How Has American Society Changed In The 1800's

Society is always changing, from the 1800’s to now there have been many changes, big and small. Anything from simple linguistics, up to the ways criminals are dealt with have changed, some in good ways and some not so good. But overall, society has taken a turn towards the good end of the spectrum. In reading the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I had gotten an insight of how the world worked in the 1800’s. Seeing how things like racism, laws/justice, and language have progressed over time is unbelievable. This gives me the reason to believe that American society has advanced not only in the sense of time but in the sense of social change since 1840.

In the book “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” the laws, and justice system is

I would say that it is improving but at the same time, I feel it could be better. In one chapter of the book, huck goes to look for him at the Phelps farm and finds tom’s aunt who thinks Huck is tom. She asks him what took him so long to get here and he explains to her that the steamboat he was riding in blew up and an African American got hurt in the explosion. After huck explained what had happened, Ms. Phelps said to him, “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.” Her attitude towards the African American race shows how the average person in that time period seen African Americans as property rather than people and how low they thought of them. Nowadays, people do look down on the African American culture but it has been increasingly subsiding. In 1958, 44 percent of white Americans said they would move out of their homes if a black family were to move into a home next door. Now, in 2015, the 44 percent had dropped all the way down to one percent. One other big sign that white society has changed their views on the black community is the interracial marriage rate. In 1967, only three percent of married couples were interracial, this rate has risen more than fivefold over the past four decades. Now, the current rate of interracial married couples is at 17 percent. (Goldberg) This example just goes to show that there will always be racism in any way, shape, or form. At least the general public isn’t like the 1840’s anymore. Nowadays the African American society can do basically everything that they weren’t able to do in the 1800’s, I mean we’ve had an African American president, that just goes to show how far the American society has come since the 1800’s, also this goes along with my point about American society changing for the greater good. It may not be perfect and it may never be perfect, but it has come a long way