On The Edge, p. 16-44.

On The Edge, p. 16-44.

Life In The City
1. The Industrial economy led to the growth of cities
2. urban population tripled between 1890 and 1920(10x that of rural population)
3. 2/3 of urban dwellers were in the Northeast
4. sewage problems were overwhelming
5. 1916, NYC: 500M gallons of sewage into the rivers each day
6. electric trolley lines, underground railways, 
a. poor health practices
b. malnutrition
c. childhood diseases
d. infant mortality rate: 1/100 live births
7. horse drawn vehicles were replaced > reduced animal waste 
8. improved sanitation
a. cures for malaria, yellow fever, typhoid, diphtheria
b. 1/3 decline in the national death rate after 1900
c. life expectancy was 48 years for whites, 33 years for non-whites
d. intense overcrowding, deplorable housing conditions
e. 5 story tenements
f. NY had a higher population density than Bombay, India in some parts
g. rapid disease spread, dangers of fire

Crime
1. one arrest per 11 resident s in Chicago
2. 8x as many murders as Paris
a. Joseph Pulitzer & William Randolph Hearst- “yellow journalists” used color comic strips, 
b. McClure & Cosmopolitan 
c. “Frenzied Finance” by Thomas Lawson, about insurance company fraud
d. “How the Other Half Lives,” Joseph Riis, life in tenements on the Lower East Side
e. “The Treason of the Senate,” David Graham Phillips
f. Roosevelt derided journalists as muckrackers
g. “The Shame Of The Cities,” Lincoln Steffen (1904) about boss-rule
h. “The Jungle,” Upton Sinclair, conditions in Chicago’s meat-packing industry

17
Immigrants & Nativists
a. 18 million foreign people arrived in USA between 1890 and 1917
b. 130,000 Japanese in the West
c. 270,000 migrants from Mexico
d. 1910, 3/5 of the residents of the 12 largest cities were “new” immigrants
e. immigrants from England, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia (post-Civil War)
f. 1890s, 3/4 of arrivals were from eastern, central and S. Europe
g. peasants from Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, & Jewish faiths
h. most immigrants left repressive & undemocratic governments
i. almost 1/2 of Greeks, Italians & Slavs returned home, bought small farms & businesses
j. women: 1/3 of Catholic immigrants from S. & E. Europe
k. upper class patricians had a strong nativist reaction

Hierarchy:
1. Teutonic
2. Alpine
3. Mediterranean
a. Francis Walker, President of MIT declared “immigrants were beaten men from beaten races, representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence.”
b. nativists were concerned about “race suicide.”
c. Roosevelt lamented that well-to-do families tend to die out
d. “The Passing Of The Great Race,” (1916) Madison Grant, celebrated the supremacy of the white man, Southern & Eastern Europeans threatened the older American stock with “mongrelization.”
e. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred immigration from China, 90,000 Chinese to 60,000 Chinese in 1920
f. Japanese immigrants were equally unwelcome
g. West Coast labor unions saw Asian immigrants as competitors for employment
h. Japanese were pushed into agricultural work, > 1910: Japanese farmers were growing 70% of California’s strawberry crop
i. 1906, San Francisco: segregated schools for Japanese & white students
j. Roosevelt persuaded the school authorities to rescind the vote because of relations with Tokyo
k. the Gentleman’s Agreement of 1907 was signed with Japan: restricted the immigration of male workers
l. 1913, California passed an alien land law abolishing the right of Japanese-born farmers to own property

