Romanticism and Realism

Culture: Romanticism and Realism

Romanticism

            At the end of the eighteenth century, a new movement called romanticism emerged as a reaction against the Enlightenment. During that period, art and literature followed classicism. The ideals of classicism were reason, balance, and restraint in all things. Romantics went to the other extreme. They wanted the arts to express the feeling, emotion, and imagination of the individual artist or writer.

            Many romantic writers in England lived during the early Industrial Revolution, and they often expressed a horror of the conditions they saw. In his novel The Old Curiosity Shop, Charles Dickens wrote about the English mill town of Birmingham. An element of romanticism pervaded his description:

“A long suburb of red brick houses—some with patches of garden ground, where coal dust and factory smoke darkened the shrinking leaves, and coarse rank flowers; and where the struggling vegetation sickened and sank under the hot breath of kiln and furnace…--a long, flat straggling suburb passed, they came by slow degrees upon a cheerless region, where not a blade of grass was seen to grow, where not a bud put forth its promise in the spring; where nothing green could live but on the surface of the stagnant pools, which here and there lay idly sweltering by the black roadside.”

To the romantics, the inner feelings of each person were unique, even mysterious. Romantic novelists tended to create characters who were misunderstood or rejected by the society around them. Isolated, their individual feelings and ideas were their only barometer for right and wrong. They did not bow to middle-class conventions. They wore their hair long and grew beards. A woman might dress in a man’s pants and frock coat to show she was a poet.

            Romantics loved to think about past ages, especially medieval times. They felt it had a mystery and interest in the soul that their own industrial age did not. Romantic architects revived medieval styles and designed castles, cathedrals, railway stations, and city halls in a style called neo-Gothic. The Houses of Parliament in London reflect this style.

            Romantic literature was also inspired by the Middle Ages. Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, for example, a best-seller in the early 1800s, told of clashes between knights in medieval England. By focusing on their nations’ past, many romantic writers were also reflecting the nationalism that was so strong in the nineteenth century.

            The exotic and unfamiliar also attracted many romantics. This attraction gave rise to Gothic literature. Chilling examples are Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories of horror. Some romantics even sought the unusual in their own lives by exploring their dreams and nightmares and seeking altered states of consciousness.

            The romantics viewed poetry as the direct expression of the soul. Romantic poetry gave expression to one of the most important characteristics of the movement—its love of nature. Romantics believed that nature served as a mirror into which humans could look to learn about themselves.

            This feeling is especially evident in the poetry of William Wordsworth, the foremost English romantic poet of nature. His experience of nature was almost mystical:

“One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of more evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.”

                  The worship of nature also caused Wordsworth and other romantic poets to be critical of eighteenth century science, which they believed had reduced nature to a cold object of study. To Wordsworth, the scientists’ dry, mathematical approach left no room for the imagination or for the human soul.

            The human soul was a source of expression for William Blake, a poet and artist connected with romanticism, though he combined imagination with reality in a way other romantics did not. In two of his collections of lyric poems and their accompanying designs, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, Blake uses a child’s point of view to capture basic human emotions. He also used that point of view to write, “The Chimney Sweeper,” “London,” and “The Tyger.” In these poems, he criticized the church and the state because he felt these institutions did not bring out the best in people.

            Like Blake, many romantics were convinced that industrialization would cause people to become alienated from their inner selves and from the natural world. This idea shows up in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein: When science dares to try and conquer nature, a monster is created.

            Like the literary arts, the visual arts were deeply affected by romanticism. Romantic artists shared at least two features. First, to them, all art was a reflection of the artist’s inner feelings. A painting should mirror the artist’s vision of the world and be the instrument of the artist’s own imagination. Second, romantic artists abandoned classical reason for warmth and emotion.

            Eugene Delacroix was one of the most famous romantic painters from France. His paintings showed two chief characteristics: a fascination with the exotic and a passion for color. His works reflect his belief that “a painting should be a feast to the eye.”

            In music, too, romantic trends dominated the first half of the nineteenth century. One of the most famous composers of this era was Ludwig van Beethoven. Some have called him a bridge between classical and romantic music. Others argue that he was such a rare genius, he cannot be easily classified. His early work fell within the classical framework. In his Third Symphony, first performed in 1805, however, the romantic elements were in place: powerful melodies and dramatic intensity.

