The Gilded Age: Urbanization and Industrial Growth Society & Culture

The Gilded Age: Urbanization and Industrial Growth

Society & Culture

Do as you enter…

What did you learn about

Social Darwinism over the weekend?

Discuss with a neighbor.

IDEOLOGY• A system of ideas and ideals; a belief system• Usually employed to form economic or

political theory or policy• Often described by words ending with “-ism”• Examples?

Social Darwinism• Philosophers / laissez-faire economists

Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner crudely adapt the ideas of Darwin to the social sphere

• Spencer (NOT Darwin): “survival of the fittest” based on natural/God-given talents

• Conflict and competition inherently good for society, as “superior” individuals rise to the top

• Russell Conwell’s “Acres of Diamonds” (condemnation of the poor)

• Not everyone believed this, of course (ex: Carnegie)

Social Darwinism• Brink Lindsey (2007) traces its roots to the Second Great

Awakening in which American Protestantism broke from Calvinism and “asserted the individual’s free moral agency”

• 19th century American entrepreneur culture promoted thrift and industry - “industry” meaning the hard work and dedication of an individual

• Americans who subscribed to this belief zealously sought “profit, accumulation, reinvestment, and growth”

• Social Darwinism was a secular, “scientific,” version of the Protestant work ethic that developed in the late 19th century

Horatio Alger

• What is a “social archetype”?

• Read this short, popular work of fiction. As you read, annotate (underline phrases and write in the margins) any language that indicates the presence of the ideas we just discussed.

Social Darwinism

• What are some ways that this ideology manifested itself at this time in history?

• Are there any laws or policies informed by this ideology?

Use what you learned from the previous HW assignment or from U.S. I to help

you answer this question.

Social Darwinism

Possible connections:How do you think each one might be linked to Social

Darwinism?

1. laissez-faire economic policies (esp. Grover Cleveland / depression of 1893)

2. increasing discrimination against blacks in the south and in northern cities

3. white American attitudes towards native or indigenous peoples at home and abroad (more to come on this in a few weeks)

Government Regulation (or lack of?)

“…of the Fourteenth Amendment cases brought before the Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910, nineteen dealt with the Negro, 288 dealt with corporations.” - Howard Zinn (2003)

“It is the unvarying law that the wealth of the community will be in the hands of the few… The great majority of men are unwilling to endure that long self-denial and saving which makes accumulations possible… hence it… always will be true, that the wealth of the nation is in the hands of a few, while the many subsist upon the proceeds of their daily toil.” - Supreme Court Justice David Brewer (1893)

Government Regulation (or lack of?)

• Interstate commerce clause: only Congress has oversight, while corporate lobbyists mess things up for state legislatures

• Corporations get treated as people with 14th amendment• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)

– Forbade combinations (trusts) in restraint of trade– Ineffective – too many legal loopholes– Incidentally curbs labor unions / labor combinations for

“restraining trade”• Furthers the precedent set by Interstate Commerce Act of

government response to “public need” over “private greed”

Do this when you get settled…

Generate a list of ways that the industrial revolution in the United States revolutionized

life for ordinary people and workers

Let’s put one together as a class…

Late 19th Century Working Life

Skilled vs. Unskilled Work

• Post- Civil War mining and manufacturing work increases exorbitantly

• Efficiency in production = higher standards of living and less work hours for some

• Skilled workers = well off

/ unskilled workers = struggling• Machines replace workers (“mechanization”

“automaticity”), increase monotony of work, decrease value of the worker

Businesses expand• Relations between employer

and workers becomes more distant (depersonalization / deindividuation)– See Charlie Chaplin, Modern

Times

• More difficult for workers to rise in the ranks

• Andrew Carnegie was able to do this during the Civil War era, but would he have been able to do this a decade later? How much truth is there to the Horatio Alger story, or is it a fiction / myth?

Modern Times

As you watch the film clip, take notes on which problems of industrial workers at this time are being highlighted through

satire in the film…

Other issues…• Unemployment becomes a new phenomenon, as

industrialization responds to the whims of the business cycle

• General disenchantment among industrial workers

“A deep-rooted feeling of discontent pervades the masses” - Terence V. Powderly, Knights of Labor leader (late 1880s)

• Income gap between the very rich and ordinary citizen is growing

Working women

• Women leave the household for the factory / manufacturing jobs

• White collar / clerical jobs available as educated men seek opportunities beyond typical office work

• Educated women take up nursing (occupation conforms to cultural sentiments about women’s role as caretakers / nurturers)

• Middle-class women also take on work as teachers

Working women

Social mobility?

