Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Patrick Walsh
3/3/2008
US History
American Culture: Changes in the late 19th to early 20th century
From the end decades of the 19th century to the beginning decades of the 20th century,
American society undertook massive cultural change. During the civil war, the north had
an insatiable need for mass amounts of war supplies. The north naturally landed on the
only feasible way to meet their massive demand for goods: factories. These giant
factories created millions of jobs for the people of America. People of all different races,
genders and cultures swarmed into the city. “Between 1870 and 1920, American cities
flourished as never before. The urban population of the nation increased from under ten
entertainment, transportation, the creation of a public mass culture, and gender anxiety all
emerged within this time. These changes occurred because of reasons like scientific
discoveries, a push towards secularism, mass production, immigration and the change
from blue collar to white collar jobs. Industrialization links all of these changes together
and plays a great part in the culture change at the turn of the century.
Industrialization brought upon many changes for traditional American values and
the societies that upheld them. "But a more fundamental transformation was occurring in
the social structure itself: the change in the motivations and rewards of the economic
system."2 The traditional Protestant ethic was a thing of the past. “Status and its badges,
1
David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 1
2
Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 115
not work and the election of God, became a mark of success.”3 The previous ethic is best
described using the term “delayed gratification”4. You would wait over your entire life,
working hard each day, for God’s approval and in turn you would be rewarded in heaven.
The new ethic emphasized working hard in order to gain money to buy material objects.
“A higher standard of living, not work as an end in itself, then became the engine of
change. The glorification of plenty, rather then the bending to niggardly nature, becomes
the justification of the system.”5 Money, which had always been considered a necessary
evil, was now the main focus of work. People who had money had power within society.
“American business was the dynamic agency tearing up small-town life and catapulting
America into world economic dominance; and it was doing so within the language and
cover of the protestant ethic”6 This change in puritan beliefs was a major cause of the
creation of the public mass culture that developed in the late 19th century.
Another thing that this change in puritan ideals caused was Americas switch into
a consumerist nation. After the civil war, America had all these factories that were no
longer being used to produce war supplies. These factories were now being put to use
producing goods that the general public needed. Previously customers just did not have
the money to buy luxury items, however, as wages increased, people began to have the
spare money to obtain a few items of extravagance. Because of the need for luxury items,
and the extra cash the people now had to spend on material possession because of the
change in protestant ideals, stores began to open. For the first time, store owners began
to make their shops something completely different. It was not good enough to just carry
3
Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 115
4
Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 115
5
Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 115
6
Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 116
the goods that people wanted. They tried to specialize in interior design, attempting to
make shopping and enjoyable experience. Anyone was a potential customer, and as the
store owner, you could not afford to provide any hindrance to him from coming in. and
you must do everything in your power to attract him to your store. “A step at the entrance
is a mistake…no hindrance should be offered to people who may drift into the store.”7
“The point was to give shopping space its own unique identity.”8 Store owners designed
elaborate displays in the windows and came up with colorful cloths to place on tables.
They picked a theme for the store and designed everything towards that one theme. One
man said, “People do not buy the thing, they buy the effect… Make the whole store a
brilliant showplace.”9 People like John Wannamaker and Franklin Woolworth made
millions off it. People began to shop for pleasure rather then for a purpose. Woolworth
came up with the idea for a 5 cent item bin to get people to spend money on a whim. This
introduced the concept of set prices, rather then bargaining. Unheard of at the time, this
revolutionized the way business was done. This all spawned because of the new
materialistic ideals of the time. However, none of this could have ever happened if it
were not for industrialization. Without industrialization, there would be no way to mass
produce these items that the stores were now opening to carry.
One of the main cultural changes of the late 19th and early 20th century was the
way people spent their time. Many new forms of entertainment were developed over this
time period, including athletic clubs, theaters and radio, But most importantly, the
invention of amusement parks. As the puritan work ethic changed, people found that they
7
William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York:
Vintage, 1993), 129
8
Daniel T. Rodgers, The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1978), 74
9
: William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New
York: Vintage, 1993), 134
had more money, and worked less hours in a day. An easy way to wind down from a
stressful day at work was to visit an amusement park. While leisure time used to be a
thing for the excessively wealthy, it was now available to the average worker. “A
workingman wants something besides food and clothes in this country… he wants
recreation. Going out was more than an escape from the tedium of work, it was the
gateway into a privileged sphere of everyday life.”10 The average working man had a
chance to live out the live of an upper class citizen. “Going out”11, was not for everyone
however. Many people who worked manual labor jobs did not have the time to stay out
late and experience amusement parks or night clubs. When they got off work, they were
very tired and needed all the rest that they could get. “The city’s white collar workers
were the most avid consumers of the commercial pleasures. Their work was increasingly
While these leisurely activities were a great social advance, none of them would
have been possible without the scientific advancement of electricity. Electricity spawned
a whole new form of entertainment: the night life. This meant for the first time, after
work, under the new electric street lamps, people could go enjoy themselves safely as
night. Any city blazing with night lights was represented as one “worthy of respect”13.
