HIST-H 106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Social Darwinism, Utopia, Victorian Era
Document Summary
Gilded age (not in book)- term for this time period; gilding gives impression of wealth, but under thin gold surface is cheap wood; us looks prosperous from outside, but inside is majority urban working poor. Department stores (p. 528)- became popular thanks to r. h. macy, john wanamaker, marshall. Field; introduced idea of browse-and-buy; new methods of pricing, display, advertising; sold everything under one roof- new idea. Old immigrants (p. 639, 641)- irish and germans, mostly catholic; very unwelcome, hated, treated as second-class citizens in comparison to native-born americans. Nuclear familes (p. 547, 550-551, 553-554)- consisted of two parents and their children; men were wage-earners, women were housekeepers and mothers; immigrants tended to marry within ethnic groups, later in life, have more children than native-borns. Boss tweed (p. 549)- william m. tweed; head of famous tweed ring; built new york county. Courthouse- supposed to cost ,000 but wound up being over million.
