Columbia University Digital Knowledge Ventures
Columbia American History Online

Main Menu
E-Seminars
searchhelp


APUSH-17-B-3

Social Darwinism; survival of the fittest


Resources:

The Impact of The Origin of Species
Resource Type: Primary Source
What struck the popular imagination most forcefully was Darwin's argument that humans and apes shared a common ancestry, and idea often simplified into the equation of man and monkey. This charicature of Charles Darwin appeared in the London Sketch Book (c.1860).

Responses of Protestant Leaders
Resource Type: Primary Source
The prominent preacher and lecturer Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87), whose published works included Evolution and Religion (1885).

The Progressive View
Resource Type: Primary Source
The sociologist Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913).

Report of the Magdalen Society
Resource Type: Primary Source
Led by John Robert McDowell, a Princeton divinity student, the Magdalen Society was founded in 1831 to help reform prostitutes living in the Five Points slum.

Petition to Have the Five Points Opened
Resource Type: Primary Source
Merchants owning property along the periphery of Five Points petitioned the municipal government in 1829 to demolish the heart of the slum by widening and extending Anthony and Cross Streets.

Cholera Outbreak
Resource Type: Primary Source
This article, written during the cholera epidemic of 1832, conveyed the opinion that only certain social types contracted the deadly disease.

Cholera Epidemic Editorial
Resource Type: Primary Source
As far away as New Hampshire, editorials denounced the New York cholera epidemic of 1832 as divine retribution for decadence and sin.

Sunshine and Shadow in New York
Resource Type: Primary Source
Sunshine and Shadow in New York, a mid-nineteenth-century publication, depicts New York City as two polar societies, one affluent and vibrant, and one poor and diseased.

The White Man's Burden
Resource Type: Primary Source
This cartoon, referring to Rudyard Kipling's poem of the same name, was published as the Spanish-American War ended and the insurrection in the Philippines against the Americans began.

Exhibition of American Negroes at World's Fair
Resource Type: Primary Source
The Exhibition of American Negroes at the 1900 Paris World's Fair tried to show that blacks in America had become part of the American middle class.

Board of Indian Commissioner Report
Resource Type: Primary Source
In this 1905 “Board of Indian Commissioner Report,” the federal government outlines its Indian policy.

Sanger on Mammals
Resource Type: Primary Source
Margaret Sanger became a nationally famous social reformer. Here she teaches children about mammals.




CAHO is being provided to you for your own use. Any copying or distribution of CAHO materials is prohibited.