• American Nation claims that the rich were getting richer, but ordinary workers were better off too

• 1/4 of manual laborers rose to “middle class” status during their lifetimes

• 1/3 of Italian and Jewish immigrants rose from unskilled to skilled work

Social mobility?

• Public education provides a boost to mobility (primary school becomes compulsory after Civil War, when growth of cities provide concentration of resources that make this possible)

• Secondary school still only reserved for those children who do not need to help support their families

• Vocational and technical training provide pathways to the workforce (Zinn argues this was the primary purpose of public schooling at this time)

• Education provides opportunities, but the “rags to riches” story is rare.

Discuss

• What potential options do workers have to improve their livelihood?

• To what extent does Social Darwinism provide an option?

• Are there other options?

Discuss as you enter…What did James Loewen mean by the term “cognitive

dissonance”?

How might this apply / happen to industrial workers of the late 19th / early 20th centuries?

Cognitive Dissonance• “mental stress or discomfort experienced by an

individual who… is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values”

• According to Leon Festinger, people seek consonance… how?

• Denial? • Justification?• New information / ideas?

Marxism / Socialism

• Attractive ideology for working classes going back to the 1830s

• 1848: working class revolutions in Europe forced government changes in many countries

• Some socialists, radicals, anarchists continue involvement in global labor movement

• …so what is socialism or Marxism?

Check out this video.

Dissent in the U.S.

Bestsellers (millions of copies each)…• Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879): a

single tax on land, abolishing all others, would bring in enough revenue to solve poverty and equalize wealth

• Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: author wakes up in the year 2000, in a socialist society where people work and live cooperatively

Dissent in the U.S.

Labor movement (and other revolutionary organizations) become very popular in U.S. in the 1880s and 1890s

• Socialist Labor Party (est’ed 1877)• Jewish Socialists in NYC• German “Social Revolutionaries” in Chicago

…all publish newspapers, have mass demonstrations and parades, and host workshops

Homework Check• Who were the Knights of Labor?

• Who was the American Federation of Labor?• Compare and contrast their goals.

• Do you think they were socialists? Why or why not?

Role of Immigrants• 5.5 million arrive to U.S. during 1880s / 4 million during

1890s• Labor surplus keeps wages down• As foreigners and speakers of other languages, they

have less resources to draw upon - often exploited• Not easily organized by unions (many different

languages)• Used by corporations as strikebreakers (aka “scabs”)

Slovak steel workers, 1907

Role of Immigrants• Immigrant children worked (over 1 million child

laborers in the U.S. in 1880) - drove down wages and made unemployment worse

• “Women immigrants became servants, prostitutes, housewives, factory workers, and sometimes rebels.”

Homework check

What was the Haymarket Riot?

Homework CheckWhat tactics did corporations use to fight

organized workers?

Dissent in the U.S.

Socialism does not catch on enough to gain a large place in society,

government, etc.

Why do you think this was the case?

Visual Models Help…

With a partner, design a visual representation to describe Marxism / socialism…

Use shapes, symbols, depictions of people, whatever works!

Homework Check

What reasons does American Pageant offer for the spikes in immigration to the United States?

How did “nativists” treat the New Immigrants, and how did they justify their concerns?

Is there a connection between the attitudes of these nativists and Social Darwinism? Explain.

Role of Immigrants• “pull” factors: swelling

demand for labor stimulates immigration (25 million immigrate from 1865 to 1915, mostly through NYC)

• “push” factors: political and religious persecution in Europe

• Early 1900s: over half of industrial work force is foreign born

Swelling of Cities

• Expansion of industry and jobs attracts people to live in cities

• Crowding -> problems of housing, public health, crime, immorality

• Immigrant concentration becomes more dense - American ghettos seen as better than European ones, people not compelled by law to remain there (although economic circumstances were often forbidding enough)

Urban Life

New York City, early 1890s, photograph by Gustav Schulz

Swelling of Cities• Sewer / water facilities get outpaced by population• Fire protection becomes inadequate• Garbage piles up• Streets deteriorate• Property values rise / zoning laws non-existent: owners

create smaller and smaller subdivisions• Substandard residencies lead to: disease, crime, juvenile

delinquency, psychological stress

“The Mortar of Assimilation - And the One Element that Won’t Mix”C.J. Taylor, from Puck, June 26, 1889

This cartoon appeared alongside an editorial

criticizing supporters of Irish independence as “American

only in name.”

