Selected 19th Century American Technological Advances Transportation

American Studies Content Segments

North Carolina Council for the Social StudiesFebruary 24, 2005Greensboro, NC

Nancy BalasubramanianEmily GallagherKaren GlummKyle Hudson

Jim LitleMartha RegalisVirginia Wilson

Selected 19th Century American Technological AdvancesTransportation

• 1801 - First modern suspension bridge – James Finney• 1807 - Practical steamboat – Robert Fulton• 1819 - Road paving with crushed rock – John McAdam• 1824 - Completion of Erie Canal• 1830s- First railroads• 1847 - Major suspension bridge – Charles Ellet• 1864 - Sleeping cars – George M Pullman• 1869 - First bicycle – William Van Anden• 1871 - Cable streetcar – Andrew S. Hallidie• 1872 - Air brake – George Westinghouse• 1874 - Electric powered streetcar – Stephen Dudley Field• 1883 - Brooklyn bridge – Roeblings• 1893 - First gasoline powered car – Charles and Frank Duryea• 1897 - Diesel engines – Adolphus Busch• 1898 - First motorcycle – Charles H. Metz

Selected 19th Century American Technological Advances Communication

• 1844 - Telegraph – Samuel F.B. Morse• 1846-1847 - Rotary and later web printing presses – Richard M. Hoe• 1867 - Practical typewriter – Christopher L. Sholes• 1867 - First moving picture – William Lincoln• 1869 - Stock ticker – Thomas Alva Edison• 1875 - Rotary press (both sides of sheet at same time)

– Andrew Campbell and Stephen D. Tucker• 1876 -Telephone – Alexander Graham Bell• 1878 - Phonograph – Thomas Alva Edison• 1880 - Roll film, hand camera – George Eastman• 1881 - Color photograph – Frederick E. Ives• 1883 - Celluloid film – John Carbutt• 1884 - Fountain pen - Lewis E. Waterman• 1884 - Linotype machine – Ottmar Mergenthaler

Selected 19th Century American Technological Advances Agriculture

• 1837 - Steel plow – John Deere• 1831 - Reaper – Cyrus McCormick• 1832 - Thresher – Cyrus McCormick• 1847 - Revolving disc harrow – G. Page• 1858 - Twine knotter – John F. Appleby• 1864 - Checkrower corn planter

– John Thompson and John Ramsey

• 1874 - Barbed wire – Joseph Glidden

Selected 19th Century American Technological Advances Labor Saving Devices

• 1804 - Food canning – Nicholas Appert• 1846 - Sewing machine – Elias Howe• 1849 - Safety pin• 1869-99 - Carpet & vacuum cleaners (motor driven 1899) – John

Thurman• 1879 - Electric lighting (1st incandescent bulb) – Thomas Alva

Edison• 1880 - Safety razor – Kampfe Brothers• 1882 - Electric fan – Shuyler Skaats Wheeler• 1882 - Electric flat iron – Henry W. Seely• 1885 - Oatmeal in boxes – Henry Cowell• 1889 - Electric sewing machine – Isaac Singer• 1895 - Safety razor with throwaway blades – King C. Gillette• 1896 - Electric stove – William S. Hadaway

Selected 19th Century American Technological Advances Business and Industry

• 1830 - Matches – Charles Sauria and J.F. Kammerer• 1830 - First U.S. locomotive – Peter Cooper• 1839 - Vulcanization of rubber – Charles Goodyear• 1845 - Power loom for making carpets and tapestries

– Erastus Bigelow• 1846 - Sewing machine – Elias Howe• 1846 - Steel process – William Kelly• 1846 - Better steam engine – George Corliss• 1850s - Automatic cigarette maker – James A. Bonsack• 1852 - Elevator – Elisha G. Otis• 1859 - Oil drilling – Edwin L. Drake


