I. The Urban Frontier
a. Move To Cities
i. 1870-1900 – Population doubled
ii. 1870-1900 – Population of cities tripled
iii.
1860 – No cities had a million people; 1890 –
iv.
1900 –
b. Cities and Changes They created
i. Skyscrapers –
1. 1885
– First in
ii. Commuters –
1. Becoming this using the electric trolley
2. Also walked
iii. Districts –
1. Business, industry, residential
2. Segregated by race, ethnicity, and social class
c. Why Did Cities Draw People Off Farms and Into Factories In Cities?
i. Hard work of farms was unappealing (getting up pre-dawn to milk cows)
ii. City had entertainment
iii. Electricity, indoor plumbing, and telephones (1880 – 50,000; 1900 – 1 million)
iv. Cities were more glamorous (lights, skyscrapers, etc.)
v. Department stores
d. New Ways of Living
i. In the country, waste was eaten by animals (pigs or domestic); trash cans
ii. Rural women mended clothing and discarded it; cheap clothing was sold
iii. Household products were bought in bulk and not wrapped; throwaway boxes, bags, and cans
e. Dirty Cities
i. Sanitary facilities could not keep pace with the expanding population
ii. Impure water, uncollected garbage, unwashed bodies, and droppings from animals were common
f. Slums
i. Cities hosted a wide variety of people, from rich to poor
ii. Slums were the dirtiest
iii. Dumbbell tenement –
1. Named because of the outline of its floor plan
2. Usually 7-8 stories high, with shallow, sunless, and bad smelling air shafts providing minimal ventilation
3. Several families were crowded onto each floor
4. They shared a toilet
iv. Flophouses – unemployed would gather to sleep for a few cents in horrible conditions
v. Many hard-working people moved up and out of them
vi. Wealthiest people left the cities and headed for the semirural suburbs (“bedroom communities”); others migrated to urban neighborhoods with people of the same ethnicity or religion
II. The New Immigration
a. Anglo-Saxon Immigrants
i. 1850s-1870s – 2 million immigrants
ii. 1880s – 5 million immigrants
iii.
Most came from
iv. Most were Anglo-Saxon and usually Protestant (except Catholic Irish and Germans)
v. High rate of literacy
vi. Used to a representative government
vii. Farming was normal to them
b. Tide of Immigrants Change
i.
1880s – Came from southern and eastern
ii. Were orthodox or Jewish
iii. Came from countries with little history of democratic government
iv. Most were illiterate and poor (sought industrial jobs in the cities)
v. Many settled in the “Little Italys” of cities
vi. Some Americans feared that these New Immigrants would not or coulc not assimilate to life in their new land, and they began asking if the nation had become a melting pot or a dumping ground
III.
a. Why
Were Immigrants Coming To
i.
Europe had no room for them – population of
ii.
European industrialization – peasants left their farms
for factories in European cities; some went to
iii.
Land of opportunity – friends and relatives wrote in
letters that
iv. Persecutions – Many refugees fled their country (Russians turned on their Jews)
1. Were
used to city life and many went to
2. Brought tailoring and shopkeeping skills
3. Were given a bad reception from old-stock Americans
v.
Temporary workers – some worked temporarily in the
b. Preservation of Foreign Cultures & Assimilation
i. Catholics – private schools; Jews – Hebrew schools
ii. Jewish theaters and food stores, Italian social clubs, Greek restaurants
iii. Children were beginning to speak the English language
IV. Reactions to the New Immigration
a. Government and Immigrants
i. Government was more suited to governing wide-open spaces, not fast-growing cities. They could only minimally check for criminals, insane, and ease assimilation of immigrants
ii. As a result, political bosses began to take over. Some traded support of the immigrants at the polls for:
1. Housing
2. Food and clothes
3. Schools
4. Parks
5. Hospitals
iii. This gave valuable assistance to immigrants that was coming from nowhere else
b. Reform Movement Begins
i. Several Protestant clergymen helped kick start the reform movement:
1. Walter Raushcenbusch –
a. German
Baptist minister in
2.
a. Congregational
Church minister in
3. Both insisted that the churches tackle the burning social issues of the day
4. Predicted that socialism would be the logical outcome of Christianity. “Christian socialists” did much to prick the middle-class’s consciences
c. Jane Addams
i. Was a college educated woman
ii.