Ethnic Enclaves
1. Irish Americans were the most populous of the “old immigrants,” dominated public life in cities
a. Irish had the highest citizenship & voting rates of any immigrant group
b. many Irish workers had skilled jobs in construction, industrial crafts & supported trade unions
c. 1890: 40% of US born Irish had white-collar jobs, attended college in greater proportions to their Protestant counterparts
d. 1890, NY’s John Kelly controlled the Democratic Party in the major urban centers of the North-NY, Chicago, Boston & San Francisco: 30% of the municipal employees in America
e. politicians used public payrolls to distribute wealth to communities ostracized because of their working class & Roman Catholic backgrounds
f. Irish American police, firefighters, & civil servants: a mainstay of urban life
g. 1910: Irish women were 20% of the public school teachers, & many found better paying white-collar work as secretaries, clerical employees & nurses
h. Czech immigrants served as skilled workers & artisans
i. Portuguese: fisherman
j. Greeks, Italians: ran fish, vegetable & fruit markets, restaurants, construction companies
k. A. P. Gianinni created the Bank of Italy, became the Bank of america so that fish & vegetable sellers could do business
l. Chinese Americans organized newspapers, local associations, and theaters
m. Mexican Americans: established economic and cultural centers in San Antonio & Los Angeles
n. Catholic hospitals, cemeteries, bookstores solidified Catholic identity
o. 1900: Catholic institutions provided education from kindergarden to university in every major city
p. German, Polish, Italian, Hispanic Catholics were denied the use of their native languages
q. the Catholic Church assumed Irish traditions while Italian & Hispanic immigrants missed their means of worship

The Jews Of The Lower East Side
1. Jewish immigrants had very little interest in returning to Russia, Poland, Austria-Hungary
a. 2 million Jews fled to the US
b. the Jews migrated as families
c. Eastern European customs excluded Jews from owning land, Jews pursued business & artisan trades
d. 2/3 of Jews identified themselves as skilled workers but more than 70% were illiterate
e. Jews clustered in Manhattan’s Lower East Side,
f. Jews brought their skills to the garment industry, over 70% of Jewish women over 16 worked in the garment trade
g. mass production: oppressive labor conditions, unhealthy sweatshops > encouraged the democratization of national dress habits, freed many immigrants from destitution, and accustomed many Jewish women to working outside the home
h. Yiddish, a German-based dialect spoken in the ghettos of E. Europe: language of poetry, song, drama, & socialist writing
i. Zionism, a religious & political ideology: only a national state in Palestine could offer protection from anti-Semitism 
j. Jewish immigrants experienced more upward mobility than any other immigrant group, placed a greater emphasis on education than property ownership
k. 1910, the Jewish community contained a higher proportion of over 16-ers that attended colleges. The Ivy League actually imposed quotas on Jewish enrollments
l. the Anglo-Protestant elite denied Jews entry into exclusive residential neighborhoods, country clubs & resorts & many private schools

Nuevos Mexicanos & Native Americans
1. US educators strove to “Americanize” European immigrants
a. legal barriers & racial discrimination sometimes blocked their opportunities for assimilation, economic improvement, & political participation
b. Hispanic residents in the SW had their territory invaded by US owned railroad corporations & ranchers lost their lands to commercial farms > became day workers in Arizona mines or Texas ranches
c. 1912, New Mexico enters the Union, English-only public schools there.
d. 1890, irrigation projects in the SW and CA stimulated fruit & vegetable production which created agricultural jobs for Mexican migrants
e. 1900: 100,000 Mexicans, 1910: 200,000, 1920: 400,000 Mexicans
f. many Mexicans headed back to Mexico in bad times
g. married women worked in the fields or in domestic service
h. 1920, Mexicans formed small, struggling communities in Denver and Los Angeles
i. The Dawes Act of 1887, broke up tribal landholdings
j. poor-soil + cheating by white speculators made farming difficult on the 160 acre allotments
k. 1906, the Burke Act, accelerated land grants to white purchasers by waiving the government’s 25 year trusteeship of Native Property
l. 1917, Native Americans had lost 62% of their lands that they held 30 years earlier
m. Washington, DC reduced federal $ for education
n. the curriculum was changed to provide vocational training & encouraged natives to become farmworkers
o. “bright” children were sent to private boarding schools to Christianize them
p. Charles Eastman believed Jesus embodied Indian principles & white civilization did not live by Jesus’ principles

