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Jan 1, 1490
Class Distinctions in England
Upper class acted with dignity and self-restrint and the lower class deferred to their betters. -
Jan 1, 1492
European Cultural Renaissance
When Columbus reached Guanahani in 1492, Europe was undergoing a cultural rebirth. Intellectuals and poets rediscovered Europe's descent. It was a time of intense artistic creativity. -
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Awakened America's nationalism
- no need for British involvement
- self-dependant -
The Second Great Awakening
During the 1790s a huge change came to America. Men and women of different denominations gathered and listended in open-air camps to revivalists. The most famous camp meeting was in 1801 in Kentucky -
Period: to
Entertainment in America
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Social Clubs
Because of the large gaps in socials classes, New Yorks wealthiest citizens belonged to social clubs such as the very exclusive "The Club." -
Important Movies
Instead of movies that reflected Americas opionion on the Vietnam War, movies now began to offer an escape from American hardships! These movies included Jaws (1975) Rocky (1876) and Star Wars (1977) -
Penny Press
Popular newspapers began mass printing their papers to make a profit, this included the "New York Sun." -
"Democracy in America"
Authors like Alexis De Tocqueville showed the importance of religion within a country and pointed out important differences between America and foreign nations. -
"The American Scholar"
Written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was the leader of the transcendentalist movement in America. -
Treatise on Domestic Economy
Published by Catharine Beecher, this became a guide for Middle class American women. -
Henry David Thoreau
Popular writer Thoreau, represented younger Emersonians, and advocated the "doer" generation. Important works include "Civil Disobedience" and "Walden" -
Saloons
Saloons became a popular location for lower class citizens of the mid 1800's. Most saloons were locations for men to relax and interact with friends. Saloons often released sports scores throughout the night. -
Important Literature
Nathaniel Hawthorne - "The Scarlet Letter", Edgar Allen Poe - "The Cask of Amontillado", Herman Melville - "Moby Dick" -
"Woman in the Nineteenth Century"
Margaret Fuller wrote this book to talk about the separate sphere of men and women. -
Department Stores
Middle and upper class families could now go out and shop for soap, canned foods, and other things typically made at home
Ex: Macy's and Marshalls -
College Football
Played with no helmets or pads, this sport that was derived from English rugby, was a popular college sport. 18 deaths were associated with this sport -
Wild West Show
Created and Organized by William F. Cody, he created shows with cowboys who would battle with Indians. -
Buffalo Bill: King of the Border Men
A dime novel written on the life of William F. Cody; also known as "Buffalo Bill". Buffalo Bill is depicted to be a hero by driving off the Indians and rounding up cattle rustlers. This book provides the image of the west being the new masculine ideal -
The Nation
Written by E.L. Godkin, this book argued that monetary successes depended on how much talent, inteligence, morality, and self control one had. -
Amusment Parks
Amusement parks arose throughout in the late 1800s. Coney Island became iconic for young men and women. Women attended amusment parks for the lack of surveillance from parental figures. -
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park was the first protected nature reserve in American history. This park provides entertainment for people from all over then, and even now. Old Faithful is a favorite sight at Yellowstone. -
The American Women's Home
discussed proper manners that people with the "Vicotrian morality" would have
Ex: Knowing not to reach over someone's plate -
Home Decorating
it was said that when a family created a more artistic environment, their children would understand culture better -
Vaudeville
Vaudeville entertainment started off in the late 1800s and included many acts. Popular favorites were animal tricks, musical skits, and dance numbers. Vaudeville theatre was extremely racist to the African American population -
A Century Of Dishonor
"A Century of Dishonor" was published in 1881 by Helen Hunt Jackson. She wished to expose the US governments actions towards the Indians. Jackson wanted to organize and arouse public opinion against the US government. -
Huckleberry Finn
Hucklyberry Finn, published in America in 1885 by Mark Twain. Twain wished to present the simple frontiersman, after Turner's thesis on the American frontier. Twain wanted to create a character, who would escape society by moving out west. -
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Stephen Crane wrote the novel of the life of a young woman. Stephen Crane's novel rebeled against the proper writing styles of Genteel tradtion. -
The Country of Pointed Firs
Sarah Orne Jewett wrote "The Country of the Pointed Firs" in 1896. She wished to rebel against the genteel tradition, most authors during this time period wrote about. -
Dance Halls
Dance Halls appealed to women of the working class. Dance halls allowed women to find suitable husbands and still have fun. -
