Formation of American CultureIncorporation and Racial Exclusion

Week 3

1870-1900• Modernity, opulence, poverty, corruption• Industrialization, immigration, urbanization (by

1890 1/3 of all Americans lived in big cities• 1869, transcontinental railroad cuts time to

head West from NYC to SF from 6 months to 6 days; railroads soon link cities in every state

• Rise of trusts and corporations• Rise of National Labour organizations • Urban poor affected by new economies 1873

and 1893 panics• Populists, Anarchists and Socialists

The Business of America• After the Civil War the average business changes from

small, family run to the corporation• Inventions and technology: Centennial Exhibition in

1876 showcases steam engines, telephone (patented AG Bell)

• Opening of Menlo Park lab/ 1879 markets incandescent lamp which burns 13 hrs. 1882 service covers NY financial district

• George Selden designs first internal combustion gasoline powered auto but never built. Ford challenges his patent in 1895. Mass production in 1902 (Ransom Olds)

• Assembly line developed in meat packing industry 1860s

• Cigaret marchine (1881) makes 7000 per hour whereas one skilled worker made 3000 in a day

Post Civil War Industrialization, Consolidation, Commodification

• New meaning of “union”—Transcontinental railroad completed 1869; rise of railroad industry; resistance to corporate oppression through labor mov’t

• Mail-order houses Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck; chain stores A &P, Woolworth’s; spread of urban to country

• Department stores like Marshall Field (Chi); Filene’s (Boston)

• Advertising begins Francis W. Ayer (1869); 1860 revenue 8 million rises to $102 million in revenue by 1900

Impact

• Capital goods rises more than 7% year after Civil War

• 1865 output of goods est 2 million; 1900 13 million; US moves from 4th to 1st in productivity. US industry manf 1/3 world’s goods

• Markets become more volatile as competition disappears– panics of 1873 and 1893 kill off smaller competitors

• Standard Oil controls 90% of nation’s oil refining in 1880; made a Trust in 1882

“Incorporating” Culture

• C 19th C: favors growth of new class united by pursuit of money and pleasure

• Rise of cultural elites (incorporation of culture)

• Thorstein Veblen: wealthy elites embrace culture as “conspicuous consumption”

• Founding of major national museums (Met, 1872; new wing of Louvre 1874; Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1891)

• New white middle class• Culture as means of self-

improvement and moral uplift (via Arnold)

• Patrons for museums, public libraries, opera, theatre, etc.

• Middle-class childhood boon for toy industry and literature (mostly authored by women)

• Appropriation and exclusion of aberrant cultures: canonicity

Birth of Discourse: Advertising Mass Culture

• Right: early Coca Cola ad ca 1886

• 1838-1900: First department stores revolutionize retail marketing

• 1872: Montgomery Ward Establishes Mail-Order Business

• 1893: Columbian Exposition

• 1894: Kellogg's Corn Flakes Launch the Dry Cereal Industry

• In US: post Civil War technology boom; birth of modern corporations

The Fall of Reconstruction: Consolidating the National Interest

• White intimidation and violence– the Ku Klux Klan (Tennessee, 1866-71)– the threats of Carpetbaggers and black manhood to white male

supremacy– Southern women used as means of generating KKK myth

• Decline in Republican and black voting• Defeat of Reconstruction governments—alleged corruption

over financing of southern railroads and other businesses• Northern complicity and the Compromise of 1877. “Home

Rule” promised in exchange for letting the Republican pres. candidate win

Policies of Removal and Extermination 1851 Appropriations Act Moves Natives in California onto

reservations maintained by US govt

1871Appropriations Act

Tribes no longer recognized; Native Americans are individual wards of government; US govt no longer liable to sign treaties to annex land

1885 Indians “allowed” to sell lands in Indian Territory to white settlers

Thompson v Doaksum, any Indians lands left over now in public domain

1887 Dawes Act forces assimilation through pvt land owenership; 150 million native-owned acres declines to 78 million in 1900

Mexican ranchero class tries to defend land rights against squatters, but loses money and lands in court battles

Native Americans politically disenfranchised; genocidal pogroms instituted by state government sanction murder of 8,000+ Native Americans in 1850s

Native population in 1845 150,000. By 1880, only 16,000 left

1850 CA legislature allows “vagrant” Indian minors to become bond servants; 1860 allows for adults becoming indentured

Trafficking of children widesperead in both Mexican and white periods

Native women routinely captured and sold as slaves to white men

However, in 1872 Natives allowed to testify against whites in court and in 1879 allowed to vote in all California elections

The Crisis of Labour• 1876 Little Big Horn causes racial panic; focuses fears

of African Americans in South and working class tensions (recall Thompson Square Riot,1874)

• Women working: in 1890s 600,000 saleswomen worked in cities; by 1900 8.6 million women worked outside homes

• 300K Chinese workers emigrate 1850-1882• Great Uprising of 1877 (spontaneous strikes against

railroads) calls for their deportation• May Day, 1886: 80K march in support of 8-hr day• AFL forms after Knights of L collapse; Gompers refuses

to include unskilled workers, Af Ams and women• Western Mining Federation Formed 1893; Pullman Strike

1894• Founding of Socialist Party, 1898-1901

Racial segregation was not limited to the South. This 1889 engraving depicts a man being expelled from a “white” railroad car in Pennsylvania.

Blackface and cultural appropriation• Right: “Coon” song by black

song writer Ernest Hogan c 1890

• Early 19thC minstrel shows focus on plantation life but prettify slavery

• Conservative discourses make fun of women’s suffrage and professionals

• From 1890s focus is on “olios,” which would feature many popular songs

• Written by both black and white songwriters

• White theft of black culture

The Columbia Exposition• Created/funded by private corporation• Daniel Burnham chooses white, neo-classical plan for all

buildings and decor• Focus on American achievements in technology and culture

(focus on corporate creations)• ‘Ideal city’ built on reclaimed wilderness and swamp land• Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show on display at exposition– mass

marketing of Western history also frequently toured Europe• Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis presented at

Chi’s AHA meeting (new white national myth)• And as this was happening…US/European businessmen

take over Hawaii– the open door justification for capitalism and the triumph of white civilization

Columbia Exposition• “White City” designed by Daniel Burnham• 27.5 million people attend– Emphasis on US surpassing rest of

world– compare to Crystal Palace, 1851

American to National League

• Cincinnati first pro team 1869– 400 smaller teams from 1860s

• American Assn more working-class– river cities, lower prices for tickets, alcohol allowed at games–

• National League 1876/Am League 1901 (formerly Western League): bidding war

• Emphasis moves from players to clubs– restriction of movement and growth of contracts

Spaulding

• 1874 sporting goods store opens• Instrumental in formation of National League• 1877 glove always used for his pitching• Recruits for Chicago• Around the world tour 1888-89• Mills commission to establish Americanness of

baseball• 1911 authored first history of baseball

Moses Walker• Oberlin and U Michigan• 1884 Major League Debut• 1887 International League votes to ban

black players• 1889 American Assn and National

League ban black men from playing (unofficial)

• 1891 out of professional baseball

Reclaiming Blackness• White John L Sullivan 1888 first

heavyweight and major sport celeb

• Jack Johnson, first African American heavyweight champion of the world 1908-1915

• Knocks out former British heavyweight Bob Fitzsimmons in 2 rounds, 1907

• Fight of the century, 4 July 1910: defeat of white James Jeffries

• Film of fight sparks race riots in 25 states; Theodore Roosevelt demands ban on interstate distribution fight films (upheld till 1940)