Bennett Law

(noun)

A controversial Wisconsin law passed in 1889 that required public and private schools to teach most subjects in English. The law was opposed by the state's large German-American population, but was typical of the assimilationist education policy of the Progressive Era.

Related Terms

Examples of Bennett Law in the following topics:

  • The Nativist Response to Immigration

    • The Chinese Exclusion Act was a U.S. federal law signed by Chester A.
    • The Nativists went public in 1854 when they formed the "American Party," which was especially hostile to the immigration of Irish Catholics, and campaigned for laws to require a longer wait time between immigration and naturalization (the laws never passed).
    • The Bennett Law caused a political uproar in Wisconsin in 1890, as the state government passed a law that threatened to close down hundreds of German-language elementary schools.
    • The law was repealed in 1891, but Democrats used the memories to carry Wisconsin and Illinois in the 1892 U.S. presidential election.

  • The New Feminism

    • Many states also passed similar state laws (collectively known as the Comstock laws), that extended the federal law by outlawing the use of contraceptives, as well as their distribution.
    • At the turn of the century, an energetic movement arose, centered in Greenwich Village, that sought to overturn anti-obscenity laws and the Comstock Acts.
    • Bennett, Emma Goldman, and Margaret Sanger.
    • Under the influence of Goldman and the Free Speech League, Sanger became determined to challenge the Comstock laws that outlawed the dissemination of contraceptive information.
    • New York state law prohibited the distribution of contraceptives or even contraceptive information, but Sanger hoped to exploit a provision in the law which permitted doctors to prescribe contraceptives for the prevention of disease.

  • Urban Recreation

    • James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald added another dimension to penny press newspapers which is now common in journalistic practice.
    • Whereas newspapers had generally relied on documents as sources, Bennett introduced the practices of observation and interviewing to provide stories with more vivid details.
    • Bennett is known for redefining the concept of news, reorganizing the news business, and introducing newspaper competition.
    • Bennett's New York Herald was financially independent of politicians because it had a large numbers of advertisers.

  • Popular Culture

    • News baron Gordon Bennett's Sun was the first penny newspaper .
    • New York's Central Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

  • The Poor, the Homeless, and the Victims of AIDS

    • This law lowered the standards for involuntary commitment in civil courtrooms and was followed by significant de-funding of 1700 hospitals caring for mental patients.
    • Finally in 1987, President Reagan signed into law the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
    • This approach brought Koop into conflict with other administration officials, such as Education Secretary William Bennett.

  • Newspapers

    • James Gordon Bennett's newspaper The New York Herald added another dimension to penny press papers that is now common in journalistic practice.
    • Whereas newspapers had generally relied on documents as sources, Bennett introduced the practices of observation and interviewing to provide stories with more vivid details.
    • Bennett is known for redefining the concept of news, reorganizing the news business, and introducing newspaper competition.

  • Lee's Surrender at Appomattox

    • Sherman on April 26, 1865, at Bennett Place.

  • Jim Crow Laws

    • The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965.
    • During the Reconstruction period of 1865–1877, federal law provided civil rights protection in the U.S.
    • Even in cases in which Jim Crow laws did not expressly forbid black people to participate in, for instance, sports or recreation, the laws shaped a segregated culture.
    • Jim Crow laws established "separate but equal" facilities.
    • Evaluate how Jim Crow Laws effected the lives of African Americans during the early 20th century.

  • Anti-Trust Laws

    • However, the Supreme Court declared that the law was unconstitutional in 1918.
    • The Clayton Antitrust Act was a law that specified and outlined "unfair and illegal" certain business practices such as price discrimination, agreements prohibiting retailers from handling other companies' products, and agreements to control other companies.
    • It was a stronger piece of legislation than other antitrust laws because it held individual officers of corporations responsible if their companies violated the laws.
    • Wilson uses tariff, currency and anti-trust laws to prime the pump and get the economy working in a 1913 political cartoon.

  • Jim Crow Laws

    • The Jim Crow laws, enacted between 1876 and 1965, were a major factor in the African-American Great Migration during the early part of the 2oth century.
    • Board of Education, while the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
    • These Democratic, conservative Redeemer governments legislated Jim Crow laws, segregating black people from the white population.
    • Even in cases where Crow laws did not expressly forbid black people to participate in sports or recreation, for instance, culture did.
    • That is to say, white Americans were effectively excluded from literacy testing, whereas black Americans were singled out by the law.