Popular Culture In The 19th Century

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Recommended: Changes going on in America in the late 19th century and early 20th century

When the colonies broke from Britain their society was still built on the traditional ideas of Britain. As America grew and adapted their culture needed to do the same. In the 19th century the Market revolution, transcendentalist thinking, and the Second great awaking started the change to new thinking. As you look at the changes shown in these articles you see that popular culture and high culture are put together by disposing of traditional views, making what was considered high culture available to others, and in allowing new ideas to be expressed in reforms. This new American culture shows the belief in this period of individual freedom and how important it was to helping America develop. 19th century Americans gave way to traditional …show more content…

Reforms are an important part in the development of the new culture because people were being allowed to express new even sometimes drastic ideas that opposed tradition. Religion with the second Great Awakening were allowed to changed and those religions even the most opposed like the Mormons gained enough strength to keep going. Even Utopian society’s like Oneida who took the change in the family relationships and made it more radical by creating free love was strong enough to last a while. All these individual reforms that were based on somebody’s or some groups ideas can become apart of society no matter how different because the new culture believed in individual thought. Other reforms like the ones for temperance and the humane treatment of the mentally ill gained track for their need to want to help everyone. These reforms attempted to help society become better by helping those that have always been considered outcast. So in considering everyone a part of humanity they really began to believe that an individual can bring it self up to anything by helping oneself. Reforms helped develop the culture to something based off of all the individual ideas that the society was exploring. In the 19th century Americans were in the antebellum era and were using reforms to express new ideas. As it was developed a new culture was created from

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