Popular Culture In The 19th Century

1052 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

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

Show More
Related

  • Jon Butler Becoming America Summary

    794 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776”, Jon Butler argues that there was massive economic and a political transformation occurred in the era of 1680 and 1770 which had been less examined to the American colonial history. In this book, Butler makes a strong argument for the early modernism of American society which helps to define the growth of American identity. The transformation improved the American socioeconomic character and demonstrated itself almost in every aspect of colonial life. I totally agree with the Jon Butler’s argument that the victories and defeats of the revolutionary war would not define America; it was the middle years of the colonial period that would. And his arguments in this book also challenge the existing history. Butler supports his argument from his own note which he collected from by researching huge amount of specialized history books.

    Read More

  • Why Were Americans Of The 18th Century Caught Between Two Cultures

    1659 Words  | 4 Pages

    The colonists of the eighteenth century were caught between two cultures: the culture of their mother country (England), and a developing culture that would soon be labeled “American.” During the eighteenth century, the population of the Britain’s mainland colonies grew at unprecedented rates. However, few Americans chose to live in the cities. Despite the limited urban population, cities still profoundly influenced colonial culture. In cities, Americans were exposed to the latest English ideas. Wealthy colonists began to emulate the culture of the mother country, and women and men

    Read More

  • 1720s and 1820a

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the 1720’s to the 1820’s there were several events, changes, and processes that occurred in America. The three events I am choosing to analyze are: The Great Awakening, The Revolution, and The Market Economy. Each one of these events had a cultural, social and economic aspect. Each one of these events had different impacts and was manifested in several different ways.

    Read More

  • Gary Nash

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    In his essay titled, “The Transformation of European Society”, Gary Nash argues how seventeenth and eighteenth century United States (U.S.) witnessed the birth of a distinct “democratic personality”. This personality had numerous effects on American society. Mr. Nash believed a society having democratic personalities exhibited the following qualities: individualization, competitiveness, and opportunity. Many factors led up to the creation of each of these traits. Americans wanted their own, distinct life, where they were not told how to act and what to think. Unfortunately, this was idealistic thinking. Reality was that they were swaying from the original goal of working towards the better of community, the Puritan way. Through the traits mentioned above in many ways could help society, they constantly went against it also. For example, many businesses, even parts of the government, were accused of being corrupt, and performing illegal acts in order to get ahead. U.S citizens were given so many options in life, many learned they could do better than what they were born to. The immense amount of land in the West led to many of these options. The land was cheap and unoccupied, meaning that it was relatively easy to gain success and achieve a higher social standing through the land. This was followed by the mindset of the “me” personality in much of American history. This also led to how competitiveness became ingrained into daily rational and overall life. A multitude of people were motivated to achieve more and become the vision of success that was driving their fellow man. Many of their visions were of owning land, and of being able to live a comfortable lifestyle. As Nash states, “living in a place where the ratio of people to ...

    Read More

  • The Rise of Social Isolation in America is a Chief Factor in the Proliferation and Continuation of Suburban Sprawl

    1866 Words  | 4 Pages

    To best understand how culture has changed, one must take into account the way it once was and what circumstances helped to alter it. Traditionally, living in the United States had comprised of a much more community-oriented culture. (Kingdon) This was especially true in the days before the automobile (and the railroad to a small extent) when communities were more isolated from mass movement, migration, and displacement of its denizens. Before the Baby Boom and especially before the Industrial Revolution, the American landscape, even on the east coast, was comprised of primarily isolated village communities and distinct urban centers. Travel and economic factors (economies were more localized then) created an environment where it was quite easy and possible for an individual to grow up, live and work, marry, and die in their hometown community. Hence, since people were more lik...

    Read More

  • The Signalman and the Red Room are well known examples of nineteenth

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Signalman and the Red Room are well known examples of nineteenth century ghost stories. Write a critical comparison of these two stories. A critical comparison of "The Signalman" and "the Red Room" which are well known examples of nineteenth century ghost stories The Signalman" and "the Red Room" are well known examples of nineteenth century ghost stories. Write a critical comparison of these two stories. "The Signalman" by Charles Dickens and "The Red Room" by H.G.Wells are both well known examples of pre-twentieth century ghost stories and are based on the supernatural.

    Read More

  • Essay On 19th Century American Culture

    567 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the 1800’s and first half of the 1900’s the WASP was seen as unjust and cruel by many European immigrants in America. Every single one of those terms however was necessary for full acceptance into the American mainstream: white, Anglo-Saxon (from northern Europe although the Irish are the exception) and Protestant. In the nineteenth century America was undergoing a dramatic transformation; the rise of industrialization, a massive influx of immigrants and urbanization caused racism to become a powerful force in American culture, affecting all parts of the political spectrum. American culture became obsessed with crude and cruel racial and ethnic stereotypes in literature, the arts and in the press.

