Prof. Dr.

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
8
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
10
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
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

4 From the Republican to the Democratic Age

13
4.1 American Society by the 1820s
4.2 Quest for a National Identity
4.3 The “Middling Sorts”
4.4 Religion
4.5 Controversy over Slavery
4.6 Politics
4.7 A New “Popular” Politics
4.8 Election of Andrew Jackson 1828
5 Jacksonian/Antebellum America 15
5.1 A “Jacksonian Age”?
5.2 Contexts for Jackson’s Rise (Haselby)
5.3 The U.S. as an Egalitarian Society
5.4 A “Popular” America: The Rise of Popular Culture in the 1830s
5.5 Against the “Egalitarian Myth”
5.6 The Presidency of Andrew Jackson 1828 – 1838
5.7 Federal Indian Policy
5.8 Forces behind Indian Removal
5.9 Indian Removal
5.10 The “Other” Removals
6 U.S. Politics and Westward Expansion
19
6.1 Westward Expansion, 1810s-1830s
6.2 Trans Mississippi West
6.3 New Mexico
6.4 Alta California
6.5 Texas
6.6 The Pacific Northwest
6.7 The New “Whig” Coalition
7 The U.S. by Mid-Century: North and South (and West?) 22
7.1 Manifest Destiny
7.2 The Road to War with Mexico
7.3 The Mexican(-American) War, 1846-48
7.4 Explanations?
7.5 American Antebellum Society North
7.6 The World of Labor
7.7 Growth of the Market Economy
7.8 Ethnic Diversity
7.9 American Antebellum Society South
7.10 A Specific Southern Culture?

2
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

8 The Road to the Civil War 24

8.1 Unresolved Question
8.2 Sectional Compromises
8.3 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act
8.4 Party Politics by Mid-Centuries
8.5 Election of 1856
8.6 Sectional Crisis
8.7 Election of 1860: Abraham Lincoln becomes President
8.8 The U.S. in 1860
9 The Civil War and its Legacies
27
9.1 Preludes to War
9.2 Landmark Dates
9.3 End of the War
9.4 War Aims: Preserving the Heritage of Liberty
9.5 Cultural/Psychological Impact of the War
9.6 Technological Impact
10 Transformations after the Civil War – The Gilded Age 29
10.1 Why the “Gilded Age”?
10.2 Reconstruction, 1865-77
10.3 Politics: Republican Presidents
10.4 Political Issues
10.5 The Economy
10.6 Economic Growth: Keys to Prosperity
10.7 Innovation and Invention
10.8 Concentration
10.9 Corporate America: New Methods of Organization and Management
10.10 American Success Story
10.11 Consequences for the Workers
10.12 Problems for Labor Organizations
10.13 The Labor Movement
10.14 Socialism in America
11 Transformations after the Civil War: The Western Frontiers
33
11.1 The Post-Civil War West
11.2 The West as a symbol of Coherence (Richard Slotkin)
11.3 The “Indian Problem”
11.4 Challenges for a Federal Indian Policy
11.5 Between the Rifle and the Peace Pipe
11.6 Movement for the “Indian Reform”
11.7 Indian Reformers’ Agenda
11.8 An Agenda Becomes Law
11.9 Reception of the Allotment Act
11.10 Flaws of Indian (Allotment) Policy
12 Immigration, Race and National Identity 36
3
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

12.1 Demographic change

12.2 Pull Factors for Immigrants
12.3 Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
12.4 Forces behind Exclusion Act
12.5 Debates on Race in Science and Pseudoscience
12.6 Protecting America?
12.7 New Contexts for Immigration in the 1890s?
12.8 The Specific Cade of African Americans
12.9 By the 1890s
13 Modernization and Anti-Modern Tendencies
39
13.1 The Rise of Modern America
13.2 Progress and Nostalgia
13.3 The Modern American City
13.4 Mass Culture
13.5 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Chicago: Progress and Nostalgia
13.6 Economic and Political Contexts
13.7 A “Fin-de-Siècle” Mood
13.8 Return to “Manliness”
13.9 (Other) Forms of Anti-Modernism

4
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

5
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

1.7 The Administration of George Washington (1789-1796)

6
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

- Politics not yet a profession

- Nature of the new office of president unclear
- Vice President still seen as part of the legislative
- Location of the capital (1791 moved from New York to Washington)
- Bill of Rights 1791
- Citizenship and naturalization: “all free white persons…shall be entitled to the rights
of citizenship” (1791)

1.8 Issues (Which Problems does the new government face?)

- Land distribution, new states (1791 Vermont, 1792 Kentucky, 1796 Tennessee)
- Conflicts on the frontiers (1794 Whiskey Rebellion, Indian policy), border disputes
with Spain
- Standing army?
- Relations with Britain and France?
- Debts owed to Spanish and French government, Dutch bankers, funding of national
debt
- Regulation of foreign goods, protection of domestic goods
- Fight against pirates at see

1.9 Political Disagreements

- Two political factions in Washington’s cabinet
- Federalist (Hamilton, Adams) versus anti-Federalist Republicans (Jefferson)
- Part of the disagreements at Constitutional Convention of 1787 over:
o Size and Power of the federal government?
o Economic base of the country: agricultural or manufacturing?
o Relations toward Britain and France

7
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

1.10 Hamilton vs. Jefferson

- Identified with two major political factions and regional interests
- Hamilton: Northeastern Federalist, supporting business interests, for strong central
power (military, banking), focus on collective will
- Jefferson: South(west)ern anti-federalist Republican, supporting agrarian interests,
decentralized powers, strong states, focus on individual liberty

2. The Early Republic – The Era of Thomas Jefferson

2.1 From the “Federalist” to the “Republican” Age
- 1796 first bipartisan election for president: Federalist John Adams against
Republican Thomas Jefferson (none of them campaigned)
- Adams wins narrow victory, Jefferson as VP
- 1798-1800 undeclared naval war with France, fear of a French invasion: Federalists
identified as pro-English, Republicans as pro-French
- 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts limit freedom of speech and of the press, limit liberty of
aliens
- Breakdown of political consensus over the principles of the American revolution

