AMERICAN CULTURE

1. AMERICAN CULTURE

2. Colonial Life • Most people had English origins • English language, traditions • Self-government • Colonial assemblies elected by white male property owners • Two colonies had elected governors (RI and CT) • Religious toleration • All permitted practice of various religions, but some were more tolerant than others (RI and PA were most tolerant)

3. Colonial Life • No hereditary aristocracy • Social mobility • Opportunities to improve standard of living and status by hard work (with exception of African Americans) • Early settlers were mostly young, male and poor • About 1/3 came with their families, most were alone • Land was plentiful and cheap • Colonists tended to marry young and start families • Lower death rate • More scattered out, less exposure to disease

4. Colonial Family Life • 90 % lived on farms • Higher standard of living than most people had in Europe • Married young, many children • Landowning and politics dominated by men • Men had almost unlimited power in their homes • Even right to beat wives • Women had an average of 8 children, educated them • Women kept the home and often worked along with husband in a store or on the farm. • Divorce – legal, but rare. • Most women were not abused and did share in family decision-making.

5. Colonial Religion • Majority of colonists belonged to Protestant denominations • Presbyterians – many in New England • Dutch Reformed Church – NY • Lutherans, Mennonites, Quakers – PA • Anglican Church (Church of England) – NY, VA, Carolinas – tended to be prosperous farmers and merchants • Congregationalists – found mainly in New England (successors to the Puritans)

6. Religion • Great Awakening • 1730s and 1740s • Fervent expressions of religion among masses of people • Emotionalism became common part of Protestant services • Tearful confessions of sins, being saved • Ministers lost some of their authority as people began to study the Bible in their own homes. • Changed the way people viewed authority (effects on politics/democracy) • Jonathan Edwards – “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” – began the Great Awakening • George Whitefield – traveling preacher – preached to crowds of 10,000. • Ordinary people with faith and sincerity could understand the gospel without ministers to lead them.

7. Colonial Painting • Copied European styles • Featured portraits of important Americans • Famous artists included John Trumbull, Charles Peale, Benjamin West, and John Copley • Gilbert Stuart painted the portrait of George Washington that is now on the one-dollar bill

8. JOHN TRUMBULL • The first painting that Trumbull completed for the Rotunda shows the presentation of the Declaration of Independence in what is now called Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The painting features the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence — John Adams, Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson (presenting the document), and Benjamin Franklin — standing before John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress. The painting includes portraits of 42 of the 56 signers and 5 other patriots. The artist sketched the individuals and the room from life.

9. Charles Peale • Portrait of Thomas Jefferson

10. Benjamin West • Drawing of Ben Franklin

11. John Copley • Portrait of John Hancock

12. Gilbert Stuart • Portrait of George Washington

13. Architecture • Georgian style was used widely • Brick and stucco with symmetrical placement of windows and dormers, spacious center hall flanked by two fireplaces. • Usually found on eastern coast • Frontier homes were often one-room log cabins

14. Literature • Mostly serious subjects – religion or politics • Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards (ministers) • Most popular and successful American writer of the 18th Century was Benjamin Franklin • Poor Richard’s Almanac

15. Science • Botanist John Bartram (Philadelphia) • Botanical garden in Phildadelphia • Collected specimens on trips through the Blue Ridge Mountains, Catskills, etc. • Published his journals • Benjamin Franklin • Worked with electricity • Developed bifocals • Franklin stove

16. Education • First tax supported schools were in Mass. • Due to Puritan emphasis on learning the Bible • Towns with over 100 families had to establish grammar schools for boys • Middle colonies • Church supported schools or private schools • Teachers often lived with families of students • Southern colonies • Private tutors or parents taught them themselves

17. Higher Education • 1636 – Harvard was founded (MA) • Train ministers • 1694 – William and Mary (VA) • Founded by Anglicans • 1701 – Yale (CT) • Founded by Congregationalists

18. Medicine • Bleeding the sick was common practice • Little to no formal education for doctors • Apprentice • First medical college began in 1765 • Part of Franklin’s plan for the College of Philadelphia

19. Legal Profession • 1600s • Most people argued their own cases in court • 1700s • Need for lawyers arose as cases became more complex • Trade expanded causing more complexity • Lawyers gained respect in 1760-70s as they argued for independence, colonial rights

20. Press • 1725 – five newspapers in the colonies • 1776 – more than 40 • Issued weekly • Month old news from Europe • Ads for goods and services • Ads for return of runaway indentured servants and slaves • Advice for better living • First cartoon – Ben Franklin

21. 19th Century Culture • Second Great Awakening • Religious revivals stirred up movements to reform society • Charles G. Finney

22. Transcendentalism • 1820-50 • Movement to transcend the bounds of the intellect and to strive for emotional unity with God • Capable of unity without the help of the institutional church • Saw church as reactionary and stifling to self-expression

23. Transendentalists • Ralph Waldo Emerson • Self-reliance, independent thinking, importance of spiritual matters over material ones • Urged Americans not to imitate European culture, to create their own • Henry David Thoreau • “On Civil Disobedience” • Nonviolent protest • Refused to pay tax that might be used in an immoral war (Mexican War), had to spend night in jail for refusing. • Inspired Gandhi and King • Brook Farm • George Ripley’s utopian commune • Want to live out the transcendental ideal • Emerson went! • Remembered for artistic creativity

24. Hudson River School • 1825-75 • Group of American landscape painters • Part of increasing nationalism following the War of 1812 • Influence of European Romantic movement led many American artists to paint their homeland • Depicted important landscapes such as Niagara Falls, the Catskills, the Rocky Mountains, and the Hudson River Valley

25. Artists of Hudson River School • George Caleb Bingham • Depicted common people in various settings: riding riverboats, voting on election day, carrying out domestic chores • William S. Mount • Lively rural compositions • Thomas Cole and Frederick Church • Heroic beauty of the American landscape • Western frontier wilderness, dramatic scenes along the Hudson River • Thomas Doughty, George Innes, S.F.B. Morse

26. George Caleb Bingham • Ferrymen Playing Cards

27. William S. Mount • Bargaining for a Horse

28. Thomas Cole • Daniel Boone

29. Frederick Church • Niagara Falls

30. Artists of Hudson River School • John James Audubon • Demonstrated the emotion of nature, especially birds and animals. • 1886 – a nature organization took his name.

