country moving from an agricultural nation to an industrial nation 1865 to about 1916 sees transition of America from predominately rural to predominantly urban nation of producers to nation of consumers ID: 494028
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Slide1
Late 1800’s/Early 1900’s
-country moving from an agricultural nation to an industrial nation
-1865 to about 1916 sees transition of America from predominately rural to predominantly urban; nation of producers to nation of consumers
-urbanization, industrialization, and mass culture threatened traditional, preindustrial values
-individual agency and possibility became overshadowed by the idea of mass culture
-all this leads to
Progressivism vs. PopulismSlide2
Progressivism
-arose in attempt to address excesses brought about by rise of industrialism
-ideology outlived political party
-advocated gradual social, political, and economic reform
-stressed need for new laws regulating working conditions, embraced ideas of social justice,
focused on need for country to adjust alongside evolving technology and industrySlide3
Populism
-also arose in attempt to address excesses brought about by rise of industrialism
-also an ideology that outlived political party
-ideals rooted in Jeffersonian democracy: the moral virtue
of
America
depends on its association with the land; every individual has the chance to “make it” through available free land in the west (think Manifest Destiny)
-looked back on pre-industrial time with great nostalgia and longing for for agrarian America
-promoted unobtrusive government, self-help, equal opportunity; opposed big business, political machine, and intellectualism. Slide4
The Birth of a Nation
-1915, D.W. Griffiths
-
one of the first multi-reel feature film
-3 hours of screen time; intricate narrative following 2 families during the Civil War; promoted racist agenda; melodrama
-played in opulent theaters with full orchestras
-essentially populist in nature: sought to restore the country to a pre-industrial time and to values that had been destroyed by big business and urbanizationSlide5
The Birth of a Nation
-begins with nostalgic, idyllic portrait of southern Cameron family, whose happiness is destroyed by the Civil War
-melodrama involving the KKK as the “heroes” and African Americans as the “villains”
-reveals the negative aspects present in Populist agenda at the time: racism, anti-intellectualism, paranoia, etc.
-melodrama, seems over the top, however, was extremely successful, partially due to its controversy.
-does speak to the truth of feelings of wanting to return to a simpler time, but does so in a racist way