Declaration of independence – Constitution = controversial

2.2 Election of 1800

- Mobilization of the “margins” (backcountry, South) against the “center”: Jefferson as
champion of famers, states, small government, liberty (yet: relied on votes of slave
states)
- Republican agrarian ideal (society of yeomen) against Adams’ Federalist
commercial vision, agrarian South against urban North
- Alien and Sedition Act as central issue for Republicans, no powerful Supreme Court
yet (Jefferson: unconstitutional)
- Jefferson 73, Adams 65 electoral votes

8
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

2.3 Thomas Jefferson: Hero and Villain

- Ultimate American hero (until 1960s): author of Declaration of Independence
- Author of Notes on the State of Virginia (1787): formulation of agrarian ideal
- First U.S. Secretary of State, leader of Republican opposition: fighting for “popular
majority” Against “elite minority”, aiming to restore the “true” spirit of the American
Revolution
- (After 1960s) ultimate American villain: contradictions between statements on natural
rights and his practice of slavery (Sally Hemings)

2.4 A “Republican Age”?

- March 4th, 1801 inauguration in new Federal City of Washington: simplicity,
pleading for unity: “we are all republicans, we are still federalists”
- Few public appearances of President, plain dress, accessible to visitors
- July 4th as national holiday
- Expansion of political participation: number of voters rises (from 20% to 80%, yet:
restriction to white males), expansion of (Republican) newspapers
- Federalist protest: illiterate men were gaining elective office

2.5 A “Republican” Society?

- Young population: 70% under the age of 25, on the move (1810)
- Not much importance given to formal education, refinement, authority (“getting
ahead” as motto)
- Rise in competition, violence, consumption of liquor (were families disintegrating?)
- Agriculture and rural, only 5% live in the cities (yet: involvement in market,
property as a commodity and source of independence)
- Disappearance of indentured servitude, servants no longer accepted inferior status,
craftsmen went on strike: need for egalitarian politics (and politicians)

9
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

2.6 Federal Executive Power: Weakening or Expanding?

- Weakening: Military budget cut in half, reduction in number of federal officials,
reduction of federal debt, decentralization of banks
- Expansion of federal executive power in the context of territorial expansion
(construction of roads, land policy, Indian policy):
- Federal role in land policy: West as source of national identity, as America’s future:
1803 Louisiana Purchase, 1804-1806 Expedition of Lewis and Clark to the Pacific
- Development of a federal Indian policy: paradoxical attitudes toward Native
Americans (envisioning coexistence and need for removal)
- Jefferson’s battle with federal courts ends in a failure: In 1803 the Supreme Court
establishes principle of judicial review (Marbury vs. Madison)
- 1807 Embargo Act (closed American ports to all foreign trade) needed to be enforced
by federal government
- 1808 outlawing of foreign slave trade (problem of enforcement, opens up illegal trade
in slaves)

3. Republican America After Thomas Jefferson

3.1 Republican Politics after Jefferson: James Madison
- 1808-1816 President James Madison (Republican), wife Dolley (“presidents”)
- 1812-1814 British-American War (War of 1812):
- June 1812 – September 1814
- Opposition to war from Federalists in Northeast (for states’ rights?)
- Role of pan-Indian resistance movement (Seneca cultural renaissance, Shawnee
Tecumseh)
- War fought in East, North, South (devastating consequences for Indian tribes)
- August 1814 partial destruction of capitol building

10
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

3.2 The Legacy of the War of 1812

- “Second war of independence”
- New symbols of nationhood: national anthem (Francis Scott Key), Uncle Sam, Lady
Liberty, Columbia
- New heroes: Andrew Jackson, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston
- U.S secures power over hemisphere (1818: 49th parallel as border)
- War reveals need for more efficient system of internal transportation:
- 1817-1825 Erie Canal
- Expansion of postal system, postal roads (turnpikes) – delivery of newspapers
- 1811-1838 Construction of National Road

3.3 The Star-Spangled Banner (Francis Scott Key 1814)

- O say! Can you see by the dawn’s early light
What we so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming
- Whose broad stripes and birght stars, through the clouds of the fight,
- O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
Based on drinking song; about the flag

3.4 Political Shifts

- War reversed roles of Federalists and Republicans
- Federalists for states’ rights, Republicans for a stronger state and centralization
- End of Federalist Faction by 1814 (briefly: Whig Party, became Republican Party
1854)
- 1816-1824 James Monroe (Republican)
- 1824-1828 John Quincy Adams (Republican)
- Republicans split into National-Republicans (Adams) and Democratic-Republicans
(Andrew Jackson)

11
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

3.5 Presidency of James Monroe, 1817 – 1824

- 1817-1818 campaign against escaped slaves and Creek refugees (Seminoles) in
Florida: First Seminole War, led by General Andrew Jackson
- 1819 Florida is acquired from Spain, more Seminole wars (1835-1842, 1855-1858)
- Developing American nationalism on various levels:
- Construction of a more coherent national image in public ceremonies,
commemorations, symbols
- Nationalism in foreign policy
- Countermovements: sectionalism

3.6 Foreign Policy Contexts

- Wars of liberation in Latin America against Spain and Portugal (beginning in
1811): European monarchies aim to restore their monarchical “legitimacy”
- Russian claims along the Pacific Coast: “the American continents are no longer
subjects for any new European colonial establishments” (Secretary of State John
Quincy Adams)
- U.S. proclaims a unilateral policy (i.e. independent of the British): Monroe Doctrine
(part of a new self-conception as the nation)

3.7 The Monroe Doctrine 1823

- Part of President’s annual message to Congress December 2, 1823 (statement of
intent)
- Non-colonization: against further European attempts of colonization in “the American
continents”
- Non-intervention: against European intervention in the Americas (“dangerous to our
peace and safety”)
- Non-interference in existing colonies but support of anti-colonial independence
movements; non-interference in internal European affairs
- Defining U.S. as antithesis to European politics, denouncing imperialism

12
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

3.8 Population Growth and Territorial Expansion

- 1790 (13 states): 3.9 million (+ 700,000 black slaves)
- 1800 (16 states): 5.3 million
- 1810 (17 states): 7.2 million
- 1820 (23 states): 9.6 million
- Expansion of slavery by 1815: 1.4 million black slaves and 200,000 free blacks

3.9 Territorial Expansion: New States

- 1803 Ohio
- 1812 Louisiana, 1816 Indiana, 1817 Mississippi, 1818 Illinois, 1819 Alabama
- 1820 Maine, 1821 Missouri
- Congress decides over admission of territories as states: what kind of new state?
- Constitution leaves legal regulation to states

4. From the Republican to the Democratic Age

4.1 American Society by the 1820s
- More egalitarian, more enterprising, new sense of national pride
- People involved in trading and commerce (1817 New York Stock Exchange)
- Predominantly rural, yet seedtime of industrialism: steam vehicles, textile mills
(1821 Lowell mill town with female laborers) à factory work was not really
respectable at that time!

