Education and Arts During the Progressive Era Juliana, Cina, Erinn, Miki Education During Progressivism Traditional Education vs. Progressive Education -Available mostly to wealthy students -Free & compulsory -Religious-based schools -State-based schools -Textbooks and curriculum are based on teachers’ -Standardized textbooks and curriculum preferences -Education focused on being knowledgeable and -Education focused on what was necessary well-rounded -Music & the arts deemed unnecessary for a -Music & the arts were included in many school pioneer society curriculums for little or no price -Men completed secondary school, women -Women and men began completing secondary completed primary school John Dewey William T. Harris Influential People In Margaret Naumburg Progressive Egerton Ryerson Education John Dewey -Every school must be “an embryonic community life, active with types of occupations that reflect the life of the larger society and permeated throughout with the spirit of art, history and science. When the school introduces and trains each child of society into membership within such a little community, saturating him with the spirit of service, and providing him with instruments of effective self-direction, we shall have the deepest and best guarantee of a larger society which is worthy, lovely and harmonious.” John Dewey -American philosopher, educator, and social reformer -Did not believe in traditional or progressive education, criticized the “timid nature” of traditional universities -Founded New School for Social Research in 1919, which emphasized an exchange of intellectual ideas in the social sciences and arts -Believed in a more democratic classroom where children found knowledge engaging and practical “When the child outgrows the narrow circle of William Torrey family life … then comes the period of the school, whose object is to initiate him into the technicalities of intercommunication with his Harris fellow-men, and to familiarize him with the ideas that underlie his civilization, and which he must use as tools of thought if he would observe and understand the phases of human life around him; for these … are invisible to the human being who has not the aid of elementary ideas with which to see them.” William T. Harris ○ US Commissioner of Education for almost 20 years ○ Believed in separation of church and state in public schooling ○ Provided a national model for kindergarten ○ Made libraries in school common, expanded foreign language education ○ Advocated for free schooling and coeducation ○ Helped create a common curriculum across schools that did not prepare children for college, but rather created citizens suited for life in a self-governing democracy ○ Believed in 5 great divisions in the life of civilization, or “the 5 windows of the soul:” ■ Math & geography were dedicated to humanity’s understanding of nature ■ Literature, grammar, and history were more focused on human life ○ Found manual and vocational arts to be “anti-intellectual” Egerton Ryerson -Superintendent of the Canada West school system -Toured Europe of 2 years observing their school systems -Believed that Christian values should be taught in school -Believed in different schools for Indigenous students; essentially reform schools Margaret “Up to the present time, education has missed Naumburg the real significance of the child’s behavior by treating surface actions as isolated conditions. Having failed to recognize the true sources of behavior, it has been unable effectively to correct and guide the impulses of human growth.... The new advances in psychology, however, provide a key to the real understanding of what makes a child tick.” Margaret Naumburg ● Was considered by many the mother of art therapy ● She was heavily influenced by Freud ● While doing graduate work at Columbia she met John Dewey ● After studying in Europe, she returned to New York in 1914 ○ Opened the first Montessori school in the United States ● She then left to establish the Walden School ● While she eventually moved away from being an educator her philosophies allowed for bold reform in education Influential Schools During the Era The Walden School The New School The Walden School ● The school was perceived as part of a movement to free the arts ● It was praised by the press and intellectuals ○ Its first graduating class contained children from a professor, well known writer and famous analyst ● Used psychoanalysis as the base of its philosophy ● It aimed to develop the child’s capacities, rather than the accumulation of knowledge ○ “to develop individuality and initiative” through music and art, stimulating the child’s creativity ● Provided a base on the benefits of child centered education The New School ● Non-Profit Research Institute Founded in 1919 ○ One of the co-founders was John Dewey ○ Founders ranged from historians, to economists, to philosophers ● Aim was to bring people together interested in questioning, debating, and discussing important issues ● Even after the progressive era the school has promoted progressive ideas ○ In 1948 W. E. Bu Bois taught the first class in African American