Transcript The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age
Chapter 13
Section 3
Gilded Age
• Time period from about 1870 to 1900
– Amazing new inventions led to rapid industrial
growth
– Cities expanded
– Electric Lights
• “Gilded Age”
– If something is gilded it is covered with gold on
the outside but some cheap mess on the inside
Individualism
• Individualism –
Americans believed that
no matter how low they
started in life they can
rise in society
• Horatio Alger
– Wrote numerous of “rags
to riches” stories
Social Darwinism
• Herbert Spencer
– Applied Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest to the
human race
– Also applied with the theory of Laissez Faire
• Darwinism and the Church
– Rejected Darwin’s theory because it contradicted the
Bible’s account of creation
• Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth
– Americans should engage in Philanthropy and use
their fortunes to create things that would help people
hemp themselves
– Public libraries
A Changing Culture
• Realism
– Edgar Degas and Edouard
Manet
– Mark Twain – wrote in local
dialect with a sense of
humor
A Changing Culture
• Popular Culture – people began dividing their
lives into separate units – work and home
– The Saloon
• In cities saloons outnumbered groceries and meat
markets
• Offered drinks, free toilets, water for horses, and free
newspapers
• Offered the first “free” lunch – salty food that made
people thirsty
A Changing Culture
• Popular Culture
– Amusements Parks and Sports
• New York’s Coney Island
• First professional baseball team – Cincinnati Red
Stockings
• 1903 the first World Series was played between the
Boston Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Pirates
• In 1891 Basketball was invented
A Changing Culture
• Popular Culture
– Vaudeville
• Adapted from the French theater – hodgepodge of
animal acts, acrobats, and dancers
• Shows went on all day and night
– Ragtime
• Music that grew out of riverside honky-tonks, saloon
pianists, and banjo players
• Scott Joplin – African American ragtime composer
– Known as the King of Ragtime
Politics in Washington
• James Garfield was assassinated
• Election of 1884
– Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland WINNER
– Republicans nominated James Blaine
Republicans Regain Power
• 1888 Election
– Benjamin Harrison
– The McKinley Tariff
• Lowered the federal revenue causing a budget deficit
• Cut tobacco taxes and tariff rates on raw sugar but
increased rates on other goods like textiles
The Rebirth of Reform
• Challenging Social Darwinism
– Lester Frank Ward
• Insisted people had succeeded in the world because of
their ability to corporate, competition was wasteful and
time consuming
• Government could regulate economy, cure poverty,
promote eduation
The Rebirth of Reform
• Looking Backward
– Novel about a man who falls asleep I 1887 and
awakens in 2000
– He finds that the nation is a perfect society with
no crime, poverty, or politics
– Government owns all industry and shares the
wealth equally
• Naturalism in Literature
– People fail in life because they are caught up in
circumstances they cannot control
Helping the Urban Poor
• The Social Gospel
– The church must demand protection for the moral
safety of the people
– Churches built gyms
• The Salvation Army and the YMCA
– Salvation Army offered practical aid and religious
counseling to the Urban Poor
– Young Men’s Christian Association
• Bible Studies , citizenship training, and group activities
Helping the Urban Poor
• The Settlement House Movement
– Established settlement houses in poor heavily
immigrant neighborhoods
– Jane Addams – Hull House in Chicago
• Public Education
– Public Education grew rapidly
– Public schools were teaching immigrants English
and American History and culture –
Americanization