4.2 Quest for a National Identity

- Quest for symbols of national uniqueness
- The Hudson River School (Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand): America defined by
nature (and progress), ambivalence between untouched nature and natural
abundance
- Scientific and romantic interest in Native Americans: “authentic” voice of American
nature, noble savages (Indian and white)
- Writers James Fenimore Cooper, Lydia Maria Child, painters Charles Bird King,
George Catlin

4.3 The “Middling Sorts”

- Moral influence in the North, ideal of the self-made man (ideals of self-
improvement, self-control, temperance), positive significance of the “popular” (yet
also search for distinction)
è Benjamin Franklin’s vision of from rags to riches (through business)
- Charitable and humanitarian societies: moral change, relief, reform
- Volunteerism and “civil society”
- Emergence of a “cult of domesticity”/separate male and female spheres, companionate
marriage (no “cult of domesticity” in the South)

13
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?

4.5 Controversy over Slavery

- 1819 Beginning of a sectional controversy over slavery, North-South antagonism over
expansion and new states: Is Congress empowered to forbid slavery?
- Applications for admission to Union as a state: 1818 Illinois, 1819 Alabama and
Missouri, 1820 Maine
- 1820 Missouri Compromise: Maine admitted as free state, Missouri as a slave state
- 1821 (Handout)
4.6 Politics
- South and North moving apart: anticipation of sectional conflict
- Northern Republicans begin to label themselves National Republicans: President
John Quincy Adams, 1824-1828
- Rise of a “popular” politics connected to the emerging Democratic Party and to
Andrew Jackson

4.7 A New “Popular” Politics

- Politics as a form of mass entertainment: stump speeches, parades, rallies (see
paintings by George Caleb Bingham)
- Leveling rhetoric of the “common man”
- Election of 1828: Andrew Jackson presented as uneducated, from rugged
southwestern frontier, appealed to the “common folk”, embodied ideal of a more
democratic politics

4.8 Election of Andrew Jackson 1828

- National military hero of the War of 1812 associated with Indian Wars (against Creek
and Seminole) and the frontier (Tennessee): “Old Hickory”

14
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

- Supported by Eastern laborers, Southern farmers/planters, Western frontiersmen,

rising middle class of businessmen
- Open White House at inauguration

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

15
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

5.2 Contexts for Jackson’s Rise (Haselby)

- Westward expansion
- Democratization of politics
- Mass media
- Popularization of Protestantism in a frontier revivalism with democratizing force
(anti-elitist)
- Northeastern elite’s missionary movement aiming at nation-building
- Jackson brought both frontier and Eastern elite discourses together

5.3 The U.S. as an Egalitarian Society

- Foreign observers: “Boorish” and rude, without law and order (Frances Trollope,
Domestic Manners of the Americans 1832)
- French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835, 1840): people
mixed and mingled in all walks of life
- American democracy defined by paradoxical relation between individualism and
conformism
o Individualism: self-reliance, isolation of the individual
o Tyranny of the majority which limits the range and freedom of thought

5.4 A “Popular” America: The Rise of Popular Culture in the 1830s

- Minstrel shows (T.D. Rice): mixed-race amusements, mocking social elites, messages
about class, sex, race from the margins
- Benjamin Day’s penny press (New York Sun): cheap, sensational, providing news
about and for “common people”
- P.T. Barnum’s show business: artful deceptions for the masses
- Part of the rise of democratic politics

16
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

5.5 Against the “Egalitarian Myth”

- Problem of these observations: image of a unified, uniform society (Edward Pessen
1971)
- Popular ideal of equality more a psychological than an economic reality, connected to
(white) young men
- Jacksonians mean equality of opportunity, not equality of wealth/status; they detest
wealth acquired through privilege, not wealth in itself
- Equality of opportunity as the preserve of white men
- Southern versions of social order: Jackson as slaveholder
- Exclusion of Catholics, Mormons, African Americans, Native Americans

5.6 The Presidency of Andrew Jackson 1828 – 1838

- Initially sympathetic to states’ rights (fight against a National Bank), then
increasingly strong nationalist: White House as center of national power (ten-hour
day, Indian Removal)
- At the same time promotion of economic laissez faire, new order of free enterprise
capitalism
- Contexts: Emergence of urban labor class, expansion of Southern plantation slavery,
westward expansion, immigration

5.7 Federal Indian Policy

- Indian Policy moving between assimilation and segregation
- 1824 establishment of Bureau of Indian Affairs
- “The hunter or savage state requires a greater extent of territory to sustain it, than is
compatible with the progress and just claims of civilized life, and must yield to it”
(Monroe 1817)
- “Experience has clearly demonstrated that, in their present state, it is impossible to
incorporate [the Indians] in such masses, in any form whatever, into our systems”
(Monroe 1825): Indian Territory
- “the ultimate design was to incorporate in our own institutions that portion

17
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

5.8 Forces behind Indian Removal

- Economic considerations: states’ need for land (cotton); Georgia against Cherokees
and Creeks (over land titles, runaway slaves, gold found in 1829)
- Tribal claim to independence as threat (alien) to federal sovereignty (issue for
Supreme Court); federal government sides with states
- Jackson needs support of the southern states (yet: still calls for treaty making,
voluntary removal)
- Complicating factors: internal divisions (within tribes and within the federal
government), Northeastern elite’s protests (Protestant clergy, women)

