Jim Crow laws enacted in Southern states between 1890 and 1910 sanctioned racial discrimination and curtailed blacks right to vote.The beginning of the 21st century seems a suitable time to look back over the past 100 years and see how the United States has developed, for better and worse, during that period of its history.Cheap labor and assembly-line manufacturing made mass production possible.Railroad networks carried the mass-produced goods, many of them the result of new technologies, around the country.
Montgomery Ward, J.C. Penney, and other retailers expanded their operations and laid the foundation for the consumer-driven society that evolved later in the century. Materially, city dwellers standards of living improved steadily, not only in food, shelter, housing, and other material goods, but also in health care and education. Inexpensive books, magazines, newspapers, and improved public libraries, funded in part through the benevolence of Andrew Carnegie, contributed to their intellectual lives. Sexual fulfillment in marital relationships continued to gain importance, and family life increasingly reflected the ideals of companionship. America In The Twentieth Century Professional Sports HelpedSilent films and amateur and professional sports helped fill leisure time. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, founded in 1908 and 1910, provided recreational and educational opportunities for children. Advocates of Social Darwinisms survival of the fittest principles and believers in the doctrine of laissez-faire encouraged a climate resistant to government intervention on behalf of disadvantaged workers and victims of racial, ethnic, or gender discrimination. America In The Twentieth Century Trial Growth WereFor those in the working class, the effects of industrial growth were often adverse. ![]() It provided cheap or free lunches, warmth, banking and notary services, gambling, party rooms, and political headquarters. The number of divorces was 15 times higher in 1920 than in 1870; by the mid-1920s, one in seven marriages ended in divorce. Moral problems evident in the corruption of urban political machines, high juvenile delinquency and crime rates (the homicide rate had quadrupled in New York in the last two decades of the 19th century), and widespread prostitution were coupled with health problems: diseases and epidemics resulting in part from water and sewage disposal deficiencies. Lincoln Steffens, for example, described the shame of the cities, and Upton Sinclair exposed appalling conditions in meatpacking plants. For example, Jane Addamss Hull House, founded in Chicago in 1889, led others to establish settlement houses where immigrants learned to adjust to their new experiences. Walter Rauschenbusch led a Social Gospel movement that called for churches to promote social justice. Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in Brooklyn in 1916. Four years later the Youngs Rubber Company introduced Trojan brand condoms. The results of their efforts included the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act (1906), intended to protect consumers against tainted or unsafe products; the Federal Reserve Act (1913), to bring order to the banking industry; the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission (1913), to investigate and prosecute corporations for unfair trade practices; and the Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914), to curb the power of trusts. To make government more responsive and accountable, reformers promoted practices known as referendum and initiative, as well as direct primaries, the secret ballot, and direct election of senators, the last accomplished by the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1913). The 19th Amendment (1920), guaranteeing womens right to vote, was a significant milestone in the campaign for womens rights that had begun in the middle of the previous century. The Progressive movement did little else for women, however, and even less for African Americans.
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