            In one way, Beethoven was definitely a romantic. He thought of himself as an artist, not a craftsman. He had an intense and difficult personality, but was committed to writing music that reflected his deepest feelings: “I must write, for what weighs on my heart, I must express.”

New Age of Science

            The Scientific Revolution had created a modern, rational approach to the study of the natural world. For a long time, only the educated elite understood its importance. By the 1830s, however, new discoveries in science had led to many practical benefits that affected all Europeans. In 1796, for example, the English doctor Edward Jenner had discovered a vaccine for smallpox, a widespread disease that killed mostly infants and young children.

            In biology, the Frenchman Louis Pasteur proposed the germ theory of disease, which was crucial to the development of modern scientific medical practices. In chemistry, the Russian Dmitry Mendeleyev in the 1860s classified all the material elements then known on the basis of their atomic weights. In Great Britain, Michael Faraday put together a primitive generator that laid the foundation for the use of electric current.

            Dramatic material benefits such as these led Europeans to have a growing faith in science. This faith, in turn, undermined the religious faith of many people. It is no accident that the nineteenth century was an age of increasing secularization, indifference to or rejection of religion in the affairs of the world. For many people, truth was now to be found in science and in the material existence of human beings.

            More than anyone else, it was probably Charles Darwin who created the concept of humans as beings who were part of the natural world. In 1859, Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. His basic theory was that each species, or kind, of plant or animal had evolved over millions of years from earlier, simpler forms of life. Darwin called this principle organic evolution.

            How did this natural process work? According to Darwin, in every species, “many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive.” This results in a “struggle for existence.” Darwin believed that some organisms are better able to adapt to changes in the environment than others.

            Those that are able to survive (“survival of the fittest”) reproduce and thrive, while the unfit do not. Darwin called this process natural selection. Survivors pass on the variations that allowed them to survive until a new, separate species emerges. In The Descent of Man, published in 1871, Darwin argued that human beings had animal origins and were not an exception to the rule governing other species.

            Darwin’s ideas raised a storm of controversy. Some people objected that his theory made human beings ordinary products of nature, not unique creations of God. Other people were bothered because they felt he was saying that life was a mere struggle for survival. “Is there a place in the Darwinian world for moral values?” they asked. Some believers felt Darwin had not granted God a role in creation. Gradually, however, many scientists and other intellectuals came to accept Darwinism.

Realism

The belief that the world should be viewed realistically was closely related to the scientific outlook. In politics, Bismarck had practiced the “politics of reality.” In the literary and visual arts, realism became a movement as well.

            The literary realists of the mid-nineteenth century rejected romanticism. They wanted to write about ordinary characters from actual life rather than romantic heroes in exotic settings. They also tried to avoid emotional language by using precise description. They preferred novels to poems.

            Many literary realists combined their interest in everyday life with an examination of social issues. These artists expressed their social views through their characters. Although this type of realistic writing occurred worldwide, the French led the way.

            The realist novel was perfected by the French author Gustave Flaubert, who was a leading novelist of the 1850s and 1860s. His work Madame Bovary presents a critical description of small-town life in France.

            In Great Britain, Charles Dickens became a huge success with novels that showed the realities of life for the poor in the early Industrial Age. Novels like Oliver Twist and David Copperfield created a vivid picture of the brutal life of London’s poor, as well as of their humor and humanity. In fact, his characters were so sympathetic that they helped inspire social reform.

            In art, too, realism became dominant after 1850. Realist artists sought to show the everyday life of ordinary people and the world of nature with photographic realism. The French became leaders in realist painting, just as they had become the leaders in realist writing.

            Gustave Courbet was the most famous painter of the realist school. He loved to portray scenes from everyday life. His subjects were factory workers, peasants, and the wives of saloon keepers. “I have never seen either angels or goddesses, so I am not interested in painting them,” Courbet once commented.

            One of Courbet’s famous works, “The Stonebreakers, shows two roadworkers engaged in the deadening work of breaking stones to build a road. There were those who objected to Courbet’s “cult of ugliness” and who found such scenes of human misery scandalous. To Courbet, however, no subject was too ordinary, too harsh, or too ugly.

