Today we finished chapter 5-8 presentations.
Chapter 8 -
Technology and City Life -
Cities in every industrial area of the country expanded upward and outward. In 1870, only 25 American cities had populations of 50,000 or more. In response to these changes, technological advances began to meet the nation's needs for communication, transportation, and space. Architects were able to build bigger sky scrapers due to two reasons. The inventions of elevators, and the development of the internal steel skeletons. Other than the new railroads being built, advances in printing, aviation, and photography were also in the making. By 1890, the literacy rate had rise to about 90%. Mills began producing huge amounts of paper made out of pulp from trees. It was much more durable. The new electrically powered press was much more efficient than the old way. Wilbur and Orville Wright were bike manufacturers in Dayton, Ohio. They started to experiment with engines that could keep things in the air. They first built a glider, in which one of the brothers laid in while it was in the air. Then the Wright brothers put an internal combustion engine on a newly designed biplane. This biplane had a 40 feet 4 inch wingspan. The first successful flight was in Kittyhawk, North Carolina. This lasted 12 seconds. "After running the motor a few minutes to heat it up, I released the wire that held the machine to the track, and the machine started forward into the win. Wilbur ran at the side of the machine...to balance it..." Within a couple of years the Wright brothers increased the length of to about. Photography used to be considered a major professional activity. Photographers also had to carry their darkrooms with them.
Expanding Public Education -
Some kids went to school, but many did not attend. Between 1865-1895 states passed the law that you must have 12 to 16 weeks of schooling or kids ages 8-14. Kids would say it's a very bad experience because you'd get a lot. Kindergarten was originally just a place where mothers could keep their kids, like daycare, but they decided to make it a grade. In 1880, about 62% of white children attended elementary school. Only 34% of African-American children attended elementary schools. In the 1940's, public schools became available to majority of black children in the South. From 1880 to 1900, the kindergarten numbers went from 200 to 3,000 students. In the early 1900's, more than half a million of students attended high school. IN this time, the economy needed advanced technical skills. Major business owners, like Andrew Carnegie, thought that workers should be kept loyal to capitalism. African-Americans were mostly excluded in schooling education. In 1890, fewer than 1% of African-Americans went to high school. 2/3 of this one percent attended private schools. In 1910, 3%, between the ages of 15-19 were attending high school. Most of this 3% were attending private schools. Of the 10 million immigrants who settled in the United States between 1860-1890 were Jewish families fleeing from poverty. Although that was a big reason, another reason families came to the United States is so that their kids could get free education. Mary Antin came from Russia to America, and she realized that there was a large number of non-English speaking children. The number of students attending high school had increased by the turn of the century, only a minority of Americans had high school diplomas. Only 2.3 percent of America's young people attended colleges and universities. Between 1850 and 1920, college enrollments more than quadrupled. Industrial development changed the nation's educational needs. Universities offered courses in modern languages, the physical sciences, and the new disciplines of psychology and sociology. Professional schools in law and medicine were established. Private colleges and universities required entrance exams. Some state universities began to admit students by using the high school diploma. After the Civil War, thousands of freed African-Americans pursued higher education. By 1900, out of about 9 million African-Americans, only 3,880 were in attendance at colleges or professional schools.
Booker T. Washington -
Booker T. Washington believed that racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society. Washing graduated from VA Hampton Institute. By 1881, he headed the Tuskegee and Industrial Institute. W.E.B. De Bois was the first African-American to receive a doctorate degree from Harvard in 1895, strongly disagreed with Washington's proposal.
American Leisure -
Many cities built small playgrounds and playing fields. Some amusement parks were constructed on the outskirts of the cities. The roller coaster drew daredevil customers to Coney Island in 1884, and the first Ferris wheel drew enthusiastic crowds to the World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The first American bicycles challenged their riders. In 1885, they manufactured of the first commercially sucessful the safety bike. It's a bike that has small wheels and air filled tires. Americans took up the sport of tennis as enthusiastically as they had taken up cycling. The modern version of this sport originated in Wales. Baseball had sprung up in the Untied States. New York alone boasted 12 clubs in the mid 1860s. In 1869, a professional team named the Cincinnati Red Stockings toured the country. Americans not only participated in new sports. These two sports had begun as popular informal activities. By the turn of the 20th century, they had become a profitable businesses.
Spread of Mass Culture -
By 1900 at least one art gallery was in all the major cities. There were thousands of free libraries across America. Dime novels were very popular, especially adventure/fiction novels. Urban shopping, the earliest form of a shopping center. The first shopping center was in Cleveland, Ohio in 1890. The center was glass topped, and there were 4 levels of jewelry, leather goods, and stationery shops. It was basically like a mall.
Catalogs became popular in 1872, as did advertising. Department stores, and chain stores, were becoming popular in the 1870's because of their low price.
Segregation - The policy or practice of separating people of different races, classes, or ethnic groups, as in schools, housing, and public or commercial facilities.
Discrimination - Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice.
Jim Crow Law -
During the 1870's and the 1880's, African-Americans lost their voting rights when the Supreme Court failed to overturn the poll tax and the grandfather clause. Southern States passed racial segregation laws to separate white and black people in public and private facilities.
Turn of the Century Race Relations -
Native Americans had not only formal discrimination, but also rules and laws. The rules or customs were called racial etiquette. They often humiliated African-Americans enforcing their second class status. Blacks and whites were never shook hands, because it would imply equality. They also had to yield the sidewalk to white pedestrians. Black men also had to remove their hats for whites.
Voting Restrictions -
Most states restricted blacks from voting. Some states said that every person wanting to vote has to be able to read, and they had to take a literacy test. When a black took the test, they often made it harder or made it in a foreign language. Officials could pass or fail applicants as they wanted. African-Americans, and also other racial groups could face severe punishment or death. Blacks who were accused of violating the etiquette were usually lynched. Between 1882 and 1892, more than 1,400 African-Americans were shot burned, or hung without trial down in the South. Lynching started happening a lot in the 1880's and 1890's, but went on in the 20th century. 95% of blacks were slaves. After Slavery, they were spearated at schools, theaters, taverns, and other public places. Congress quickly responded to these laws in 1866 and seized the initative in remkaing the South. Republicans wanted to ensure that with the remaking of the South, freed blacks were made viable members of society. The strong South legislatures finally gave in; in 1868 they repealed most of the laws that discriminated against blacks.
Plessy V. Ferguson -
Plessy was 1/4 black, but he looked white. He had a few issues with transportation, when he wouldn't sit in the colored section. Separate but equal is what was said, but it was more separate but unequal.
Class dismissed.
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