She established the most prominent American settlement
house in
iii. Courageously condemned war as well as poverty
iv. Member of the “Social Gospel” movement, which applied lessons from the Bible to help solve problems of immigration and urbanization
v. Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931
d.
i. Located in a poor immigrant neighborhood of Greeks, Italians, Russians, and Germans
ii. Offered:
1. Instruction in English
2. Counseling to help newcomers cope with American life
3. Child-care services for working mothers
4. Cultural activities for neighborhood residents
iii. Following Jane Addams’ lead, women founded settlement houses in other cities as well
e. Results of Settlement Houses
i. Became centers of women’s activism and of social reform
ii.
Hull House successfully lobbied in 1893 for an
f.
i. Led the above case
ii. Was a lifelong battler for the welfare of women, children, blacks, and consumers
iii. Served for 3 decades as general secretary of the National Consumers League
g. Results of Addams and Kelley
i. Opened the new profession of social work
h. Opportunities For Women In Cities
i. Over a million joined the work force in the 1890s
ii. Strict social codes prescribed which women might work and what jobs they might hold (employment for wives and mothers was taboo)
iii. Black women –
1. Domestic service
iv. White women –
1. Social workers
2. Secretaries
3. Department store clerks
4. Telephone operators
v. Immigrant women –
1. Tended to cluster in particular industries, such as Jewish women did in the garment trades
vi. After contributing their earnings to their family, many women still had money left over for leisure activities
V. Narrowing Immigration
a. Antiforeignism or Nativism
i. Nativists viewed the Eastern and Southern Europeans as culturally and religiously different/weird and often gave them a rude reception
ii. Their high birthrate raised worries that the original Anglo-Saxon stock would soon be outbred and outvoted
iii. Also thought their races were inferior
iv. Old stock Americans thought immigrants led to the degradation of urban government
v. Trade unions didn’t like immigrants because:
1. They were willing to work for cheap
2. Hard to unionize because of the language barrier
vi. Didn’t like socialism, communism, and anarchism
b. American Protective Association (APA)
i. Created in 1887 and soon had 1 million members
ii. Its goals were:
1. Against immigrants
2. Urged voting against Roman Catholics
c. Congress Curtails Immigration
i. 1882 – First restrictive law forbid poor, criminals, and convicts
ii. 1882 – Forbid Chinese immigrants
iii. 1885 – Prohibited the importation of foreign workers under contract
iv. Other laws prohibited:
1. Insane
2. Polygamists
3. Prostitutes
4. Alcoholics
5. Anarchists
6. People with contagious diseases
v. 1917 – Literacy test was required (had been vetoed by three presidents because it didn’t necessarily determine intelligence)
d. Positives of New Immigrants
i. Workpower
ii. Intelligence
iii. Diversity
VI. Churches Confront the Urban Challenge
a. Problems For Churches
i. Traditional doctrines didn’t apply in the city
ii. Large churches tended to become diversions or amusements
iii. Had to face a mounting emphasis on materialism
iv. New idea was that God caused the righteous to prosper (gospel of wealth)
b. Liberal Protestants
i. Dominated American Protestantism between 1875-1925
ii. Adapted religious ideas to modern culture and called for modest reform
iii. Rejected taking the Bible literally and questioned the idea of original sin
iv. Sought to mediate:
1. Laborers and rich
2. Science and faith
3. Religious and secular values
v. Trusted in community fellowship and focused on earthly salvation
vi. Helped Protestant Americans reconcile their religious faith with modern, diverse ways of thinking
c. Roman Catholics
i. Gaining strength from the New Immigration
ii. 1900 – Catholics became the largest single denomination – 9 million
iii. Cardinal James Gibbons was a leader who appealed to both Catholics and Protestants. He was sympathetic to the American labor movement
d. What Were the New Religions During This Period?
i. 150 religious denominations
ii. Salvation Army –
1. Came
from
2. Appealed to the poor
3. Did practical good by giving away food
iii. Christian Science –
1. Founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879
2. Preached that the true practice of Christianity heals sickness
3. Held out the hope of relief from problems and diseases through prayer
4. At her death, her church embraced several hundred thousand
e. YMCA
i. Young Men’s and Women’s Christian Associations
ii. Grew after the Civil War
iii. Combined physical education with religious instruction
iv. “Y’s” appeared in nearly every major American city by the end of the 19th century
VII.
