AP US History

January 23 - 27-2017

Seventh Period is a day behind and will not be completing the quiz on Monday. See below for details

MONDAY (excluding 7th Period)

  • Quiz on Gilded Age cities and leisure time activities

MaterialsStrategy/Format

quiz form (short answer)Assessment and Review

Instructions

  • This will be a short answer style quiz that will be based upon the materials from Thursday and Friday of last week. This was about the development of major cities and the growth of leisure time activities.
  • You will complete this in class

Homework Monday Night

None for Periods 1,2,5

Period 7 will complete a take home version of the quiz using class and web-notes. Look back at Friday January 20th for the web-notes

TUESDAY

  • Examine the nature of changes in gender roles and culture during the late 19th –early 20th century ((CUL-2,3,4)

MaterialsStrategy/Format

Ppt/video?Lecture-discussion SL.CCR.1

Student Skills

Chronological Reasoning (2,3)

Comp/Context (4,5)

Crafting Arguments (6)

Historical Interpretation (9)

Introduction

  • I know that I harp on this a great deal but social history makes up 40% of materials on the AP Exam and furthermore, ongoing trends are overwhelming represented on essays. As a result we need to make sure that we cover gender issues.
  • In the colonial period in America what rights did women possess? Any political rights? We know that women were protected under the law as citizens of colonies but simply did not have any voting or office holding ability. What about economic rights? Did this vary by region? Women in the Chesapeake did have property rights for a while (do you remember why). However as this was not true in England, women generally lost this right over time.
  • In the New Republic Period there was great hope among middle/upper class women that the rhetoric of the Revolution would be made real. But as it turns out that when Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal” he really meant men (and of course not all of them either). Abigail Adamshad admonished John to “not forget the ladies” at the Constitutional Convention but alas despite the contributions to women helping to enforce the protests against taxes and serving sometimes very near and on some cases on the field of battle, no rights were forthcoming.
  • The Antebellum Period was where we see the first political moves for women. The protest against slavery moved Northern Middle class women into the abolitionism realm (Sojourner Truth, Sarah and Angela Grimke) and all of the major reform movements of the period (Dorothea Dix). Members of the Liberty Party tried to keep women out but key leaders like William Lloyd Garrison supported their right to become politically active within the movement. This effectively created the first major move in women’s rights; the Seneca Falls Movement (Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton). Women and male supporters called for complete equality but this was mostly ignored even by most women. Not all women sought to become equal in politics agreeing that women should not play a role outside of the home. IN the U.S. Catherine Beecher’s “cult of domesticity became the rival of a growing sense of feminism. And then the horrors civil war came.
  • During Civil War and Reconstruction years women were even more active in military affairs. While none could legally serve as soldiers there are known cases where they did….but this was a rarity. Importantly women in the North and South served as nurses and the U.S. Sanitary Commission (Clara Barton later of the Red Cross) involved hundreds of women as caregivers. However the end of combat saw men once again ignore their contributions. Then, in both the north and south howls of anger went up over passage of the Fifteenth Amendment allowing black men to vote while at the same time ignoring all women.

The Gilded Age and Women

  • In this period there were two trends related to women that were discernible. Women were becoming more economically empowered because they could own land and businesses in their own names. Additionally, as you saw from previous readings, women were entering academia (Vassar and Holyoke to name a couple) and in more coed institutions (Like Oberlin). However there was also another view of women that always existed but was growing during this era; that of sex symbol. After the Civil War, a popular ideal was of a woman who was curvaceous, big-hipped, and buxom. One of the most important contributors to this was the development of the consumer culture based upon the greater availability of luxury items. Clothing became much cheaper and as the middle class developed, disposable income led many middle class women into department stores. Print media and advertising also revealed the latest fashions from Paris and women sought to emulate fashions of the “belle epoche” in Europe.
  • In the 1890s and early twentieth century, the aristocratic Gibson Girl was a popular ideal. The Gibson Girl was known as the century's first pin up. First sketched by Charles Dana Gibson in 1902, this imaginary woman was to represent the ideal woman. She became known as the “liberated young woman” with the characteristic “Victorian manners and style of dress of her mother and grandmother. The hair style consisted of a soft pompadour, puffed for a cloud effect, rolled from temple to temple over a horsehair rat to give it the width that went well with a tiny waist. We will see this style also seen as an insult to a new generation of women who were joining the professional ranks. We will see this battle continue on into the next century when in the 1920s flappers will launch an assault of their own making the Gibson Girl look tame.

The Development of Popular Culture

Closely related to the development of what was sometimes called the “new woman” was the development of a mass popular culture. One of the most notable trends was what we saw with women and that was a sense of rebellion against the old Victorian Morality of the late antebellum middle class. Often times the rebels became part of a mass culture and exhibited trends that young consumers were especially interested in emulating. This whole process was driven by several key factors.

The advancement of literacy and education that you research last week with guided questions from the text plays a huge role in the development of a mass culture. Expanding literacy created markets for books, magazines, and newspapers with wider circulations than ever before (and this was also due in part to transportation improvements.