World History

Glencoe

The Omaha Platform

The Omaha Platform

The Populist Party Platform was written in 1892 at Omaha, Nebraska. What follows is a summary of the original platform.

           

We meet [in Omaha] as our nation is on the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. The rich and the bankers control the money in the country for their own greed. Our present system has led to two classes—tramps and millionaires.

We have seen for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great political parties [the Democrats and Republicans] for power and plunder [theft]. Meanwhile terrible wrongs have been inflicted on the suffering people. Both parties have allowed these dreadful wrongs to develop without any effort to prevent them. The two major parties are dominated by greed, corruption, and rich people.

We declare therefore,

I.                Labor forces are hereby united to uplift mankind.

II.              Wealth belongs to him who creates it [the workers, not the owner].

III.             The industrial worker and the farmer have the same interests and the same enemies.

IV.             The people should own the railroads through the government.

V.              The government alone should control the money supply, and not the bankers.

VI.             There should be free and unlimited coinage of silver in a ratio of 16 to 1 compared to gold.

VII.           There should be a graduated income tax. [As income goes up, the tax rate goes up. For example, if you make $10,000 you might pay 5 percent, or $500; if you make $20,000 you might pay 10 percent, or $2,000.]

VIII.          The government should own and operate the telephone and telegraph [the carriers of information] in the interests of the people.

IX.             The land, including the natural resources in the land, belongs to the people. It should not be controlled by speculators [people who buy something expecting to sell it at an unusually large profit], and aliens [foreigners who are not citizens] should not be able to own it. Land owned by aliens and railroads should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers.

X.              The government should limit immigration into the United States.

XI.             There should be a shorter work week for laborers.

XII.           The secret ballot should be used in all elections.

XIII.          The people should be able to use the initiative [by which private citizens could propose laws] and referendum [by which citizens could express an opinion on an issue by voting on it].

XIV.          Senators should be elected directly by the people. [At the time, U.S. Senators were elected by state legislatures, not by citizens directly.]

XV.           The president of the United States should be able to serve one four-year term only.

RELEVANT INFORMATION

A.     Free coinage of silver would have increased the supply of money. An increase in the supply of money would generally lead to inflation (higher prices than there would have been if the money supply did not increase), unless the supply of goods and services increased by at least as much.

B.     Farmers had tried several times to use the government to regulate (control) the railroads in the interest of the farmers.

C.     People who owe money (debtors) generally benefit from inflation. This is because the amount of money they have to repay remains fixed (let’s say $100 per year) while their incomes from selling goods or services generally rise with inflation (let’s say from $150 in the first year to $160 in the second year).

D.     People who are owed money (creditors—often banks) generally dislike inflation. This is because they will be paid backed a fixed amount of money that will buy fewer goods and services as prices increase.

E.     Most Populists were farmers.

F.      Many industrial unions opposed immigration into the United States.

Populism

Populism

            As the midterm congressional election of 1890 approached, some Americans concluded that the two-party system was incapable of solving the nation’s problems. That conviction was strongest among farmers, who faced an economic crisis that developed in the years immediately following the Civil War.

Unrest in Rural America In those years, farmers were producing more crops, but greater supply tended to lower prices. At the same time, high tariffs increased the cost of the manufactured goods farmers needed and made it harder for farmers to sell their goods overseas. Farmers also felt victimized by large and faraway entities: the banks from which they obtained loans and the railroads that set their shipping rates. They doubted that either the Democrats or the Republicans would respond to their concerns. Instead, farmers embraced populism, a movement to increase farmers’ political power and to work for legislation in their interest.

            One problem that greatly concerned farmers was the nation’s money supply. To help finance the Union war effort, the United States Treasury had greatly expanded the money supply by issuing millions of dollars in greenbacks—paper currency that could not be exchanged for gold or silver coins. This rapid increase in the money supply without an accompanying increase in goods for sale caused inflation, or a decline in the value of money. As the paper money lost value, the prices of goods soared.