Are there symbols in the cartoon? What are they and

what do they represent?

What is the cartoonist trying to say or suggest about assimilation (cultural

absorption)?

Look at the two cartoons by J. Keppler (1880, 1893).

What are the differences in point of view between them?

Why do you think attitudes on immigration changed?

1880

Look at the two cartoons by J. Keppler (1880, 1893).

What are the differences in point of view between them?

Why do you think attitudes on immigration changed?

9/11 Mothers

• Preview the questions on this handout

• Watch this TEDTalks video

• Follow up with a quiet reflection in writing

• Is there a connection between what we learned about earlier today and what we saw in this

video?

Discuss as you enter…

Is there a connection between what you saw in the “9/11 Mothers” TEDTalks video and

what we are learning about regarding immigration in the late 19th century?

The Dillingham Commission / Immigration

QuotasListen closely to this NPR interview with

U.S. Senate Historian, Betty Koed, and CUNY sociology professor, Richard Alba…

Take notes using the worksheet provided…

We will go over together afterward.

Emergency Quota Act (1924)

• Why were the quotas imposed, and upon what were the numbers based?

• What are the quota numbers for Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland?

• What are the quota numbers for Italy, Russia, and Greece?

U.S. Census Data of Foreign-Born

Populations (1860-1930)

• What does the number in each box tell us specifically?

• What is the difference in numbers of foreign-born British, Irish, and German immigrants between 1900 and 1920?

• What is the difference in numbers of foreign-born Italian, Greek, and Russian (Soviet) immigrants between 1900 and 1920?

• Compare the number of foreign-born Italians and Germans in the U.S. in 1920.

DO NOW

Define “urbanization” in your own words.

Swelling of cities

Bathers at Lake Michigan, Chicago, 1925

Swelling of Cities

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890) -photojournalist study of tenement life in NYC– Riis takes advantage of new flash photography– 3/4 of homes in the Lower East Side do not

have indoor toilets– Tuberculosis runs rampant

Swelling of Cities

How the Other Half Lives (1890): Mulberry St. tenement

City Improvement Attempts• Streets paved, asphalt introduced• Gaslights replaced with electric lights• Horses begin to be replaced with electric trolley cars: expand the

radius of the city / well-off move to outskirts (suburbs spring up) while the poor remain behind in over-populated, dilapidated older ghettos

City Improvement Attempts

• Suspension bridge is developed by John Roebling (ex: Brooklyn Bridge)

City Improvement Attempts• Architects build upward to accommodate for population

density, creating high rises - pseudo-classical structures popular

Wall Street, New York, late 19th century.

Greek revival Sub-Treasury building among others

DO NOW

When government fails to provide for the governed, what other possible sources of aid exist? Where can people turn?

Unforgiven: Tough Religion

• The notion of “hard work” and “thrift” as the only key to salvation

• Henry Ward Beecher (Brooklyn pastor and activist) attributes poverty to one’s spending wages on liquor, tobacco, vice

• Beecher embraced Social Darwinism as an ideology

Unforgiven: Tough Religion

• Other evangelists (ex: Dwight Moody) founded spiritual and recreational centers in the slums to provide for the unfortunate

• People like him genuinely believed that faith in God would “enable the poor to transcend the material difficulties of life” - American Nation

Progressive Preachers: The Social Gospel

• Other preachers could not look past these “material difficulties” and thought that the people involved were victims and not to be blamed.

• Therefore, they sought to improve the conditions. It was not just about saving souls.

Progressive Preachers: The Social Gospel

Washington Gladden,

Applied Christianity (1886)

Defended labor rights

Denounced idea of supply/demand

to determine wages

Worked / lived in Springfield MA, and Columbus OH

Progressive Preachers: The Social Gospel

Other reverends go a step

further and embrace socialism

Ex: Edward Bellamy

Progressive Preachers: The Social Gospel

Walter Rauschenbusch reading…How is this application of religion to society different

from traditional American religious practice? What was religion’s place?

Charles Sheldon reading…Why do you think Sheldon focused on the phrase,

“What would Jesus do?”What aspects of modern life does Sheldon focus on?