Ragtime Music
Ragtime was a popular southern type of music, popular in African American communitites. Scott Joplin was a well known composer. He composed peices such as "Maple Leaf Rag and, Sunflower Slow Drag." -
Sports
Sports during the 1900s included boxing, basketball, baseball, and horse racing. Sports began to appeal to the working class. Sports allowed time for men and women to relax. -
The Octopus
This novel was written by Frank Norris and discusses the raising of wheat in California. It highlights the tension between the corrupt railroad and ranchers. -
Coney Island
Coney Island, an amusement park in New York, was where many Americans chose to blow off some steam and have fun with friends and family. -
The Virginian
This novel written by Owen Wister, was about cowboy heroes on the frontier who were sometimes referred to as 'Christian knights on the Plains'. The frontier was seen as a place to prove a new kind of virile manhood and the last place of a true and honest social order. -
McClure's
Founded by S.S. McClure and John Sanborn Phillips, the magazine began the muckraking journalism fad. It exposed monopolies such as Standard Oil and the United States Steel Corporation. -
The Great Train Robbery
The 12 minute movie was written, produced, and directed by Edwin S. Porter. The movie features two bandits breaking into a railroad office and how they try to steal loot. It was a breakthrough in the entertainment industry, as it was the first movie to tell a story. -
The Shame of The Cities
This book written by Lincoln Steffens had aims to expose corruption in cities. It consists of numerous articles written for McClure's Magazine compiled together. Steffens wanted to promote reform and this book is considered one of the first examples of muckraking. -
Lewis Hine
He photographed the lives of Pittsburgh workers and was a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. -
The Ashcan School
The Ashcan School was an artistic movement originating with 8 artists. These artists were William Glackens, Robert Henri, George Luks, Everett Shinn, John French Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, and Maurice Prendergast. They are best known for portraying every day life in their art. -
The Promise of American Life
In this book written by Herbert Croly, he talks about how economic planning could raise the American quality of life. This novel inspired President Theodore Roosevelt to develop the New Nationalism. -
Commission on Training Camp Activities
presented films against alcohol and prostitution to soldiers -
Postwar Culture/ Jazz Age
-parties
-drank bootleg liquor
-flocked to jazz clubs
-dancing
-cigarettes
-discussed sex more freely
-dating -
"Main Street"
Sinclair Lewid
- made a fiction story about a made up Western town and its cultural bareness -
Harlem Renaissance
- Jazz Music
- composer William Grant Still-> to Harlem in 1922 and produced Afro- American Symphony in 1931 -paintings -poetry
- Langston Hughes- the Weary Blues in 1926
- Jazz Music
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Radio
Pittsburgh station KDKA reported Warren Harding's election In 1922, New York's WEAF began a regular news radio program
In 1926, General Electric, Westinghouse, and the Radio Corporation of America made the first radio network, the National Broadcasting Company -
Mass Circulation Magazines
Saturday Evening Post
Reader's Digest
- Magazines that circulated to 2.5 million people -
"Babbit"
Sinclair Lewis
- about Zenith, mythic larger city, and real estate agent George F. Babbit trapped in middle class conformity -
The Ten Commandments
Cecil B. De Mille
- cautioned against the breaking of moral taboos -
Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
A book written in 1923 by Adolf Hitler while he was serving time in prison about his plans for world domination. -
H.L. Mencken
-Journalist and Critic
- launched iconoclastic American Mercury Magazine, aimed toward college youth and alienated intellectuals -
F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The Great Gatsby"- party filled lives of the decade's moneyed class and also their selfishness -
Books
- Now sold through department stores
- Some got books via Book-of-the-Month Club
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Ernest Hemingway
"The Sun Also Rises"- American and English people damaged by war as they drift around Spain
"A Farewell to Arms" (1929)- based on his own experiences in the war's futility -
Sports and Sports Stars
Babe Ruth- New York Yankees- 60 homeruns
Ty Cobb- Detroit Tigers- 4,191 hits
Jack Dempsey & Gene Tunney- heavyweight fighters -
Cars
Model T & Model A-> Ford (1927)
Chevrolet- General Motors
- provided quick and easy transportation to things like days at the beach
- supplied many with more freedom, especially women -
Jazz Singer
Al Jolson
-first movie to intorduce sound -
Charles Lindbergh
-flew across the Atlantic in The Spirit of St. Louis
- New York to Paris
-Success gripped radio, newspapers, magazines, and movie newsreels -
Amos 'n Andy
First network comedy show (Radio)
Stereotyped caricatures of African American Life -
Steamboat Willy
Walt Disney
- introduced Mickey Mouse and showed the potential of animation
* 80 million movie goers per week
* Corp Giants: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Brothers, and Columbia -
Women in Movies
