A LOOK AT THE FACTS
A shorter workweek allowed many Americans more
time for leisure activities, and they
certainly took advantage of it.
• In 1890, an average of 60,000 fans
attended professional baseball games
daily.
• In 1893, a crowd of 50,000 attended the Princeton-
Yale football game.
• A Trip to Chinatown, one of the popular new musical
comedies, ran for an amazing 650 performances in
the 1890s.
• In 1900, 3 million phonograph records of Broadway-
produced musical comedies were sold.
• The love of the popular musicals contributed to the
sale of $42 million worth of musical instruments in
1900.
• By 1900, almost 500 men’s social clubs existed.
Nine hundred college fraternity and sorority chapters
had over 150,000 members.
Life at the Turn of the 20th Century 505
THE SILVER SCREEN
The first films, one-reel ten-minute sequences, consisted
mostly of vaudeville skits or faked newsreels. In 1903 the
first modern film—an eight-minute silent feature called
The Great Train Robbery—debuted in five-cent theaters
called nickelodeons. By showing a film as often as
16 times a day, entrepreneurs could generate greater
profits than by a costly stage production. By 1907, an
estimated 3,000 nickelodeons dotted the country.
THINKING CRITICALLY
THINKING CRITICALLY
CONNECT TO HISTORY
1. Interpreting Data
Study the statistics in the Data
File. What summary statements about the culture and
attitudes of this time period can you make? Is this a
time in history when you would like to have lived? Why
or why not?
SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R27.
CONNECT TO TODAY
2. Chronological Order
Trace the development and
impact on the rest of the world of one area—music,
theater, or film—of popular American culture. Use a
time line from the turn of the 20th to the 21st century
with “United States developments” on one side and
“world impacts” on the other.
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IRESEARCH LINKS
CLASSZONE.COM
RAGTIME MUSIC
A blend of African-American
spirituals and European
musical forms, ragtime
originated in the 1880s in
the saloons of the South.
African-American pianist and
composer Scott Joplin’s
ragtime compositions made
him famous in the first
decade of the 1900s.
Ragtime led later to jazz,
rhythm and blues, and
rock ‘n’ roll. These forms
of popular American cul-
ture spread worldwide,
creating new dances and
fashions that emulated
the image of “loud,
loose, American rebel.”
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