• 1865 - Compression ice machine – Thaddeus Lowe• 1865 - AC current/electrical industry – Charles Steinmetz• 1869 - Stock ticker – Thomas Alva Edison• 1870s-80s - Calculating machines – Edmund D. Barbour• 1875-1881 - First dynamo in operation – Thomas Alva

Edison• 1877 - First refrigerated railroad car – Adolphus Swift• 1879 - Electric lighting (1st incandescent bulb)

– Thomas Alva Edison

• 1879 - Cash register – James Ritty


• 1881 - Practical adding machine – William S. Burroughs• 1882 - Electric fan – Shuyler Skaats Wheeler• 1882 - 3-wire system for carrying electrical power

– Thomas Alva Edison• 1885 - Dictaphone – Charles S. Tainter• 1885 - First skyscraper – Louis Sullivan• 1886 - Electric welding machine – Elihu Thomason• 1886 - Aluminum from alumina and electric power – Charles M. Hall• 1889 - Electric sewing machine – Isaac Singer• 1889 - First dam to produce power for a hydroelectric plant on

Willamette River• 1896 - Punched card/founder of International Business Machines

– Herman Hollerith

Selected 19th Century American Technological Advances Weapons

• 1835 - Revolver – Samuel Colt

• 1860 - Repeating rifle – Oliver F. Winchester

• 1862 - Revolving machine gun – Richard Gatling

• 1866 - Torpedo – Robert Whitehead

American StudiesNineteenth Century American Technology Assignment

• Choose a partner• Select a 19th century invention from the list• Research the invention – division of work

between partners– Physical Description of the invention– Uses of the invention– Changes in American life with the invention– Short and long term consequences– Reasons for nomination as most significant

• Minimum three sources


NOMINATION APPLICATIONINVENTION OF THE 19th CENTURYApplication(Please print/type the requested information)Nominator: ___________________ Class Period:

___________________Invention: ___________________________________________Approximate Date of Invention: _________________________Intended Purpose: _____________________________________ Inventor: ___________________________________________City: ________________________ State _______Resulting Changes in American Life _______________________________________________________________________________________________Short Term Consequences_________________________________________Long Term Consequences__________________________________________Reasons for Selection as Most Significant______________________________


The Application must include a typed, two to three minute, Nomination Speech for The Invention of the Nineteenth Century Award. The speech must not exceed 400 words in length and respond to each Award Criteria. The speeches will be delivered and a vote taken to select the winning invention– Award Criteria

• 1. Physical Description of the Invention• 2. Uses of the Invention• 3. Short and Long Range Impact(s) of the Invention for United States

Society• 4. Reasons for Significance

– Completed Nominations will be judged on the following criteria:• 1. Accuracy of Information• 2. Response to the Award Criteria• 3. Integration of Uses and Impacts• 4. Persuasiveness of the Nomination Speech

American Studies1945-1960 Scientific Discovery or Invention

Political Cartoon or Cartoon Strip

• Select a scientific discovery/invention/engineering feat from the 1945-1960 era. Assuming the role of a Political Cartoonist or Cartoon Strip Creator represent in primarily visual fashion the positive and negative impacts of your chosen discovery/invention/engineering feat for the Millennial Time Capsule commemorating the 20th century. Your Proposal should identify your discovery/invention/engineering feat, explain briefly your reason(s) for its selection, and state positive and negative impacts. Submitted entries will be judged anonymously by all members of the class with first-place prizes awarded in each category.

Political Cartoon Entries

• Format– Two 8” X 11" Maximum Size Drawings– Pencil, Ink, or Felt Tip Drawings Only– Minimal Use of Colors other than Black– Minimal Use of Text

• Content– One Drawing depicting positive political, social, economic, and/or cultural

impacts– One Drawing depicting negative political, social, economic, and/or cultural

impacts• Judging Criteria

– Historical Accuracy– Sources (Minimum of 3)– Representation of the Scientific Discovery or Invention– Breadth and Clarity of the Impact(s)– Creativity– *NOT Artistic Ability

