INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL TRENDS

• The Knowledge Revolution– industrialization altered the way Americans thought as

well as the way they made a living– the new industrial society placed new demands on

education and gave rise to new ways of thinking about education

– Darwin’s theory of evolution influenced almost every field of knowledge

– America emerged from the intellectual shadow of Europe, as Americans began to make significant contributions to the sciences as well as the relatively new social sciences, and American literature flourished

– Americans began to hunger for information– Chautauqua-type movements, the growth of

public libraries, and the boom in the number, size, and sophistication of newspapers began to satisfy the public's newfound curiosity

– a growing and better-educated population created a demand for printed matter

– this, combined with the integration of the economy, increased importance of advertising

– papers such as Pulitzer’s New York World and Hearst’s New York Journal competed fiercely for readers

• Magazine Journalism– by the turn of the century, more than five

thousand magazines were in publication– prior to the 1880s, a few staid publications,

such as Harper’s and The Atlantic Monthly, dominated the field of serious magazines

– in the 1860s and 1870s, Frank Leslie’s magazines appealed to a broader audience

– after the mid-1880s, several new, serious magazines adopted a hard-hitting, controversial, and investigative style and inquired into the social issues of their day

– in 1889, Edward Bok became editor of Ladies’ Home Journal

– he offered articles on child care and household affairs as well as literary items

– in addition to printing colored reproductions of art masterpieces, Bok undertook crusades for women’s suffrage, conservation, and other reforms

– Bok not only catered to public tastes, he created new ones

• Colleges and Universities– the number of colleges increased as state

universities and coeducational land-grant colleges sprang up across the nation

– still, less than 2 percent of the college age population attended college

– Harvard led the way in reforming curriculum and professionalizing college teaching

– established in 1876 and modeled on German universities, Johns Hopkins University pioneered the modern research university and professional graduate education in America

– beginning with Vassar College, the second half

of the nineteenth century witnessed the

establishment of numerous women's colleges

– alumni influence on campus grew, fraternities

spread, and organized sports became a part of

the college scene; colleges and universities

mirrored the complexities of modern American

society

• Scientific Advances

– Americans made enormous contributions in the

fields of pure science during the nineteenth

century

– Josiah Willard Gibbs single-handedly created

the field of physical chemistry

– Albert A. Michelson was the first man to

measure the speed of light accurately

• Revolution in the Social Sciences– social scientists applied the theory of evolution

to every aspect of human relations– they also attempted to use scientific

methodology in their quest for objective truths in subjective fields

– controversies over trusts, slum conditions, and other problems drew scholars into practical affairs

– classical economics faced a challenge from the institutionalist school

– similar forces were at work in the disciplines of sociology and political science

• Progressive Education– educators began to realize that traditional

education did not prepare their students for life in industrial America

– settlement house workers found that slum children needed training in handicrafts, citizenship, and personal hygiene as much as in reading and writing

– new theorists argued that good teaching called for professional training, psychological insights, enthusiasm, and imagination, not rote memorization and corporal punishment

– John Dewey of the University of Chicago emerged as the leading proponent of progressive education

– Dewey held that the school should serve as “an embryonic community,” a mirror of the larger society

– he contended that education should center on the child and that new information should relate to the child’s existing knowledge

– Dewey saw schools as instruments of reform– toward that end, he argued that education

should teach values and citizenship

• Law and History– social evolutionists affected even the law

– in 1881, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in The Common Law, best summarized this new view, averring that “the felt necessities of time” and not mere precedent should determine the rules by which people are governed

– also responding to new intellectual trends, historians traced documentary evidence to discover the evolutionary development of their contemporary political institutions

– one product of this new approach was the theory of the Teutonic origins of democracy, which has since been thoroughly discredited

– however, the same general approach also produced Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”

– if the claims of the new historians to objectivity were absurdly overstated, their emphasis upon objectivity, exactitude, and scholarly standards benefited the profession

• Realism in Literature– the majority of America’s pre-Gilded Age

literature was romantic in mood

– however, industrialism, theories of evolution, the new pragmatism in the sciences, and the very complexities of modern life produced a change in American literature

– novelists began to examine social problems such as slums, political corruption, and the struggle between labor and capital

• Mark Twain– while no man pursued modern materialism with

more vigor than Samuel L. Clemens, perhaps no man could illustrate the foibles and follies of America’s Gilded Age with greater exactitude than his alter ego, Mark Twain

– his keen wit, his purely American sense of humor, and his eye for detail allowed Twain to portray the best and the worst of his age

– his works provide a brilliant and biting insight into the society of his day

• William Dean Howells– initially for Howells, realism meant a realistic

portrayal of individual personalities and the genteel, middle-class world that he knew best

– he became, however, more and more interested in the darker side of industrialism

– he combined his concerns for literary realism and social justice in novels such as The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Hazard of New Fortunes

– following his passionate defense of the Haymarket radicals in 1886, he began calling himself a socialist

– the most influential critic of his time, Howells was instrumental in introducing such authors as Tolstoy, Dostoyevski, Ibsen, and Zola to American readers

– he also sponsored young American novelists such as Hamlin Garlin, Stephen Crane, and Frank Norris

– some of these young authors went beyond realism to naturalism, a philosophy that regarded humans as animals whose fate was determined by the environment

• Henry James

– a cosmopolitan born to wealth, Henry James

lived most of his adult life as an expatriate

– James never gained the recognition of his

countrymen during his lifetime

– his major themes concerned the clash between

American and European cultures and the

corrupt relationships found in high society

• Realism in Art– Realism had a profound impact on American

painting as well as writing– foremost among realist artists was Thomas

Eakins, who was greatly influenced by the seventeenth-century European realists

– as an early innovator in motion pictures, Eakins used film to study people and animals in motion

– Winslow Homer, a watercolorist from Boston, used all of the realist’s techniques for accuracy and detail to enhance his sometimes romantic land- and seascapes

– in art, the romantic tradition retained its vitality– the leading romantic painter of the day,

Pinkham Ryder, drew upon the sea for much of his inspiration

– if the careers of Eakins, Homer, and Ryder demonstrated that America was not uncongenial to first-rate artists, two of the leading artists of the era, James McNeill Whistler and Mary Cassatt, were expatriates

– during this period, vast collections of American and foreign artworks came to rest in the mansions and museums of the United States

• The Pragmatic Approach– it would indeed have been surprising if the

intellectual ferment of this period had not affected traditional religious and philosophical values

– evolution posed an immediate challenge to traditional religious doctrine but did not seriously undermine most Americans’ faith

– if Darwin was correct, the biblical account of creation was false

– however, many were able to reconcile evolutionary theory and religion

– Darwinism had a less dramatic but more significant impact upon philosophical values

– the logic of evolution made it difficult to justify fixed systems and eternal verities

– Charles S. Pierce, the father of pragmatism, argued that concepts could be fairly understood only in terms of their practical effects

– William James, the brother of the novelist and perhaps the most influential thinker of his time, presented pragmatism in more understandable language

– he also contributed to the establishment of psychology as a scientific discipline

– although pragmatism inspired reform, it had its darker side

– while relativism gave cause for optimism, it also denied the comfort of certainty and eternal values

– Pragmatism also seemed to suggest that the end justified the means