    Read More

  • Ray Stannard Baker Research Paper

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    social and political reform manifested throughout the states as the American way of life was

    Read More

  • Reform Movements During The Antebellum Era

    257 Words  | 1 Pages

    During the Antebellum period, approximately one-hundred reform communities were established (Foner, 443). Reformers believed it was important to impose order on the universe to create the perfect utopian society and even to the extent of controlling the actions of others. The conflicting opinions between the people of the United States caused a domino effect of reform movements during the early to mid-1800’s. The reform communities set out to solve the many detrimental effects of major social problems relating to alcoholism, mental illness, and lack of education.

    Read More

  • The Old America vs. The New America

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1920’s is a period that defines the United States. Conflict and opposing values were increasingly prevalent in the American society. The country was torn between new political practices, views on the role of women, religion, social and artistic trends, science and more traditional beliefs. These were ideologies that were surfacing during the 1920’s. Much tension between the 'new America' and the 'old America' was caused by a number of wars and outbreaks (Lyndon).

    Read More

  • America's Cultural Identity

    574 Words  | 2 Pages

    Europeans and people throughout the world came to America to evade religious oppression and begin anew with a culture that was like no other. In the nineteenth century, Ralph Waldo Emerson made a statement of how America was declaring cultural independence from their European ancestry. The United States became a melting pot of the world; blending people, language and heritage creating opportunity for even the the lowest and most hated ethnic groups. Slaves began to have their own unique culture and literature for the first time. America had it’s own literary movement sparking creativity that evolved into significant components of modern culture.

    Read More

  • Traditional Values In The 1920s Essay

    655 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1920s saw a series of radical social changes in American society. During this era, people saw the clashing between the old and the new in various areas of American life. In some area, new values came to dominate and challenge traditional views, such as how women challenged old gender norms and how African Americans culture flourished and gained massive popularity. On the other hand, some conservative values seem to have triumphed over modern ideals, such as with the debate on the origin of human kind.

    Read More

  • Democratic Reform In The 1800s

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 19th century in America began with a wave of Democratic reforms and ended with a wave of different (in cause) reforms. Temperance and mental illness were more prominent in the beginnings, but the spoils system and labor unions were more prominent later on. They sought to solve unruly and dangerous and ineffective aspects of society. In both waves of reforms, people found unity together to initiate reforms, but in the later 1800s a larger population of people were involved in initiating and effectuating reforms and more involved overall to promote democratic ideals rather than using words less intense methods in the early 1800s.

    Read More

  • Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf Conformity Essay

    1438 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the early modernization of America conformity took its stride. In the times of the early nineteen hundred generations were all trying to find their own form of social stability. But there were still those outliers who decided that they wanted to stand out from the rest to rise to a different occasion. This can be seen in many different most known are the flappers of the nineteen twenties as they were the women who didn’t want to dress how society told them to and they didn’t want to act how society told them to act which caused a lot of controversy in their time. The reason so many people found what these women were doing to be so outlandish was because they were bringing chaos in the worlds feeling of conformity. With the rise of consumerism and the growing middle class those of this time wanted to find a new identity with their rising status. With the swift and rapid growth of the country came the battle between the old way of living and the new. The shift from traditional farm life and living to a modern age of radio and cinematic movies caused a clash of which process will now become the new way of living which will become the next wave of American society. The constant battle between what was accepted and what wasn’t in the early nineteen hundred is seen greatly seen through The Scopes "Monkey" Trial as it caused a large problem with old conformity as scopes wanted to teach about evolution and not creationism. This challenge of old Christian conformity was a huge hit to those who only lives peacefully in their blind ignorance. But times must change and with the case came a new way of thinking that warped the perception of what is right in their society and set a standard that still hold in school systems today. The roaring twenties and the early nineteen hundred caused a lot of challenges to be made on the system that the country had been using for so long

    Read More

  • Industry And Commerce In The Early 19th Century

    1363 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 19th century, America had a basic economy and small industry. It was also a new country, with few customs and traditions. It had not had time to acquire any, because it was still so new. America has grown a lot since then, and a lot of the steps we have taken to get to today's bustling economy and immense industry took place in the nineteenth century. Commerce and industry contributed to America's nineteenth century identity because it provided the framework for a larger economy in the future, helped drive western expansion and growth of cities, made an improved transportation system necessary, and forced many new inventions onto the market

    Read More

More about Popular Culture In The 19th Century

Open Document