Cartoon Strip Entries

• Format– Two Six Panel Cartoon Strips - 3.25" X 3.25" Maximum Panel Size– Pencil, Ink, or Felt Tip Drawings Only– Minimal Use of Colors other than Black– Minimal Use of Text

• Content– One Six Panel Strip depicting positive political, social, economic, and/or cultural

impacts– One Six Panel Strip depicting negative political, social, economic, and/or cultural

impacts• Judging Criteria

– Historical Accuracy– Sources (Minimum of 3)– Representation of the Scientific Discovery or Invention– Breadth and Clarity of the Impact(s)– Creativity– *NOT Artistic Ability

American Studies20th Century Scientific Discovery or Invention

Political Cartoon or Cartoon StripProposal Form

• Name: Period: • Discovery/Invention/Engineering Feat

• Time Reference

• Statement of Reasons for Selection

• Positive Impact

• Negative Impact

Industrialism and the Economy of Imagination in America after 1855

Historical Texts• Graeber, William and Richard, Leonard, eds. The

American Record: Images of the Nation’s Past, Vol. II. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. 1995.– “The 1877 Railroad Strike” - Jeremy Brecher– “Middle-Class Parks and Working-Class Play: The Struggle

Over Recreational Space in Worchester, Massachusetts, 1870-1910” - Roy Rosenzweig

• Marcus, Robert and Burner, David, eds. American Firsthand: Readings from Reconstruction to the Present, Vol. II. Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.– “George Rice Loses Out to Standard Oil” - George Rice– “The Gospel of Wealth” - Andrew Carnegie– “Fire Trap” - William Gun Shepherd


Historical Texts• Kennedy, David and Bailey, Thomas A. The

American Spirit, Vol. II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.– “John D. Rockefeller Justifies Rebates” (1909)– “The New Philosophy of Materialism”– “Life in a Southern Mill” (1910)– “A Tailor Testifies” (1883)– “The Life of a Sweatshop Girl” (1902)– “Upton Sinclair Describes the Chicago Stockyards” (1906)– “The Lures and Liabilities of City Life” – “An Italian Immigrant Woman Faces Life Alone in the Big

City” (1896) – Rosa Cavalleri


Historical Texts• Bailey, Thomas A. et al. The American Pageant: A History of the

Republic, Vol. II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.– “Forging An Industrial Society”– “Conflicts and Ethnic Clashes”– “Miracles of Mechanization”– “Carnegie and Other Sultans of Steel”– “Government Tackles the Trust Evil”– “American Industry in 1900”– “The Impact of the New Industrial Revolution on America”– “Labor Limps Along”

• Henretta, James et al, eds. America’s History: Documents Collection, Vol. 2, 2nd Edition. New York: Worth Publishers, 1993.– “The Rise of the City”


Literary Texts

• Fanny Fern (Sara Willis Parton) (1831-1872)– “The Working Girls of New York” (1859)– “Sewing Machines” (1853)

• http://kosmicki.com/234/sewing.htm

• Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910)– Life in the Iron Mills (Atlantic Monthly, 1861)

• http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fatla%2Fatla0007%2F&tif=00436.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fsgml%2Fmoa-idx%3Fnotisid%3DABK2934-0007-70


Literary Texts

• Herman Melville (1819-1891)– “The Tartarus of Maids” (1855)

• http://www.bibliomania.com/0/5/36/818/18526/1/frameset.html

• Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)– From Work: A Story of Experience (1873)

• William Dean Howells (1837-1920)– From The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)

• Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936)– “Immigration” (1902)– “The Popularity of Firemen” (1895)


Literary Texts• Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890)

– http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/king/TXTRiis.htm

• Upton Sinclair (1868-1968)– From The Jungle (1906)

• http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Sinclair/TheJungle/

• Henry Adams (1838-1918)– From The Education of Henry Adams (written 1907, published

1918)• “The Dynamo and the Virgin”• See http://www.bartleby.com/159/25.html

• Walt Whitman (1819-1892)– “To a Locomotive in Winter” (1876)

