American Culture and Daily
Life in the Gilded Age
Unit 7: The Gilded Age
(1877-1900)
The Gilded Age
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The Gilded Age –1873
novel by Mark Twain
Tom Sawyer and Huck
Finn
Crooked Politicians
Greed, Poverty, &
Racism, Industrial filth
Hidden by a new culture
that stemmed from
industrial growth
Conspicuous Consumerism
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More people working
for wages instead of
themselves
More products available
R. Macy, Jordan Marsh,
Mont. Ward, M. Field,J.
Wannamaker =
Department Stores
Rural Free Delivery =
Mail Order Catalog
business boomed (like
Richard Sears’)
Ragtime: The Popular Music of the Day
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Saloons, gambling, drinking,
and music
Scott Joplin – Ragtime – the
forerunner of Jazz music
The Maple Leaf Rag and
The Entertainer were hits
Sheet Music became
popular
Scott Joplin - The
Entertainer (1902)
New Forms of Popular Entertainment
Amusement Parks like
Coney Island, NYC
 Nickelodeons 5¢ theatersfirst movie was 12 min!
The Great Train Robbery
(1903)
 Vaudeville Shows - Family
Variety Shows
 Traveling Circuses
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Popular Sports of the Era
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Baseball - Cincinnati
Red Stockings (1869); it
became the national
pastime!
American Football Walter Camp - Rugby
(1880s)
Basketball - Dr. James
Naismith (1891)
Boxing, Horseracing,
Ice Skating, Bikes
Exit Slip – Popular Culture
during the Gilded Age
1.
2.
3.
4.
T or F: Conspicuous Consumerism exists
when demand is low for manufactured
goods.
T or F: Movie theatres began to appear in
America during the Gilded Age.
T or F: Ragtime appeared as a popular
form of music during the Gilded Age.
T or F: Basketball was the most popular
sport in American during the Gilded Age.
African American Voting Restrictions
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Ku Klux Klan (1865)
Jim Crow Laws =
Segregation
Poll Taxes
Property Tests = own land
Literacy Tests (separate
tests for whites and
blacks)
Grandfather Clauses
Booker T. Washington
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Tuskegee Inst. (1881) in
Alabama
Vocational Skills
Accommodate Racism
in exchange for
Economic Equality
George W. Carver
Up From Slavery (1901)
Biography
W.E.B. DuBois
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PhD from Harvard
(1895)-1st Af. Am.
Niagara Movement
(1905)
NAACP (1910)
Advocated immediate
equality for Af. Am.
Hated Washington’s
“Atlanta Compromise”
and Accommodation.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
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Upheld the Jim
Crow Laws
“Separate but
Equal” didn’t violate
14th Amendment
Common in the
North too
Not overturned until
1954
Cooperative Learning/ Simulation
VISION ACTIVITY
WAS SEPARATE EQUAL?
What does it mean???
BLUE
RED
Vision Activity: Was Separate Equal?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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15th Amendment, Poll Tax, Literacy Test,
Grandfather Clause?
130,000 in 1894 to 1,300 in 1904
$14 per white student vs. $3 per AfricanAmerican in South Carolina
Lynching?
Ida B. Wells-Barnett – writer who worked
for anti-lynching law
Reflection – What did you think?
Exit Slip – The Age of Jim Crow
1. All of the following were passed in Southern states to
keep African-Americans from voting except
a. poll taxes. b. literacy tests. c. amendments.
2. Booker T. Washington said the #1 concern for AfricanAmericans should be ___________.
a. fighting racism b. vocational skills c. religion
3. W.E.B. DuBois strongly ________ with Washington.
a. agreed
b. disagreed
4. The landmark court case that established the doctrine of
“separate but equal” in 1896 was _______.
a. Brown v. Topeka
b. Tinker v. Des Moines
c. Plessy v. Ferguson d. Gibbons v. Ogden