New Spirit Response

Paper1: New Spirit Response

According to Rebecca Edwards, I learned that science is important in the revolution, especial in Gilded Age.  Although technological progress could bring some dark sides, such as poisonous clouds in the sky and many people died in flood engineered by the vengeful Yankee, as well as some pioneers were often not the ones who reaped the big rewards, which highlights the how racial prejudices informed, Gilded Age still make contributions to civilization of mankind, science, and medicine.

 The archaeological discovery gives an impetus to the new immigrant to make money by finding new fossils which are easy to find and dig. Between 1877 to 1900, more than 7,000,000 people in the United States. The increasing number of people promote the development of industry and commerce. Why did we call that period ‘The Gilded Age'? Because the name is from the golden gleam of a gilded surface on top of the cheap base metal underneath. For the new immigrants, they can achieve their gold dream—if they have enough gold and they can become the world's strongest power. For the America, urban America was experienced social, political and economic transformations.

"The growth of a large business is merely the survival of the fittest" is the primary idea to describe the world of commerce, which can also be regarded as a precise application of evolutionary ideas. "social Darwinism" is a term used to describe the practice of misunderstanding of evolutionary language of Darwin to politics, the economy, even to society. Many social Darwinists believed that government should find "survival of the fittest" and stop to help the poor people. The ideas of social Darwinism pervaded lots of aspects of American society in that period. The ideas of ‘social Darwinism' also shaped the the Americans' relationship with other nations, especial for those people who can not speak English. During the second industrial revolution, white Americans viewed those newcomers with disdain. With the time went by, After Word War II, the ideas of social Darwinists lost its popularity in the United States, and modern science has destroyed the theory of social Darwinism.

Some peoples disagreed with Darwinists. William James and John Dewey suggested the new ideal Pragmatism, which is a more innovative response to Darwin's theory: the only way one could judge the difference was through experience and experimentations. Like James said," all knowledge was local, provisional and always shifting." And James also suggested that "biological processes might trigger emotions rather than the over way around."  From an optimistic Lamarckian view, which also disagreed with Darwinists. Reformers spoke of furthering human evolution by cooperation, especially through collective institutions such as government, schools, and churches. And he also thought "if nature progresses through the destruction of the weak, man progresses through the protection of the weak." (Edwards, 145)

There have two kinds of science during the Gilded Age: "Pure science," which means scientists only focus on the science. However, ‘applied science's efforts tended toward the pragmatic and profitable. Like the example in the book—The New Spirit, showed "Railroads hired metallurgists who designed more powerful and safer steam engines, and chemists developed creosote treatments to extend the life of wooden cross ties."(Edwards, 148) From the Edwards, I knew that science in the Gilded Age always focuses on the pragmatic and profitable. And "discoveries in industrial laboratories were proprietary, and corporate scientists and engineers engaged in a constant race for patents." (Edwards,149) As the example showed in the book told us that "Westinghouse and General Electric followed a similar strategy: when necessary they bought rival patents and squelched them rather than allow new products to compete with their own"(Edwards, 149). As a result, people invented stronger, more flexible steel brought better and cheaper typewriters, bicycles, and eventually automobiles.