• See http://www.bartleby.com/142/260.html

http://www.bartleby.com/159/25.html

http://www.bartleby.com/142/260.html


Images• Thomas Anshutz

– “The Ironworkers’ Noontime” (1880)• http://faculty.dwc.edu/cernek/ss340/modernimages/anshutz.html

• W. Louis Sontag– “The Bowery at Night” (1895)

• http://faculty.dwc.edu/cernek/ss340/modernimages/sonntag.html

• George Bellows– “The Cliff Dwellers” (1913)

• http://faculty.dwc.edu/cernek/ss340/modernimages/bellows.html

• Max Weber– “Rush Hour” (1915)

• http://faculty.dwc.edu/cernek/ss340/modernimages/weber.html

http://faculty.dwc.edu/cernek/ss340/modernimages/anshutz.html

http://faculty.dwc.edu/cernek/ss340/modernimages/sonntag.html


Images

• Jacob Riis– “Bohemian Cigar Makers at Work in Their

Tenement” (1890)• http://www.mcny.org/Exhibitions/riis/riisb.htm

– “Five Cents a Spot” (1890)• http://www.mcny.org/Exhibitions/riis/riisc.htm

• John Sloan– “The Wake of the Ferry II “(1907)

• Max Beckmann (1884-1950)– “Night” (1918-1919)

• http://hip.cgu.edu/aisenberg/20thslides/beckmann.htm

http://www.mcny.org/Exhibitions/riis/riisb.htm


Images

• George Bellows– “The Cigarette” (1918)

• http://www.sdmart.org/bellows/art-war-cigarette.html

• Bernece Berkman (1911-1979)– “Laundry Workers”

• Samuel Rosenberg (1896-1973)– “Man-Made Desert” (1932)

• Harry Gottlieb– “Inside a Steel Mill” (1937)

http://www.sdmart.org/bellows/art-war-cigarette.html


Engineering and Architecture

Not all views of industrialization and advances in technology were negative, and the legacy of the new industrial cities was to produce monuments to industry that were also the skylines of Chicago and New York:

• John Roebling and Washington Roebling– The Brooklyn Bridge (opened, 1883)

• http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Brooklyn_Bridge.html

• Daniel D. Badger and Others, Proprietors– “Illustration for the Architectural Iron Works”

• http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/treasures/html/47.html

• “Giant Corliss Engine”– Philadelphia Centennial Exposition (1876)

• http://park.org/Pavilions/WorldExpositions/philadelphia.html

• Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan– “Buffalo Guaranty Building” (1894-95)

• http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=126218



• Louis Sullivan– “Carson Pirie Scott” Building

• http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/C/Carsons2.html

• Alfred Stieglitz– “The Terminal” (1892)

• http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/stieglitz/stieglitz_terminal_full.html

• George Bellows– “Pennsylvania Station Excavation,” (1909)

• Cass Gilbert– Woolworth Building (1911-13)

• http://www.greatgridlock.net/NYC_Images/woolwort.html

• Joseph Stella– “The Voice of the City of New York Interpreted: The Bridge” (1920-22)

• http://newark.art.museum/americanart/html/tour/galleries/labels/stella_bridge.htm

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/stieglitz/stieglitz_terminal_full.html



• Charles Sheeler– “American Landscape” (1930)

• http://bertc.com/subthree/sheeler8.htm

• William Van Alen– Chrysler Building (1930)

• http://www.greatbuildings.com/cgi-bin/gbi.cgi/Chrysler_Building.html/cid_2159832.gbi

• Rockefeller Center (1929-39)• Hugh Ferris

– “Study for Maximum Mass Permitted by the 1916 New York Zoning Law, Stages 1-4” (1922)

• http://ndm.si.edu/dfl/space/ferriss.htm

• Gerald Murphy– “Razor” (1924)

• http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1997/objects/sections/five/murphy.html