            After the Civil War, the United States had three types of currency in circulation—greenbacks, gold and silver coins, and national bank notes backed by government bonds. To bring inflation under control, the federal government stopped printing greenbacks and began paying off its bonds. In 1873 Congress also decided to stop making silver into coins. These decisions meant that the United States did not have a large enough money supply to meet the needs of the country’s growing economy. As the economy expanded, deflation—an increase in the value of money and a decrease in the general level of prices—began. As money increased in value, prices began to fall.

            Deflation hit farmers especially hard. Most farmers had to borrow money for seed and other supplies to plant their crops. Because money was in short supply, interest rates began to rise, which increased the amount farmers owed.

            Many farmers concluded that Eastern bankers had pressured Congress into reducing the money supply. They began to call for the printing of more greenbacks and the minting of silver coins. Farmers realized that if they were going to convince the government to meet their demands, they needed to organize. In increasing numbers they joined the first national farm organization, the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange. Grangers tried to create cooperatives—marketing organizations that helped farmers by pooling crops and holding them off the market in order to force up prices and by negotiating better shipping rates with the railroads. The Grange’s cooperatives ultimately failed, partly because they were too small to have any effects on prices, and partly because Eastern businesses and railroads considered them to be similar to unions—illegitimate conspiracies in restraint of trade—and refused to do business with them.

            Meanwhile, several Western states passed “Granger laws” setting maximum rates and prohibiting railroads from charging more for short hauls than for long ones. The railroads fought back by cutting services and refusing to lay new track until the laws were repealed. Then the 1886 Supreme Court ruling in Wabash v. Illinois greatly limited the states’ ability to regulate railroads by ruling that states could not regulate commerce that crossed state lines.

The Farmers Alliance By the late 1870s, membership in the Grange had started to fall, and a new organization, the Farmers’ Alliance, took its place. Alliance leaders hoped that by establishing very large cooperatives, called exchanges, they could force farm prices up and make loans to farmers at low interest rates. Despite their temporary success, the larger cooperatives failed. In many cases, wholesalers, manufacturers, railroads, and bankers discriminated against them, making it difficult for them to stay in business. The exchanges also failed because they were still too small to dramatically affect world prices for farm products.

            By 1890 the failure of the Alliance to fix farmers’ problems had started a power struggle within the organization. Some Alliance leaders, particularly in the Western states, wanted to form a new party and push for political reforms. Members of the Kansas Alliance formed the People’s Party, also known as the Populists, and nominated candidates to run for Congress and the state legislature. Most Southern leaders of the Alliance did not want to undermine the Democrats’ control of the South. Instead, they endorsed candidates who supported their demands.

The Rise of Populism In 1890 members of the Farmers’ Alliance met in Ocala, Florida, and issued what came to be known as the Ocala Demands. These demands called for the free coinage of silver, an end to protective tariffs and national banks, tighter regulation of the railroads, and direct election of senators by voters instead of by state legislatures.

            To discourage farmers from voting for Populists, the Republicans in Congress, led by Senator John Sherman, pushed through the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. This act authorized the United States Treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. It put more money into circulation and may have reduced the deflation slightly, but it did little to help the farmers.

            The midterm elections of 1890 seemed to suggest that farmers’ strategies had worked. In the South, several states had pro-Alliance governors and state legislatures, and over 40 Democrats who supported the Alliance program were elected to Congress. The People’s Party did equally well in the West.

Despite their promises, few Democrats followed through by supporting the Alliance program, either at the state or the federal level. In May 1891, Western populists met with some labor and reform groups and endorsed the creation of a new national People’s Party to run candidates for president. By early 1892 many Southern farmers had also reached the point where they were willing to break with the Democratic Party and join the People’s Party.

A Populist for President In July 1892, the newly organized People’s Party nominated James B. Weaver to run for president. At their convention in Omaha, Nebraska, party members endorsed a platform, or program, that spelled out the party’s positions in strong terms. The platform denounced the government’s refusal to coin silver and called for a return to unlimited coinage of silver, federal ownership of railroads, and a graduated income tax, one that taxed higher earnings more heavily.

            Above all, the Populists wanted government to defend the public against what they saw as greedy and irresponsible private interests. The Omaha platform took positions popular with labor, including calling for an eight-hour workday, restricting immigration, and denouncing strikebreaking. Still, most urban workers preferred to remain within the Democratic Party.

            Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland, who wanted to return to the White House after his close defeat in 1888, won with the support of Northern cities and the South. He had 277 votes in the Electoral College, compared to 145 for his Republican opponent Benjamin Harrison. The Populist candidate, James Weaver, did remarkably well, wining four states and splitting two others for a total of 22 electoral votes.

            Not long after Cleveland’s inauguration in 1893, the nation plunged into the worst economic crisis it had ever experienced. The panic began in March when the Philadelphia and Reading Railroads declared bankruptcy. Many railroads had expanded too rapidly in the period before the panic and now found it hard to repay their loans. The stock market on Wall Street crashed, and banks closed their doors. By 1894 the economy was deep in a depression, with approximately 18 percent of the workforce unemployed.

            The Panic of 1893 also created a crisis for the United States Treasury. Many American and European investors who owned U.S. government bonds began cashing in their bonds for gold., leaving the federal government’s gold reserves at a dangerously low level. Unlike many Democrats, President Cleveland believed that the United States should use gold, not silver or paper money, as the basis for its currency. In an effort to protect the government’s reserves, in June 1893 he pushed through the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which had allowed the exchange of silver for gold. Cleveland’s actions split the Democratic Party into two factions: goldbugs, who believed American currency should be based only on gold, and silverites, who believed coining silver in unlimited quantities would solve the nation’s economic crisis.

           

The Election of 1896 As the election of 1896 approached, leaders of the People’s Party decided to make the silver issue the focus of their campaign. They also decided to hold their convention after the Republican and Democratic conventions. They believed that the Republicans would endorse a gold standard, which they did. They also expected the Democrats to nominate Cleveland again and hoped that when the People’s Party strongly endorsed silver, pro-silver Democrats would abandon their party and vote for the Populists in large numbers.

            Unfortunately for the Populists, their political strategy failed. The Democrats did not waver on the silver issue. Instead, they nominated William Jennings Bryan, a strong supporter of silver. When the Populists gathered in St. Louis for their own convention, they faced a difficult choice: endorse Bryan and risk undermining their identity as a separate party, or nominate their own candidate and risk splitting the silver vote. They eventually decided to support Bryan.

            Bryan waged an unusually energetic campaign for the presidency, traveling thousands of miles and making 600 speeches in 14 weeks. In sharp contrast, Republican William McKinley, a former governor and member of Congress, conducted what the newspapers called his “Front-Porch Campaign” by meeting with various delegations that came to visit him at his Canton, Ohio, home.

            The Republicans campaigned against the Democrats by blaming Cleveland’s administration for the depression and promising workers that McKinley would provide a “full dinner pail.” This meant a lot more to most urban workers than the issue of silver money. At the same time, most business leaders supported the Republicans, convinced that unlimited silver coinage would ruin the country. Many employers warned their workers that if Bryan won, businesses would fail, unemployment would rise, and wages would be cut.

            McKinley’s reputation for moderation on labor issues and tolerance toward different ethnic groups helped improve the Republican Party’s image with urban workers and immigrants. When the votes were counted, McKinley had won a decisive victory. He captured 51 percent of the popular vote and had a winning margin of 95 electoral votes—hefty numbers in an era of tight elections. By embracing populism and its rural base, Bryan and the Democrats lost the more populous Northern industrial areas where votes were concentrated.

            Opposition to the gold-based currency dwindled during McKinley’s time in office. The depression was over, and prospectors found gold in Canada in 1896 and in Alaska in 1898. That wealth, combined with new gold strikes in South Africa and other parts of the world, increased the money supply without turning to silver. This meant that credit was easier to obtain and farmers were less distressed. In 1900 the United States officially adopted a gold-based currency.

            When the silver crusade died out, the Populists lost their momentum. Their efforts to ease the economic hardships of farmers and to regulate big business had not worked. Some of the reforms they favored, however, including the graduated income tax and some governmental regulation of the economy, came about in the next century.

            The American Vision

Glencoe

1.    What were the main goals of the Populist Party?

2.    Why were the Republicans and Democrats not effective, and why did the Populists gain support in the late 1800s?

3.    Imagine you support the Populist Party and that you have been asked to write a copy to be used in a campaign poster for your party’s candidates. Include a slogan that provides reasons for people to support the Populists.