5.9 Indian Removal

- 1830 Congress passes Indian Removal Act: tribes are asked to sign treaty
- 1831-1832 Emigration of Choctaws; Cherokees turn to courts
- Supreme Court 1831: Cherokees as “domestic dependent nation” (not sovereign bur
wards)
- Supreme Court 1832: Cherokees as “distinct political communities” with
unquestionable right” to their lands; Jackson refuses to enforce judicial decision
- Cherokee factions: (mixedblood) progressives (Ross, Ridge, Boudinot) versus
traditionalists, pro- and anti-removal
- 1835 Treaty of New Echota signed by some Cherokees
- 1838 Trail of Tears: 13,000 Cherokees trek to Oklahoma

5.10 The “Other” Removals

- 1832 Black Hawk War (Sauk and Fox in Illinois and Wisconsin territory), 1833 The
Autobiography of Black Hawk
- War against Florida’s Seminoles 1835-1842 (Osceola), 1855-58
- By 1844, most tribes east of Mississippi were removed to the Indian Territory (94
removal treaties, 60,000-100,000 southeastern Indians)
- Idea of a “permanent solution”: unrealistic by 1850s

18
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

6. U.S. Politics and Westward Expansion

6.1 Westward Expansion, 1810s-1830s
- Expansion to the Midwest: Indiana 1816, Illinois !818, Michigan 1837
- 1821-22 Opening of Santa Fe Trail: traders and businessmen in closer contact with
Mexico
- 1821 Mexican Independence from Spain
- 1824 Mexico constituted as federal republic
- 1827 beginning of abolition of slavery
- 1836 American settler colonies in Mexico declare their independence: Lone star
republic of Texas

6.2 Trans Mississippi West

- American movements into Texas (Tejas), New Mexico, Alta California, Pacific
Northwest
- Agents of U.S. American expansion: explorers, traders, settlers, missionaries
- Reactive role of federal government until 1844: no central economic planning, no
intervention against squatters, role of North-South divisions

6.3 New Mexico

- 1609 Santa Fe
- Isolation, weak Mexican governance
- 1821 Arrival of American, German (Jewish) traders (Santa Fe Trail): intermarriages,
integration into society, economic and political influence
- Move toward the American market
- Native raiders (Apache, Navajo, Ute, Comanche) against Mexican towns and Pueblo
settlements (Pueblo = natives; pueblo = Spanish town)

19
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

6.4 Alta California

- 1821: 150,000 native people, 3000 non-natives
- Rancho System expanded after 1833 (clothing of Indian missions, land granted to
ranchers): Cattle raised for hides (Boston show industry)
- Class society: landholding elite, pobladores (mestizos), Native labor force (role of
race)
- Late 1820s arrival of Anglo fur traders and businessmen: intermarriage, integration

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)

6.6 The Pacific Northwest

- 1836 Arrival of missionaries (Whiteman and Spalding families): “first white women”
- 1837-1845 economic crisis, West seen as opportunity, group travel organized by
Oregon societies: Oregon Trail
- 1841 first organized groups, 1842 120 travelers in 18 Wagons, 1843 900 in 100
wagons
- 1840-70: more than 300,000 travel to Oregon, California, Utah
- Mormon Trail 1830-1851 (Salt Lake City 1847)

6.7 The New “Whig” Coalition

- 1840 new “Whig” coalition (Midwest and South) elects William Henry Harrison:
for centralized economic policies, prosperity seen in the West
- Democrats: opposed to central economic planning
- 1841-45 President John Tyler (Whig)
- Another Whig: Abraham Lincoln, representative of Illinois state legislature 1834-42
7. The U.S. by Mid-Century: North and South (and West?)
7.1 Manifest Destiny
- November 1844 election of James Knox Polk (Democrat): expansionist agenda
- New term: “Manifest Destiny” (John O’ Sullivan or Jane Storm?)
- “The American claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to
possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development
of the great experiment of liberty and federative self-government entrusted to us”
(Journalist John O’ Sullivan)
- “Manifest Destiny”- rhetoric suggests a national consensus (however: North-South
divisions)

20
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

7.2 The Road to War with Mexico

- Summer 1845 U.S. annexation treaty with Texas ratified by Texas voters
- December 29, 1845 Texas enters the Union as 28th state (population of 125,000,
including 25,000 slaves): not recognized by Mexico
- February 1846 Border conflict (Rio Grande as Texas-Mexico boundary?), problem of
Mexican debts to U.S. citizens (used by Polk to force the sale of New Mexico and
California)

7.3 The Mexican(-American) War, 1846-48

- May 1846 Congress declares war on Mexico
- Rebellions and declaration of independence in California, U.S. Navy annexes
California (individuals overstepping their orders)
- Army campaigns in New Mexico, California
- Summer 1847 eroding public support, opposition rises in Congress (Whig leader:
Lincoln)
- 1848 Peace Treaty: cession of California and New Mexico for $15 million,
recognition of Texas as U.S. territory, Rio Grande as new boundary

21
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

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?)

7.5 American Antebellum Society North

- Dominated by Northeastern white middle class
- Value system defined by the market society (mobility, materialism, individualism)
- And by a “Victorian” morality (self-restraint, self-improvement, cult of “true
womanhood”/separate spheres), rooted in the Protestant work ethic
- Strong sense of reform, including women’s rights and abolitionism:
o 1848 Seneca Falls Convention
o 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Frederick Douglass’ slave
narrative

7.6 The World of Labor

- Industrial development: deskilling, division and specialization of labor
- Shortage and high cost of labor: standardization of products (“American system of
manufactures” exhibited at Crystal Palace, London 1851)
- Creation of working “class” (defined by values of mobility, individualism, self-
improvement), specific leisure time activities, subcultures
- Disputes over wages and control of work process: trade unions, strikes, unrest over
concept of wage labor (Whig idea of “free labor”), ethnic divisions
- Communitarian experiments

22
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

7.7 Growth of the Market Economy

- Improved means of transportation (steamboat, railroad) and communication
(telegraph, mass print, photography)
- Growth of cities and of the urban population: urban economy
- Growth of consumer economy and commercialized entertainment (middle class vs.
working class entertainment)

7.8 Ethnic Diversity

- Increasing numbers of immigrants: Germans, Irish, many of them Catholics,
unskilled
- 1840s-50s immigrant subcultures provoke anti-Catholic and ethnic riots, emergence
of nativist organizations: 1850 Order of the Star-Spangled Banner (“Know-
Nothings”), NINA
o Economic anxieties, religious distrust, ethnic/racial stereotypes, temperance
- Ethnic diversity in the Southwest: Native, Hispanic, Asian

7.9 American Antebellum Society South

- What the South shares with the North:
- British ethnic heritage, a political culture, a predominantly Protestant religion, a print
culture
- Ideology of the common man, self-made man
- The same rapid geographic expansion and moving frontier
- Diverse economics (Southwest!)

