history
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American Portraits: Lady Liberty
“In erecting a Statue of Liberty embodied as a woman in a land where no woman has political liberty men have shown a delightful inconsistency which excites the wonder and admiration of the opposite sex.”
Lillie Devereux Blake, 1886
Edward Moran, Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, 1886.
Oil on canvas. Museum of the City of New York.
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The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus, 1883
Edward Moran, Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, 1886.
Oil on canvas. Museum of the City of New York.
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HIST 180 Survey of American History
Benjamin Cawthra, Ph.D.
California State University, Fullerton
Edward Moran, Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, 1886.
Oil on canvas. Museum of the City of New York.
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The Gilded Age and the 1880s
Timeline: The 1880s
Economic Changes in the Gilded Age
Implications for American Freedom
Equality and Inequality
Thomas Eakins: Realism and the Professions
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1. Timeline: The 1880s
1879 Henry George’s Progress and Poverty published.
Thomas Edison perfects the electric light bulb.
1880 Southern Alliance formed to advocate for farmers.
Republican James A. Garfield elected president.
1881 Garfield assassinated; Chester Arthur becomes president.
1882 John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil of Ohio consolidates American oil industry under the Standard Oil Trust.
1883 Chicago builds first elevated railway.
Brooklyn Bridge completed.
1884 Recession and unemployment jar economy.
Democrat Grover Cleveland elected president.
1886 American Federation of Labor founded.
George Westinghouse founds company and perfects use of alternating current.
1887 Interstate Commerce Act passed to control railroads.
1888 Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward published.
Benjamin Harrison narrowly defeats Cleveland in presidential election.
1889 Jane Addams founds Hull House in Chicago; beginning of settlement house movement.
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2. Economic Changes in the Gilded Age
John Neagle, Pat Lyon at the Forge, 1826-27. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
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3. Implications for American Freedom
Thomas Aunschutz, The Ironworkers’ Noontime, 1880-81. Oil on canvas. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
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Winslow Homer, The Old Mill (Morning Bell), 1871
Oil on canvas. Yale University Art Gallery.
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Winslow Homer, The Old Mill (Morning Bell), 1873
Engraving.
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Three Problems for American Democracy
1. A wealthy and powerful industrial class dominating the economy and influencing government
2. A working class living on the edge of poverty with no real hope to rise
3. The closing of the frontier—the ability to go West and start anew is ending.
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Udo J. Keppler, Next!, 1904.
Lithograph, Library of Congress
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James and John Bard, C. Vanderbilt, 1847.
Oil on canvas. The Athenaeum.
Photographer unknown, Cornelius Vanderbilt, c. 1870s.
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“This population is too hopelessly split up into races and factions to govern it under universal suffrage, except by the bribery of patronage and corruption.”
William “Boss” Tweed
3. Equality and Inequality
Robert Koehler, The Strike, 1886. Oil on canvas. Deutsches Historiches Museum, Berlin.
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Currier and Ives, Central Park: The Drive, n.d. Lithograph.
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“Liberty, equality, survival of the fittest; not liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest.”
William Graham Sumner
William Graham Sumner, 1895.
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Johannes Gelert, The Police Monument, 1889. Chicago Historical Society.
Albert Weinert, Haymarket Monument, 1893.
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Johannes Gelert, The Police Monument, 1889.
Chicago Historical Society.
Albert Weinert, Haymarket Monument, 1893.
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5. Thomas Eakins: Realism and the Professions
Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic, 1875. Oil. on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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Thomas Eakins, The Agnew Clinic, 1889. Oil on canvas. University of Pennsylvania.
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Thomas Eakins, The Dean’s Roll Call (Portrait of James W. Holland), 1889. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
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