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The Impact Of Victorian Traditions In The 1800s

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“Manifest destiny”, the effects of industrialization, and the addition of millions of immigrants to American ranks mark America as it stood in the 1800’s. The introduction of a plethora of differing cultures and traditions meant that ideas of what it meant to be American were still forming as the country surged into its position as a global powerhouse. The “wild, wild West” had made its appearance as the Homestead Act of 1862 beckoned large numbers of landless citizens seeking to remedy such circumstances (Peopling of the West, 51). At the same time, Victorian standards for dress and poise still permeated the American middle-class. These strange cultural amalgamations of America in the 1800’s proved to be catalysts for the change that the turn of the century brought in – the millions of Americans on whose back the country had flourished sought recompense in the form of leisure to match their work. While the 1800’s had been chock full of Victorian values and industrious yearnings, the 1900’s entered with a demand for less rigorous social expectations. The Victorian values instilled in middle-class Americans were faced with a sudden challenge in the form of amusement parks that offered overburdened workers a respite from their dreary work days. While this new entertainment excluded some races, it allowed more classes and ethnicities to intermingle, enticed women from their traditional roles in the home, and disregarded the standards Victorian values had set for respectable

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