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APUSH-17-B

Laissez-faire conservatism


1.  Gospel of Wealth

2.  Myth of the 'self-made man'

3.  Social Darwinism; survival of the fittest

4.  Social critics and dissenters


Resources:

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.

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.

Black Women and the National Council of Women
Resource Type: Primary Source
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.

Evolution and Religion
Resource Type: Primary Source
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.

The Political Economist and the Tramp
Resource Type: Primary Source
In this poem, Phillips Thompson pokes fun at certain notions of Social Darwinism.

Sumner on Social Darwinism
Resource Type: Primary Source
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: Primary Source
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 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.

Revolutionary Implications
Resource Type: Primary Source
"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: Primary Source
The theologian Charles Hodge (1791-1878), who was affiliated with Princeton Theological Seminary for 58 years.

The Conservative View
Resource Type: Primary Source
The sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910).

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.

Annual Report of the Interments
Resource Type: Primary Source
Dr. John Hoskins Griscom (1809–74), 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: Primary Source
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.

How the Other Half Lives
Resource Type: Primary Source
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.

The Impact of The Origin of Species
Resource Type: Primary Source
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: Primary Source
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).




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