Laissez-faire conservatism
Resources:
The Search for a Scientific Culture
Resource Type: E-Seminar
Relevant pages:
Introduction
American Ambivalence
The Impact of The Origin of Species
Revolutionary Implications
Responses of Protestant Leaders
Science as Surrogate Religion
The Conservative View
Subversive Implications
The Progressive View
Conclusion
Biographies
Relevant transcripts:
"Hello, I'm Casey Blake. I'm Professor of History and American . . ."
"With that view came the idea that there was no . . ."
"For middle-class Americans, this was a reassuring and basically optimistic . . ."
The Impact of The Origin of Species
Resource Type: image-file
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).
The Impact of The Origin of Species
Resource Type: image-file
This cartoon by humorist Thomas Nast appeared in Harper's Weekly (August 19, 1871). Titled "Mr Bergh to the Rescue," the caption reads: "THE DEFRAUDED GORILLA: 'That Man wants to claim my Pedigree. He says he is one of my Descendents.' MR. BERGH: 'Now, MR. DARWIN, how could you insult him so?'"
The Impact of The Origin of Species
Resource Type: image-file
Darwinism was charicatured not only in the press but in other forms of popular culture as well. The refrain of this novelty song with music by "O'Rangoutang" is "It certainly is most absurd/ The fact can never be!/ My great grand daddy never was/ A 'Monkey' up a tree" (1874).
Revolutionary Implications
Resource Type: image-file
"Man is But a Worm": The Punch's Almanack of 1882 carried this depiction of evolution in which life emerges from the fractured word "CHAOS" at lower left, evolves from worm to ape to man, and culminates in the figure of Darwin himself as tragic philosopher.
Responses of Protestant Leaders
Resource Type: image-file
The theologian Charles Hodge (1791-1878), who was affiliated with Princeton Theological Seminary for 58 years.
Responses of Protestant Leaders
Resource Type: image-file
The prominent preacher and lecturer Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87), whose published works included Evolution and Religion (1885).
The Conservative View
Resource Type: image-file
The sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910).
The Progressive View
Resource Type: image-file
The sociologist Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913).
City Problems: Poverty and Slums
Resource Type: Document-based question
Exploring the cholera epidemic in mid-nineteenth century New York City, this selection of primary sources provides a case-study of immigration, urbanization (e.g., slums such as the Five Points), and social and moral reform that can be applied to the study of any city in the industrialized world.
Report of the Magdalen Society
Resource Type: text/other non-fiction document
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: text/other non-fiction document
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: text/newspaper
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: text/newspaper
As far away as New Hampshire, editorials denounced the New York cholera epidemic of 1832 as divine retribution for decadence and sin.
Annual Report of the Interments
Resource Type: text/other non-fiction document
Dr. John Hoskins Griscom (1809–1874), a Quaker physician, founded the New York Academy of Medicine and pioneered the field of public health. His advocacy for sanitation, medical care, and adequate housing led to the great reforms of the Progressive Era after the Civil War.
Charles Dickens on the Five Points
Resource Type: text/other non-fiction document
The famed British writer Charles Dickens published his account of his 1842 visit to America, where he found evidence of England's superior class system in the squalor of New York's Five Points slum.
Sunshine and Shadow in New York
Resource Type: image/illustration
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.
How the Other Half Lives
Resource Type: text/other non-fiction document
Newspaper reporters, such as Jacob Riis (1849–1914), played an instrumental role in exposing the destitution and misery of New York's immigrant and working-class neighborhoods.
Black Women and the National Council of Women
Resource Type: text/other non-fiction document
Adella Hunt Logan, a leading member of the Tuskegee Women's Club, argued on behalf of the National Association of Colored Women that black women should be included in the National Council of Women in the United States.
Scientific Advances and Thinking
Resource Type: Document-based question
By the late-nineteenth century, science and scientific thought influenced American intellectual life and culture. The documents attached to this DBQ allow students to assess how the achievements of science were both admired and feared.
Evolution and Religion
Resource Type: text/other non-fiction document
Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, one of the most famous Congregational preachers of his day, involved himself in controversy when he accepted Charles Darwin's theories of evolution.
Social Darwinism: Its Influence and Legacy
Resource Type: Document-based question
Social Darwinism is usually understood as an ideology that justified survival of the fittest, that argued against government intervention or social reform to improve society. The documents in this DBQ, however, point to the complexity of social-Darwinist thought, considering how a progressive version fueled the Progressive Era and how a conservative strand exerted tremendous influence in American political thought.
The Political Economist and the Tramp
Resource Type: text/fiction
In this poem, Phillips Thompson pokes fun at certain notions of Social Darwinism.
Sumner on Social Darwinism
Resource Type: text/other non-fiction document
William Graham Sumner was an American social scientist influenced by Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin. Sumner applied Darwin's evolutionary theory to human society.
Carnegie on Wealth
Resource Type: text/other non-fiction document
Andrew Carnegie made millions in the steel industry during the nineteeth century. While he was willing to share his wealth with those less fortunate than himself, he did set certain restrictions, as outlined in his 1889 article "Wealth."
The White Man's Burden
Resource Type: image/cartoon
At the end of the Spanish-American War and the beginning of the insurrection in the Philippines against the Americans, Rudyard Kipling published this poem.
Exhibition of American Negroes at World's Fair
Resource Type: image/photo
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: text/other non-fiction document
In this 1905 “Board of Indian Commissioner Report,” the federal government outlines its Indian policy.
Sanger on Mammals
Resource Type: text/other non-fiction document
Margaret Sanger became a nationally famous social reformer. Here she teaches children about mammals.
Social Darwinism
Resource Type: Point-counterpoint
The doctrine of Social Darwinism was historically interpreted in a variety of ways, and as such it was used to defend a host of ideological perspectives, which in some cases conflicted with one another. A teacher examines the competing interpretations of Richard Hofstadter, Robert Bannister, and Mike Hawkins.
Social Darwinism
Resource Type: Classroom Simulation
This simulation captures American society in 1900 and presents a fictional meeting of educators. In their respective roles, students will debate the ways in which educational reform can improve American society. Students will understand how different strands of social-Darwinist thought informed American life, culture, and politics, imposing a legacy which continues to affect American education as well as the larger society.
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