H. W. Brands.
The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002.
First published: New York: St Martin's Press, 1995.
Book information:
Publisher;
Google Books;
Amazon.com.
The 2002 paperback edition lacks the illustrations of the 1995 hardback edition.
Author information:
Video: H. W. Brands
Video: U.S. Presidents of the 1890s- "Life Portrait of Benjamin Harrison," American History TV, C-SPAN, 20 August 1999.
President 1889–1893; Benjamin Harrison, Wikipedia.
- "Life Portrait of Grover Cleveland," American History TV, C-SPAN, 13 August 1999.
President 1885–1889 and 1893–1897; Grover Cleveland, Wikipedia.
- "Life Portrait of William McKinley," American History TV, C-SPAN, 23 August 1999.
President 1897-1901; William McKinley, Wikipedia.
Video: Lectures in History, C-SPAN- Jeremi Suri, "America in the 1890s," The University of Texas at Austin, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 12 February 2015.
- Edward O’Donnell, "19th Century Anti-Immigrant Movements," College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 1 October 2014.
- Chester Fontenot, "Life and Legacy of Booker T. Washington," Mercer University, Macon, Georgia, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 16 September 2014.
- Tamara Brown, "American Racial Concepts and Plessy v. Ferguson," Bowie State University, Maryland, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 6 March 2014.
- Daniel Czitrom, "Muckraking Journalist Jacob Riis and Gilded Age New York City," Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 10 February 2014.
Some books by Daniel Czitrom:- Bonnie Yochelson and Daniel Czitrom, Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn-of-the-Century New York, New Press, 2007; The University of Chicago Press, 2014.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
- Daniel Czitrom, New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal that Launched the Progressive Era, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
- Robert D. Johnston, "1890s American Populist Movement," University of Illinois at Chicago, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 6 February 2013.
Book discussed: Charles Postel, The Populist Vision, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
- Eric Foner, "Socialism in Early 20th Century America," Columbia University, New York City, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 29 February 2012.
- James Connolly, "Immigration and the Roots of Pluralism in the U.S.," Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 16 February 2012.
James Connolly, Ball State University.
History of immigration to the United States, Wikipedia.
- Mitchell Lerner, "Roots of Progressivism and Theodore Roosevelt," Ohio State University at Newark, Lectures in History, C-SPAN, 18 January 2011.
Some Wikipedia Articles:
Prologue : Coming of Age, or Coming Apart
The
1890s and
1990s compared.
"Yet the story of the 1890s also possesses significance beyond its inherent color and drama. How America survived the last decade of the nineteenth century . . . reveals much about the American people. What it reveals can be of use to a later generation of those people, situated similarly on the cusp between an old century and a new one." (page 5)
Chapter 1 : The Lost Frontier
I. Land Run of 1893;
Cherokee Outlet also called the Cherokee Strip;
Land run.
II. Dawes Act (1887);
Aboriginal title in the United States;
Sitting Bull (c.1830-1890);
Ghost Dance movement;
Wounded Knee Massacre (1890).
III. Frederick Jackson Turner (1861–1932); "
The Significance of the Frontier in American History" 1893;
Frontier Thesis.
IV. Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835–1915);
Henry Adams (1838–1918).
V. Brooks Adams (1848-1927).
Chapter 2 : In Morgan We Trust
I. World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's Fair), Chicago 1893.
II. War of Currents, late 1880s;
Thomas Edison (1847-1931);
George Westinghouse (1846-1914);
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943).
III. Electrification;
Film: History;
Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904).
IV. John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937);
Standard Oil.
V. Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919);
Merritt Brothers;
Mesabi Iron Range, Minnesota.
VI. J. P. Morgan (1837–1913);
Rail transportation in the United States;
Panic of 1893, United States Treasury gold crisis of 1893;
Coinage Act of 1873 demonitized silver;
Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890) repealed in 1893.
VII. Grover Cleveland mouth tumor removal in Summer 1893.
VIII. Elbert Gary (1846-1927);
United States Steel Corporation.
Chapter 3 : How the Other Half Lived
I. Jacob Riis (1849–1914),
How the Other Half Lives (1890) [
Wikipedia;
Google Books;
Archive.org].
II. S. S. McClure (1857–1949);
Muckraker;
Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847-1903),
Wealth Against Commonwealth (1894) [
Google Books;
Archive.org];
Ray Stannaard Baker (1870-1946);
Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936);
Ida Tarbell (1857-1944).
III. Progressive movement.
IV. Immigration.
V. Jane Addams (1860-1935),
Twenty Years at Hull-House: with Autobiographical Notes (1910) [
Archive.org, 1910 copy;
Archive.org, 1911 copy;
Google Books, 1911 copy].
VI. Political machines in the United States;
Tammany Hall;
Richard Croker (1843–1922) boss of Tammany Hall during the 1890s.
VII. George W. Plunkitt (1842–1924).
VIII. William T. Stead,
If Christ Came to Chicago! (1894) [
Google Books;
Archive.org, Chicago edition;
Archive.org, London edition];
Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna (1858-1946);
"Bathhouse" John Coughlin (1860-1938);
Charles Yerkes (1837–1905).
IX. Lincoln Steffens,
The Shame of the Cities (1904) [
Wikipedia;
Archive.org].
Chapter 4 : Blood on the Water
I. Homestead Strike of 1892;
Carnegie Steel Company.
II. Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919);
Pinkerton National Detective Agency;
Allan Pinkerton (1819–1884).
III. Alexander Berkman (1870-1936).
IV. American Railway Union;
Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926);
George Pullman (1831-1897);
Pullman Strike of 1894.
