The Gilded Age study guide

life in the civil war

No:

-Indoor electricity

-refrigeration

-Indoor plumbing

-Wood stoves for cooking

-Horse and buggy

Mail Delivery:

-10 days Mid-West to East Coast

-3 weeks coast to coast

life in the Gilded Age

-500,000 different patents in electricity

-refrigerated railroad cars (meats)

-sewer systems and sanitation

-power stations throughout the country

-Power stations throughout the country

-New York to San Francisco by rail, 10 days

-1.5 millions telephones

Gilded Age

Time period in America between the reconstruction and WW1, often characterized by an increase in industry, urbanization and immigration

Industrialization

The growth of industry and machinery as a factor of production

Urbanization

The growth of cities

Urbanization by the numbers

-11,000,000 migrated from rural to urban areas between 1870-1920

-Majority of 25,000,000 immigrants who migrated to the United States settled in cities

-By 1920 more Americans lived in cities than in rural areas for the first time in US History

Factors of Production: Land

new inventions (cars, Bessemer process, telegraph, ect) led to new uses for land and natural sources

Factors of Production: Capital

manufacturing industries expand

Factors of Production: Labor

After the civil war ends immigrants come to America for jobs and land

Laissez-Faire

Government should interfere as little as possible with business

Vertical Integration

Business strategy that involves controlling all factors of production

Horizontal Integration

Business strategy that involves buying competing companies

How did industrialists use oil to build the economy during the Gilded Age?

-J.D. Rockefeller developed a refining process that produced a standard form of oil

-Rockefeller becomes an oil tycoon using horizontal integration

How did industrialists use iron and coal to build the economy during the Gilded Age?

-Andrew Carnegie used the Bessemer process (using iron and coal) to mass produce steel

-Carnegie becomes a steel tycoon with vertical integrations

How did industrialists use railroads to build the economy during the Gilded Age?

The federal government gave major railroad companies land grants (free land) to expand the country's railroad infrastructure

Robber Barrons (Gilded Age)

people who got very rich and took advantage of others in the late 1800s

Captains of Industry

industrialists were honest, philanthropic businessmen who created markets, improved society and created jobs

workers organize into

unions

Union

organization of workers who have a collective interest in improving working conditions

What unions organized strikes in order for industrialists to give into their demands?

American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor

strike

laborers refuse to work until their demands are met

Scabs

replacement workers for those on strike

Railroad Strike of 1877

Railroad workers throughout the U.S. went on strike to protest the lowering of their salaries; when more than a hundred people died during violence related to the strike, Hayes used federal troops to suppress the uprisings.

took 12 days and $10 million to repair

11 people were killed

Homestead Strike

14 hours of fighting between strikebreakers and strikers

16 died

Governor of Pennsylvania sent 8,000 members of militia to protect strikebreakers

The context of the Haymarket Riot

-Labor activists protest the killing and the harming of workers by the chicago police during a strike the day before

-Anarchist and German immigrant August Spies who edited the newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung denounced police activity

The event of the haymarket Riot

That night there was a protest of 2,000 activists near Haymarket Square

-Chaos ensues when police arrived to disperse the crowd

an individual threw a bomb at the police

police and the crowd fired upon each other

7 police officers died and one civilian

The effects of the Haymarket Riot

-Widespread xenophobia

-8 men labeled as anarchists and believed to be connected with the bombing were convicted without evidence

4 of the men were hanged

1 commited suicide before his hanging

How was Industrialization financed?

-Banks financed industry by investing in a company and at times selling stock, allowing bankers, and every-day people to be part owners in a company

-J.P. Morgan was one of the most prominent bankers in the Gilded Age

J.P Morgan

Banker

Vanderbilt

Railroads

Ford

automotives

Carnegie

steel

Rockefeller

oil

Sherman Anti-trust act

-Prohibits activities that restrict interstate commerce and competition in the marketplace

-Outlawed trusts and monopolies

Trust:

Organization of several businesses in the same industry, by joining forces, the trust controls production and distribution of a product or service, limiting competition

Monopoly:

Businesses that have total control over a sector of the economy, including prices

Social Darwinism

-Philosophy that states that only those who are the fittest will survive in business, or in the world.

-Successful businesses are the strongest and they adapt. Successful individuals are naturally better, smarter and fit for society

Unfair Business Practices

-Businesses grew largely unregulated by the federal government (Laissez-Faire), unless it benefited the business

-Government broke strikes in favor of business

-The federal government gave the railroad industry land grants to build the railroad

what is immigration?

Movement of individuals into a population

what are the push factors for why immigration is increasing?

-Wars

-Political tyranny and instability

-Limitations on:

Social movement

Religious freedom

Land ownership

what are the pull factors for why immigration is increasing?

-Democracy

-Availability of:

Land ownership

Social mobility

Jobs

How did immigrants build the economy during the Gilded Age?

-millions of immigrants formed the backbone of the American industrial workforce:

Supplied the massive amounts of cheap and flexible labor needed to turn the United States into a global economic powerhouse.

What did the immigrants do that help build the economy?

-Filled unskilled jobs

-Built infrastructure

-Lowered production costs:

desperate for work and arrived with little money,

-they accepted low wages

-allowed industrialists to keep operating costs low and maximize corporate profits.