History ○ Was the first American University to teach Film history and one of the first to have courses in jazz and photography ● Provided a platform for progressive ideas beyond the era The Arts During Progressivism Music During the Progressive Era The Phonograph ● In 1877 Thomas Edison invents the phonograph ● Allowed for the recording and listening of music ● Paved the road for music to become more common in the home environment ● Was the birth of the modern-day music distribution industry; music could now efficiently be recorded and shared leading to the rise of genres and popular music Popular Music During the Time ● Ragtime ○ Emerged in publishing 1890 and by the early 1900’s flooded the music publishing industry ○ Was heavily piano focused on top of a strong baseline ○ Its main feature was Syncopation ■ Is argued to be a foundation of Jazz ● Jazz ○ Emerged more popularly towards the end of the progressive era ○ Key features: improvisation, syncopation, and swing rhythms ○ Contributed to dancing cultures of the 1920’s ○ Builds the foundation for modern music Examples ● Ragtime ○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPmruHc4S9Q ● Jazz ○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WojNaU4-kI Physical Art During the Progressive Era Hudson River School An American Art Movement during the Progressive Era that consisted of landscape painters that were influenced by Romanticism ● Their subject was mostly the Hudson River Valley and areas surrounding ● Paintings reflect the values of being American as well as America’s roots ● Often depicted man and nature coexisting and idealized the state of the wilderness ● Represents Nature as a proof of the existence of God and his benevolence Impressionism: Post Impressionism: ● Concentrated more on color and a ● Opposing agent of impressionism for the representation of things in the real belief of spontaneous and natural use of sense, depicted a lot of natural color and light lighting and natural settings ● Paved the way for modern art ● Focused more on the scene itself ● Valued symbolic content and emotional rather than the expressions aspects of behavior ● Chose to draw contemporary ● Bror Julius Nordfeldt (American) landscapes and city life ● Group of Seven (Canadian) ● John White Alexander (American) ● Laura Muntz Lyall (Canadian) John White Alexander Impressionism Laura Muntz Lyall Impressionism Bror Julius Nordfeldt Post Impressionism Group Seven Post Impressionism Cubism An art movement that began around 1907 in which artists abandoned perspective and changed the experience of space ● Heavily contrasted with realism ● Some historians believe Cubism represented a response to the changing of experience during the Progressive Era in the modern world ● Less about 3-Dimensional, more about the perspective of the artists ● Marcel Duchamp ● Stuart Davis Marcel Duchamp Stuart Davis Literature in the Progressive Era The Great Gatsby and The Jungle ● The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald ○ Addresses prohibition, women’s rights, changes after WWI, and the corruption in society (class divisions, racial divisions, gender divisions, bootlegging) ○ Nick Carraway lives next door to Jay Gatsby, a man who throws extravagant parties at his mansion in the West Egg District. Nick finds out that his cousin Daisy Buchanan and Gatsby were once in love. Daisy’s husband has an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Daisy and Gatsby have an affair. They find out Gatsby made his fortune as a bootlegger. Daisy kills Myrtle but it’s blamed on Gatsby. Myrtle’s husband kills Gatsby. Nick is disappointed in the corruption of the upper class and the American Dream. ● The Jungle by Upton Sinclair ○ The struggles of the lower classes ○ Bad working conditions, and poor food quality ○ Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite become in debt when they invite the wrong people to the wedding reception. Jurgis and some of his family members find work but find bad luck again when they’re swindled while buying a house. More of the family is forced to work to keep the terrible living conditions. Jurgis’ father dies. Jurgis works in a nasty slaughterhouse, that makes you never want to eat sausage again. He joins a union and discovers how terrible the working conditions really are. A lot of people die. Jurgis gets fired and has to work at an even worse job. Ona keeps getting pregnant. Jurgis finds a “good job” at a steel mill. He gets arrested twice. He joins the socialist party. The Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ● The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum ○ Dorothy-Everyman American, Scarecrow- Farmers, Tin Man- Industrial Workers, Lion- William Jennings Bryan (politician who backed silver cause) ○ There are many other interpretations ○ Farm girl Dorothy gets pulled into the world of Oz, when her house is caught in a tornado. She kills a witch and gets some new kicks. She’s told by Glenda the Good Witch that she has to go to the Emerald city to see the Wizard. She picks up every stray along the way. She commits murder. She gets to see the wizard, but he’s a fraud.