The Reckless Decade: America In The 1890s

During the spring of 1889, land rushes into Oklahoma signaled the passing of the southern frontier. The frontier had offered opportunities to all who sought independence and desired individualism; however, after its end, many found that they could no longer rely on the possibilities and reassurances provided by the West. In The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s (2002), author H.W. Brands explains, “As a people, Americans had long cherished the idea that off in the West existed an unclaimed area where people might go if things got really tough in the East. […] As long as the frontier existed, so did an escape hatch from the pressures and burdens of everyday life” (41). For Eastern city dwellers, the beginning of the 1890s may have signaled the closing of their Western escape hatch. Further, when the assurances of the frontier were beginning to fade, Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives, which detailed the horrifying living conditions of New York City’s …show more content…
I begin with a literary piece by American author Christine Terhune Herrick who, over the course of her career, wrote over thirty books on housekeeping. I will examine her piece on New York apartment hunting using an essay by Amy Kaplan. The non-literary piece, written by C. Armstrong, will be used to expose the hypocrisies of a wealthy businessman who stole from his company. For the illustration, I will comment on a cartoon that mocks female Irish servants, and use Lester F. Ward’s article “Plutocracy and Paternalism” (1895) for additional support. Finally, in section four, an advertisement for Sozodont, a popular product of oral hygiene, will be examined and its claims for healthier teeth debunked. I will conclude by focusing on life in the expanding industrial cities after the possibilities of the frontier came to an