Transcript Ch. 9 Sec. 3

Ch. 9 Sec. 3
Changing Attitudes and Values
Social Shift
• By late 1800s - the upper class included
very rich business families
• Middle class splits between businessmen,
professionals and scientists and a lower
middle class who struggled to keep up
• Working class - numbers much the same,
fewer farmworkers in the west, conditions
better with reform movements
Cult of domesticity
• Middle class code of social behavior
and values supported a cult of
domesticity
• Self-sacrificing caregiver
• Nest for her children
• Peaceful refuge from working world
• Rarely applied to lower classes
Demand for Women’s
Rights
• Fairness in marriage, divorce and property
laws
• Education privileges
• Women’s suffrage
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Sojourner Truth
• At the same time, supported the temperance
movement
Education
• Create better workers
• Set up public schools and basic
education requirements
• Wide variety of trends for different
classes
Science
• John Dalton - Atomic theory
• Charles Darwin - Theory of Natural
Selection
• Long slow process of evolution
• Species adapt and compete to survive
• Social Darwinism - others applied his
theories to justifying their own causes
• War
• Economic competition
• Racism
Religion
• Continued to be a force in Western
society
• Social efforts reflecting compassion
and charity for the poor
• Tried to make up for the lack of
government reform