23
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

7.10 A Specific Southern Culture?

- Specific economy, demographic and social structure:
o Few cities, no industry, fewer immigrants, agrarian ideal
- Plantation slavery as an economic and ideological system: need for land, patriarchal
society, coalition of whites, African American culture
- By 1850s emphasis on differences:
- Idea of a “different” social order with “older” (agrarian) values (honor, idealism,
gentility) myth of “Old South”
- Different concept of freedom (right to property, not to personal freedom and free
labor)
- Different interpretations of the Constitution

8. The Road to the Civil War

8.1 Unresolved Question
- Was Congress empowered to forbid slavery?
- 1785 Northwest Ordinance:
è Forbade slavery in the Northwest Territory
è Protected slavery in states where it already existed
- 1791 Fifth amendment to the Constitution: “No person shall be … deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for
public use without just compensation”

24
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

8.2 Sectional Compromises

- Missouri Compromise of 1820: establishes demarcation line, prohibits slavery north of
the line
- Wilmot Proviso 1846: northern Congressmen vote for exclusion of slavery from the
territory acquired from Mexico, southern Congressmen deny the right of Congress to
exclude slave property from the territories
- Compromise of 1850: California enters Union as free state, New Mexico and Utah are
organized as territories (no restrictions on slavery)
- New Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: escaped slaves had to be apprehended and turned
over to authorities (leads to radicalization of northern white abolitionists: 1852 Harriet
Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin)

8.3 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act

- Allowed a popular vote for or against slavery
- Annulled the Missouri Compromise (and the demarcation line)
- Decision over status of enslaved persons in newly formed territories is left to area’s
(white) residents
- Kansas becomes a battleground
- Mass protests, divisions within churches and parties, radicalization of John Brown
- First antislavery speeches by Abraham Lincoln

8.4 Party Politics by Mid-Centuries

- 1848 election of General Zachary Taylor (Whig, dies in 1850), followed by VP
Millard Fillmore (Whig)
- 1852 election of Franklin Pierce (Democrat)
- 1854 Whigs divide over expansion of slavery into new territories: founding of the
Republican Party
- Parties no longer divided over economic issues but over ethnic and sectional issues

25
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

8.5 Election of 1856

- Republican Party (John Charles Fremont)
- For free soil, free labor, free speech, against expansion of slavery
- Brings together Whigs, anti-slavery Democrats, nativists and immigrants
- Democratic Party (James Buchanan)
- Against interference of Congress with slavery
- Reaches out to Irish and German Catholic voters, condemns nativism, endorses
religious liberty
- Election of James Buchanan (Democrat)

8.6 Sectional Crisis

- 1857 Dred Scott Case: Supreme Court decreed that a slave moved to free territory
reverted to slave status upon return to a slave state
- 1858 Kansas citizens decide to become a ‘free soil’ state
- 1858 Lincoln’s House Divided Speech (in debate with Democrat Stephen Douglas)
- 1859 John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry (federal arsenal in Virginia): rumors and
Southern fears of black uprisings

8.7 Election of 1860: Abraham Lincoln becomes President

- Democrats fall apart: Two candidates
- Lincoln is portrayed as illiterate backwoods-man and ‘Black Republican’
- Lincoln’s program: each state should “order and control its own domestic
institutions”, resistance to extension of slavery (no abolitionist message), Northwest
Ordinance as guideline
- Lincoln is elected by the North and the West

26
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

8.8 The U.S. in 1860

- 32 million people
- 4 million slaves, ca. 400.000 slave owners
- 13.2 % foreign born
- 33 states
- Conflicts over control of westward expansion, expansion of slavery, farming versus
industrial interests, Northern small farmers versus Southern large plantations,
Northern democratic culture versus Southern aristocratic culture, conflict over states’
rights

9. The Civil War and its Legacies

9.1 Preludes to War
- December 1860: South Carolina Ordinance of Secession
- By February 1st, 1861: Six southern states have seceded
- February 9th, 1861: Election of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States
of America
- March 4th, 1861 Inauguration of Lincoln
- April 11th, 1861: first shots fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, four more states
secede

9.2 Landmark Dates

- First Battle July 1861 Bull Run (Union has to retreat)
- Draft is introduced (April 1862 in Confederacy, May 1863 in Union): resistance, riots
- 1862 Defeats for the Union, forces are stalled in the east, Union advance to the west is
stalled, decrease of Union morale
- January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation (change of war aims: war on slavery)
- July 1863 Defeat of the Confederacy at Gettysburg; Lincoln´s Gettysburg Address
refers to the ´nation´ and to a “new Birth of freedom” for the U.S.
- August/September 1864 key military victories for the Union
- November 1864: Re-election of Abraham Lincoln

27
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

9.3 End of the War

- February 1865: Union troops begin to occupy South Carolina
- March 1865: Inauguration of Lincoln
- April 9th, 1865: General Lee capitulates, ending the war
- April 14th, 1865: Lincoln is assassinated

9.4 War Aims: Preserving the Heritage of Liberty

- Confederates: “preservation of freedom and liberty,” defending homes, home rule
´states´ rights (“the War of Southern Independence,” The war against Northern
Aggression)
- Union: about the right to accession, about national unity or anarchy (until 1863)
- After 1863: Union war aims were enlarged to encompass emancipation (role of
black war service “slaves” activities): Emancipation Proclamation

9.5 Cultural/Psychological Impact of the War

- First total war (3 million served in war)
- Divided loyalties
- Militarism, search for order (Wiebe), cult of masculinity (Lears)
- Women thrust into public roles
- After dissolution of ´romantic´ visions of war: search for the ´real thing´, realism in
art and culture (Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins), photography

