America at the last fin de siècle was in a period of profound societal transition. Industrialization was well under way and with it a burgeoning sense of professionalism and a growing middle class that was becoming increasingly anxious about issues of race, gender, and class. The American 1890s: A Cultural Reader is a wide-ranging anthology of essays, criticism, and fiction first printed in periodicals during those last remarkable years of the nineteenth century, a decade commonly referred to as the “golden age” of periodical culture.
To depict the many changes taking place in the United States at this time, Susan Harris Smith and Melanie Dawson have drawn from an eclectic range of periodicals: elite monthlies such as Scribner’s, Harper’s, and the Atlantic Monthly; political magazines such as the North American Review and Forum; magazines for general readers such as Cosmopolitan and McClures; and specialized publications including the Chatauquan, Outing, and Colored American Magazine. Authors represented in the collection include Andrew Carnegie, Edith Wharton, Theodore Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony, Booker T. Washington, Stephen Crane,
W. E. B. DuBois, Jacob Riis, and Frederick Jackson Turner. A general introduction to the period, a brief contextualizing essay for each selection, and a comprehensive bibliography of secondary sources are provided as well. In examining and debating the decade’s momentous political and social developments, the essays, editorials, and stories in this anthology reflect a constantly shifting culture at a time of internal turmoil, unprecedented political expansion, and a renaissance of modern ideas and new technologies.
Bringing together a carefully chosen selection of primary sources, The American 1890s presents a remarkable variety of views—nostalgic, protective, imperialist, progressive, egalitarian, and democratic—held by American citizens a century ago.
- CONTENTS
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- A Timeline of America at Century’s End
- Introduction
- 1 BECOMING CULTURED AND CULTUREAS COMMODITY
- F.W. Gunsaulus, D.D., ‘‘The Ideal of Culture,’’ Chautauquan
- Andrew Carnegie, ‘‘Wealth,’’ North American Review
- Brief Observations on the Habit of Reading
- ‘‘The Reading Habit,’’ Critic
- ‘‘Courses of Reading,’’ Critic
- ‘‘What Chicago People Read,’’ Critic
- ‘‘A Note on Servants’ Libraries,’’ Critic
- George Clarke, Ph.D., ‘‘The Novel-Reading Habit,’’ Arena
- Edith Wharton, ‘‘The Pelican,’’ Scribner’s
- Dr. Thorstein Veblen, ‘‘The Economic Theory of Women’s Dress,’’Popular Science Monthly
- 2 THE IDEA OF TYPES
- William Dean Howells, ‘‘The Modern American Mood,’’ Harper’s
- Octave Thanet, ‘‘The Provincials,’’ from a series,‘‘Sketches of American Types,’’ Scribner’s
- Robert Grant, ‘‘The Conduct of Life,’’ from a series, ‘‘The Art of Living,’’Scribner’s
- Pauline E. Hopkins, ‘‘Talma Gordon,’’ Colored American Magazine
- Theodore Roosevelt, ‘‘The College Graduate and Public Life,’’Atlantic Monthly
- Booker T.Washington, ‘‘The Awakening of the Negro,’’Atlantic Monthly
- Susan B. Anthony, ‘‘The Status of Woman, Past, Present, and Future,’’Arena
- 3 LABOR
- Walter A. Wyckoff, ‘‘The Workers—The West: Among the Revolutionaries,’’ Scribner’s
- Stephen Crane, ‘‘In the Depths of a Coal Mine,’’ McClure’s
- Gertrude Roscoe, ‘‘A Paying Concern: A True Story of American Factory Life,’’ McClure’s
- Elmore Elliott Peake, ‘‘The Night Run of the ‘Overland’: A Story of Domestic Life Among the Railroad People,’’ McClure’s
- Florence Kelley, ‘‘Women and Girls in Sweat-Shops,’’ Chautauquan
- Clara Sidney Davidge, ‘‘Working-Girl’s Clubs,’’ Scribner’s
- 4 SOCIAL, ETHNIC, AND RACIAL STRIFE
- Josiah Flynt, ‘‘Club Life Among Outcasts,’’ Harper’s
- Simon Pokagon, ‘‘The Future of the Red Man,’’ Forum
- Frederick Douglass, ‘‘Lynch Law in the South,’’North American Review
- Abraham Cahan, ‘‘A Ghetto Wedding,’’ Atlantic Monthly
- Jacob A. Riis, ‘‘The Genesis of the Gang,’’ Atlantic Monthly
- Louise Betts Edwards, ‘‘Step-Brothers to Dives,’’ Harper’s
- 5 MENTAL HEALTH & PHYSICAL TRAINING
- William James, ‘‘The Gospel of Relaxation,’’ Scribner’s
- B. O. Flower, ‘‘Fashion’s Slaves,’’ Arena
- Marguerite Merington, ‘‘Woman and the Bicycle,’’ Scribner’s
- Edna C. Jackson, ‘‘A Fin de Cycle Incident,’’ Outing
- H.W. Foster, ‘‘Physical Education vs. Degeneracy,’’ Independent
- Henry Charles Merwin, ‘‘On Being Civilized Too Much,’’Atlantic Monthly
- 6 THE PROMISES OF FORMAL EDUCATION
- W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, ‘‘A Negro Schoolmaster in the New South,’’Atlantic Monthly
- John Brisben Walker, ‘‘Modern College Education,’’ Cosmopolitan
- Annie Payson Call, ‘‘The Greatest Need of College Girls,’’Atlantic Monthly
- Zitkala-Sa, ‘‘The School Days of an Indian Girl,’’ Atlantic Monthly
- Charles W. Chesnutt, ‘‘The March of Progress,’’ Century
- Paul Laurence Dunbar, ‘‘The Ingrate,’’ New England Magazine
- Abbe Carter Goodloe, ‘‘The Genius of Bowlder Bluff,’’ Scribner’s
- 7 THE FUTURE & CULTURAL CHANGE
- John Coleman Adams, ‘‘What a Great City Might Be—A Lesson from the White City,’’ New England Magazine
- Frederick J. Turner, ‘‘The Problem of the West,’’ Atlantic Monthly
- Anna R.Weeks, ‘‘The Divorce of Man from Nature,’’ Arena
- Edward Everett Hale, ‘‘Susan’s Escort,’’ Harper’s
- Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, ‘‘Twenty-Four: Four,’’ Harper’s
- Robert Barr, ‘‘Within an Ace of the End of the World,’’ McClure’s
- Bibliography
- Index
Text
Audio
Adobe DRM
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