Ellis Island

Immigration depot for immigrants emigrating from Europe to the Atlantic coast of the United States

What happened upon arrival at Ellis Island

-The "eye man," lifted individuals' eyelids and looked for faulty vision and diseases

-A second doctor checked overall health, mental fitness and hygiene

What happened if you failed the test at Ellis Island?

-transport to their home country or quarantining on the western part of the island

-Within 5 hours most immigrants were on a ship headed to New Jersey or Manhattan

Angel Island

Immigration depot for immigrants emigrating from Asia to the Pacific coast of the United States

What immigrants were coming to Angel Island?

-Most Asian immigrants to Angel Island were men, looking for work in America.

-After establishing a home and a job, the goal was for their wives and children to join them in America

Old Immigrants Immigration patterns from Europe

-Immigrants arriving in the United States before 1890

-Most "Old Immigrants" arrived from Northern and Western Europe and were characteristically:

Protestant

English-speaking

New Immigrants Immigration patterns from Europe

-Immigrants arriving in the United States after 1890

-Most "New Immigrants" arrived from Eastern and Southern Europe and were characteristically:

Catholic

Jewish

Non-English speaking

Nativism

The policy of protecting the interests of native-born or establishing inhabitants against those of immigrants

What are some social concerns of Nativism?

Many Nativists believed that European countries were sending their worst people to America

Criminals

Mentally ill

Physically handicapped

Anarchists/Political agitators

What are some economic concerns of Nativism?

Immigrants worked for lower wages and sent money to their home country

What are some political concerns of Nativism?

Political machines manipulated immigrants into voting for them

The Chinese Exclusion Act

-Chinese emigrated to America in the mid 1800s in large numbers due to:

Poverty,

famine

rebellion.

-Many Chinese immigrants were drawn to:

The Gold Rush in California,

availability of farmland in the West and railroad jobs

Tenements

Apartment buildings of the Gilded Age often characterized by lack of sanitation

Tenements typically had

-One or two windows total

-A shared bathroom (room with a bath, no drain) for the entire floor

-It was common for multiple families to share a tenement

Jacob Riis

"How the Other Half lives"

Jane Addams

-social activists, progressive reformer.

-Funded Hull House in Chicago a settlement house for poor immigrants (mainly women and children)

-These housed learned English and other skills,

-the children were educated

-Hull House spurred a "settlement house" movement from the 1880s-1920s

Political Machines

Local city governments struggled to keep up with rapid urban growth. Politicians took advantage of this political and social problem and targeted immigrants for votes, in exchange for jobs and access to housing

what do political machines do?

political group designed to gain and keep power in a city

William "Boss" Tweed

-Controlled New York CIty's finance,

-accepted bribed,

-sold city permits to party friends

Tammany Hall: name of tweeds political machine

Graft: Fraud, gaining money or power illegally

Thomas Nast

a journalist (or in Nast's case a political cartoonist) who exposed corruption in society, politics and/or business

How did Nast's drawings portray leaders of Tammany Hall, including Boss Tweed?

Nast's cartoons in Harper's Weekly contributed to the downfall of the Tweed Ring and Tammany Hall and Tweed's imprisonment.

African Americans in the South

-Living in Oppression

-Many white Southerners actively worked to limit the social and economic mobility, as well as voting rights of African Americans

Social Limitations for African Americans in the south

Jim Crow laws legalized segregation in Plessy v. Ferguso

Economic Limitations for African Americans in the south

Sharecropping contracts: black codes. Sharecropping kept African Americans in a cycle of debt

Political Limitations for African Americans in the south

Poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses prevented African Americans from voting

Lynchings

A lynching is a public (typically consisting of a mob of 30 or more people) killing of an individual who has not received any due process. From 1882-1968 the NAACP estimates there were over 4,743 lynchings with African Americans making up 72% of those lynched

The NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

What did the NAACP do?

Its goal was to secure equal protection under the law, end lynching, and ensure political and educational equality

Some influences of this time

Ida B. Wells

Booker T. Washington

W.E.B Du Bois

Homestead Act

Gave approx 160 acres of public western land to settlers to encourage expansion

Interstate Commerce Act

Regulate railroad monopolies

Sherman Antitrust Act

Designed to break up trusts

Dawes Act

Forced assimilation of Native Americans

Chinese Exclusion Act

Banned new immigrants from China to America

The meaning of the term "Gilded Age" and why this time period was referred to that term

The Gilded Age was a period in American history from the late 1870s to about 1900 marked by rapid industrial growth, but also deep poverty, political corruption, and severe wealth inequality

Robber Barons vs. Captains of Industry

Most obscenely rich people involved in Industrialization fall under one of these categories. Robber Barons are people who steal from the public and extort their way to the top. Captains of industry become rich through efficiency and good decisions.

Problems with Urbanization, Industrialization, & Immigration (positive and negative effects and rise of urbanization)

The Rise of Urbanization: Driven by centralized factory jobs that drew millions of rural workers and global immigrants into cities, which rapidly expanded thanks to new railroad and steamship networks.

Positive Effects: Fueled explosive economic growth and a new middle class while driving major technological innovations like skyscrapers, electrical grids, and public transit.

Negative Effects: Created severe tenement overcrowding and dangerous workplace exploitation, alongside deadly public health crises caused by poor sanitation and lack of clean water.

The use of political cartoons to explain Gilded Age industrialization, urbanization, and immigration

powerful visual satire, exaggeration, and symbolism to expose the deep social tensions, corporate greed, and political corruption caused by rapid industrialization, urbanization, and mass immigration.