LESSON 16 - Turn of the Century
Objectives:
Identify and understand how technology influenced and shaped the growth of the United States
Identify and understand how social change was impacted and how it impacted the country
Identify and understand how the lives of minorities changed during the turn of the century
Identify and understand how entertainment influenced American culture
Technology and the United States
The technological advances impacting the nation were used to reduce the problems of city life. With the Bessemer Process, steel frameworks were used to build tall buildings. These new skyscrapers allowed the cities to build up and maximize the limited land. Streetcars were now used for public transportation, which allowed people to live in one part of the city and work in another. These transit links were then expanded to connect different cities and the surrounding suburbs into a collected larger area. Most cities built elevated train lines to free up street space and avoid traffic jams. Steel was used to create bridges across large rivers, connecting previously difficult to reach parts of the city. While the cities were growing more efficient, city planners looked at making them more attractive and livable. These planners created vast parks and recreational areas such as Central Park in New York City. Major cities such as Boston and Chicago would create parks to help beautify their cities and create areas of peace and calm in often hectic
Second, the development of new public transit systems, was important in shaping the design of our cities and the growth of our cities by enabling people to move further away from the inner city. Early on, large cities didn’t really have public transportation. Their main source of transportation were horse drawn wagons and walking. In conclusion, most people lived near on in the downtown area, where most of the working establishments were located. Because of this, it made big cites crowed and congested. With the breakthrough of the “el”, electric streetcars, and subways, around 1867, cities began expand more. Those who were fortunate enough to move out of the dirty cities and into better neighborhoods surrounded outside the city, did so. The new transit systems in most cities allowed people to escape the chaos of urban life and provided potential for growth of our cities.
Second, the development of new public transit systems, was important in shaping the design of our cities and the growth of our cities by enabling people to move further away from the inner city. Early on, large cities had very little and inadequate transportation. Their main source of transportation were horse drawn wagons and walking. As a result, most people lived or took housing near downtown, which was where most of the working establishments were located. This made the big cities very congested. However with the breakthrough of the “el”, electric streetcars, and subways, around 1867, cities began to open up more. Those who were fortunate enough to move out of the slums and into better surrounding neighborhoods, did so. The more affluent of the white-collar classes moved into the suburban areas. In contrast, many of the very wealthy continued to live in city mansions. The new transit systems in most cities allowed people to escape the chaos of urban life and provided potential for growth of our cities.
America has always been labeled the “melting pot” and the “land of the free,” but when one is analyzing the history and social norms of the country, these statements are far from true. America has thrived through the oppression of minority groups and social pressure towards these groups to conform to the majority culture. In any historical sense, from the near extermination of Native Americans to the racial profiling of Muslim individuals after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, minority groups have always been the victims and have always been viewed as different if they do not assimilate into the “typical” American culture. Numerous works of literature have successfully displayed the struggles that minorities face when attempting to conform. Two works in particular, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Alexie Sherman and When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka, tell stories of two different minority groups: Native Americans living in the 21st century and Japanese-Americans during World War II. While these stories are separated by several decades, it is clear that American culture has not changed, as each story exemplifies how difficult it truly is to leave old cultural norms behind in order to be accepted by the majority.
The 1920’s marked a period of great racial tension throughout American Society, with the period often regarded as a melting pot due to such strains and tensions. The immigration of new, non-protestant immigrants such as Catholics and Jews since the turn of the century had brought about large scale unease due to the sheer number of immigrants. Combined with Mexicans, Orientals as well as a rapidly growing black population, these minority groups were to suffer at the hands of those concerned with the values of White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, with these values playing a fundamental role in the American way of life.
The beginning of the twentieth century brought with it relative peace and growth of economies throughout the world. New technological developments such as airplanes, radio, cinema, and automobiles were created during this time frame. Europe’s powerful countries consolidated in their colonial conquests from earlier decades that balanced their alliances. However, after only a few decades into the twentieth century multiple tensions between the great powers surfaced. These tensions caused the great powers to separate into different alliances and eventually lead to the Great War.
During the time of World War II, there was a dramatic change in the society of America and its way of life. Men were needed at war and the women were left at home. People were mistrusted and were falsely accused of something they didn’t do. Some people were even pushed away because they were different. These people were the minorities of America. Some of the minorities it affected the most were the African Americans, women, Japanese Americans, and even young adults. What is a minority? A minority, in this case, is a person or group of people who are discriminated against because there is something about them that makes them different. Some of these reasons why they are different are things like race, gender, and even age. However, the real
When looking at the social changes in American culture at the turn of the century, we see extraordinary differences in the accepted behaviours and thoughts of American citizens. The century saw a major shift in the way that people lived, with changes in politics, society, culture, economics, and technology. At the beginning of the century, discrimination based on race and sex was significant, but by the end of the 20th century, women had the same legal rights as men and racism had come to be seen as detestable.