9.6 Technological Impact

- Innovation in military technology: Gatling gun, repeating rifles, observation balloons
ironclad ships
- Role of telegraph and railroad transport
- Role of Western recourses (gold, silver)
- Photography as a medium of documentation and interpretation (Mathew Brady,
Alexander Gardner, Timothy O´Sullivan)

28
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

10. Transformations after the Civil War – The Gilded Age

Political Fallout from the Civil War

- Dominace of Republicans
- Democrats lose their southern wing
- Radical shift to political power from South to North (Southern majority 1789-1861)
- Southern loss of political and economic power: economically backward,
impoverished, dependent on northern capital for modernization (Reconstruction of the
South 1865-1877)
A ‘Second Revolution’
- Resolution of constitutional issues left unresolved by the Revolution:
- Issues of slavery: three amendments (1865,1868,1870)
- Issue of the supreme power of the federal government
- Issue of the republic’s survival as a union: linguistic change (the united states as
singular noun)

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)

The ‘Black Question’

- 1870: 15th amendment (voting rights for former male slaves)
- 1869-1901: 20 blacks serve in U.S. House, 2 in the Senate (Southern idea of a ‘Black
Reconstruction’: 1915 film Birth of a nation)
- Loss of white interest and support (new problems): 1877 end of Reconstruction
- Gradual improvements in black education, landownership, income (Booker T.
Washington)
- Yet: decline of southern economy impacts blacks (sharecroppers), black codes
- Segregation by 1890s (1896 Supreme court decision)

29
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

Politics: Republican Presidents

- 1868-1876 Ulysses S. Grant (Rep.)
- 1876-1880 Rutherford B. Hayes (Rep.)
- 1880-1881 James A. Garfield, assassinated in July 1881 (Rep.)
- 1881-1884 Chester A. Arthur (Rep.)
- 1884-1888 Stephen Grover Cleveland (Dem.)
- 1888-1892 Benjamin Harrison (Rep.)
- Voter turnout: 70-80%

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”

Why the “Gilded Age”?

- Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age (novel)

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)

30
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

Economic Growth: Keys to Prosperity

- Railroad construction
- Steel production in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago (urban centers)
- Meat-packing industry in Chicago
- Mining, grazing and cattle ranching in the West, Pacific timber
- Chemical industry
- Banking

Admission of Western States

- 1876 Colorado
- 1889 North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington
- 1890 Idaho, Wyoming
- 1896 Utah
- 1907 Oklahoma
- 1912 New Mexico, Arizona
- 1959 Alaska, Hawaii

Innovation and Invention

- Replacement of steam by electricity (private):
- Light bulb (Edison 1879), dynamo, gasoline-driven vehicles, telephone (Bell 1876),
phonograph, typewriter, motion pictures
- Barbed wire, hydraulic mining in the West
- Refrigeration, quick-freezing, pasteurization
- Marketing and consumption: advertisement agencies, department stores, mail order
catalogues
- Brand foods and drinks: Kellogg’s, Heinz, Quaker Oats, Coca Cola 1886
- Building and architecture: Brooklyn Bridge, skyscrapers

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)

31
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

Corporate America: New Methods of Organization and Management

- Systematic forms of management: opening of new “white collar” positions (for men
and women)
- Tight cost accounting systems, rational organization of work, efficiency (scientific
management, Taylorism)
- Controlling production, distribution and marketing (vertical integration)
- Advertising agencies
- Consequences: Falling prices for consumers
- Also: Pressures on small businesses, farmers, labor
- And: Speculative financing, overproduction

American Success Stories

- Young men rising “from rags to riches”: Horatio Alger’s bestsellers (1867ff),
popular self-help books
- Popular ideal of the businessman (“self-made man”): Andre Carnegie’s The Gospel
of Wealth (1889): social responsibility of the wealthy for the public good
- Philanthropy: support for cultural and educational institutions (relation of high
culture and social status)
- Role of Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer)

Consequences for the Workers

- Overall rising wages, yet precarious working and living conditions at the bottom
- Management strategies to increase efficiency: discipline, speeding up work,
machines, wage cuts and layoffs (during depression), 59-hour week
- Continuing demand for unskilled and semi-skilled workers (filled new immigrant
workers), oversupply of labor kept wages down

Problems for Labor Organizations

- Management strategies: blacklisting, hiring the Pinkertons, “yellow-dog contracts”
- Workers’ ideals of social mobility, weak sense of class identity
- Strong ethnic differences: fragmentation, supported by employers’ hiring practices
- Anti-foreign hostility (nativism) within unions
- Unions restricted to skilled trades: craft unions
- Strikes: often spontaneous, violent, disorganized

The Labor Movement

- 1866-1873 National Labor Union
- 1869-1886 The Noble and Holy Order of Knights of Labor
- 1886 American Federation of Labor
- 1870s Molly Maguires (Irish in Pennsylvania coal fields)
- 1893 Western Federation of Miners
- Strikes: Great Railroad Strike (1877), Chicago Railroad Strike and Haymarket Square
Affair (1886), Homestead Steel Strike (1892), Pullman Strike (1894)
- 1881-90: 9,668 strikes (local job actions)

32
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

Protests and Calls for reform

- Labor organizers: (re-)claiming republican values and principles, middle class
orientation
- Part of a larger movement for social reform:
- Social reforms: social documentary photography (Jacob Riis), muckraking journalists
- Utopian and dystopian novels
- Farmers’ organization

11. Transformations after the Civil War: The Western Frontiers

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“

Women Rights Movement

- Women`s movement: separation into a radical and a conservative branch
- Womens rights: National Women suffrage Association 1869 (Susan B. Anthony,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton) versus American Woman Suffrage Association (Lucy Stone,
Lucretia Mott)
- Dress reform, free love, birth control, Contraceptive devices
- Victoria Woodhull for President in 1872 (Equal Rights Party, running mate: Frederick
Douglass); Susan B. Anthony arrested for voting
- Woman suffrage in Wyoming 1869, Utah 1870, Colorado 1893, Idaho 1896

