1. America’s History Seventh Edition
James A. Henretta
Rebecca Edwards
Robert O. Self
America’s History Seventh Edition
CHAPTER 18
The Victorians Meet the Modern,
Copyright © 2011 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

2. I. Women, Men, and the Solitude of Self
Changes in Family Life
1. The “Average” Family
2. Rural Youth
The Rise of High School
1. Boys and Girls
2. Curriculum
Women, Men, and the Solitude of Self
Changes in Family Life
The “Average” Family – family size shrinking in post-Civil War years; 1800: women gave birth to an avg. of 7 children; 1900: an avg. of 3.6; farming families needed many children for work; families in industrial society limited family size and concentrated their resources on helping the children succeed in the market economy; couples married at older ages; tried to suppress fertility by nursing, condoms, diaphragms; information on birth control was suppressed by federal law (Comstock).
Rural Youth – industrialization changed the tasks required of daughters in the home (spinning, weaving); girls began to look outside of the home for paid work; sons left the family farm and sent money home to assist parents struggling in the rural economy.
The Rise of High School
Boys and Girls – education was critical for affluent boys preparing for professional employment; daughters were encouraged to attend school to gain employable skills (“just in case”); technical and business education were important for urban and rural people; by % of Americans between 5 and 18 years of age attended school.
Curriculum – literature, composition, history, geography, biology, mathematics, ancient and modern languages, athletics.

3. I. Women, Men, and the Solitude of Self
College Men and Women
1. African American Education
2. Higher Education for Women
Masculinity and the Rise of Sports
1. The YMCA and “Muscular Christianity”
2. America’s Game
3. Rise of the Negro Leagues
4. American Football
Women, Men, and the Solitude of Self
College Men and Women (By 1920 approximately 8% of youth were attending public universities.)
African American Education – Tuskegee Institute (1881) established by Booker T. Washington; a school for industrial education; educated women for nursing and teaching, men for trades; Washington criticized by civil rights leaders for refusing confrontation with whites over race issue, focusing instead on training wage-earners.
Higher Education for Women – in the Northeast and South women attended single-sex schools or teacher-training colleges; Vassar College (1861) sought to give women an education equal to that of males; founding of Smith, Wellesley colleges; fear that education would “unsex” young women; Vassar included a focus on keeping young women healthy and strong to combat public criticism of education for women; Midwest and West offered public co-educational universities.
Masculinity and the Rise of Sports
The YMCA and “Muscular Christianity” – Boston (1851) YMCA first promoter of physical fitness in the U.S.; adapted from a British model, advocated vigorous exercise for young men; “clean and strong”; industrial program to foster loyalty to companies and a content workforce; serving on company teams for pride and teamwork; 1890s invented basketball, volleyball, and indoor exercise in winter; negotiations re: whether the working class could be participants.
America’s Game – baseball developed before the Civil War, spread in popularity during the war, became a professional sport after the war; National League (1876); first World Series (1903); employers encouraged company teams.
Rise of the Negro Leagues – at turn of the century most black players were barred from professional teams; development of segregated teams; desegregation came after World War II.
American Football – controversial sport grew out of Ivy League colleges in 1880s; violent – 6 player deaths in 1908; rules put in place to protect players; professional teams developed in Pittsburgh, Green Bay (WI), Chicago.

4. 1. Examine these student football players
1. Examine these student football players. What do you notice about their physical appearance and dress?
(Answer: all whose faces are visible appear to be of Native American heritage; all have hair cut in Euro-American styles; wearing similar clothing and shoes; no helmets or padding as modern-day football players would wear.)
2. From the perspective of white Americans, what was the benefit of educating Native American young people at schools like Chilocco?
(Answer: took young, impressionable native children off of reservations and away from the influence of their tribal elders; provided opportunities for white people to acculturate the students to white, European traditions and customs (including dress and hairstyle); argued that while providing education they were also helping then to assimilate into white culture.)

5. 1. Why do you think Johnston chose to photograph herself in this setting?
(Answer: emphasizes the beauty of the mountains/landscape behind her, as well as her comfort within that environment.)
2. Consider this photograph in the context of early twentieth-century expectations of women’s. How might traditional-minded Americans have viewed this self-portrait?
(Answer: Johnston’s independence – the fact that she is alone in the rugged mountain landscape – would have troubled those Americans who believed that a woman’s proper place was in a domestic setting under the control of her husband or father.)

6. I. Women, Men, and the Solitude of Self
The Great Outdoors
1. Preservation
2. Environmentalists
Women, Men, and the Solitude of Self
The Great Outdoors (1890: 10 million bicycles sold in U.S.)
Preservation – national and state governments made provisions for land to be preserved, used for recreation; more national forests; creation of the National Parks Service (1916); Lacey Act (1906) allowed the president to set aside chosen national monuments; debate over the use of natural resources (ex: timber) from monuments vs. parks, which were protected.
Environmentalists – John Muir, an inventor from Wisconsin, founded the Sierra Club (1892) for exploring and preserving Pacific Coast; protection of wildlife encouraged; Audubon societies called for protection of bird species; new laws against hunting game caused controversy.

7. 1. Describe Sargent’s depiction of this newly-married couple.
(Answer: formal dress: man in suit jacket, vest, tie; woman in long skirt, jacket, long shirt-sleeves, with a hat at her hip; man appears serious, standing behind in her shadow; woman almost smiling with hand at hip.)
2. What can we conclude about this couple from Sargent’s painting?
(Answer: we know little of this couple except that they have wealth-enough to dress in fine clothing; someone, if not themselves, has the means to commission a portrait for them; the placement of the husband behind the wife should be discussed as this is a period in which husbands were the representation of the family in public; perhaps here as they marry Sargent allowed her to shine, the husband standing behind to celebrate her beauty.)
3. Does this portrait give us any clues into married life at the turn of the century?
(Answer: this couple would not be representative of married couples in the 19th or early 20th century because of their wealth; we can tell that they are white, of European descent, but know little else about them from Sargent’s work.)