Maintaining The Racial Divide, p. 23
1. Dubois: why can’t a nation of immigrants accept blacks?
2. prejudice, discrimination & violence against blacks dates back to the days of slavery 
a. 1900, psuedo-scientific racist theories achieved an aura of respectability 
b. 1900, 80% of blacks lived in the South
c. 3/4 of the black labor force worked as farmers or sharecroppers in a declining cotton economy
d. blacks worked at low paying jobs: domestic servants, janitors, day laborers
e. blacks created a small middle class of clergy, physicians, educators, funeral directors, barbers & beauticians
f. 1896, the National Association of Colored Women wanted to promote the social & intellectual uplift of their people
g. George H. White of NC declared his constituents as “a rising people, full of potential.”
h. segregation codes, political disenfranchisement & terror were imposed 
i. 1890s, S. Legislatures imposed Jim Crow Laws: segregation in transportation, schools & public places
j. Plessy v. Ferguson maintained separate but equal
k. mixed races were legally black 
l. S. Populists were not able to build a coalition against the Democrats in 1890s
m. Ben Pitchfork Tillman, Mississippi “White Knight” Vardaman, Georgia’s Hoke Smith rose to the top of the Democratic party by bashing blacks
n. blacks were effectively denied from voting
o. Democrats won support for a poll tax
p. poor whites could avoid restrictions through “grandfather” clauses
q. 1884-1914: white vigilantes/mobs lynched 3,600 black men to “protect the purity of white women from black sexual assault.”
r. Southern leaders cited pseudoscientific literature: biological & cultural inferiority of African peoples
s. blacks had “primitive nerve impulses.”
t. G. Stanley Hall, blacks should be treated by veterinarians
u. Woodrow Wilson: portrayed Reconstruction as a corrupt attempt by N. “carpet baggers” to integrate slaves into social & political life on equal terms
v. “The Clansman,” (1905), Thomas Dixon
w. “The Birth Of A Nation,” (1915) D. W. Griffith
y. major race riots in NYC in 1900 & in Springfield, IL, the hometown of Abraham Lincoln
z. Roosevelt issued dishonorable discharges to an all-black regiment for reacting violently to racial slurs

1. Booker T. Washington, leader of the nation’s African Americans
a. born a slave, graduated from a vocational training school designed by N. philanthropists
b. headed Alabama’s Normal & Industrial Institute @ Tuskegee
c. promoted hard work, frugality, cleanliness, proper manners
d. believed blacks would do better as S. artisans than as northern wage earners
e. encouraged blacks to accept a separate social status from whites
f. the S. plantation economy was stagnant > blacks migrated to the N.
g. the Chicago Defender alerted black migrants to new opportunities in auto plants, steel mills & packing houses

1. W.E. B. Dubois: 
a. history & sociology professor
b. organized a conference dedicated to Negro “freedom & growth”
c. met on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls with Boston activist William Monroe Trotter
d. 1st black American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard
e. accused Booker Washington of failing to adjust to the urban-industrial age
f. blacks needed political power to achieve economic success
g. promoted the “Talented Tenth,” college-educated blacks 
h. 1909. DuBois partners with social-worker Lillian Wald, activist Mary Ovington, socialist William English Walling > organize the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s 1st civil rights organization
i. published the Crisis, the nation’s leading voice of African American rights