Women in movies were presented as heroines and as stereotypes. Important movies include THe Wedding Present, Spitfire, A Woman Rebels, and I'm No Angel. -
African Americans in Movies
African Americans appeared in movies as stereotypes. They appeared in movies such as Gone With the Wind, The Little Colonel. -
Animals Crackers
This movie pokes fun of German-Jewish in a comedy about the time when valuable painting goes missing. -
Theatres, Minstrel Shows, Circus
All three forms of entertainment became increasingly popular within America. Minstrel shows were composed of black stereotypes, and a main circus includes PT Barnum -
Little Caesar
This movie was one of the first inspired by gangersters like Al Capone. -
Public Enemy
This movie shows menacing figures like Al Capone during the Great Depression. -
I Am a Fugitive From A Chain Gang
Cheap movies were extremely popular during the Great Depression. This movie is about wrongly convicted James Allen who serves in a southern chain gang, -
Duck Soup
This movie ridiculed authority and satirized the established order of German and Jewish origins in a movie about a man who becomes dictator of a corrupt country. -
Wild Boys of the Road
This movie shows the New Deal in a favorable light because of close ties with the Roosevelt administration. -
Musicals
Movies like Gold Diggers, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington were cheerful and offered dancing, music, and triumph. -
Massacre
This movie talked about the mistreatment of Indians. -
Black Fury
This movie talks about dealing with striking miners during the Great Depression. -
Olympics
The 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin, Germany. African-American track star Jesse Owens won four gold medals. -
We're Gonna Have To Slap The Dirty Little Jap
Office of War Information created propoganda to counter the enemies'. This song depicts the Japanese in a bad light and was written by Bob Miller. -
Goodbye, Mama, I'm Off to Yokohama
The first song hit of 1942 and provides a contrast to the songs of lost love and loneliness towards the war's end. -
One World
The fastest-selling title in publishing history at this time written by Wendell Willkie. The story expressed hope that an international organization would extend peace and democracy through the postwar world. -
Museum of Modern Art
Opened in New York. replaced Paris as the art center of the world -
The Ponder Heart
Eudora Wealty
-small town life illustrated in a fictional novel -
Elvis Presely
Suggestive Lyrics
Head of Rock and Roll Popularity
"Ain't nothing but a hound dog" -
Davy Crockett and coonskin caps
This 1955 Disney movie sold massive amounts of coonskin caps in the US -
Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments
-biggest box office hits of 1950s
-religion during this time period intensified; church membership decreased -
See It Now
Edward R Murrow
Documentary
Downfall of Senator McCarthy and Red Scare -
Rabbit Run
By John Updike -
The Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan wrote this book critiquing the cult of domesticity. -
"Beatlemania"
A phenomenon over the band, The Beatles, whose music embodied emotions and feelings of the time -
The Autobiography of Malcom X
A biography of Malcolm X, a civil rights leader and member of the Nation of Islam. -
Hair
A musical filled with new generation music and messages; embodied counter culture. -
Woodstock Festival
400,000 young people, the majority being of the counter culture, gathered in New York's Catskill mountains to celebrate their vision of freedom and harmony with music and socializing. -
Music Styles of the 1970s
Punk rock began to rise within America. This anti-establishment genre was seen within music from Sex Pistols. -
Music Genres of the 1970s
Music included Tajanos found mainly in Texas, Rap and Hip-hop. originating in West Africa and Jamiaca. Disco music also began soaring in the 1970s -
Personal Computers
-IBM's PC or Apple's Macintosh
Both came out in the 1980s, which fueled America's stock market -
MTV
MTV was created in 1981 along with a bunch of other new cable stations. The first music video they played was "Video Killed The Radio Star" by The Buggles. This program helped musicians get major recognition and fans and many people,overall, watched this station -
Sixteen Candles
A coming of age film about a girl who is obsessed with this guy and what happens on her birthday. -
Breakfast Club
A popular movie when five very different students are stuck in detention and the open up to each other. -
Restaurants and Casinos
During this time restaurants, such as Planet Hollywood, and casinos in New York and other places, were really starting to become normal to see more of -
Music of the 1990s
Boy Bands-NSYNC, Backstreet Boys
Mariah Carey, Celine Dion Latin music became popular during this time Many radio stations played "mixes" because the broad spectrum of music widened -
Preppy v. The "Grunge"
Style in America in the 1990s depended on the type of person you were. Some people went the preppy route, and some people lived with the motto "bigger is better", wearing pants that sagged. Designers during this time were DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger, and many more -
The Hummer
A civilian model of the Humvee; a gas guzzler used in the U.S.'s war in the Persian Gulf which also came out on the market in 2006 and 2009