a. On the Origin of Species (1859)
i. Written by a biologist, Charles Darwin
ii. Proposed theory that higher forms of life had slowly evolved from lower forms, through a process of random biological mutation and adaptation
iii. Natural selection – Held that some traits conferred advantages in the struggle for life. Those with them would pass them on, those without them would probably die
iv. His theory contradicted “creationism” – which says that a divine, omnipotent power created everything
v. His theory would become the main scientific belief by the 1920s
b. Other Biologists
i. Some still believed in creationism
ii. Most embraced organic evolution
iii. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck – French biologist who argued that traits acquired during the course of life could shape the development of a species
c. Reaction of Clergy
i. At first, they rejected his ideas outright
ii. Then, when the theory became more accepted, the religious community split in two:
1. One group believed that the Scripture is the infallible Word of God
2. Other feared that hostility toward evolution would alienate educated believers, so that began to accept Darwinism and Christianity together – God still was the one who orchestrated the evolutionary process
d. Results of the Theory of Evolution
i. Promoted skepticism
ii. Science and religion began to diverge (less emphasis on God and nature)
VIII. Lust For Learning
a. Elementary Schools
i. Tax-supported elementary schools were adopted on a nation-wide basis before the Civil War (concerned that if the people are ignorant, then the government will not function properly)
ii. More State were making elementary schools mandatory
b. High Schools
i. Before the Civil War, tax-supported high schools were rare
ii. Spread in the 1880s and 1890s
iii. Opinion was that every citizen should have a high school education was gaining support; 1900 – 6,000 high schools
c. Other Features of Schools
i. Free textbooks gained support in the 1880s and 1890s
ii. Teacher-training schools expanded (normal schools)
iii. New Immigration led to the strength of private, Catholic schools
d. Chautauqua Movement
i. Schools excluded adults
ii.
This was launched in 1874 in
iii. Were public lectures and featured well-known speakers, such as Mark Twain
iv. Offered home study courses – 1892: 100,000 people enrolled
e. Results of Schools
i. Literacy rate –
1. 1870 – 20%
2. 1900 – 10.7%
IX. Booker T. Washington and Education For Black People
a. Booker T. Washington
i. 44% of non-whites were illiterate
ii. Biggest proponent of black education
iii.
Headed a black “normal school” in
iv. He advocated teaching black students useful trades so that they could gain self-respect and economic security. This would lead to black political and civil rights
v. Advocated gradualism and separatism
vi. His policies stopped short of directly challenging white supremacy and avaoided issues of social equality (accommodationist)
b. George Washington Carver
i.
Taught and researched at
ii. Discovered hundreds of new uses for the peanut (shampoo, axle grease), sweet potato (vinegar), and soybean (paint)
c. W.E.B. DuBois
i. Earned a PhD at Harvard (first black to do so)
ii.
Thought
iii. Demanded complete equality (social and economic) for blacks
iv. Helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910
v. Advocated for the most talented community of blacks (“The Talented Tenth”) to be given immediate access to mainstream American life
X. Colleges and Universities
a. Colleges Increase
i. Colleges –
1. Many grew after the Civil War
ii. Women’s Colleges –
1. Women’s colleges were growing
2. 1880 – Every third college graduate was a woman
iii. Black Colleges –
1. Black colleges were growing
a.
b. Hampton
Institute in
c.
b. Legislation That Helped Colleges
i. Morrill Act of 1862 –
1. Provided a generous grant of public lands to States for education
2. Most “land-grant colleges” became State universities
ii. Hatch Act of 1887 –
1. Extended the Morrill Act
2. Provided federal funds for the establishment of agricultural experiment stations in connection with land-grant colleges
iii. Both created over 100 colleges and universities, including:
1.
2.
3.
c. Private Philanthropy –
i. Supplemented federal grants
ii. Many new industrial millionaires granted money ($150 million)
iii. Some of these included:
1. Cornell (1865)
2. Leland Stanford Junior (1891)
3. University of Chicago (1892) – John D. Rockefeller (gave $550 million to philanthropic purposes)
d. Professional
and
i. These schools increased, too
ii. Hands-on labs replaced solo instruction
iii.