Women’s Rights, Temperance, and “Home Mission”

- Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1873: women’s suffrage (Frances Willard),
protecting families from alcohol and other vides
- National Council of Women 1888

33
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

- “home mission” movement: women reforms focus on Western towns, Indian

reservations, urban slums, immigrant households, Chinatowns (conservative and racial
forms)

The Post-Civil War West

- Rise terms of population and economic importance
- 1870s rush into the ´Great American Desert´: statehood of Colorado 1876, North and
South Dakota, Washington, Montana 1889, Idaho and Wyoming 1890, Utah 1896
- Multitude of frontiers: farming, mining, ranching, urban, ethnic and racial
- Spreading conflicts with Native Americans

The “Indian Problem”

- 250,000 Indians on the great plains and in the mountain regions
- Indian resistance, military confrontation as sources of (national, regional) danger and
crisis (1864 Sand Creek Massacre)
- A political and humanitarian challenge (for government and army, eastern
politicians and reformers, including Native reformers)
- An impediment and obstacle (for Western settlers)
- A source of fantasy (´primitive´ , ´Authentic´)

11.6 Movement for “Indian Reform”

- Indian reformers: white middle-class men and women, some Native Americans
- Voluntary organization: 1879 Women’s National Indian Association, 1882 Indian
Rights Association, 1883 Lake Mohonk conferences of the Friends of the Indian
- 1881 Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor
- Home Mission Movement: home as center of `civilization´
- Educators: 1882 Carlisle Indian Industrial School
- Cultural anthropologists: Alice Fletcher

11.8 An Agenda Becomes Law

- 1887 General Allotment Act (Dawes Act) especially adapted to great plains tribes
(Omaha, Sioux)
- Aimed at integration of Indians into the American mainstream
- Prescribed transformation of Indians into Chrstian farmers living on individual
allotments of land: ability of individuals to handle private property as prerequisite of
“civilization”, leading to citizenship
- Indian children sent to boarding schools or industrial schools
- Indian leaders had to agree to the terms (principle of consent)
- No form of internal tribal government (until 1934)

34
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

Demographic change: Ethnic Diversity

- Population growth from 40 million (1870) to 60 million (1890): 30% from
immigration
- Increasing levels of immigration:
o 5 million (1815-1860)
o 10 million (1860-1890)
o 23 million (1890-1930)
- Main countries of origin until 1890: Germany, Ireland, British Isles, Scandinavia,
increasing number from Eastern and Southern Europe, Middle East
- In the West: Chinese and Japanese, increasing numbers of Hispanics (mostly
Mexican)

Inclusions and Exclusions

- Assimilation and ethnic enclaves (U.S. as a melting pot?)
- Naturalization after a residence of five years
- Exception defined by the Chinese Exclusion Act 1882: nativist tendencies in
working-class association, alliance of ethnic workers and Northeastern Protestant
elite
- Whiteness: a changing concept
- Debates on race in science and pseudo-science: supporting ideas of racial
deifference, of the evolution of races (‘superior’ and ‘inferior’), of the dangers of
mixing (science of heredity, eugenics)
- The specific case of African Americans

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)

American National Identity: A cultural, Racial or Political Identity?

- Nativism as a continuing strain in American history? American people = white?
(Lind, Behdad, King, Smith)
- Coexistence of nativism and (color-blind) liberal nationalism, vacillation between
both as competing paradigms of cultural identity until WWII (Lind, Behdad)
- Nativist excess as aberration (Kaufmann)
- ‘Crisis’ in ethnic relations nothing new (Conzen in Gierde)
- Immigrant as the ‘supercitizen’ (=quintessential American)?

35
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

11.2 The West as a symbol of Coherence (Richard Slotkin)

- Provided the material resources necessary for industrial development
- Provided a social safety valve
- Provided a spiritual and cultural resources (freedom, nature, individualism)
contrasting with Eastern society
- Mass-published dime novels, Buffalo Bill´s Wild West Show: emergence of a
Western formula (types, setting, plots, themes such as disorder vs order, right
leadership, violence)

11.4 Challenges for a federal Indian policy

- Removal no longer possible
- Concentration on reservations: problematic
- Support of Westward expansion and Statehood: military protection of citizens,
pacification of the frontier
- Dealing with Indian title of lands (treaties until 1871)
- Development of humane policies (protecting and integrating Indians)

11.5 Between the Rifle and the Peace Pipe

- Grant´s “Peace Policy” (1869-76): focus on reservation policy, church groups,
humanitarians
- Role of Secretary of the Military Ely S. Parker (Seneca): Union War general had
written the terms of surrender between U.S. C.S., Sees army as central in Indian
affairs
- Indian discontent on reservations, resistance to white intrusion breeds military
conflict
- End of peace by 1876: Custer´s Last Stand (Seventh Cavalary’s defeat at the little
Bighorn)
- Indian resistance until 1886 (capture of Geronimo)

11.7 Indian Reformers’ Agenda

- Rescuing Indians from poverty and segregation on reservations
- Protection of Indian rights: 1882 WNIA petition to U.S. Senate
- Language of liberation, rights, individualism, Indian, consent, change for survival
- Belief in capability of Indians for civilization, yet no (positive) concept of an Indian
culture
- Solutions: Assimilation through education, Christianization, private property,
citizenship (allotment of Indian land, full rights under law, “full religious liberty”
encouragement in “industry and trade” (agriculture, domestic and mechanical arts))

11.9 Reception of the Allotment Act

- Welcomed and supported by educated Indians (Charles Eastman: “the Emancipation
Act of the Indian”; Sarah Winnemucca; Susan LaFlesche)
- Leaders of Sioux and Omaha bands: divided over whether to accept conditions or not

36
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

- Conservative chiefs (Red Cloud, Sitting Bull) rejcted treaty

- 1890 consent of three fourths of adult males: surplus land offered to the “boomers” of
the new states of North and South Dakota

11.10 Flaws of Indian (Allotment) Policy

- Anachronistic (agricultural focus, traditional gender scripts)
- Speeded up land loss, led to poverty (Great plains not yet suitable for farming)
fostered dependence, created fraud in the BIA
- Full of good intentions, yet no attention to interests and desires of Indians (increasing
criticism from educated Indians), no acknowledgement of Native cultures
- 1894 Supreme Court: Indians not included in 14th amendment provision that “any
person born” in the U.S. was a citizen; citizenship awarded 1924

12. Immigration, Race and National Identity

12.2 Pull Factors for Immigrants

- Low travel costs
- Availability of land
- Higher wages
- Promise of political freedom and religious tolerance
- No need to give up ethnic customs
- Naturalization after a residence of five years
- 1886 Statue of Liberty: symbol of hope (welcome inscribed inside the pedestal
inscribed in 1901)

12.3 Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

- First federal law restricting immigration selectively (Canada 1885)
- Barred immigration of Chinese laborers (initially) for ten years, was renewed several
times
- At the same time: Chinatowns as exotic tourist sites, influx of Chinese immigrants
never stopped completely (loopholes)
- What forces are behind the Exclusion Act?