31. Literature • Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper – wrote fiction, using American settings • Cooper glorified the frontiersman as nature’s nobleman • The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer • Nathaniel Hawthorne • Questioned intolerance and conformity in American life in The Scarlet Letter

32. Literature • Harriet Beecher Stowe • Uncle Tom’s Cabin • Walt Whitman • Celebrated the importance of individualism and is considered the poet of American democracy • Leaves of Grass • Edgar Allen Poe • Explored the world of the spirit and the emotions • Tales of terror • Mark Twain • Used distinctly American language, essence of American life • Others such as Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville

33. Literature • Helped by steam-driven press • Could print much faster • Early steam presses could print 4000 sheets/hour • By 1847, could print 20,000 sheets/hour • Made publication of cheap newspapers, magazines and books possible.

34. Education • Horace Mann – leading advocate for the public school movement in the 1800s. • Teaching basic literacy, also wanted instruction in basic principles of morality • McGuffey readers • Elementary ed for girls gained acceptance • Higher education • Growth of private colleges • University of Virginia (1819) • US Military Academy at West Point (1802) • Naval Academy at Annapolis (1845)

35. Family Life • Industrialization changed family life • Move to cities • Women working • Smaller families as less help was needed • New definition of roles for women and men • Men responsible for economic and political affairs • Women concentrated on care of home and children • Women as moral leaders in home and educators of children – “cult of domesticity” • Women also getting involved in church activities, reform movements – abolition, women’s rights, temperance • Seneca Falls Convention 1848

36. Urbanization – late 1800s • Cities – supplied labor for factories, market for goods • Shift in population from rural to urban • By 1900, 40% of Americans lived in towns or cities • By 1920, more Americans lived in towns/cities than in rural areas

37. Urban Life in 1800s • A lot of social drinking • At all social events/occasions • All classes did it • Cities had taverns and social/sporting clubs • Blood sports • Cockfighting, dogfighting at saloons • Boxing (popular with all classes) • Theater • Shakespeare to magicians to local pageants • Audiences mostly young and middle-aged men • Respectable women rarely attended (cult of domesticity kept them at home) • Minstrel shows • White performers made up as blacks • Stereotyping, featured banjo and fiddle, shuffle dances • Songs like “Oh! Susanna”, “Way Down Upon the Suwanee River”, “My Old Kentucky Home” – Stephen Foster • Slaves portrayed as happy and loyal – did express some authentic African-American forms of dance and music.

38. Cities brought changes! • Improvements in transportation made it possible to have a home several miles from work – streetcars (horse-drawn), electric trolleys, elevated railroads, subways • Massive steel suspension bridges (Brooklyn Bridge 1883) made longer commutes possible • Mass transportation had the effect of segregating workers by income. • Those who could afford to live outside the city v. those who could not. • Older sections of cities left to working poor, many of them immigrants

39. Changes • Skyscrapers • 1885 – William Le Baron Jenny built the 10 story Home Insurance Company Building in Chicago – the first skyscraper. • Made possible by innovations like elevators (Otis), central steam-heating with radiators in every room. • Ethnic neighborhoods • Immigrant groups created distinct neighborhoods and maintained their own culture, language, church/temple, and social clubs.

40. Changes • Strains on family life • Families isolated from extended family • Divorce rates increased • Smaller families • Children were an asset on the farm, an economic liability in the city • School attendance increased • Compulsory attendance laws • Growing support for tax-supported public high schools • Number of colleges increased

41. Early 1900s Group of artists who painted realistic scenes Focused on subjects of every day life; titles such as The Wrestlers, Sixth Avenue James McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black (“Whistler’s Mother”) – hangs in the Louvre – first of American painters to paint realistic scenes – lead to Ashcan Artists. Members included George Luks, George Bellows, John Sloan, Robert Henri, Everett Shinn and Arthur B. Davies Ashcan Artists

42. George Luks • Spring Morning, Houston and Division Streets, NY

43. George Bellows • Stag at Sharkey’s

44. John Sloan • Chinese restaurant

45. Robert Henri • Snow in NY

46. Everett Shinn • Eviction

47. Arthur B. Davies • Children in a Landscape

48. Architecture • Henry Hobson Richardson • Changed course of American architecture • Designs gave gravity and stateliness to functional commercial buildings. • Louis Sullivan of Chicago • Rejected historic styles • Went for tall, steel-framed office buildings • Achieved much admired aesthetic unity, form flowed from function • Frank Lloyd Wright • Worked for Sullivan in the 1890s • Frederick Law Olmstead • Specialized in planning city parks - Central Park in NY

49. Henry Hobson Richardson • Pittsburgh, Pa. • Milwaukee Federal Bldg.

50. Louis Sullivan • Graceland Cemetery, Chicago • Carson, Pine, Scott Bldg., Chicago