Wrap-Up Discussion

How were the philosophies of laissez-faire capitalism, Social Darwinism, and the

Social Gospel similar and different in the ways they viewed the poor? Do individuals still believe today that Darwin's theories of

evolution can be applied to society?

Discuss as you enter…

How did Settlement Houses reflect the ideas of the Social Gospel movement?

Describe the people who worked in Settlement Houses.

How do you think they and the impoverished immigrants they worked with viewed each other?

Settlement House Movement

• Social Gospel inspires others to do work for the urban poor

• Settlement House = community center located in a poor district that provided guidance and services. Usually led by activists or “idealistic, well-to-do young people” - American Nation

• By 1900, over 100 would be established

Settlement House Movement

Jane AddamsHull House, Chicago(est’d 1889)

Settlement House Movement

Robert A. Woods, South End House, Boston, Est’d 1892

Settlement House Movement

Lillian Wald, Henry Street Settlement,New York,Est’d 1893

Settlement House Movement

Most settlement house workers were women who recently graduated from college to a world that was still uninviting toward women.

Do they make a connection between their own limited opportunities and those who are limited economically?

Settlement House Movement

Settlement house workers fought for “tenement house laws, the regulation of the labor of women and children, and better schools. They employed private resources to establish playgrounds in the slums, along with libraries, classes…. Social clubs, and day-care centers.” Also tried to place children in foster homes when families could not support them.

- American Nation

Settlement House Movement

• Settlement house movement was nationally popular.

• However, even these institutions could not compete with the massive level of urban issues.

Progressive Social Reformers

White, middle-class, Protestant, educated women who, for example, ran the settlement houses

Historians debate over whether they were…

A. generous women who wanted to help the poorOR

B. condescending, elitist people who wanted to make immigrants become more Christian

and/or American (that is, assimilate)

Structured Academic Controversy (SAC)

What were the attitudes of Progressive social reformers toward immigrants?

What were the attitudes of Progressive social reformers toward immigrants?

TEAM A will argue: Progressive social reformers were generous and helpful.

TEAM B will argue: Progressive social reformers were condescending and

judgmental.

Wrap-up• What consensus did groups reach? What were the

arguments for each side?

• What were our feelings toward the speakers who we heard from the documents?

• What else would we need to know to gain a better sense of how people felt at this time?

• Based on these documents, what are some laws and/or organizations we have inherited from the Progressive Era?

Discuss as you enter…

What have you learned about the women’s suffrage movement in U.S. I?

What major figures were involved? What were their goals?

Look over this timeline briefly to refresh (from 1870-1900).

Jigsaw

ROUND 1: Find one or two partners that have the same document as you. Read the document and complete the graphic organizer to the best of your ability

ROUND 2: Meet in groups where all three documents are represented. Present your findings to each other and enrich your graphic organizers.

ROUND 3: Share aloud.

Discuss as you enter…

What does James Loewen mean when he refers to the “nadir of

American race relations”?

What accounts for this change in American society?

“The Nadir”

1890-1940

Loewen criticizes textbooks for treating this as a background

issue, while he claims it is one of the struggles at the heart of

American history

Into “The Nadir”Sequence of events…• White southerners return to political control after

Reconstruction• Informal oppression becomes common• Oppression becomes codified in state laws that

make segregation legal, as well as laws to prevent blacks from voting (known as “Jim Crow” laws)

• 1896: Supreme Court declares these laws to be constitutional in Plessy v. Ferguson (“separate but equal”)

• Lynchings become common to “punish” blacks for political crimes (i.e. trying to vote, etc.)

Booker T. WashingtonThe Awakening of the Negro (1896)

• Describes his Tuskegee Institute as focusing on “industrial or hand training”

• Advocates schooling for black youth as a place “to work and to realize the dignity of labor” - a solution to poverty

• “education of mind, skill of hand, Christian character, ideas of thrift, economy, and push”

• Celebrates blacks as hard workers, their work ethic an unfortunate byproduct of slavery

• “but for years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate” these people

What ideological current can we associate him with? In what ways is this a fair or unfair assessment?

W.E.B. DuBois

…advocates something entirely different.

Let’s read the text…

Venn it…

Draw a Venn diagram representing the views of Booker T. Washington and

W.E.B. DuBois

Provide quotes if possible!

PONDER THIS…

Why do you think baseball is considered “America’s national pastime”?

