History 340 Critical Periods in  United States History:  The 1890s
Roger Williams University
CAS 228
MWF 12:00 - 12:50
Fall Semester, 2007
Michael R. H. Swanson, Ph. D.
Office:  Feinstein College 110
Hours:  T: 9:00 - 10:00:
MWF, 1:00-2:00 or by appointment
254-3230
E.mail: Swanson1890s@msn.com
Click for a hard copy
Index
For Monday, September 10  A Culture in Motion

Read,     in Schlereth:
Chapter 1: Movingpp.  7-31
in Fink:
5.1 Population Growth in Selected U. S. Cities, 1870-1920118-119
5.2 Immigrant Distribution in Six Cities, 1870-1920122
Technology and the Treadmill of Urban Progress (Klein & Kantor)132-141
As Schlereth will demonstrate, all sorts of mobility dominated American culture at the turn of the century.  It may help to organize thinking about this as a matter of scale of distance, as much as anything else.  At the top of the scale would be immigration.  At the bottom, the commute from domicile to workplace.  In between would be the movement between regions of this country, and from the farms, villages and market towns to the emerging industrial centers.  All of these happened more or less simultaneously and more or less continuously, and at an ever accelerating pace. 

Highlight the middle decades on the chart in Fink 5.1 (1880-1910), and analyze the relative rates of growth of places in different regions.  If you haven’t given your character a locale yet, you might want to choose one of the cities mentioned and consider how the changes experienced would have effected him/her.  Think, too, that persons and families who do not move around much are still affected by the mobility swirling around them.
Many more pictures of street railways can be found by clicking here.
Additional Internet Investigation:

Visit one of the following websites which present aspects of the transportation revolution:


Note that electrified transit boomed in quite small places.  Your persona may have had occasion to encounter one, or would certainly have dreamed of encountering one.

Note, too, that horse drawn trolley's persisted quite late.  The one above in Palm Beach dates to 1905.  Click on it to find other views of assorted street railways across the United States.
For Friday, September 14       Is Everybody Welcome?

Read, in Fink:
Families Enter America (Bodnar)pp.  141-150
5.5 Congress Takes Aim at the “Chinese Menace” pp.  123-124
5.5 Huang Zunxian Expresses the Chinese
Perspective in Poetrypp.  124-128
5.8 Advice Column for Jewish Immigrantspp.  128-131

This period we focus on immigrants and the immigrant experience.  Bodnar will show us why it is perhaps better to think of the immigrant family than of the immigrant individual.  Pay special attention to the section on “family economy”.

The three primary sources highlight some of the friction which arose as diverse groups made America home.  The first of these, please note, is an official document of the United States Congress.  Its tone may surprise you.  The second looks at anti-Chinese racism from the perspective of the victim: in this case a victim who happens to be a sensitive poet.  The third suggests some of the acculturation issues which new immigrants faced.
Pauper labor steals the bread out of the mouths of an honest American working family, in this anti-immigrant cartoon from Judge.

Anti-immigrant propaganda focussed on "The New Emmigration" from Southern and Eastern Europe, especially Italians and Jews.  Click on the image to the right to read more about the 19th century Jewish experience.

The complaint about immigrant labor depressing wages is still heard from time to time.
Click for more information about anti-Chinese sentiment.
For more information about anti-Chinese campaigns in the 19th century, click on the image to the left.

Note how this cartoon combines the American fascination with new technology with racist sentiments.
Further Internet Investigations.

Another interesting kind of moving is “touring,” and visiting exotic places (like Cleveland, or Indianapolis) was a favorite activity, and it led to the invention of a new communications genre, the picture postcard.  The Library of Congress has a very large collection of turn of the century postcards available at  http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/detroit/dethome.html.   I’d like to have you browse in the collection a bit. 

Of course sedentary people toured, too.  After all, someone received those postcards from exotic places (like Buffalo).  In popular terminology these folks became known as armchair tourists or armchair travellers.  So have your character either get or send a few.
For Wednesday, September 12  A Culture in Motion

Read,in Fink:

Technology and the Treadmill of Urban Progress (Klein & Kantor)132-141
Klein & Kantor will shed light on the way that technology both stimulated mobility and made it possible.  They will also direct your attention to certain aspects of technological change which ameliorated problems created by previous technological solutions.  (see p. 134)
Just thinking. . .

As I’m writing this, I’m still basking in the glow of what I thought was a very enjoyable class on Wednesday, September 5.  I’m now waiting to see how you adapt to the technological tools available to us, and I’m really hopeful that there can be a way to use the blogging tool successfully.  Right now, I’m thinking of following up on the classroom exercise wherein you split yourselves in two, reflecting on the poem from today’s viewpoint and from the viewpoint of your alter ego as well.  It is possible for me to create individual blog areas for each of you, in which you can record your 21st century thoughts, and/or journal space for your semester long project.  I think this would be a wonderful way for you to give others in the class an insight to your thinking and development across the semester, and it would also give you a chance to develop a tool which might be useful in other classes and later life, as well.    Can I ask you to send me some feedback about this idea over the weekend?  If we go this route, I may just decide to fold the research paper into these journals and eliminate it as a separate project.  (You’ll be encouraged to add entries, including pictures, from the resources I provide right into your alter ego’s journal and your own reflections, instead)