• Rivera– “Detroit Industry Mural” (1932-33)

• http://www.dia.org/collections/AmericanArt/33.10.html

http://ndm.si.edu/dfl/space/ferriss.htm

http://ndm.si.edu/dfl/space/ferriss.htm

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1997/objects/sections/five/murphy.html


Films

• The Molly Maguires (1970)

• The Deer Hunter (1978)– Opening scenes in a Pennsylvania Steel Mill,

views of continuing saga of working class life

• Matewan (1987)

• Norma Rae (1979)

Lesson Plan for Industrial Revolution

• Pre-Industrial Revolution – Set stage for Industrial Revolution – change took place very slowly – look to past for indicators of future – Note Mechanical Solidarity and Primary Production– Hunting and Gathering/Nomadic– Horticulture – 9,000 years ago– Agriculture

• Key points:– “average life span” in preindustrial was mid 40’s– infant mortality – 60% of children died before age of 5

• influenza, scarlet fever, plague, diarrhea, dysentery, cholera, TB, whooping cough, and measles due to inefficient sewage disposal, lack of clean water, poor food, and bacteria


• Industrial Revolution – 1760 – 1830 – Started in West Europe – spread to Northern states of U.S. and then to South post Civil War – Organic Solidarity and Secondary Production – Science Replaced Tradition– Mechanization– Population moves into cities – dirty city; 1 square

mile; walk to work; street cars; – Steel, textile, lumber turned into clothes, furniture,

cars, washing machines, stoves– Improvements in nutrition, agriculture, and standard of

living


Onset of IR 1900 1920 NowAgriculture 90% 50% 28% 2%Manufacturing 4% 36% 52% 22%Services 6% 14% 20% 76%

• Key Points – West Europe began IR and thus population expanded and a country must

expand to develop with IR – thus IR spread to colonies. U.S. began IR and thus expanded to West --- First World countries continued to expand and thus spread to other parts of world for labor and natural resources. Modernism theory argued in the 1950’s that 3rd world countries would “eventually” enter IR – however they did not ---- World System Theory argues that the 3rd world could not develop because First World countries have dominated the rest of world thus expansion was not possible.

– Early Settlers to U.S. were expanding from onset of IR in Europe --- arrived grounded in Agriculture and beginning IR --- Native Americans were predominately Hunting Gathering/Nomadic --- thus cultures did not “communicate” well


• Connect to Demographic Transition – began with Industrial Revolution but took off in early 1800’s --- transition from high birth/death rates to low birth/death rates– Mortality declined first – during pre-industrial time period malnutrition led to

disease and thus high death rate – key developments to decrease death rate were soap, refrigeration, better shelter and clothing, hygiene, cleaner drinking water, indoor plumbing, and trash disposal

– Fertility then declined with urbanization – expanded economy – people moving into cities living in smaller places – thus did not need children for labor on farms

• NOTE: Transition in the West predominately until WWII ---- Non West did not go through Industrial Revolution and thus did not go through Demographic Transition --- Post WWII Modern Medicine decreased death rate in Third World but Fertility did not decline – thus dramatic increase in population.


• Modernism – connected to Industrial Revolution – with development of society people should be free from want; lives would continue to progress because of advantages of industrial revolution (nutrition, agriculture, refrigeration, safer water, medicine, mass production), optimistic for future of individuals and society – average life span increased to mid 60’s and 70’s.

• Postmodernism – connected with Post Industrial Revolution – expected so much with industrial revolution – but instead poverty has increased, global warming, pollution, nuclear weapons, illness is worse and different (AIDS, cancer, heart disease, stroke); malnutrition in world higher than at time of industrial revolution ---

• Thus – modernity has failed, bright light of progress is fading, Science no longer holds answers, cultural debates have intensified; social institutions are changing significantly: new forms of family, education, medicine, religion.