10. II. Women in the Public Sphere
Negotiating Public Space
1. The Circus
2. “First Class”
From Female Moral Authority to Feminism
1. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
2. Women, Race, and Patriotism
3. Feminism
Women in the Public Sphere
Negotiating Public Space
The Circus – P.T. Barnum used rail system for traveling circus; focus on family entertainment, refined female entertainers; encouraged outdoor activity and exercise.
“First Class” – railroad companies sought to make their customers comfortable with modern amenities; carpets, upholstery, woodwork; “first class” cars were opulent; prohibited African Americans from sharing the space.
From Female Moral Authority to Feminism (“Maternalist”: justifying women’s work in the public sphere based on women’s special talents as mothers and Christians.)
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) – founded 1874, led by Frances Willard; advocated prohibition of liquor; put women at the forefront of public reform; motto was “Home Protection”; first national movement against domestic violence; brought together people from urban and rural areas; founded soup kitchens, free libraries, investigated prisons, advocated for 8-hour workday and an end to child labor; called for woman suffrage; supported the Prohibition Party; early 20th century was re-born in such groups as Anti-Saloon League.
Women, Race, and Patriotism – Daughters of the American Revolution (1890) excluded black women; United Daughters of the Confederacy (1894); National Association of Colored Women (1896); Women’s Convention of the National Baptist Church (1900) was the largest black women’s group.
Feminism – National Trade Union League (1903) focused on working conditions among poor women; most radical women argued against the “separate sphere” ideology; Heterodoxy Club (1912) organized in NYC for intellectuals, journalists, labor organizers who supported women’s rights and liberation (called themselves feminists).

12. 1. What does this photograph of the Colored Women’s League members indicate to us about African-Americans in the late 19th century?
(Answer: an example of various efforts by African Americans to act collectively at a time when individual black Americans had very little political power.)
2. What is significant about the subjects in this photograph?
(Answer: both men and women are included in this portrait of the organization; indicative of efforts to work together across gender lines.)

13. II. Domesticity Goes Public
Domesticity and Missions
1. Women’s Work
2. Overseas Missions
Women in the Public Sphere
Domesticity and Missions
Women’s Work – few women saw themselves as feminists at the turn of the century, though many were publicly active; worked in churches, religious groups; sponsored Christian missions in the West; Women’s National Indian Association provided money and hours of charitable labor on reservation to “civilize home life”; aided escaped prostitutes in San Francisco.
Overseas Missions – Americans sponsored thousands of missionaries in foreign nations, including millions of women; most served in Asia, some in Africa and Middle East; missionary groups wanted to send married couples and families so they could “model” proper roles; converts were impressed by the women’s medical knowledge and education; often judged those they served as “heathen races.”

14. III. Science and Faith Darwinism and Its Critics 1. Theory
2. Social Darwinism
3. Eugenics
Realism in the Arts
1. Naturalism
2. Modernism
Science and Faith
Darwinism and Its Critics
Theory – On the Origin of Species (1859); Darwin argued that all creatures struggle to survive but some are born with mutations that make them better fit for their environment (“natural selection”); these characteristics then become dominant in future generations.
Social Darwinism – Herbert Spencer, British philosopher; humans had advanced through competition and “survival of the fittest”; William Graham Sumner, sociologist at Yale, claimed the wealthy were the “fittest”; controversial viewpoint; critics argued that Spencer and others (Lamarck) were making excuses for the excesses of industrial society.
Eugenics – “science” of human breeding that argued mentally deficient people should be prevented from reproducing; proposed sterilization laws; many associated mental deficiencies with so-called lower races, which led to increased discrimination against people of Asian, African, and Native American descent.
Realism in the Arts
Naturalism – human beings as victims of forces beyond their control (impulses and desires); ex: Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) and Jack London’s “The Law of Life” (1901); Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889).
Modernism – rejected traditional literature; religious skeptics and atheists; questioned progress; use of photography; the Armory Show (1913) included Cubism and was met with both controversy and fascination.

15. III. Science and Faith Religion: Diversity and Innovation
1. Immigrant Faiths
2. Protestant Innovations
3. Fundamentalists
Science and Faith
Religion: Diversity and Innovation
Immigrant Faiths – arrival of large numbers of Catholics and Jews led to questioning of whether immigrants should adapt their faiths to American Protestantism; connections to churches decreased because of harshness of industrial society; immigrant Catholics established parishes based on ethnicities (Irish, Italian, Polish); native-born American Jews embraced Reform Judaism: abandoning the kosher kitchen, not conducting services in Hebrew; some founded Orthodox synagogues.
Protestant Innovations – 1916 Protestants still a majority in the U.S., but facing increasing political pressure from large numbers of Catholics; Protestants worked to evangelize those who were uncommitted to religion through “Social Gospel”: founded YMCAs, revealed faith through their public welfare and social justice efforts; introduction in U.S. of the British organization the Salvation Army.
Fundamentalists – conservatives who were concerned about the rising secularism of the country; Bible conferences at Niagara Falls ; reaffirmed the notion that the Bible was “truth” and those not born again would be damned; used revival meetings; example of Billy Sunday who held revivals to reconnect Americans with Protestant religion (hugely popular).

16. 1. What is the central action of this illustration?
(Answer: a female Salvation Army worker attempts to hand out the publication War Cry; she desires to spread a religious message to those who might not otherwise be going to church but need “salvation.”)
2. What message is being conveyed here?
(Answer: as Protestants in the Salvation Army sought to spread their message, working-class people often rejected their call for religious or spiritual salvation.)