The Plight Of Working People, p. 29
1. blacks, Mexicans, European immigrants earned paltry wages
a. hard working conditions, 60% of men didn’t earn enough to support a family
b. 1916, 2/3 of the population held 5% of the national wealth
c. 1911, industrial fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in NYC
d. 100s of Italian & Jewish immigrant women were trapped in a 10 story building 
e. the doors were locked to prevent theft of materials & unionization
f. 80,000 people marched in the funeral procession
g. women workers were an essential part of industrial labor
h. hierarchy 1) teachers, nurses, small # of doctors & lawyers, 2) clerical work, 3) retail sales, factory work, domestic service
i. white women sold goods, black women washed floors
j. 1900, 10% of all girls between 10 & 15 held jobs, 20% of boys between 10 & 15 held jobs
k. 1913, 20% of the nation’s children earned their own livings
l. labor abuses increased in S. manufacturing, 62% of the labor force worked in low-wage extractive industries
m. the American Tobacco Company processed tobacco in the Carolinas & in Virginia, employees earned subsistence wages
n. 1880-1900: massive investment in S. cotton mills, surpassed New England
o. 17,000 to 100,000 textile workers in the S.
p. 1890: child labor increased 130% in S. mills
q. employees wanted their children to work, earnings had to be pooled, blacks were assigned the most menial tasks
r. Mexican workers in Texas & the Southwest faced exploitative conditions
s. Chicanos, new Mexican Americans became a permanent migrant workforce that travelled across the country cultivating & picking crops
t. corporate growers persuaded Congress to waive immigration restrictions on farmworkers in 1917

A Rising Labor Movement, p. 32
a. corporations were prosperous
b. the cost of food was increasing
c. 1900: 800,000 union members, 1917: 2M union members
d. John Mitchell, head of the United Mine Workers Union, gained influence through walkouts in the Pennsylvania & West Virginia coal mines
e. the American Federation of labor thrived by organizing skilled workers
f. 1900, Jewish labor activists organized the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), mobilized female apparel employees, 
g. 1910, ILGWU lost a struggle against the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, company guards beat female strikers
h. Chicago police killed 10 female demonstrators
i. Sidney Hillman’s Amalgamated Clothing Workers combined a conciliatory approach to management with innovative union practices such as cooperative housing & banking
j. common laborers in the South faced greater challenges: piecework, long hours, low wages, competition from child labor, strikers lost when management used blacks to evict them from company-rented housing
k. more violent conflicts erupted in the West, the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) became a major force in the 1890s
l. 1903, union strike in Colorado coal fields, the governor declared martial law 
m. WFM formed alliances with Mexican American miners
n. 1913, 15 month strike of Greek, Italian, Slavic, & Mexican workers in Ludlow, Colorado
o. the Colorado Fuel Company evicted strikers from company housing with the National Guard
p. 1903, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the Wobblies, organized by “Big Bill” Haywood & other socialists
q. the working class & the employing class have nothing in common
r. rejected labor contracts, wanted to create a classless society
s. mobilized miners, loggers, migrant workers
t. used songbooks, hymns and “free speech” crusades to create worker solidarity
u. IWW: sit-down strikes against General Electric, a walkout in Paterson, NJ & unionized the textile mills of Lawrence, MA
v. US workers wouldn’t develop class loyalty, difficult to link the labor movement to republican, producer or socialist values
w. the ethnic/cultural diversity of the working class made it difficult to force labor unity, racial tensions limited the movement
y. 1903, Japanese & Mexican farmworkers went on strike in California, the AFL refused to charter the union 
z. most AFL groups were racially exclusive, rejected women, ethnic minorities & unskilled labor, blacks were likely to act as strikebreakers & the task orientation of female jobs discouraged collective bargaining

