The Dawn of Mass Culture

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The Dawn of Mass Culture

• 8.4 Notes

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American Leisure
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Amusement Parks

• Chicago, New York City set asie space for outdoor
  enjoyment
• Small playgrounds, playing fields
• Amusement parks constructed on outskirts
• Built by trolley-car co. looking for more
  passengers
• Picnic grounds, rides
• Ferris wheel, roller
• coasters
• Coney Island - 1884

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Bicycling and Tennis

• Male only sport at first challenging
• 1885 commercial safety bicycle
• Victor model for women
• More comfortable attire for women when bicycling

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Marshall W. "Major" Taylor

• A hundred years ago, when bicycle races drew
  crowds that filled Madison Square Garden, the
  biggest draw of all was Major Taylor. In 1898
  fans would flock to see "the Worcester Whirlwind"
  compete.  Controversy surround "the Colored
  Cyclone," whose star was rising in muscular
  defiance of the Jim Crow segregation permeating
  the sport.

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• Tennis originated in Wales 1873
• Popular among socialites
• Florence Harriman
• People thought nets were to catch birds
• 1900 Chocolate Hershey bars
• Coca-Cola 1886
• Atlanta pharmacist used as a cure for headaches
• Coca leaves and African cola nuts

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Spectator Sports

• Informal activities become
• popular
• Boxing and baseball
• Profitable businesses
• Baseball
• 1845 amateur player Alexander Cartwright
  organized New York City ball club
• 50 clubs in 5 years
• 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings
• toured U.S.
• Formed NL and AL
• Published game schedule,
• official rules, standard-sized diamond

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• First World Series 1903
• Boston Pilgrims (4) beat Pittsburg Pirates (3)
• African Americans excluded
• Formed own leagues
• Negro National League and Negro American League

the very symboland visible expression of the
drive and push and rush and struggle of the
raging, tearing, booming, 19th Century Mark
Twain
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Newspapers

• Promotion of education increased literacy rate
• Sensational headlines to attract readers
• Joseph Pulitzer purchased New York World
• Introduced large Sunday edition
• Comics, sports coverage, womens news
• sin, sex and sensation
• William Randolph Hearst owned San Francisco
  Examiner
• New York Morning Journal personal scandal,
  cruelty, etc.

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Fine Arts

• 1900 Art gallery in every major city
• realism portrayed life as it was
• Aschan School of American Art
• Urban life and labor with no frills
• Abstract art developing in Europe
• Libraries often nearby
• poor mans university

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Popular Fiction

• Crime tales, western adventures, light fiction
• Dime Novels
• Glorified adventure tales with a hero
• Edward Wheelers Deadwood Dick
• Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Not so serious literatures