Chapter 9 Sec 3



Chapter 9 Sec 3

Reforming Society

Reforming City Life

• By 1920 50% of Americans lived in urban areas.

• Cities struggled to provide:

o Garbage collection

o Safe and affordable housing

o Health care

o Police and fire protection

o Adequate public education

Cleaning up the City

• Various women’s and men’s clubs and reform societies asked for help to clean up cities.

• Lawrence Veiler- Head of N.Y. State Tenement House Commission

o Interviewed residents and discovered problems.

o 1901 passed N.Y. Tenement House Act

▪ new tenements built around open courtyards

▪ contain/bathroom for each apartment or every 3 rooms

• National Tuberculosis Association

o Fun, special hospitals to treat disease

o By 1915 death rate dropped significantly

o 1908 Massachusetts Law Required cities with 10,000 hold election to pay for at least one playground.

▪ 41 of 42 cities passed it.

• Some critics from middle and upper class objected to using taxes to pay for poor.

City Planning

▪ First National Conference on City Planning was held in 1909

o Cleaner cities would produce better citizens

o Beautiful cities would inspire patriotism.

▪ Daniel Burnham was first to redesign a major city-Chicago 1909

o Other cities hired him

o Only successful and fully built design was in Washington D.C.

o City planning was necessary function

▪ Parks

▪ Building codes

▪ Sanitation standards

▪ Zoning

Moral Reform

o Prohibition – ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages and closing of saloons

o Reduce crime and breakup of families

o McClure’s Magazine- George Kibbe Turner

o “The Story of an Alcohol Slave, as Told by Himself.”

o To truly reform U.S. cities, saloons must be closed

o Colleges did not allow student athletes to drink

o Industrialists tried to get workers not to drink

o Text books had info on dangers of alcohol

Passage of Prohibition

o Anti-Saloon League (ASL) and Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

o By 1902 ASL has branches in 39 states with 200 paid employees.

o Many ministers spread message in church

▪ Billy Sunday saloons were “the parent of crimes and mother of sins”

▪ France Willard red WCTU from 1879-1889 force for temperance, moral purity, and women’s rights.

o During WWI prohibitionists drew on patriotic sacrifice

o U.S. Navy banned consumption of alcohol in 1914

o 1917 Congress passed 18th amendment states ratified in 1919

▪ proved unpopular and hard to enforce

▪ repealed in 1933 with 21st amendment

Movie Going

o Urban reformers believed movies were a threat to morality

o “Great Train Robbery” first movie to tell a story- 1903

o by 1910 millions were going to movies each week

o In 1916 NY times reported movies were 5th largest industry in U.S.

o Nickelodeons provided cheap entertainment

o Many mid class believed movies were immoral and sources of temptation

o Reformers demanded censorship

o States and cities set up censorships boards to ban movies they considered immoral

o By 1909 movie industry censored itself

Progressivism and Racial Discrimination

o Concerned about Plight of Poor

o Few devoted much energy to Racial discrimination and prejudice

o Some expressed open prejudice against Blacks and Native Americans

Views of W.E.B.Du Bois

o Influential Black leaders emerged

o Born 1886 in Massachusetts.

o Attended mixed Sunday school classes

o Not until high school did he realize his skin color caused people to dislike him.

o Attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.

o In 1895 he became the first black to earn a PHD from Harvard.

o Taught at Atlanta University until 1910

o Strong supporter of civil rights

▪ Access to college and vocational schools offered best chance

▪ Blacks should be politically active

Booker T. Washington-opposing views

• Blacks should not fight discrimination

• Focus on education and economic prosperity

• Throughout career Du Bois maintained interest in Africa.

o 1920’s organized series of Pan African congresses that attracted black leaders from around world.

o By 1950’s embraced socialism for its promise of social justice

o In 1961 at age of 93, joined Communist Party and moved to Ghana- Died in 1963

African Americans Organize

o In 1909 Du Bois and a group of black and white progressives met in N.Y. City

o Discussed lynching of 2 men in Springfield, Illinois

o NAACP- National Association for the Advancement of colored people was formed

o Dubois edited The Crisis which publicized cases of racial inequality

o By 1918 magazines circulation rose to 100,000

o Used court system to fight civil rights restriction

o 1915-Guinn v. U.S.

▪ outlawed “grandfather” clause

▪ This freed men from other voting requirements if their father or grandfathers had voted.

▪ 1917 Buchanan v. Warley overturned a Louisville, Kentucky law requiring racially segregated housing.

▪ National Urban League-1911

• Improve job opportunity and housing for urban African Americans

American Indians Organize

▪ Dawes Act of 1887-Indians lost land to speculators and fell deeper in poverty by 50 middle class professional

▪ Improve civil rights

• Education

• Health

• Local government

• Publicized accomplishments of Jim Thorpe

• Some wanted strong native cultures while other favored assimilation

• Some criticized Bureau of Indian Affairs for Mismanaging Reservations

Immigrants and Assimilation

▪ Lobbied for improving immigrants lives as well as conditions in workplace and slums.

▪ Some criticized immigrants for immoral behavior.

▪ 1916 Madison Grant publishes “The Passing of the Great Race”

o Expressed racist opinions about blacks, Jews, and immigrants from south and eat Europe

▪ Americanization-process of preparing foreign born residents for citizenship

▪ Focus was on educating immigrants

▪ Learn to read, write, and speak English.

▪ Also U.S. history and government

▪ Cities and states passed Americanization measures

▪ 1924 Horace Kallen Wrote Culture and Democracy in U.S.

▪ Supports pluralism or home to a number of distinctive cultures

▪ Some immigrants supported Americanization without giving up ethnic identities.

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