12.4 Forces behind Exclusion Act

- Nativist tendencies in working-class associations (economic and racial anxieties)
- Employers kept wages down by playing off ethnic groups against each other (lowest
wages for Chinese, Korean, Japanese laborers, using them as strike breakers)
- Alliance of ethnic workers and Protestant elite: definition of Anglo-Saxonism
gradually includes German-Americans and Irish-Americans: whiteness as a flexible,
changing concept
- Racial anxieties on both sides

12.5 Debates on Race in Science and Pseudoscience

37
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

12.6 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)

12.7 New Contexts for Immigration in the 1890s?

- Economic insecurities and labor unrest
- Decreased availability of land (closing of frontier)?
- Crowding in cities, (seeming) restrictions in economic, social, and regional mobility
(also for immigrants)
- Farmers’ protest in the West (People’s Party, Populist movement)
- End-of-the-century fears of decline

12.8 The Specific Case of African Americans

- Loss of national interest in the “black question” by late 1870s, loss of support (end of
Reconstruction)
- Gradual improvements in black education, income, landownership
- Yet: limited by black codes in the South, decline of Southern economy impacts blacks
(sharecroppers)
- Reunion of North and South: emphasis on the common ethnicity and whiteness of
the fighters in the Civil War in commemorations

12.9 By the 1890s

- Tide of anti-black legislation in the South: segregation (Jim Crow laws)
- 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson: U.S. Supreme Court validates the constitutionality of state
laws requiring separate public facilities (“Separate but equal”)
- Segregation extends into every area of southern life (drawing a color line)
- Anti-black violence: lynchings

38
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

- Black accommodation (Booker T. Washington) and protest (W.E.B. Du Bois)

- Black uplift

39
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

13. Modernization and Anti-Modern Tendencies

13.1 The Rise of Modern America

- The “genesis of modern America” can be found in the 1890s when three shaping
forces of a modern America “came fully into view”: urbanization, industrialization,
and immigration (George Donaldson Moss, The Rise of Modern America 1995, vii)

13.2 Progress and Nostalgia

- Americans are ambivalent about modernization
- On the one hand, progress is celebrated
- On the other hand, there is a nostalgia for the past (imagined in terms of the frontier,
the country, ideals of social order, gender ideals)

13.3 The Modern American City

- Separation of urban space: residential-business, poor-wealthy (role of modern
transportation)
- Emergence of central business districts: downtowns (for business and consumption)
- Taller and taller office buildings: skyscrapers (William LeBaron Jenney, Louis
Sullivan, Burnham and Root), “skyline” as new term
- Department stores (women as shoppers and labor pool)
- Expansion of commercialized urban entertainment: mingling of ethnicities and
classes

13.4 Mass Culture

- Commercial entertainment: Variety theaters (vaudeville), minstrel shows, dance
halls (ragtime), amusement parks, first moving pictures
- Mass-circulated print: books, newspapers, and magazines: dime novels, newspapers
for specialized readerships, “yellow press” (tabloids), reliance on ads, new images of
women (the “New Woman”, Gibson Girl)
- Mass spectator sports
- Integrative role of consumer culture
- Against this: new American elite as guardians of Culture

13.5 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Chicago: Progress and Nostalgia

- Rise of Chicago as an industrial city
- “White City”: tradition of high culture, monumental classic architecture, yet modern
construction, featuring displays of progress
- Lagoon and Wooded Island: pastoral retreat, America as garden, log cabin replica of
frontier past
- “Midway Plaisance”: entertainment strip, “living museums”, new products
- Frederick Jackson Turner’s speech on the significance of the frontier in American
history

40
Prof. Dr. Georgi-Findlay PS: American Cultural History 2: 19th Century DI(5)

13.6 Economic and Political Contexts

- May 1893 stock market crash, financial panic and depression: marches of “armies”
of the unemployed, strikes and walkouts
- Farmers’ movement in the West and South (populist movement), People’s Party
(Populist Party) as third force in 1896 presidential election
- 1896 Klondike gold rush (Yukon Territory) ends depression
- African American activism (Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois)

13.7 A “Fin-de-Siècle” Mood

- Commitment to technological and social progress is accompanied by countercurrent
of nostalgia (Lears, No Place of Grace 1981, Rebirth of a Nation 2009)
- Discontent with “overcivilized”, artificial life (too “feminized”), “neurasthenia” as
new “disease” (role of drugs, patent medicines)
- Longing for “authenticity”, for intensity of feeling, for the “real”
- Anxieties expressed in gendered terms: “return” to nature and “manliness” (Teddy
Roosevelt)

13.8 Return to “Manliness”

- Theodore Roosevelt: politician, writer on the West and on the “strenuous life”
- Owen Wister: writer, author of western novel The Virginian (1902)
- Frederic Remington: illustrator, painter sculptor
- Contradictory commitment to progress and nostalgia for a (pre-industrial) past;
image of the West as a symbol of coherence

13.9 (Other) Forms of Anti-Modernism

- Cult of body, popularity of athletics, Boy Scouts, military rhetoric (Gail Bederman,
Manliness and Civilization 1995)
- Move toward the outdoors, “return” to “nature”, wilderness cult (national parks,
camping, increasing interest in the West)
- Popular novels: chivalrous Middle Ages

41