At various levels of American culture, writers and artists rebelled against the moralism and sentimentality of Victorian culture and sought to live objectively and truthfully, without idealization or avoiding the distasteful. This matches a movement already developing Europe known simply as Realism.The quest for realism took a variety of guises. It could be seen in the naturalism of writers like Theodore Dreiser and Stephen Crane, with their nightmarish depictions of urban poverty and exploitation in the paintings of the "ashcan" school of art, with their vivid portraits of tenements and congested streets. Jacob Riis, a photographer shocked the middle class with his images of poverty among New York City immigrant populations. A new wave of journalists using powerful and biting prose of tabloid reporters and muckraking investigative journalists, who cut through the Victorian era unwillingness to address certain issues such topics as sex, political corruption, and working conditions in industry. Without question one of the most important social critics of the period was none other than Mark Twain. These writers laid the groundwork for our next major time period known as Progressivism (1900-1920).

Another important change related to mass consumer culture was the advent of advertising. Though ads were nothing new, it was the new scope and scale of the ads that matched the explosive consumer culture.One of the best brief descriptions that I have found comes from digital history website from the University of Houston. “The National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) launched the first million dollar national advertising campaign. It succeeded in making Uneeda biscuits and their water-proof "In-er-Seal" box popular household items. During the 1880s and 1890s, patent medicine manufacturers, department stores, and producers of low price packaged consumer goods (like Campbell Soups, H.J. Heinz, and Quaker Oats), developed modern advertising techniques. Where earlier advertisers made little use of brand names illustrations, or trademarks, the new ads made use of snappy slogans and colorful packages. As early as 1900, advertisements began to use psychology to arouse consumer demand by suggesting that a product would contribute to the consumer's social and psychic well-being. To induce purchases, observed a trade journal in 1890, a consumer "must be aroused, excited, terrified." Listerine mouthwash promised to cure "halitosis." Scott tissue claimed to prevent infections caused by harsh toilet paper.”

Homework

Quia.com quiz on the west due by Friday

Review quiz on the 19th century west (stimulus and Formative style

Book Needed in class tomorrow

WEDNESDAY (Textbook Needed)

  • Analyze Popular culture and the women's movement (CUL-2,3,4)
  • Analyze text sources on science and religion plus movements in the arts (CUL-2,3,4)

MaterialsStrategy/Format

Quiz form and textbookassessment and guided reading

Instructions

  • Today you'll have review/assessment on the so-called Gay 90s with the emphasis on culture and the women's movement. Following the quiz you'll have some text dependent questions related to the arts and education in the late 19th and early 20th Century
  • The quiz is w/o notes, You'll complete this section and then start the text work after submitting the materials

Homework

The Quia Quiz Reviewing the west is due tomorrow

THURSDAY and FRIDAY

  • Explain (overview) of Progressivism(POL1,2,3)(WXT-1) (CUL-2,3,4)
  • Discuss Progressive Reforms in politics at the state local leveland national level (POL1,2,3)

Student Skill Types

Chronologic Reasoning (1,3)

Comp/Context (5)

Historical Arguments (7)

Interpretation/Synthesis (8, 9)

MaterialsStrategy/Format

Ppt and video if available/primary sourcesLecture-discussion SL.CCR.1

Introduction

  • This week we introduce the Progressive Period 1901 – 1920. We looked at the basic ideas behind the period, who might have been a Progressive, and finally how they differed from a similar group, the Populists. Over the weekend you did some research on Progressive writers and journalists. Many of these people were scholars and intellectuals but others were crusading journalists who wrote scathing exposès on problems in society. They were called "muckrakers" by Theodore Roosevelt. Interestingly and despite the unflattering nickname, they became the spear point of the Progressive movement. This is also another example of the expanding level of education among the expansive middle class in America. Underlying his movement was a new assumption about the role of government in people’s lives. Before, there was a great disconnect between society and the government. There was no real notion that the government was there to make lives better and handle social issues. Its function seemed to be trade and law enforcement. Although, we will see that the height of Progressivism will be reached politically be the Wilson Administration (the first 20th century Democratic President), it found its origins with the activism of many young Republicans……led by you know who…..
  • Progressives tended to fall into one of the following:
  1. Educated, young, professional, college educated
  2. Protestants in the North
  3. Young Republicans and later Democrats (economic reform)
  4. Sometimes pro-Imperialist (but not always)
  5. Believers in Victorianism (but not always)
  6. journalists and writers
  7. Race Theorists and educated African-Americans
  8. Sometimes Labor leaders

What bound all of these disparate people together?

Reform seems to be the common factor

  1. Those who wanted to limit government and corporations
  2. More open democracy
  3. Social justice through Federal and state actions

Where Might I find a Progressive?

Really Progressives could be anywhere but most often they were Urban in the Midwest, and northeast, Far west especially in the newer states like Wyoming and Colorado.

