Life at the

1
Life at the Turn of the Century
2
Education

• States began to pass laws requiring elementary
  students to attend school at least 3 months out
  of the year
• More colleges began to serve more people
• Colleges began to specialize in subjects

3
Two perspectives on Education

• Booker T. Washington believed racism would end
  once Af-Ams focused on gaining economic success
  through vocational skills
• established Tuskegee Institute for Agriculture,
  domestic and mechanical work
• Famous speech-the Atlanta Exposition featured the
  phrase Cast down your buckets

• WEB Du Bois
• 1st Af-Am. to receive a PhD.
• Urged Af.-Ams to seek liberal arts degrees
• Dubois believed that through intelligence the
  next leaders would fight for social equality,
  economic equality and civil rights.

4
Background

• Af.-Ams voted and held office in the South for
  about 10years (until about 1886) after the Civil
  War during Reconstruction

5
Ways that African-Americans were legally
discriminated against

• literacy tests often more than just a reading
  test, Af-Ams were often given more difficult
  tests
• poll tax -having to pay to vote presented both
  Af-Ams and poor whites
• grandfather clause many southern states wanted
  to make sure that poor and illiterate whites were
  not affected by literacy tests and poll tax. They
  instituted a clause that stated that any person
  could vote if their father or grandfather was
  qualified to vote before January 1, 1867
• Jim Crow Laws -segregated people in public and
  private places on the basis of race (The legality
  of this was upheld in 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson)
  This would not be overturned until 1954 Brown v.
  Board of Education

6
Customs affecting blacks

• Blacks were expected to yield the sidewalk to
  whites and remove their hats
• Af-Ams who did not follow customs faced
  punishment
• Lynching-hanging without a trial
• In the North, Af-Ams lived in segregated
  neighborhoods more as a result of de facto
  segregation
• In the South, Jim Crow laws forced Af-Ams to live
  in segregated neighborhoods or dejure segregation

7
Court Cases

• Plessy v. Ferguson- 1896 landmark case that
  established separate but equal ruling
• Homer Plessy was 1/8th black wanted to ride on
  the white car on the train
• Legalized the Jim Crow laws in the South

• Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, KS
• 1954 Landmark decision that established that
  separate but equal was NOT EQUAL
• Linda Brown an African Am girl had to walk a few
  miles past a white school to go to a black school
  cause of many demonstrations on both sides

8
Resisting Discrimination

• In1909 the National Association for the
  Advancement of Colored People or the NAACP was
  founded
• NAACP worked through the court system to end
  discrimination
• Ida B. Wells, black journalist worked to end
  lynching

9
The Women Question

• Both sides had strong arguments regarding the
  question should women be allowed to vote (338)
• Susan B Anthony worked to helped get the female
  suffrage.

10
Changing Roles of Women

• Women working inside the home was made easier by
  tin cans, new household appliances, ready made
  clothing
• Women working outside the home-
• Only single women worked outside the home
  (servants, factory workers, telephone operators,
  teachers)
• Department stores
• Rural free delivery
• Mail-order catalogs

11
Dawn of Mass Culture

• Ams. had more leisure time
• amusement parks like Coney Island in NY
• bicycling, tennis , boxing, baseball
• vaudeville, theater, circus
• music-ragtime
• first movies-10 minutes long, silent, ( by 1914
  DW Griffiths Birth of a Nation was 3 hours)
• Department stores like Woolworths "Five and
  Dime" and chain grocery stores became popular
• Mail order catalog like Montgomery Ward and Sears
  Roebuck (by 1910, 10 million Ams. shopped by
  mail)
• USPS began Rural free delivery which brought
  packages directly to every home
• Brand names Hershey, Coke, and Pepsi