Socialists, Anarchists & Cultural Radicals, p. 34
1. the militancy of organized labor sparked greater support for a vibrant socialist movement
a. 1900, Eugene Debs organizes the Socialist Party of America, brought together industrial workers, agrarian monetarists, radical intellectuals, middle class reformers
b. a pragmatic agenda of workplace democracy & participation in elections
c. unions could develop sufficient class consciousness to elect political leaders & eventually turn government over to working class syndicates
d. Morris Hillquit, skillful Marxist orator in NY, appealed to immigrants
e. 1907, the International Association of Machinists is taken control of by Socialists
f. Samuel Gompers & building trade unions prevented a socialist takeover of the AFL
g. Debs wanted a mass movement that crossed class lines
h. the Socialist party abandoned the call to nationalize private land
i. endorsed municipal ownership of public utilities such as gas, water & sewer systems
j. Socialists placed 33 members in state legislatures
k. Victor Berger, a German American from Milwaukee was elected to Congress
l. 1912, Debs won 1,000,000 votes, 6% of the vote
m. anarchism, the state is an oppressive instrument that only serves the propertied classes
n. utopian collectivists: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Johann Most disparaged property ownership & sought to dismantle all power structures
o. Berkman advocated the use of violence or armed rebellion to appropriate property for collective use to create a cooperative society 
p. Goldman: feminist, “free-love” advocate, opponent of wedlock, pacifist. Believed marriage, organized religion & bourgeois politics were only extensions of male power
q. Goldman didn’t want the poor to have children, distributed pamphlets in Portland, OR. 1915, arrested. 
r. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the century’s leading critic of gender roles, published “Women & Economics (1898) & “The Man Made World.”(1911) 
s. Gilman dismissed housekeeping, believed women should be free to join the paid work-force
t. 1910, political dissent + free-spirits + bohemians, rejected Victorian hierarchy & genteel propriety
u. NY’s Greenwich Village, Taos, NM, 
v. Floyd Dell & Waldo Frank criticized capitalism through a Marxist lens and adopted Freud’s opinions, against puritanism
w. Randolph Bourne, upset about social injustice
y. The Masses, Max Eastman’s magazine for radical poets, novelists, artists, intellectuals, journalists & cartoonists 

New Families And Popular Culture, p. 35
a. different family patterns, different gender roles, new class of consumers
b. middle class urbanites relied less on the family as an economic unit of survival
c. increased use in contraceptives, advocated by Margaret Sanger
d. expanded opportunities for middle class women 
e. 1880 to 1890: increase of divorce rate from 5 to 10%
f. greater educational opportunities for women, 1920: 47.3% of college students were women
g. long period between physical maturity and economic independence
h. 1898-1914: increased elementary school attendance
i. 1917, 38 states required young people to attend school until 16
j. psychologist Stanley Hall created the term “adolescence,” and asserted that modern industrial society required a long period of disciplined physical development and postponed sexuality
k. working class parents contested consensual sexual relations of their children 
l. 1900-1920: the average work week for middle class employees decreased from 56 to 41 hours
m. college football became a middle-class fad and baseball was popular in industrial cities
n. amusement parks appeared on city outskirts: arcades, carousels, roller coasters, food concessions, live orchestras, dance pavilions
o. NY’s Coney Island: more than a million showed up on hot summer days
p. Middle class consumers bought sheet music to play on parlor pianos
q. NY’s “Tin Pan Alley” district used mass-production techniques to market popular songs
r. 1915, the industry was selling 200M music sheets a year
s. 1900, “rag” or “ragtime” crossed racial, ethnic, and class lines
t. ragtime was popularized by Scott Joplin, used syncopated African-derived rhythm & European melody: clubs & brothels to amusement parks/dance halls > blended with blues & jazz forms in the black south
u. urban men & women mixed together in the informal atmosphere, other attended ethnic comedy and vaudeville stages
v. 1880s, Eastman pioneered the photographic process
w. Thomas Edison developed a movie camera & kinetoscope
y. 1896, “The Kiss,” appeared in penny arcades of urban vice districts
z. 1903, “The Great Train Robbery” by Edwin W. Porter, first film with a consistent plot line 
1. Jewish entrepreneurs: Samuel Goldwyn, Adolph Zukor moved exhibitions to “nickelodeon” 5 cent a ticket storefronts in tenement neighborhoods
2. 1908, 10,000 movie establishments 
3. movie entrepreneurs moved to Hollywood: escaped harsh weather, high costs, production restrictions, troublesome labor unions,
a. consolidated casting, production, distribution, exhibition
b. 1913, “The Perils of Pauline,” and “Ruth of the Rockies” were smash hits
c. Mack Sennett created the “Keystone Kops,” a series of slapstick comedies that parodied police & social authorities 
d. stars: Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplain-the latter two negotiated million dollar contracts
e. Chaplain’s “little tramp,” an underdog in baggy pants resonated with millions of immigrants & rural migrants who faced snobbery & middle class hostility
f. 1915, “The Cheat,” was directed by Cecil de Mille
g. Birth Of A Nation, D. W. Griffiths controversial history film 
h. Mary Pickford & her co-star Douglas Fairbanks flaunted new styles of material consumption in lavish romance stories
i. 1920, the motion picture industry became a major influence on popular consumer tastes & values