Leisure

• Cities remain artistic / intellectual centers

Metropolitan Museum of Art, founded 1870

Leisure• Breweries & saloons proliferate / a social place for working

class males

Cincinnati, circa 1890

Leisure• Calvinist-inspired opposition to sports erodes: golf, tennis,

bicycling become popular among upper and middle classes

Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 1897

Leisure• Spectator sports made possible by

dense city populations: horse racing, professional boxing, baseball, football, basketball

• Various forms of baseball existed before the Civil War, but afterwards professional teams were established and rules were codified / play was organized

• Mostly appealed to working class men

Leisure

READING CHECK-IN

Who were Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst and what were they responsible for in their time?

What possible legacy might they have left us with today?

Access to Knowledge

Wealthy industrialists, like Andrew Carnegie, donate funds to the building of libraries.

NewspapersReduction in cost of printing…

1871: Development of web press (printing on both sides simultaneously)

1886: Linotype machine (cast rows of type directly from molten metal)

Newspapers• Demand stimulated by population growth and

better education• Integrated economy (RRs) allow goods to

move cross country• Newspapers become attractive to advertisers,

revenues soar

Newspapers

• Publishers usually conservative• Demand of the masses meant lowering

intellectual standards and adopting more popular, sometimes progressive or radical causes

NewspapersJoseph Pulitzer - first publisher to

reach a massive audience. Founded the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and purchased the New York World (1883). Subscription exceeded 1 million by the late 1890s

Popularized bold, black headlines to attract attention

The World becomes a beacon for civic improvement: attacks political corruption, monopoly, slum problems

Targeted to affluent and educated readers

Newspapers• William Randolph Hearst -

purchased New York Journal (1895)• More sensational / targeted to the

masses, popularizes “yellow journalism”

• Develops a media empire (30+ newspapers across the country)

• Propels himself into the political world

Literature…

Who was Mark Twain? Why might someone want to interview Mark Twain?

What is the role of the media? What is the role of the interviewer?

Realism in Literature

• These writers of the post-Civil War era move away from the sentimentality of the Romantics (Hawthorne, Thoreau, Longfellow)

• Gave attention to the transformation of American life and its problems associated with industrialism, Darwinism, the environment

• People of different social classes are depicted, as well as problems of slum life, capital vs. labor, political corruption

Mark Twain

• Would rise to fame in the post-Civil War era

• His style remarkable for description of the “coarse characters from the lower levels of society… crime and violence.” - almost in the style of a reporter

Mark Twain

• Coins the phrase “The Gilded Age” in a book of the same title (1871) - satire on wealth of the era

• Landmark work: Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Mark TwainIn his later life, many of

Twain’s views align with those of Progressives:

• Was an adamant supporter of civil rights: for women and African Americans

• Supported labor, esp. the Knights of Labor

• He speaks out against the New York Journal and their support of imperialism

However, was skeptical of the “yellow journalism” that characterized the era…

Questions on Journalism…1. What makes someone a celebrity or public figure, and

what rights do these people have when it comes to the media and the information that is reported against them?

2. As a journalist, what laws and ethical codes apply when it comes to obtaining a story and sharing it with others through various media outlets?

3. Paparazzi vs. journalists: What’s the difference?

4. Media bias: What is it and how can you spot it?

5. Journalists and the Bill of Rights: What are the laws about how information is obtained and reported?

PONDER THIS…

In what ways is the study of art helpful for understanding history?

What is the subject of these paintings? Can we classify them in a particular genre?

What similarities or differences do you detect? Why do you think they are so different?

Joseph Decker, Green Plums (1885)

• Decker was born in Germany but immigrated to the U.S., lived in Brooklyn NY.

• His work is typical of realism, a movement which was a reaction to Romanticism, an earlier movement which depicted fantastical, imagined, or idealized subjects.

• By contrast, realism sought to depict the world accurately, or “realistically,” producing images of everyday life, objects and situations, as they were seen - including their imperfections.

Pierre-August Renoir, Still Life with Peaches (1881)

• Renoir and Claude Monet were French painters who founded the Impressionist movement in the 1870s.

• The still life painting is an illustration of this movement.• Impressionist works are generally exemplified by a focus on painting from life

and the natural world, as well as the short, choppy brush strokes which dappled color onto the canvas.

• The effects was said to give the impression of the subject rather than a clear image.