  • The Progressive movement seemed to touch every aspect of American life. It transformed government into an active, interventionist entity at the national level, most notably under Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, but also at the state and local levels. For the first time Americans were prepared to use government, including the federal government, as an instrument of reform.
  • The reform movements stemmed from a preoccupation with the elimination of corruption and waste and an emphasis on efficiency, science, and professional expertise as the best ways to solve social problems. A book published in 1913, Benjamin Parker De Witt's The Progressive Movement, argued that three tendencies underlay progressive reforms: the desire to eliminate political corruption, the impulse to make government more efficient and effective, and a belief that government should "relieve social and economic distress." Progressives wanted to apply the techniques of systematization, rationalization, and bureaucratic administrative control developed by business to problems posed by the city and industry.
  • Today we will look at some of the most important Progressive Reforms at the state, local, and municipal level before we move to a wave of national reforms commencing under Theodore Roosevelt.

Municipal Reforms

  • In the past it was common for major cities to be run almost singlehandedly by strong bosses. Sometimes these bosses were mayors but often they were powerful men who actually controlled mayors themselves. We have seen how they used graft, spoils, and persuasion to maintain their power often stealing millions in tax revenue. At the city level there were a number of reform minded mayors. It was often difficult to expel bossism. Many won office by speaking the language of class and ethnic resentment. A good example was James Michael Curley, Boston's mayor. He seemed to care more about the poor people because they built new schools for the children of working-class , tore down slum dwellings, established beaches and parks for the poor, and added an obstetrics wing to the city hospital. He also helped the poor in very direct ways; he provided bail money, funeral expenses, and temporary shelter for those made homeless by fire or eviction. When he died, a million people lined Boston's streets to pay their last respect
  • Tom L. Johnson represented a model of Progressivism at the local level. He was a four-term mayor of Cleveland from 1901 to 1909. He fought the streetcar monopoly, reformed the police department, professionalized city services, and built sports fields and public bathhouses in poor sections of the city. He also coordinated the architecture and placement of public buildings downtown, set around a mall.
  • In some cases, bossism was reduced by adopting elected city councils to check mayoral power. Also, termlimits were enacted sometimes the problem was the council itself (as we have seen in our own fair city). To weaken political machines, municipal Progressives sought to reduce the size of city councils and to eliminate the practice of electing officials by ward (or neighborhood). Instead, they proposed electing public officials on a city-wide (an at-large) basis. Candidates from poorer neighborhoods lacked funds to publicize their campaigns across an entire city. Urban Progressives also diminished the influence of machines by making municipal elections non-partisan,by prohibiting the use of party labels in local voting. A number of cities attempted to eliminate politics from city government by introducing city managers. Beginning with Staunton, Virginia and Dayton Ohio in 1908, a number of cities began to hire professional administrators or city managers to run city government. They were seen as more effective because they were appointed by the city councils for one year terms. The idea being that they would never have enough time to build a political machine.

State Level Progressivism

  • Perhaps the most notable reforms occurred at the state level. During the Progressive era, the states were "laboratories for democracy," where state governments experimented with a wide range of reforms to eliminate governmental corruption, abolish unsafe working conditions, make government more responsive to public needs, and protect working people.
  • The Panic of 1893 had discouraged many states from engaging in policy innovation. Most of the endeavors reformers undertook during these years were efforts to eliminate political bossism, corruption, and governmental waste. The Depression also encouraged the consolidation of corporations, a development that would make trusts a major issue after the turn of the century. By the early 20th century, many states adopted reforms that had been enacted years earlier in Massachusetts, which, along with Rhode Island, had been the first state to have a majority of its population live in cities. Many of these reforms involved protections for working people, including:
  • compulsory school attendance laws, adopted in every state except Mississippi by 1916;
  • laws limiting work hours for women and children in 32 states, and minimum wages for women workers in 11 states;
  • workmen's compensation, which provided compensation for workers injured on the job in 32 states.
  • Other laws established an eight-hour workday for state employees; authorized credit unions; created public utility commission; established state employee pensions; and instituted a host of health and safety regulations. Several states also passed laws prohibiting children from working at night.
  • To make the electoral process more democratic, all but three states adopted direct primaries by 1916, which allowed voters to choose among several candidates for a party's nomination. To allow voters to express their dissatisfaction with elected officials, Progressives proposed the recall,which allowed voters to vote to remove them before the end of their term in office. To give voters a greater voice in law making, Progressives proposed the initiative and the referendum. The initiative allowed voters to propose a bill and legislation, and the referendum permitted them to vote directly on an issue. Oregon, South Dakota, and Utah were the first states to adopt the initiative and referendum.
  • Beginning in the 1880s, Britain, France, Germany, and Scandinavia adopted a series of social welfare programs--unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, and industrial accident and health insurance. During the Progressive era, many reformers borrowed these ideas and adapted them to meet American circumstances. Perhaps the most dramatic American innovation was "widow's pensions." Adopted by most states, these programs provided widows with a monthly payment that allowed them to keep their children at home, rather than putting them in orphanages or up for adoption. All of these will be important reforms because they will serve as a model for national reforms under Wilson also during and after the Great Depression.

National Progressive Reforms