1. Opened in 1876
2. Nation’s first high-grade graduate school
3. Reputable scholars no longer had to go abroad for a graduate degree
4. Dr.
Woodrow Wilson received his PhD from
XI. March of the Mind
a. Educational Theory
i. Stressed the “unity of truth” or the idea that knowledge and morality existed in a single system
ii. Reconciled scientific education and religion to preserve the unity of moral and intellectual purpose
iii. When that effort failed, universities began secularizing their instruction
b. Curriculum
i. New industrialization brought insistent demands for practical courses and specialized vocational training
ii. The elective system was gaining popularity
iii. Specialization was the new goal of university education
iv.
Dr. Charles Eliot – president of
c. Medicine
i. Still wasn’t great, but improving
ii. Louis Pasteur – pasteurization; Joseph Lister – Listerine
iii. Mustaches became associated with germ traps, so they declined
iv. New awareness of health
d. William James & Psychology
i. Wrote:
1. Principles of Psychology (1890) – Helped to establish the modern discipline of behavioral psychology
2. The Will to Believe (1897) & Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) – Explored the psychology of religion
3. Pragmatism (1907) – Described the concept of pragmatism – held that the truth of an idea was to be tested, above all, by its practical consequences
XII. Appeal of the Press
a. Libraries
i. More were being built for access to all classes
ii. 1897 - Library of Congress – largest library in the world – 28 million books; 26 million records available online
iii. Carnegie contributed $60 million for public libraries
iv. 1900 – 9,000 libraries
b. Sensationalism & Yellow Journalism
i. Linotype – sped up typesetting by making possible the automatic casting of type in lines
ii. Sensationalism – Semiliterate immigrants and urban commuters created a market for news that was simply written and about sex, scandal, and human interest stories. It also boosted circulation
iii. Yellow Journalism –
1. Joseph Pulitzer was a leader in sensationalism in New York World. His use of the colored comic supplements, featuring the “Yellow Kid,” gave the name yellow journalism to his stories (Pulitzer prizes are awarded to 21 people for outstanding achievement in drama, letters, music, and journalism each year)
2. William Randolph Hearst was a competitor who also used yellow journalism. He built up a powerful chain of newspapers from his father’s fortune in mines. He began with the San Francisco Examiner in 1887
iv. Pulitzer and Hearst both “stooped, snooped, and scooped to conquer” and sell more papers
v. Their news was offset by syndicated material and the gathering of news (Associated Press – 1840s)
vi.
Their “Yellow Journalism” writing helped lead the
XIII. Journalist-Reformers
a. Magazines
i. Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, and Scribner’s Monthly were all popular
ii. Nation –
1. Created in 1865
2. Created by Edwin L. Godkin
3. Read mostly by professors, preachers, and publicists
4. It crusaded militantly for civil-service reform, honesty in government, and a moderate tariff
5. Godkin believed that if he could reach only 10,000 leaders, those leaders might be the right ones to help spread his ideas to millions
b. Henry George
i.
After seeing poverty at its worst in
ii. He believed that the pressure of growing population on a fixed supply of land unjustifiably pushed up property values, giving unearned profits on owners of land
iii. He wanted the unearned profits to have a “single tax” of 100%
iv. He also lectured on the maldistribution of wealth
c. Edward Bellamy
i. Published a socialist novel called Looking Backward. It sold 1 million copies
ii. The hero falls asleep and wakes up in 2000. He “looks backward” and finds that the social and economic injustices of 1887 have melted away under an idyllic (perfect or harmonious) government, which has nationalized (government has taken away control of business or industry) big business to serve the public interest
XIV. Postwar Writing
a. Dime Novels
i. Cheap paperback novels were popular
ii. Usually depicted the wilds of the West (good against bad and good wins)
iii. Harlan Halsey made 650 of these novels
b. General Lewis Wallace
i. Wrote a novel called Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880)
ii. It sold 2 million in many languages
iii. Later was a play and movie
iv.
Was a book against
c. Horatio Alger
i. Wrote more than a hundred volumes of juvenile fiction that sold over 100 million copies
ii. His formula was that virtue, honesty, and industry are rewarded by success, wealth, and honor
iii. He implanted morality and the conviction that there is always room at the top
d. Walt Whitman
i. Wrote Leaves of Grass – 12 poems; most famous was “Song of Myself” – embraced all people and places all over the world
ii.
The assassination of
e. Emily Dickinson
i. Didn’t become famous until after she died and her poems were found
ii.