V. Richard Olney (1835–1917);
John Peter Altgeld (1847–1902) Governor of Illinios 1893-1897.
VI. Lyman Trumbull (1813-1896);
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938).
VII. Jacob Coxey (1854–1951);
Coxey's Army, 1894.
The
Johnson County Range War, Wyoming 1892, is not discussed by Brands.
Chapter 5 : The Matter with Kansas
I. Farmers & Agriculture in the 1890s;
American Farm Discontent;
Populism.
II. The Grange;
Farmers' Alliance;
Mary E. Lease of Kansas (1850-1933);
"Sockless Jerry" Simpson of Kansas (1842-1905);
Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota (1831-1901);
James B. Weaver of Iowa (1833-1912);
"Pitchfork Ben" Tillman of South Carolina (1847-1918);
Thomas E. Watson of Georgia (1856–1922).
III. People's Party (United States) also called the Populist Party;
United States presidential election, 1892.
IV. Silver issue;
Coinage Act of 1873 demonetized silver, called by Populists the "Crime of '73".
V. William Harvey,
Coin's Financial School (1894).
VI. William Allen White (1868-1944); "
What's the Matter with Kansas?"
The Emporia Gazette, 15 August 1896.
Chapter 6 : Plessy v. Crow
I. Reconstruction Era;
Compromise of 1877.
II. Jim Crow laws;
Albion Winegar Tourgée (1838–1905);
Homer Plessy (1862-1925).
III. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
IV. Henry Billings Brown (1836–1913), Associate Justice wrote majority decision;
John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911), Associate Justice wrote dissent from majority decision.
V. Booker T. Washington (1856-1915);
Tuskegee Institute;
Atlanta Exposition Speech by Booker T. Washington, 18 September 1895;
Atlanta compromise.
VI. W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963).
VII. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903).
Ida B. Wells (1862–1931) is not discussed by Brands; Wells's notable work "Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases" was first published in 1892.
Chapter 7 : Cross of Gold, Tongue of Silver
United States presidential election, 1896;
William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925);
Cross of Gold speech, 1896.
Thomas Reed (1839–1902);
William McKinley (1843–1901);
Mark Hanna (1837–1904).
Chapter 8 : Democratic Imperialism
Intellectual and Political Legitimacy for Imperialism:
Manifest destiny;
New Imperialism;
Manifest destiny: Beyond North America;
John Fiske (1842-1901);
Josiah Strong (1847–1916);
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919);
Alfred T. Mahan (1840-1914);
Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924);
Albert J. Beveridge (1862-1927).
Popular Legitimacy for Imperialism:
Yellow journalism;
Propaganda of the Spanish–American War.
Legislative and Judicial Legitimacy for Imperialism:
Teller Amendment (1898);
Platt Amendment (1901);
Insular Cases.
Imperialism:
Hawaii: Overthrow of 1893;
Cuban War of Independence (1895–1898);
Spanish–American War (1898);
Philippine–American War (1899–1902).
Some Notable Books and Articles:
Rebecca Harding Davis,
Life in the Iron Mills, 1861.
Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner,
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, 1873.
Henry George,
Progress and Poverty, 1879.
Henry James,
The Portrait of a Lady, 1880; 1908.
Mark Twain,
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884.
Ulysses S. Grant,
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, 1885.
William Dean Howells,
The Rise of Silas Lapham, 1885.
Edward Bellamy,
Looking Backward: 2000-1887, 1888.
Emily Dickinson,
Poems, 1890.
William Dean Howells,
A Hazard of New Fortunes, 1890.
Alfred T. Mahan,
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History: 1660-1783, 1890.
Jacob Riis,
How the Other Half Lives, 1890.
Henry Adams,
The History of the United States of America 1801–1817, 1891-1896.
Herman Melville,
Billy Budd, written 1888-1891, first published 1924.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
The Yellow Wall-Paper, 1892.
Ida B. Wells, "Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases," 1892.
Stephen Crane,
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, 1893.
Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," 1893.
Henry Demarest Lloyd,
Wealth Against Commonwealth, 1894.
Harold Frederic,
The Damnation of Theron Ware, 1896.
William Allen White, "
What's the Matter with Kansas?"
The Emporia Gazette, 15 August 1896.
Alfred T. Mahan,
The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future, 1897.
Kate Chopin,
The Awakening, 1899.
Frank Norris,
McTeague: A Story of San Francisco, 1899.
Thorstein Veblen,
The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899.
Brooks Adams,
America's Economic Supremacy, 1900.
Theodore Dreiser,
Sister Carrie, 1900.
Frank Norris,
The Octopus: A Story of California, 1901.
Booker T. Washington,
Up from Slavery, 1901.
W. E. B. Du Bois,
The Souls of Black Folk, 1903.
Frank Norris,
The Pit: A Story of Chicago, 1903.
Henry Adams,
Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres, 1904.
Lincoln Steffens,
The Shame of the Cities, 1904.
Ida Tarbell,
The History of the Standard Oil Company, 1904.
William L. Riordon,
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, 1905.
Edith Wharton,
The House of Mirth, 1905.
Upton Sinclair,
The Jungle, 1906.
Herbert David Croly,
The Promise of American Life, 1909.
Jane Addams,
Twenty Years at Hull House, 1910.
Emma Goldman,
Anarchism and Other Essays, 1910.
Theodore Dreiser,
The Financier, 1912.
Willa Cather,
O Pioneers!, 1913.
Willa Cather,
My Antonia, 1918.
Sherwood Anderson,
Winesburg, Ohio, 1919.
See also
List of years in literature: 1890s (Wikipedia).