Age of Reason

Examples of Age of Reason in the following topics:

• Deism

  • Deism played a major part in inspiring enlightenment philosophy and in the creation of the principle of religious freedom.
  • Deism is a religious philosophy that holds that reason and observation of the natural world in a form other than organized religion can determine that the universe is the product of (an) intelligent creator(s).
  • "The Age of Reason—a treatise that helped to popularize Deism throughout the USA and Europe.
  • The principle of religious freedom, guaranteed in the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, was inspired partially by Deist ideas.
  • Though the influence of Deism on Jefferson's thought is debated, some of his writings on religion contain Deist ideas.

• The Political Revolution

  • Influenced by the scientific revolution of the 17th century and the humanist period during the Renaissance, the Enlightenment took scientific reasoning and applied it to human nature, society, and religion.
  • It was seen as hostile to the development of reason and the progress of science, and it was incapable of verification.
  • An alternative religion was Deism, the philosophical belief in a deity based on reason, rather than religious revelation or dogma.
  • The most articulate exponent was Thomas Paine, whose The Age of Reason was written in France in the early 1790s and soon reached America.
  • As Outram notes, the Enlightenment comprised "many different paths, varying in time and geography, to the common goals of progress, of tolerance, and the removal of abuses in Church and state. "

• Georgia

  • The Province of Georgia was chartered as a proprietary colony in 1733 and was the last of the 13 original British colonies.
  • The Province of Georgia, also called Georgia Colony, was one of the southern colonies in British America and the last of the 13 original colonies established by Great Britain.
  • The area within the charter had previously been part of the original grant of the Province of Carolina, which was closely linked to Georgia.
  • Oglethorpe’s vision for Georgia followed the ideals of the Age of Reason, seeing it as a place for England’s “worthy poor” to start anew.
  • A new and accurate map of the Provinces of North and South Carolina

• The American Enlightenment

  • Influenced by the scientific revolution of the 17th century, key Enlightenment thinkers applied scientific reasoning to studies of human nature, society, and religion.
  • The intellectual leaders of the Enlightenment employed scientific experimentation and reasoning to: discover general principles that governed the movement of planets, gravity, and natural law; acquire knowledge about philosophical principles; and challenge unquestioned authorities or principles.
  • It was seen as hostile to the development of reason and the progress of science, and it was incapable of verification.
  • For these philosophers, an acceptable alternative was Deism, the philosophical belief in a deity based on reason rather than on religious revelation or dogma.
  • The most articulate exponent was Thomas Paine, whose writing The Age of Reason was written in France in the early 1790s and soon reached America.

• The Expansion of Europe

  • The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration and the Great Navigations, was a period in European history from the early 15th century to the early 17th century.
  • Historians often refer to the Age of Discovery to mean the pioneering period of the Portuguese and Spanish long-distance maritime travels in search of alternative trade routes to the Indies.
  • The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 was a pivotal reason for European exploration, as trade throughout the Ottoman Empire was difficult and unreliable.
  • This map illustrates the main travels of the Age of Discovery, from 1482-1524.
  • Explain the reasons for the first few European excursions to the New World

• Social Criticism

  • The end of the Gilded Age witnessed rising levels of social criticism from a new kind of investigative journalists called "muckrakers."
  • The 1890s and early 1900s witnessed a profound social and political reaction to the excesses and corruption of the Gilded Age.
  • The growth of wire services had also contributed to the spread of the objective reporting style.
  • Journalists began to respond to the excesses of the Gilded Age toward the end of the period.
  • Having examined many accounts of lynching based on alleged "rape of white women," she concluded that Southerners concocted rape as an excuse to hide their real reason for lynchings: black economic progress, which threatened not only white Southerners' pocketbooks, but also their ideas about black inferiority.

• The Gilded Age

  • Historians view the Gilded Age as a period of rapid economic, technological, political, and social transformation.
  • By the end of the Gilded Age, the United States was at the top end of the world's leading industrial nations.
  • The Gilded Age saw impressive economic growth and the unprecedented growth of major cities.
  • The end of the Gilded Age coincided with the Panic of 1893, a deep depression, which lasted until 1897 and marked a major political realignment in the election of 1896.
  • Built in 1893, it typifies the excesses of Gilded Age wealth.

• Conclusion: Trends of the Gilded Age

  • The term for this period came into use in the 1920s and 30s and was derived from writer Mark Twain's 1873 The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding.
  • The early half of the Gilded Age roughly coincided with the middle portion of the Victorian era in Britain and Belle Époque in France.
  • The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West.
  • However, the Gilded Age was also an era of abject poverty and inequality as millions of immigrants—many from impoverished European nations—poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious.
  • Book cover of The Gilded Age by Mark Twain (1st edition, 1873)

• Freedom, Inequality, and Democracy in the Gilded Age

  • During the Gilded Age, many new social movements took hold in the United States, supporting the rights of women and African-Americans.
  • During the Gilded Age, many new social movements took hold in the United States.
  • The Harlem Renaissance and the popularity of jazz music during the early part of the 20th century made many Americans more aware of black culture and more accepting of black celebrities.
  • The "Gilded Age" that was enjoyed by the topmost percentiles of American society after the recovery from the Panic of 1873 floated on the surface of the newly industrialized economy of the Second Industrial Revolution.
  • The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, employing the ironic difference between a "gilded" and a Golden Age.

• The Jazz Age

  • The Jazz Age was a cultural period and movement that took place in America during the 1920s from which both new styles of music and dance emerged.
  • The surfacing of Flappers, women noted for their flamboyant style of dress and progressive attitudes and modernized morals, began to captivate society during the Jazz Age.
  • The music of singer Bessie Smith was immensely popular during the Jazz Age and she both influenced and paved the way for generations of female artists.
  • Cab Calloway became one of the most popular musicians of the Jazz Age in the 1920s.
  • During the Jazz Age, popular music included current dance songs, novelty songs, and show tunes.