She became one of
iii. She talked about the agonies and triumphs of love, sexuality, death, horror of war, religious belief
XV. Literary Landmarks
a. Romanticism was now turned to materialism, social problems, and contemporary life - reflecting the industrialized society
b. Kate Chopin
i. Wrote candidly about adultery, suicide, and women’s ambitions in The Awakening (1899)
ii. She was rediscovered by later readers
c. Mark Twain
i. Born Samuel Longhorn Clemens, but his pen name was Mark Twain (meant two fathoms) – he had served as a MI riverboat pilot
ii. Teamed up with another author in 1873 to write The Gilded Age, a satire about post-Civil War politicians and speculators
iii. Described his journey to CA with truth and fiction in Roughing It (1872)
iv. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) became classics
v. Became a well-known platform lecturer toward the end of his career in which he spoke out on public issues and reform. He needed the money because he had made some bad investments
vi. His writings portray the essence of life and speech during the era; his use of a distinctly American vernacular influenced future fiction writers
d. Bret Harte
i. Became popular through gold-rush stories such as “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”
e. William Dean Howells
i.
Editor in chief of
ii. Was awarded 6 honorary degrees
iii. Wrote on contemporary and controversial social issues, such as divorce (in A Modern Instance – 1882), reformers, strikers, etc.
f. Stephen Crane
i.
Wrote about the underside of life in urban, industrial
ii. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893) was a story about a poor prostitute driven to suicide
iii. The Red Badge of Courage (1895) was a psychological study of a Civil War soldier
iv. Died of tuberculosis at 29
g. Henry Adams
i. Grandson of John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of John Adams
ii. Historian, novelist, and critic
iii. Wrote 9-volume History of the United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison (1889-1891)
h. Henry James
i. The Bostonians (1886) was one of the first novels about the rising feminist movement
ii. He frequently made women his central characters, exploring their inner reactions to complex situations
i. Jack London
i. The Call of the Wild (1903) – reversal of the civilized person to a primitive state
j. Frank Norris
i. The Octopus (1901) – about the stranglehold of the railroad and corrupt politicians on CA wheat ranchers
k. Paul Laurence Dunbar & Charles W. Chesnutt
i. Embraced the use of black dialect and folklore, previously shunned by black authors, to capture the richness of black culture
l. Theodore Dreiser
i.
Sister Carrie (1900)
was a graphically realistic narrative of a poor working girl in
XVI. The New Morality
a. Victoria
Woodhull &
i. Published a periodical with her sister called Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly
ii. They were feminists and sometimes published shocking stories in their journal (Henry Ward Beecher, the most famous preacher of his day, had for years been carrying on an adulterous affair)
b. Anthony Comstock
i. Made a lifelong war on the immoral
ii. Helped to pass the Comstock Law which helped confiscate:
1. Over 200,000 obscene pictures
2. Over 4,100 abortion pills
3. 26 obscene pictures on walls of saloons
c. Importance of the Woodhull Sisters and Comstock
i. Exposed the battle over sexual attitudes and the place of women
ii. Economic freedom encouraged sexual freedom and “new morality,” which was reflected in:
1. Soaring divorce rates
2. Spreading of birth control
3. Increasing discussion of sexual topics
XVII. Families and Women in the City
a. Divorce
i. Urban families were separated from the rest of their family and the immediate family became the center for emotional and psychological satisfaction
ii. As a result, stress in families increased and led to increasing divorces
b. Work Habits and Family Size
i. Fathers, mothers, and children as young as ten years old worked
ii. On the farm, having many children meant having more hands to help, but in the city more children meant more mouths to feed, crowdedness, and less opportunity for social mobility. As a result:
1. Birth rates dropped
2. Marriages were delayed
3. Birth control increased
c. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
i. Women were growing more independent in the working, urban environment
ii. She shunned traditional feminine attitudes and physically exercised and philosophically meditated
iii. Wrote Women and Economics (1898), which called on women to abandon their dependent status and contribute to the larger life of the community through productive involvement in the economy
iv. Advocated centralized nurseries and cooperative kitchens to facilitate women’s participation in the work force – anticipating the day-care and fast-food services of 50 years in the future
d. Women’s Suffrage
i. Many reformers put the rights of blacks above suffrage
ii. 1890 – National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was formed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
e. Carrie Chapman Catt
i. By 1900, a new generation of women had taken command of the suffrage battle, including Carrie Chapman Catt
ii. Catt de-emphasized the argument that women deserved the vote because they were equal to men
iii. Catt stressed the desirability of giving women the vote if they were to continue to discharge their traditional duties as homemakers and mothers in the city. Women had special responsibility for the health of the family and the education of children. In the city, women needed a voice on boards of public health, police commissions, and school boards
f. Women’s Rights Increase
i.
