By 1900, 40% of Americans lived in cities attracted by electricity, indoor plumbing, and telephones
But, cities also had crime, impure water, garbage, and slums with "Dumbbell" tenement houses and "Flophouses"
1900 - "New" immigrants began arriving from Southern and Eastern Europe > "Little Italys" and "Little Polands" where they tried to preserve their traditional culture
Washington Gladden preached the "Social Gospel" insisting that churches should tackle the burning social issues of the day > "Christian Socialism" and Jane Addams Hull House
A new wave of antiforeignism or "Nativism" led to the American Protective Association which supported Immigration-Restriction Laws ( supported by Am. Labor )
Gospel of Wealth v. Social Gospel > Creation of the Salvation Army and the Christian Science Faith
1859 - Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species challenged the Fundamentalist View of Religion but religious modernists found ways to reconcile Christianity and Darwinism
By 1870, a grade-school education was compulsory and by 1900 there were 6,000 high schools
1874 - Chatauqua Movement (public lectures and courses of home study)
Booker T. Washington became the champion of black education at Tuskeegee Institute but never advocate social equality
W.E.B. Dubois believed that the "Talented Tenth" of American Blacks should lead the race to full social and political equality with Whites (helped to found the NAACP in 1910
Morrill Act of 1862 granted public lands to states to support higher education > State colleges like Cal-Berkeley(1868)
Private philanthropy created private schools like Stanford (1891)
1879 - First graduate school at Johns Hopkins University
William James wrote about America's greatest contribution to the history of Philosophy - Pragmatism which held that truth was to be tested , above all, by the practical consequences of an idea, by action rather than theories
Joseph Pulitzer & William Randolph Hearst > Yellow Journalism
Cries for reform were led by Henry George (Progress and Poverty) who argued that the pressure of a growing population of a fixed supply of land unjustifiably pushed up property values, showering unearned profits on owners of land - a single 100% tax on those windfall profits would eliminate unfair inequalities and stimulate economic growth
Late 19th Century Writers:
General Lewis Wallace - Ben Hur: A Tale Of The Christ
- Anti- Darwinian Support for the Holy Scriptures
Horatio Alger - Juvenile Fiction with the theme that Virtue, Honesty, and industry are rewarded by Success, Wealth, & Honor
A Myth?
William Dean Howells - Contemporary social problems like divorce, labor strikes and socialism
"New Morality" > the Comstock Law (1873) which intended to advance the cause of sexual purity
By the late 19th Century family size had gradually declined
Women were growing more independent and advocated an early versions of day-care centers
The Prohibition Movement > The Eighteenth Amendment (1919)
Most significant portrait painter: James Whistler
Leading landscapists: Thomas Eakins & Winslow Homer
Most famous architect: Henry H. Richardson > Ornamental style