What’s in a movement?

Are the differences between these works just the result of personal preferences and styles, or are they representative of an artistic movement?

Which of these images would you say is a Realist work?

Which one is an Impressionist work? Why?

What similarities do you see between these paintings and the previous ones?

What differences?

In a group, compile a list of defining features for both movements.

John La Farge (New York),

The Last Valley-Paradise Rocks

(1867-8)

Claude Monet (Paris),

The Valley of the Nervia

(1884)

Which of these paintings is an example of a movement we have already discussed?

Work in your groups to come up with an explanation.

Claude Monet (Paris)

Fountainebleu Forest

1865

Richard Parkes Bodington (London/Paris)

View near Rouen

1821

Romantic movement!

Here’s another example of Romanticism!

Eugene Delacroix (France)

The Abduction of Rebecca

1846

These paintings are considered to be of the American Realist movement. Work in your group to compare these to the Romantics…

Winslow Homer

Breezing Up a Fair Wind

1876

John Singer Sargent

Madame X

1883-84

Realism in Art

• Read the article…• What were some of the ideas and beliefs that

were the foundations of the Realist movement?

• What did Realism emphasize in France, England, and America?

• Why might it be difficult to tell the difference between pieces of art?

Thomas Eakins, The Biglin Brothers Racing, 1873-74

Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878

Chronology of Art Movements

• Romanticism: early 1800s until around 1850

• Realism: around 1840 until around 1900 (1860-1910 in America)

• Impressionism: 1874-1890 (France), mid 1870s-early 1910s (America)

Progressive Education

Why were public schools the target of social reformers?

• “slum children” need training in reading & writing, as well as in artisanry, good citizenship, and personal hygiene

• Filth, overcrowding, poor construction• Teaching positions as political gifts• Women worked and unable to monitor children

Progressive Education

John Dewey• High school teacher,

then took up studies at Johns Hopkins

• Earned Ph. D in 1884, and traveled to universities as a popular philosopher and psychologist

Progressive Education

• Dewey viewed schools at the time (late 1800s) as “factory schools,” used to ready students to become factory workers.

• Federal gov’t still has limited involvement in education.

Progressive Education

• 1896 - The first Dewey lab school (elementary school) was created at the University of Chicago

• The School and Society (1899)

• Dewey’s focus: child at center of learning, not the curriculum

• Committed to building a stronger democracy by connecting the individual to society

Progressive Education

Tree Experiment:

1. Children start in classroom and asked them to draw a picture of a tree.

2. Then he took them outside and had them play in the trees, where he also asked specific questions about trees.

3. Then he brought them back to the classroom and asked them to draw a tree once again.

4. The difference between the first and second drawings was like comparing stick figures to Van Gogh.

Progressive Education

According to Dewey, education should look like…• Learning through hands-on experience (experiments,

projects, discussion, etc.)• Encouragement to get involved in the community• Students collaborating with each other• Gaining deeper understanding through analytical problems

and questions• Basing learning on children’s interests and needs(ex: A 4th grade classroom would be different from all other 4th grade

classrooms. The following years, the curriculum would be different depending on which students are present)

Progressive Education

“The world moves at a tremendous rate. No one knows where. We must prepare our children. Not for the world of the past, not for our world, but for their world, the world of the future.”

- John Dewey

Progressive Education

Watch this video and pay close attention to who is doing in the classroom in the first portion, and who is doing for the rest of the video.

http://youtu.be/opXKmwg8VQM

Progressive Education

“Knowledge gained during an actual experience is best understood and longest retained.”

What do you think of this? Do you agree? Why or why not?

What kind of learning works best for you? Visual? Textual? Tactile? Auditory?

Progressive Education

What kinds of experiences do you think would help prepare you to be better citizens of the future? Imagine what else could be done with your education.

Free write about this: prose, poetry, draw, whatever best connects you to your thoughts

ReferencesCarnes, Mark C. & Garraty, John A. The American Nation: 12th Edition

(Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson, 2006).

Kennedy, David M., Cohen, Lizabeth & Bailey, Thomas A. The American Pageant: 14th Edition (Boston: Wadsworth, 2010), 538-668.

Lindsey, Brink. The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America’s Politics and Culture (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 24-57.

Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me (New York: Touchstone, 2007).

Von Drehle, David. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (New York: Grove Press, 2003), 1-34.

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 253-295, 321-357.