• References– Chirot, Daniel. 1986. Social Change in the Modern Era. San Diego:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. – Chodak, Symon. 1973. Societal Development. Five Approaches and

Conclusions from Comparative Analysis. NY: Oxford University Press. – Durkheim, Emile. 1984. The Division of Labor in Society. NY: Free Press.– McKeown, T. and Record, R. G. 1962. “Reasons for the Decline of Mortality

in England and Wales During 19th Century.” Population Studies 16 (March): 94-121).

– Parsons, Talcott. 1937. Structure of Social Action. NY: McGraw-Hill.– Razzel, P. 1974. “An Interpretation of the Modern Rise of Population in

Europe: A Critique.” Population Studies 28 (March): 5-15.– Tonnies, Ferdinand. 1988 [1887]. Community and Society. NY: Rutgers.– Weber, Max. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. NY: Oxford

University Press. – Weber, Max. 1958. Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism. NY: Scribners.– www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/demotrans/demtran.htm

I. The Legacy of Industrialization: Legal Aspects

• Lochner v. New York (1905) was a challenge to the constitutionality of a Progressive-Era New York law that set maximum hours for bakers. The statute stated that no bakery employee could be required or permitted to work more than ten hours in one day. The plaintiff argued that this law unconstitutionally limited the freedom of workers who might otherwise agree to longer hours. – The United States Supreme Court agreed and ruled that the Due

Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which commands that “no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,” contains an unenumerated “liberty of contract” that the New York law violated.

– Lochner is often seen as standing for absolute liberty of contract, but that is not correct. Justice Peckham, in his opinion of the court, held that states may interfere with liberty of contract so long as the limitations imposed are reasonable. He pointed out that the Court had earlier approved of maximum hours laws for miners. But he concluded that the New York law was unreasonable, and hence unconstitutional, because the baking trade was not dangerous enough to warrant limited hours.


• In a famous dissent, Oliver Wendell Holmes argued that the Court had erred in reading its own strong conception of liberty of contract into the Due Process Clause. Holmes’s view was that the law in question had been properly enacted and was therefore perfectly constitutional.


• Lochner is a famous case because is serves as shorthand for the early Twentieth Century Court’s view that, with a few exceptions, Progressive-style labor laws paternalistically violate workers’ “liberty of contract.” The Court later extended this same reasoning to minimum wage laws.– This strong view of workers’ liberty of contract was one of several

judicial impediments to the New Deal. On the Court’s view, laws meant to improve working conditions and the health of workers were unjustifiably paternalistic infringements on the right of workers to accept whatever contracts they wished. The criticism of this position was that the “liberty” workers enjoyed in the absence of regulation was to accept exploitative contracts or starve.

– The so-called “Lochner Era” came to an end in 1937. In West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, the Court changed course and approved a state minimum wage plan. Ever since, the Court has shied away from any Lochnerian evocation of liberty of contract and has given broad deference to wages and hours laws.

Women and the Age of Reform: Legal Aspects

• In Bradwell v. Illinois (1873), Elizabeth Bradwell sought admission to the Illinois Bar. The Supreme Court of Illinois denied her a license to practice law, and Bradwell challenged the constitutionality of this denial. She argued that it violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which commands that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” The United States Supreme Court ruled against her. Justice Joseph P. Bradley’s concurrence is worth a close reading because it reveals the conservatism of judicial thinking a full twenty-five years after the Seneca Falls Declaration:

– “The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.”

• “The civil law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman.”

– Women and men are different – very different.– This difference is natural.– The law has always recognized this difference.


• “The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life.”– Women are delicate and timid.– These characteristics are natural.– They are also proper.– They evidently unfit women for many occupations.

• “The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood.”– There is a natural order to the family.– This form of domestic organization is divinely ordained.– It is part of the very nature of things.– The domestic sphere is the proper domain of women.


• It has always been a maxim of the common law that a woman has “no legal existence separate from her husband” (e.g., liberty of contract).– “The humane movements of modern society, which

have for their object the multiplication of avenues for women’s advancement, and of occupations adapted to her condition and sex, have my heartiest concurrence.”