Lights were used for much more than just lighting the cities, they also employed to bring
10
David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New York: Basic Books, 1993),
141
11
David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New York: Basic Books, 1993),
141
12
David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New York: Basic Books, 1993),
141
13
David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New York: Basic Books, 1993),
139
visitors to places of entertainment. Amusement parks, night clubs and radio were all
At the same time that America was industrializing, men in America were being
pushed into an anxious frenzy over their masculinity. Men who had been working on
farms and in mines all their lives were now switching over to white collar jobs; managing
stores, overseeing production and other things of the same sort. Many cultural changes of
the time can be linked back to this anxiety. After industrialization and the switch to white
collar jobs, many new athletic clubs were formed. These clubs were places that all men
could get together and exercise and get back to their masculine roots. One of the most
popular writings of the time was spurred from this anxiety. Tarzan, the story of a baby
boy who was left in the jungle and raised by apes to eventually become king of the
jungle, was written in 1912. We learn within the story that Tarzan hunts a black man who
is hunting his ape family. This is a very masculine thing. After Tarzan kills the man, he
thinks about eating the meat. His instincts tell him this is wrong, although this is what is
done in the jungle. “All he knew was that he could not eat the flesh of this black man, and
thus hereditary instinct, ages old, usurped the functions of his untaught mind and saved
him from transgressing a worldwide law of whose very existence he was ignorant.”14
Tarzan is the epitome of what men in the 19th-20th century exchange wished to be: wild
and masculine, yet refined and dignified. The last thing that made men feel as if they
were being feminized was when women entered the workplace. In the late 19th century,
women began to work jobs such as sales clerks and representatives. Previously, mainly
men made money for the family. But at this point, millions of women entered the
workplace and started taking jobs from men. This is all because of industrialization. If
14
Edgar Rice Burrough, Tarzan of the Apes. Frank A. Munsey Company, 1912, 98
people had never moved away from their agricultural lifestyles, men would never have
felt emasculated and would not have to look for other means to feel secure to be a man.
Later 19th century and the early 20th century immigration greatly affected a
immigrate into America, they brought with them, the religion that they had followed in
their previous country. As new religion continued to be introduced into America, usually
Catholicism, to America, it affected the well established protestant religion that was
already there. “A majority of “new immigrants” were not Protestants, and they spoke
immigrants did not agree with the churches that were already built, so eventually, when
enough people had immigrated, they began building their own churches. As more
America in the Progressive Era, found the Catholic Church here well established.”16
Protestants did not like these new churches that the immigrants built. Most Immigrants
had different values and morals. For example, some of the immigrants were very heavy
drinkers, something that Protestants found immoral and conflicted with their ethics.
“Religious institutions played central roles in immigrant’s lives… Because the American
government did not sponsor or finance religion, however, immigrants had to create and
manage their own houses of worship.”17 This meant the immigrants could take their
religion less seriously if they wished to. If they did not want religion to epitomize their
life, it did not have to, something else the Protestants disapproved of. Lastly, the
15
Stephen J. Diner, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era. Boston: Hill and Wang,
1998, 102
16
Stephen J. Diner, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era. Boston: Hill and Wang,
1998, 107
17
Stephen J. Diner, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era. Boston: Hill and Wang,
1998, 107
immigrants created their own religious schools. “Many immigrant parents, particularly
Catholics and Lutherans, also thought the public schools threatened their religious values,
and sent their children to alternative parochial schools.”18 Clearly, both the Protestants
and the immigrant’s religions conflicted and affect one another. Overall, religion in
Perhaps the most important reason why change occurred was the idea of mass
production. The idea of many people working side by side to make one item was a fairly
new idea. George Pullman for example, spent most of his life designing trains. His most
famous idea was the sleeping car, but he invented many others as well, including the
dining car, the chair car, and the restaurant car all represented his ideas, and he
accomplished these through mass production. However, Pullman did not represent the
only person whose factories worked on trains. It was common for factories to produce
items associated with trains, like railroad tracks. There were, “twenty-four railroads
Due to better farming technology which required fewer workers, some farm laborers
began to look for jobs and found them in the factories. Eventually, in the early 20th
century, blacks also came north in search of ways to make money. However, immigrants
represented a larger percentage of the workers. At first employers had to pay their
workers high wages because the workers demanded a higher standard of living.
However, these workers were not the only ones in need of jobs; immigrants did too.
“Most of the immigrants who came to America between 1890 and World War I sought
18
Stephen J. Diner, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era. Boston: Hill and Wang,
1998, 111
19
Ray Ginger, "Compulsory Heaven at Pullman", in Altgeld's America: The Lincoln Ideal Versus
Changing Realities. New York: New Viewpoints, 1958: 147
economic opportunity.”20 Whereas the Americans believed their standard of living was
poor, “This was the life to which thousands of hopeful immigrants had flocked, including
a new wave of Slavs, Hungarians, and Italians… The new arrivals were disliked by the
English-speaking workers because they worked harder for less;”21 For a lower price, the
same time Puritan ideals were changing to a status based materialistic culture. These
combined changes caused several cultural changes within American society in the late
20
Stephen J. Diner, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era. Boston: Hill and Wang,
1998: 77
21
Barbara Freese, “Coal: A Human History,” New York: Penguin Books, 2003: 139-140