After the Civil War, things changed at a rapid speed in America. The waves of new immigrants increased the population and this led to the need for new changes. For instance, by 1914, more than 80% of children were enrolled in schools. Public education was particularly notable in high schools - but in many parts of the country, especially the South, the benefits of a public school education were not shared equally by everyone. We discussed the contribution of the 1862 Morrill Act, land-grant colleges and major donors to the growth of higher education in the U.S. We also discussed the establishment of HBCUs and the founding of prestigious Howard University in 1867. We covered Andrew Carnegie's efforts to establish public libraries, Joseph Pulitzer
and William Randolph Hearst's founding of major newspapers and the new sensational form of writing known as yellow journalism. Realism and regionalism were popular themes in literature from the writers Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Jack London & Edith Wharton. We concluded with how the rise of leisure time impacted the arts, music and sports.