Pragmatist Philosophers & Realist Artists, p. 37
1. America’s middle class began to face the tensions & dislocations of urban-industrial life
a. the literary & artistic conventions of the Victorian era began to fade
b. a “Little Renaissance” emerged around realist & naturalist writers
c. 1900, “Sister Carrie,” Theodore Dreiser, depicted a young woman’s corruption by city life
d. 1912, “The Financier,”
e. 1914, “The Titan,”
f. Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Willa Cather, Ellen Glasgow: other naturalists
g. 1910s, young poets rebelled against the Victorian genteel tradition by experimenting with new methods & more contemporary themes
h. 1912, Harriet Monroe founded the influential journal “Poetry” which published works by Robert Frost, Edgar Lee Masters, E. E. Cummings, Carl Sandburg, Amy Lowell, Edna St. Vincent Millay: drew material & language from the experiences of common people
i. modern art: shattered Victorian sensibilities
j. John Sloan, George Bellows: depicted the harshness of the contemporary world forcefully
k. Robert Henri, “paint pictures of what interests you.”
l. 1913, Alfred Stieglitz helped to organize the Armory Show, an exhibition which included abstract paintings by Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso 
m. break with 19th century formalism, explored the internal dimensions of modern life
n. William James, Harvard psychologist & philosopher, suggested an open-ended universe
o. John Dewey, Columbia University Educator, schools should be democratically organized & rooted in direct experience and serve as agents for social reform and to transmit culture
p. public education could stabilize the social order
q. Charles Beard, Thorstein Veblen: believed “progressive” technicians and reformers could apply rational planning to offset vested interests and mere precedent

Social Justice, p. 38
1. Social Gospel: “progressive Christians for social reform.”
a. spiritual regeneration led to social justice
b. government promotion of communal property ownership could reduce class conflict
c. 1907, Walter Rauschenbusch, “Christianity And The Social Crisis,” believed social environment shaped personal character, called for an activist ministry among the urban poor
d. middle class women had smaller families + increased leisure time
e. middle class women wanted to restore morality to public life
f. the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, a) focused on improving working conditions for women and children, b) 50,000 members (1898) to more than a million members (1914)
g. 1889, Jane Addams made a career in the newly developed field of social work
h. 1889, Addams helped start Hull House, a pioneer settlement house: 1) wanted to provide child-care, a library, meeting-rooms, classes in housekeeping, cooking, music & art
i. Social feminists helped the National Child Labor Committee, lobbied 1) to prohibit children under 14 from working in factories, less than 16 from working in mines, 2) eliminate night work & shifts of more than 8hrs, 
j. 22 state legislatures establishing programs to pay child support to widows or abandoned wives
k. 1912, the Children’s Bureau in the Department of Commerce & Labor was created
l. the National Consumer’s League led by Florence Kelley + the National Woman’s Trade Union League won passage of women’s minimum wage bills in 15 state and maximum hour law in 39 states
m. 1908, Muller v. Oregon, Louis D. Brandeis “cited expert testimony on the effect of extended labor on women’s health to convince the Supreme Court to uphold a ten-hour daily work limit for female workers. Viewed as a “progressive” decision, the ruling provided a constitutional basis to limit women’s equality in the workplace until the 1960s.”(39)

