”
(1901); and Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur’s Court (1889).
2. Modernism
-Rejected traditional canons of literary taste;
focused on subconscious and “primitive” mind;
sought to overturn convention and tradition;
questioned progress; Painters invented their own
forms of realism;
III. Science and Faith
C. Religion: Diversity and Innovation
1. Immigrant Faiths
-Connections to churches decreased because of
harshness of industrial society; immigrant Catholics
established parishes based on ethnicities (Irish,
Italian, Polish); native-born American Jews
embraced Reform Judaism.
2. Protestant Innovations
-1916, Protestants still a majority in the U.S.
Faced increasing political pressure from Catholics;
Protestants worked to evangelize through “Social
Gospel”: founded YMCAs, revealed faith through
their public welfare and social justice efforts;
introduction in U.S. of British Salvation Army.
III. Science and Faith
C. Religion: Diversity and Innovation
1. Immigrant Faiths
2. Protestant Innovations
3. Fundamentalists
-Conservatives concerned about rising
secularism; a series of Bible Conferences at
Niagara Falls were held between 1876 and 1897;
reaffirmed the literal “truth” of the Bible and certain
damnation of those not born again in Christ; used
revival meetings;