– But – women have no constitutional right to choose any career they want.

Utopian Communes

-- and other responses to industrialization and developing capitalism in 19th-century America

New Social Realities in Industrializing America

• Developing market economy meant – More and greater variety of goods available– Rising standard of living for many

• Industrialization separated – Work from home– Worker from skill and connection with end product

• Emerging middle class enjoyed and/or asserted– Increasing political and economic power – Possibility of leisure – especially for women– Moral dominance in society

• Expressed through numerous reform and benevolent societies• The problems of urbanization (attending industrialization)

included– Crime– Obvious maldistribution of wealth– Prostitution – Poverty and disease

New Problems of Industrializing America

• Labor – Demanded better hours, wages, and the right to organize

• Women– Working-class women faced narrow range of poorly paid

jobs • Social divisions

– Disconnect between mind and menial labor– Confusion over individualism– Class divisions and competition

• In sum and at bottom for some– A falling away from founding ideals of civic virtue and

republicanism • In favor of laissez-faire capitalism, reckless economic

competition, and increasingly unrestrained individualism – by which I mean here attention to one’s own interests ahead of all others

Challenging the Economic & Social Paradigm

• Robert Owen– Identified problems in industrializing England

and Scotland, and sought to export his communal model to the United States when disciples established New Harmony in Indiana in the 1820s

• http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/nh.html (image)

• Fourierists– Believed that Christian Socialism was the

answer. Establish communal living arrangements in which people lived and worked according to their predilections and talents.

http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/nh.html


• Ralph Waldo Emerson– Identified a less tangible but no less significant problem

in rampant conformity and loss of individualism and self-reliance.

• Have students read “Self Reliance” (1841) and discuss– “Society is everywhere in conspiracy against the manhood of

every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each sharehold, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”

• Henry David Thoreau– Believed that civil disobedience could be a means of

change


• George Ripley – Saw social inequality as the problem.

• Have students read excerpts from his letters to Emerson and others when he decided to leave the church where he was pastor in order to establish Brook Farm. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/letter.html#ripley2

• Have them read Constitution of Brook Farm Association (in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Documents in American History, Vol. I, eds. Corbett and Naugle)

• John Humphrey Noyes– Sought “heaven on earth” but didn’t believe it to be possible in

“corrupt” society of the mid-nineteenth century. His solutions included restructuring the family through complex marriage, and stirred controversy.

• http://libwww.syr.edu/digital/images/o/OneidaCommunityPhotos/005.jpg• http://libwww.syr.edu/digital/images/o/OneidaCommunityPhotos/009.jpg• http://libwww.syr.edu/digital/images/o/OneidaCommunityPhotos/082.jpg• http://libwww.syr.edu/digital/images/o/OneidaCommunityPhotos/720.jpg

• Seneca Falls

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/letter.html#ripley2

http://libwww.syr.edu/digital/images/o/OneidaCommunityPhotos/005.jpg




Critiquing the Critiques

• Couldn’t and didn’t want to up-end capitalism– Private property remained sacrosanct

• The dangers of moral crusades– Have students read excerpts of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Blithedale

Romance and discuss the perceived dangers of moral crusades• http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/blthd11.txt

• The limits of reform– Women’s rights

• Seneca Falls was radical, but not as radical as “complex marriage”

• Other issues– Slavery– Temperance

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/blthd11.txt

Student Projects

• Individual– Research other mid-century social reforms – their

issues, obejcts, and fates – to present to class• Fruitlands, New Harmony, and Oneida communities;

Washingtonian Societies and “dry” laws; women’s rights; labor unions; moral reform, and others to be included on list

• Group– Debate the strengths, weaknesses, and plausibility of

Fourierism, for example

Women, Reform, and Constitutions of Gender and Identity, 1837-1915

Texts

• Margaret Fuller (1810-1850):– Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1844)

• http://www.arh.eku.edu/Eng/KOPACZ/fuller.htm (portraits, biography, etc.)