Purity & Social Feminism, p. 39
1. social reform often overlapped the purity crusade
a. roots in pre-Civil War evangelical temperance campaigns
b. personal character & disciplined families depend on a wholesome social environment?
c. the liquor trade was thought to be a threat to stable family life
d. 1900, 2,000,000 members in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), founded by Frances Willard in 1874
e. the purity crusade also targeted prostitution
f. prostitution: 6x the wages of wage labor
g. Elizabeth Blackwell & Caroline Wilson (the 1st two women physicians) & Antoinette Blackwell, the 1st women ordained as a Protestant minister campaigned against the double standard which allows white men to have promiscuous relations but insisted that their wives avoid extramarital liaisons
h. reformers wanted to destroy the sexual marketplace, p, 42
i. the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) & the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) & the Traveler’s Aid Society (YWCA) were created
j. most states raised the age of legal consent for sexual activity & imposed penalties for statutory rape, reforms promoted juvenile courts and reformatories to prevent sexuality before marriage
k. 1908, Lola Baldwin, stationed in Portland, OR, became the nation’s 1st municipally paid police-women to prevent sex crimes
l. prostitution was a public health issue: syphilis, gonorrhea, “silent infections,” 
m. 1910, Congress passed the Mann Act, made transportation of a woman to another state for immoral purposes a federal crime
n. Margaret Sanger, birth control could prevent the ill effects of excessive pregnancies, Emma Goldman believed contraception gave woman greater control over their lives, others wanted to reduce high birthrates among immigrants & the poor
o. some purity groups believed birth control would make women more promiscuous, the NY Society for the Prevention of Vice campaigned against allowing birth control medications through the mail
p. 1916, Margaret Sanger was forced to close her birth control clinic on indictment of obscenity charges
q. stricter licensing of cabarets, curbs of liquor sales on dance floors, and the stationing of police women at amusement parks
r. reformers were worried by motion pictures which glamorized crime and sexuality
s. Social workers John Collier & Jane Addams supported the National Board of Review in 1908 to preview films and eliminate objectionable material
t. 1910, San Francisco censors rejected 32 films- “Saved by a Sailor,” “In Hot Pursuit,” & “The Black Viper,” as “unfit for public exhibition
u. 1920s, dozens of cities and 8 states created similar commissions to monitor the fantasies presented on screen

Prohibition & Woman’s Suffrage, p. 43
a. purity reformers crusaded against the dangers of substance abuse
b. the use of opium, morphine, and cocaine grew in the 19th century
c. physicians prescribed diluted opium
d. Coca Cola had small amounts of cocaine until 1903
e. America had 250,000 narcotics addicts
f. doctors/pharmacists embraced the idea that widespread drug use was socially harmful
g. only professionals with the appropriate credentials should be able to dispense drugs
h. 1906, the Pure Food & Drug Act
i. 1909, prohibition: opium could not be imported
j. 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Act, narcotics could only be used for medical purposes & required federal registration of all drug producers as well as a doctor’s prescription for all drugs
k. alcohol: main focus of social reformers
l. evangelical Protestants denounced the use of liquor as a sin
m. Henry Ford, drinking was an obstacle to efficient production
n. the National Safety council noted the connection between alcohol use & industrial accidents in 1912
o. Anglo Protestants emphasized rationality, efficiency and discipline
p. white supremacists believed abstinence would prevent blacks from raping white women
q. social feminists were concerned about spousal abuse by drunken husbands
r. 2/3 of the counties in the South “voted dry.”
s. William Jennings Bryan praised antiliquor laws as a triumph over the corrupt and exploitative liquor interests
t. the Anti-Saloon League, nationwide lobby, professional agents were sent to influence public officials
u. 1909, 6 states had passed prohibition laws
v. 1913, the Webb-Kenyon Act permitted dry states to stop the transportation of liquor across their boundaries
w. prohibition brought middle class women into the political arena, dramatized the potential power of the women’s vote
y. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) watched 4 western states give women the right to vote
z. right to vote = economic independence = sexual freedom
1.Carrie Chapman Catt appealed to the white middle class
2.. conservatives & liberals looked to the political arena to solve social problems
3. suffrage
4. prohibition
5. sanitation
6. economic regulation