Industry and Displacement in the Gilded Age

Republican Ideology 

Land ownership (need property to be successful) conflicts with idea of wage labor 

Government support

There is high tariffs that are meant to protect the U.S. industry. Gave land to companies and military removing Native American for farmers to open the space for westward expansion

Pre-1880 economy

Manufacturing overtakes the agriculture industry (cultural of overexpression and contraction/ “recession”.

• Vertical integration = deskilling: There is need the skills because of the mass of production of machines 

• Assembly line, making different parts of the shoe but doesn’t know how to make a full shoe 

Titans/Robber Barons vs. Middle Class vs. Working Class

There is huge wealth disparities in-between different classes

• Titans/Robber Barons: One that made fortunes monopolizing huge industries through trusts and unethical practices 

• Middles Class: Managed the Working Class (White collar jobs) 

• Working Class: Lower class (mostly made up of immigrants)

Social Darwinism

Working won’t be able to advance beyond the point that they are at (they will eventually die out)

• Used to justify the Gilded age’s economic inequality 

• Supported Laissez-faire capitalism: Govt. shouldn’t interfere with economy or social programs because they don’t want to interfere with the natural process of competition 

Emergence of a National Culture: Time standardization

Create new times for each region due to the railroads (ultimately creating region culture) 

Emergence of National Culture: Advertising

New technique that allows every to share the same experience through emotional appeal, brand recognition, and new media to fuel a growing consumer culture 

• Visual culture: Cameras/ads/postcards 

Emergence of National Culture: Mail order experience

People are now able to order items of a catalogue allowing them people from all over the country to enjoy big city luxuries.

Labor Discontent

• Family needs about 2 to 3 incomes to survive

• There is no regulation of businesses/deskilling/standardization 

• There is an increase in coal mines/steel and iron mills

Welfare capitalism

Give more benefits than getting a higher wage

• Ex: Subsidized housing, food, able to purchase at the company store at “lower prices” (managers said that their prices are lower than commercial prices, wasn’t always the truth)

Haymarket riots (1886)

Cracking down anarchists (fighting for “888”)

• National movement for an “eight-hour” workday turned violent because police officers started shooting workers 

• Anarchists turned to protest police brutality in Haymarket Square 

Depression

Officially started in 1894, unemployment rate was at 14%. Considerate of using public works to give life to the those who were unemployed. 

Dawes Act: “Civilizing Mission”

Forced indigenous people to give up their communal lands with livestock to break it up into plots that native American can have IF they have a legit marriage.

• There is an incentive: each kid that you have the more land that you get forced people into a nuclear family 

• Started a cultural war: completely opposed their ideas of community, erasing indigenous cultural 

Culture War

The way we allow the dominant culture (ideology) legislate policies

Accommodationist vs Traditionalists

Returning to indigenous diet or certain traditions

Pan-Indian Movement

Social/Political effort to unify diverse Native American tribes under a shared ethnic identity

• Promoting solidarity and collective action against assimilation policies, land dispossession, and cultural erasure 

Pan-Indian

A range of all indigenous groups

Paternalism

When oppressors justify their abuse by knowing “what’s best for you”

• Late 1870s: Indian schools that forced indigenous children into American culture and had to earn trade = domestic skills that were no longer useful)

• “Do with the mind you can do with the bullet”: Physically and mentally showed that their culture was “bad”

Bureau of Indian Affairs

Government agency that was responsible for the indigenous movement and “re-education” of the native Americans