Dawn of Mass
Culture
Mr. Baugh
American Leisure Time
 Rise of consumer culture, nationwide
advertising, more free time
 Amusement parks, bicycling, new forms
of theater and spectator sports all
became escapes from the city
Amusement Parks
 Chicago, NYC and other major cities set
aside spaces for outdoors
 Small playgrounds and playing fields
 Amusement parks such as Coney Island
in 1884
 First Ferris wheel in Chicago 1893
Bicycling and Tennis
 Susan B Anthony say bicycling as a
liberation of woman
 Bicycling became a very popular activity
 Tennis became increasingly popular as a
forum of leisure time
New Ways to Refresh
 Hershey chocolate bar fir sold in 1900
 Coca-Cola invented as a cure for
headaches in 1886
 Contained Peruvian coca leaves and
African Cola nuts
Spectator Sports
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Baseball becomes professional sport
Clubs from all across country sprouted up
National League 1876 American League 1900
African Americans had to make own leagues
1890 baseball had a published game schedule,
official rules and standard diamond size
Mass Culture Spreads
 Art galleries, libraries, books and
museums spread
 Joseph Pulitzer one of early paper
leaders emphasized “sin, sex and
sensation”
Mass Culture Spreads
 William Randolph Hearst was a
competitor of Pulitzer
 Focused on exaggerated tales of
personal scandals, cruelty, hypnotism
and conquest of Mars
 1898 both men's papers had more then
a million copies a day
Fine Arts
 Realism as an art style became popular
 Thomas Eakins was one of these
 Libraries and art galleries become known
as poor mans university by some
 Mark Twain inspired other authors
 African Americans still discriminated and
prohibited to visit many of these
Money, money, money!!!
 Urban shopping began to pop up across
America
 They included jewelry, leather goods,
arcades, stationary shops
 Retail shopping popped up near public
transportation
 Modern department store started
Cash is King
 Chain stores sold goods for less by
buying in quantity and limiting personal
service
 Rise of advertising in magazines,
newspapers, billboards even rocks
Catalogs and RFD
 Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck
brought retail goods to small towns
 1910 ten million Americans shopped by
mail
 1896 US post office introduced rural free
delivery(RFD) system that brought
packages directly to every home
Questions?
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How has mass culture changed?
How has our leisure time changed?
Where does US rank now on leisure time?
How do you spend your free time?
Who had more free time early 1900’s or us
now?
 Is their similarities from both now and then on
what people like to do in free time?