In 1869,
ii. By 1890, most of the States had passed laws to permit wives to own or control their property after marriage
g. Black Women
i. Women’s organizations excluded them
ii. The NAWSA limited membership to whites because they thought it would hinder their efforts to get the vote
iii. Black women created their own associations
iv. Ida B. Wells inspired black women to mount a nationwide antilynching crusade. She also helped launch the blacks women’s club movement, which culminated with the National Association of Colored Women in 1896
XVIII. Prohibition of Alcohol and Social Progress
a. Alcohol Consumption Increases
i. Increased:
1. During the nerve-racking days of the Civil War
2. New immigrant groups were accustomed to alcohol
ii. Many were resistant to the parallel reform movement because they thought it amounted to a middle-class assault on working-class lifestyles
b. National Prohibition Party
i. Organized in 1869
ii. Polled only a few votes
c. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
i. Organized in 1874
ii. Frances E. Willard was its leader – she championed planned parenthood
iii. Carrie A. Nation would go into saloons and smash bottles and bars with her hatchet. This actually setback the movement because of her violence
d. Prohibition Movement Grows
i. Anti-Saloon League was formed in 1893
ii. States were prohibiting alcohol
iii. The 18th Amendment was passed in 1919 which eliminated the sale, manufacture, or consumption of alcohol
e. Other Social Agencies
i.
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals was created in 1866 (its founder had witnessed brutality to horses in
ii. American Red Cross was created in 1881 by Clara Barton
XIX. Artistic Triumphs
a. Painters – many had made their living abroad (were too preoccupied with nation-building at home)
i. James Whistler –
1. Famous
for the portrait of his mother, in
ii. John Singer Sargent & Mary Cassatt
1. Both
American painters who gained fame in
iii. George Inness
1. Was
iv. Thomas Eakins
1. Realistically painted portraits
v. Winslow Homer
1. Canvases of the sea and of fisherfolk were masterpieces (probably no American artist has excelled him in potraying the awesome power of the ocean)
vi. Augustus Saint-Gaudens
1. Most
gifted
2. In 1897, he depicted Colonel Shaw, a young white leading his black troops into battle in the Civil War
b. Music
i. Was assembling high-quality symphony orchestras - this brought European music to elite American audiences
ii. In the South, black folk traditions like spirituals and “ragged music” were evolving into the blues, ragtime, and jazz, which would transform American popular music in the 20th century
c. Architects
i. Louis Sullivan –
1. Popularized a distinctive, ornamental style that came to be known as “Richardsonian”
2. High-vaulted arches, like those on Gothic churches, were his trademark
3. His
most famous work was the
ii. Classical architectural forms –
1. Gained
popularity at the great Columbian Exposition in
2. It was a setback for realism
3. Raised American artistic standards and promoted city planning
XX. Amusement and Leisure Time Activities
a. Why Did People Seek Leisure More In This Era?
i. No more exploring out West
ii. People were making more money
b. What Were the Leisure Activities?
i. Watching plays
1. Vaudeville – a type of variety show
2. Minstrel shows – now performed by black singers and dancers rather than by whites wearing blackface
3. Wild West shows – headed by William “Buffalo Bill” Cody (included Indians, live buffalo, and deadeye marksmen – including Annie Oakley)
ii. Circus (Barnum and Bailey was formed in 1881)
iii. Sports were becoming popular:
1. Baseball was increasing in popularity (a league of professional players was formed in the 1870s)
2. Basketball was invented by James Naismith in 1891. He was a YMCA instructor who was trying to invent an active indoor sport to be played in winter months
3. Football was increasing in popularity
4. Boxing was gaining respectability
5. Croquet was becoming popular (moralists condemned it because it exposed feminine ankles and promoted flirtation)
6. Bicycles gained safety features and were improved (by 1983 a million bicycles were in use)