Date of Award
Spring 5-16-2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
First Advisor
Dr. Kris Lawson klawson@pittstate.edu
Second Advisor
Dr. Robert C. Childers rchilders@pittstate.edu
Third Advisor
Dr. Gary Wilson gwilson@pittstate.edu
Keywords
Gilded Age, rural America, Culture, Entertainment, Social reform, youth and adult voluntary organizations
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to provide a historical analysis of American culture and society at the turn of the twentieth-century, challenging the conceptualization of social isolation, cultural subjectivity, and urban conflict of the rural Midwest. Detailed research utilizes a synthesized mixture of primary sources, contemporary to the Gilded Age, and a volume of scholastic analysis of Midwestern and American history to establish the significance of rural, Midwest communities in the development of social and cultural standards in the United States. A flipped historical focus shifts the rural Midwest from an urban periphery to the center and nexus of social and cultural exchange, development, and expression. Sources and scholarship on rural America highlight the voluntary participation in activities, opportunities, organizations, and behaviors demonstrate the reciprocal development of a national culture, standards, and ideologies. As active participants in a variety of social movements, economic practices, sponsored programs and policies, demographic and occupation shifts, rural Midwesterners were at the heart of prevailing cultural and social standards. The power of Midwestern voluntarism and rural acceptance, adaptation, and dissemination significant to the establishment of a national culture, social institutions and ideologies. The local and national associations, organizations, programs, and activities throughout American society at the turn of the twentieth century was a transfusion between the West and the East, both reflecting and contributing to a national cultural and social standards. Research shows there was not a prevailing urban-rural conflict in cultural development or social reform as some analysis has argued. The codependent relationship between national organizers and local participants challenges the misconception of Eastern or urban influences dictating Western or rural modernity, social reform, and cultural development. The shaping of American society has been a mutual cultural exchange between multiple centers of influence. The rural Midwest is a key component in the formation and expression of American institutions, ideologies, values, and practices.
Recommended Citation
McDonald, Samantha, "INTO THE WEST AND BACK OUT AGAIN: AN EXAMINATION OF CULTURAL AND SOCIAL EXCHANGE IN THE GILDED AGE UNITED STATES" (2020). Electronic Theses & Dissertations. 360.
https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/etd/360