Henry Ford once said, “If everything is moving forward together then success takes care of itself”. Society has been revising how we live for centuries and still continues to do so. Naturally, we look for ways to improve humanity and make the world a better place to live. One critical contributor to the success of society in the 1920s was Henry Ford. Henry Ford’s ingenuity gave birth to something that would revolutionize society for years to come. This was the beginning of a new era. Henry Ford’s automobiles revolutionized civilization in many aspects. Innovations in technology and how it’s made impacted people’s lives in the 1920s and modern-day life.
The intellectual elements of 1815-1848 really revolutionized transportation and communication. The creation of roads really helped to dramatically cut travel time. These roads brought together the major urban areas that are located along the eastern seaboard (Keene, 263). What came next was even more measureable than the network of roads. The invention of the steamboat proved to be an economic blessing to river cities such as New Orleans (Keene, 264). It greatly changed the idea of upriver travel. The steamboat reduced the journey from New Orleans to Louisville to about a week. Canals also proved to make transporting goods even cheaper and faster. The largest undertaking to build a canal was proposed by the governor of New York. This canal
In the late ninetieth and early twentieth century; also known as the Gilded Age, there was a rapid growth in the Unite States’ economy and a large increase in population due to the significant changes made in the industrial industry of the country. The reasoning behind the rapid influx of European citizens migrating to United States was because payment wages in America were dramatically higher than those in Europe and the availability of jobs were also significantly higher as well. All the new immigrants coming in from Europe, the Native Americans, and the African Americans trying to adapt into the labor force of the country were referred to as the “non-white” category. The changes made in society forced these groups of individuals to assimilate into industrial labor process of America and by adapting to the way of society. Which caused all the minority groups to take away or change their own certain cultural value and ways of life . Being forced to adapt to new ways in society is how a country grows and proposers, by living in the country you sometimes have to make certain changes you do not want to make in order to survive in the country. The changes were not made in order to target and attack certain minority groups, but rather to help the United States economy and bring more job opportunities for all the people. Racism and segregation played a big role in the adapting process in the United States economy because the job opportunities provided many new benefits
All minority groups seem to suffer and seem to advance in some others, all though advancements usually took years to accomplish. Everyone who has come to America has been a minority at one point in history. People who came to America from across the sea were a group that suffered compared to the Native Americans. Then the Native Americans became a group who suffered at the hands of the white man. For this paper I will solely look at the minorities during WWII, the African-Americans, the Japanese-Americans and Mexican-Americans.
Chicago, which was swampy at first, had no mountain barrier; this allowed easy traveling for trade. Chicago was also economically linked to New York because the moneymakers like William Butler, helped developed Chicago. Butler brought money to Chicago to help it become the booming city it eventually did. The new city became an industrial powerhouse, which linked the entire United States from the Erie Canal down to the Mississippi River. Connecting Chicago to these canals and rivers allowed it to turn into enormous global trade area.
As seen numerous times in American history, minorities have been thought of as inferior through the eyes of society. How did attitudes towards discrimination against minorities change through the end of the 19th century? When people took the time to look at individuals with a new perspective, their opinions changed regarding the minorities’ stereotypes. Discrimination during the 19th century was widely accepted until individuals experienced personal interactions, changing their perception regarding minorities and differing from societies’ views.
In this course I have learned about different social problems in societies worldwide. Some of these include poverty, social inequality, discrimination of race and culture, urbanization, and more. After learning all these subjects and more, I have decided to do my final on social inequality and minorities in the United States. I chose this particular topic because I have seen this in almost every place have lived. I find it appalling that minorities are still not treated 100% equal. We as Americans know what inequality is and know how it is used in our everyday society. I want to explore this topic and show how real and big this
In the early years of the United States, dominant-minority relations were shaped by the agrarian technology and the economic need to control land and labor. The agrarian era ended in the 1800s, and the U.S. has gone through two major transformations in subsistence technology since, each of which has transformed dominant-minority relations and required the creation of new structures and processes to maintain racial stratification and white privilege (Healey, p. 131). The early 1800s to the mid-1900s was the industrial revolution, where machines replaced animal and human labor. Today’s society is known as the postindustrial or deindustrialized society which