• http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/fuller/woman1.html (Online text of woman in the Nineteenth Century)

– “Dispatch 18” (as Foreign Correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune

• Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880):– “Letters from New York,” #50 (1843)– http://www.clements.umich.edu/Webguides/C/Child.html

• Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897)– From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

• http://docsouth.unc.edu/jacobs/menu.html


Texts

• Mary Boykin Chesnut (1823-1886):– From Mary Chesnut’s Civil War

• http://docsouth.unc.edu/chesnut/maryches.html

• Angelina Grimke Weld (1805-1879)– Letter XII: “Human Rights Not Founded on Sex”

(1837)• http://college.hmco.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/

author_pages/early_nineteenth/grimke_an.html

• Sarah Moore Grimke (1792-1873):– Letters on the Equality of the Sexes…

• http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/grimke3.html


Texts

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902):– Eighty Years and more: Reminiscences – Declaration of Sentiments

• http://www.ku.edu/carrie/docs/texts/seneca.htm

• Emily Dickinson (1830-1886):– http://www.bartleby.com/113/

• Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910):– Life in the Iron Mills

• http://www.samford.edu/schools/artsci/english/lasseter/editiron.htm

• Kate Chopin (1851-1904):– The Awakening (1899)

• http://www.pbs.org/katechopin/library/

Images of Women in the Nineteenth Century:American Painters and Their Subjects

• John Singer Sargent (1856-1925):– Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882)

• http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/Daughters_of_Edward_Darley_Boit.htm

– Madame X (1884)• http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/Madame_X.htm

• Mary Cassatt (1845-1926):– “The Child’s Bath” (1893)

• http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Impressionist/pages/IMP_6.shtml– “Portrait of the Artist (1878)

• http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOne.asp?dep=2&viewMode=1&item=1975%2E319%2E1

Images of Women in the Nineteenth Century:American Painters and Their Subjects

• James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903):– Symphony in White #1: Young Girl in

White• http://www.impressionniste.net/

turner_whistler_monet_tate_britain.htm

• Henry Tanner (1859-1937):– Salome (1900)

• http://americanart.si.edu/images/1983/1983.95.207A_1b.jpg

Anti-Lynching Campaignhttp://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/05/10/lynching.exhibit/

• Lynchings in America Of the 4,743 documented lynchings in the United States between 1882-1968, about three-quarters involved African-Americans. They're believed to have occurred in all but four states -- Connecticut, Massachusetts, Alaska, and Hawaii. Most of the lynchings were in the South, where Mississippi ranks first with 581 and Georgia, second with 531. The map reflects the 10 states that recorded the highest number of lynchings. Click on each state for more details.

• From: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/05/10/lynching.exhibit/

Anti-Lynching Websites

• African American Odyssey: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart6b.html

• A History of Jim Crow (rates sites): http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/resources/gateway/gw_antilynching.htm

• Video “A Passion For Justice” http://www.newsreel.org/nav/title.asp?tc=CN0166

Ida B. Wells

• http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aap/idawells.htmlPamphlets “Southern Horrors” and “A Red Record”

• Well’s Bio and Info: http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/wells.html

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aap/idawells.html

"One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap."

Fusion Politics and Lynching

• Learn More Teach More: http://www.dlt.ncssm.edu/lmtm/

• Wilmington Race Riot of 1898: http://www.mith.umd.edu/courses/amvirtual/wilmington/wilmington.html

• Democracy Betrayed http://www.ibiblio.org/uncpress/features/cecelski/pressrel.html

Student Activities

• AP DBQ Format Primary Source Docs: http://womhist.binghamton.edu/teacher/DBQaswpl.htm

• The power of Race: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm

Anti-Lynching Teacher Resources

• Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America http://www.frontlist.com/detail/0944092691

• An unexamined public spectacle: http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/african/2000/lynching.htm

• Slavery in America: http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/whats_new.htm