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PS American Cultural History 2 - 19th Century-2
PS American Cultural History 2 - 19th Century-2
Georgi-Findlay
American Cultural History 2: 19th Century
WiSe 2018/2019
Structure
1 Introduction 5
1.1 Broad period distinctions
1.2 Colonial legacies
1.3 A New Nation
1.4 The First Government
1.5 Issues for the Administration of George Washington
1.6 George Washington retires
1.7 The Administration of George Washington (1789-1796)
1.8 Issues (Which Problems does the new government face?)
1.9 Political Disagreements
1.10 Hamilton vs. Jefferson
2 The Early Republic – The Era of Thomas Jefferson
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2.1 From the “Federalist” to the “Republican” Age
2.2 Election of 1800
2.3 Thomas Jefferson: Hero and Villain
2.4 A “Republican Age”?
2.5 A “Republican” Society?
2.6 Federal Executive Power: Weakening or Expanding?
3 Republican America After Thomas Jefferson
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3.1 Republican Politics after Jefferson: James Madison
3.2 The Legacy of the War of 1812
3.3 The Star-Spangled Banner (Francis Scott Key 1814)
3.4 Political Shifts
3.5 Presidency of James Monroe, 1816 – 1824
3.6 Foreign Policy Contexts
3.7 The Monroe Doctrine 1823
3.8 Population Growth and Territorial Expansion
3.9 Territorial Expansion: New States
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Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)
- Calls for a better educated public: popular education, colleges, female academies
- Advice and etiquette manuals, spelling books, public bathhouses
- Expansion of popular culture and commercial entertainment: popular literature,
magazines, museums, genre paintings
4.4 Religion
- Religion as a voluntary practice
- Evangelical religion: revivalism in the “Second Great Awakening” (Methodists,
Baptists), religious synthesis of European-American and African-American cultures,
democratization
- Training ground for reform movements (temperance, antislavery) defined by women
- New sects and utopian groups, role of millennialism
- Tolerance of Catholicism?
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Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)
5. Jacksonian/Antebellum America
5.1 A “Jacksonian Age”?
- Jackson as America’s “representative man” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, qtd. In Haselby 3)
- “Jackson … was America’s first truly national American political leader” (Haselby 3)
- Jackson was made (and made himself) to stand for the new popular politics, as the
voice of the (white) people, constructs himself as an outsider in Washington
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Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)
6.5 Texas
- 1830: more than 7,000 Americans (Anglos)
- 1835: 35,000 (incl. German) settlers, 5,000 slaves: cotton, towns, militias
- Distrust of Mexican politics, call for union with U.S., settlers take up arms in 1835
- 1836 declaration of independence from Mexico, defeat at the Alamo, then victory:
- 1837-45 Lone Star Republic (Sam Houston)
- 3,500 Tejanos: rancheros raising longhorns for beef market (New Orleans), an elite,
on both sides of the conflict (Hispanic Vice President of Texas Republic)
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7.4 Explanations?
- Hopes tied to the West: cure for economic (and political) ills, unifying force
- Role of the press in defining a national interest: ”manifest destiny” (yet: also
opposition)
- More expansionist federal government (opposed by northerners, Whigs)
- Expansion tied to insecurity (fear of British/European powers)
- Legacies: war expanded territory, but bred divisions (expansion as a Southern issue?)
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Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)
Reconstruction, 1865-77
- Rebuilding, reorganizing, re-educating and reintegrating the South
- April 14th, 1865: Lincoln is assassinated, VP Andrew Johnson assumes Presidency
- December 1865: ratification of 13th amendment (end of slavery) by three fourths of
states, followed by passing of black codes by southern legislatures, 1866 first KKK is
organized in Tennessee
- March 1866: Congress passes Civil Rights Act
- 1868: 14th amendment (black citizenship), vetoed by Johnson (impeachment),
Ulysses S. Grant is elected President
- 1870: 15th amendment (voting rights for former male slaves)
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Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)
Collective Memory
- 1868 first Memorial Day observances (celebrated differently in North and South)
- Southern romanticization of the ‘lost cause’, myth of the old south (moonlight and
magnolia)
- 1890s confederate revival
- Blue-gray reunions with emphasis on reconciliation
- African American observance of ‘Juneteenth’: memory of gaining freedom
- North’s myth: Lincoln as Great Emancipator and Martyr
- Monuments, statues, tombs, reunions, reenactments
Political Issues
- Reconstruction of South, reunion North and South
- Business policies (by 1892 anti-trust policies)
- Labor relations
- Civil service reform
- Westward expansion
- Indian policy
- Immigration
- The “black question”
The Economy
- Problems: war costs, costs for Reconstruction of the South (return to “home rule” in
1877)
- Booms and busts
- Busts: 1873-1879 depression, 1883-1885 crisis, 1893 panic and depression (until
1998)
- Government policy of laissez-faire
- Yet: Land grants, subsidies to railroads
- Issue of protective tariffs: to raise revenue and protect America’s manufacturers from
foreign competition (governmental aid to business)
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Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)
Concentration
- Concentration of capital: a small number of “captains of industry” (or “robber
barons”) controlled industries:
- Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroad)
- Leland Stanford, Andrew Carnegie, Guggenheim (steel)
- John D. Rockefeller (1882 Standard Oil Company)
- J. P. Morgan (banking)
- DuPont (chemical industry, ammunition)
- George Pullman (railroad sleeping cars)
- Collis Huntington (Pacific timber)
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Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)
Socialism in America?
- 1877 Socialist Labor Party
- 1897 Social Democratic Party of America
- 1901 Socialist Party of America (-1919)
- 1905 Industrial Workers if the World (-1919)
- Friedrich Engels: Socialism impossible in the U.S. (American ideals are already
socialist, no working class)
- US majority voting system: problem for small parties
Women
- Changes in terms of work, family, leisure
- Increasing number of women educated in institutions of higher education
- Women entered the work force in new urban offices and industries
- Home no longer a place of productive labor but a center of consumption
- 15th amendment 1870: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude“
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Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)
Protecting America?
- 1887 American Protective Association
- 1889 Sons of American Revolution
- 1890 Daughters of the American Revolution
- 1894 Immigration Restriction League
- Mixed legislative successes: 1891 bill excluding “undesirable” (illiterates,
polygamists, the “diseased”, mentally “defective”) is vetoed by President
- 1892 Ellis Island as admission center (until 1954)
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Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)
- Ideas about genetics and evolution: superior (“Nordic”, “Aryan”) and inferior
(Mediterranean) races
- New science of heredity: eugenic differences on the basis of racial types
- Debate over racial mixing: “mongrelization” diluting the gene pool (fears of decline)
- Ideas about hygiene and health
- Evolutionary thinking and racial science are applied to debates over immigration
and national identity
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