Double Quiz History Notes

Reconstruction

• The Reconstruction era was the period after the American Civil War from 1865-1877

• During which the United States grappled with the challenges

40 Acres and a Mule

• January 16, 1865

• The Union general William Tecumseh Sherman issued an order(Special Field Order 15) to seize 400,000 acres of land and redistribute them to the newly freed black families after parceling the land out into 40 acre units

• An idea that never came to be

• NEVER HAPPENED

Joke Amendments

• They didn’t work until 100 years later

• Amendment 13 said there would no slavery in the US

• 14th amendment said everyone is a citizen

• 15th amendment gave black people the right to vote 

• This was a joke again until MLK

The KKK

• The KKK was born in Tennessee the year after the civil war ended civil war ended in 1965 (1966)

• Ex confederate soldiers started this 

• They are dressing as ghosts(dead confederate soldiers coming back to life)

• They did everything and anything to stop African Americans from getting equality and justice everywhere even in the south

• They had lots of enemies

• They didn’t like jews, catholics, immigrants and black people

• #1 targets African Americans

• Burning cross was a warning to people that they better behave the way they wanted to or else they would disappear the next day

The military reconstruction act of 1867

• After the wars over the north went home

• The north soon saw memphis new orleans 

• They decided they had to do something

• They were going to reinvade in a police manor and make sure the south behaves 

• This is when African Americans did get voted into congress 

• They wanted to make life better and safer for African Americans

• Things got better for African Americans

• Needed thousands of soldiers down south to make it better

The compromise of 1877

• Everything ends and it all falls apart

• After the election of 1876 Samuel Tilden said the north cheated and lied 

• There was a new election 

• Southerners got together with northerners and said lets do something to make the south happy

• They decided to do the compromise of 1877 

• If they removed the soldiers from the south they would let the president win

• Reconstruction was gone

• KKK grew

• African American justice disappeared for a hundred years

Jim Crow

• Segregation among black people and white people

• It was everywhere

• Were a collection of state and local statues that legalized racial segregation named after a black minstrel show character

• The laws existed about 100 years from the post Civil War era until 1968

• Were meant to marginalize African Americans

Lynching

• Murder by mob 

• It’s what happened to hundreds of thousands of african americans

• It was a way to intimidate african americans from asking for rights

• Lynching was like a fair, carnival

• People came to watch it they were cheering

• A public killing of an individual who has not received any due process

• Executions were often carried out by lawless mobs though police officers didn’t participate under the pretext of justice

• White people used to terrorize and control black people in the 19th and 20th century especially in the South

• Evoke images of black men and women hanging from trees, but they involved other extreme brutality such as torture mutilation decapitation and desecration

• Some victims were burned alive

• Nobody got charged so people got away with murder

The transcontinental railroad

• 1869

• Right after the civil war

• There were railroads in the east coast but once you got to omaha you had to get on a waggon trail

• Railroad speeds everything up in terms of trade and communication

• Nobody thought it could be done

• There was a big celebration when they linked up in Utah (Omaha company)

• There was a competition and whoever won got land from the government

• Sacramento vs Omaha 

• Sacramento company won because they went over mountains 

• This is a nightmare for native americans because this will bring a lot of white men and no land for native americans

The American Dream and Immigration

• Between 1815 and 1860 more than 5 million immigrants arrived in America

• Mostly from countries like Great Britain Ireland Norway the german states and Prussia

• Between 1870 and 1900 the largest number of immigrants continued to come from northern and western Europe including Great Britain Ireland and Scandinavia 

• New immigrants from southern and eastern Europe 

• Starting in 1875, a series of restrictions on immigrations were enacted

• They included bans on criminals people with contagious diseases polygamists anarchists beggars and importers of prostitutes

• Other restrictions targeted the rising number of Asian immigrants first limiting migration from China and later banning immigration from most Asian countries

• Statue of Liberty:celebration of immigration

• America was a magnet for the world

• People thought they would have more money and better life in America so they just kept coming

The Second Industrial Revolution

• A period of groundbreaking advancements in manufacturing, technology, and industrial production methods, particularly in the United States from around 1870 to 1914

• Developments such as steel, electricity, increased mass production, and the building of a nationwide railroad network enabled the growth of sprawling cities

• This is a new modern industrial revolution

• It's more modern because of all of the new technologies

• Electricity

• Steel

• Cars and airplanes

• Luckily for the workers things improved

• It was terrible in the first industrial revolution for them because of the long hours, low pay and child labor

The Gilded Age

• A period of rapid industrialization in America from 1876-1900

• Was characterized by the extreme wealth of a few individuals while many others lived in poverty

• This era is often associated with political corruption and exploitation of immigrant labor

• Gilded means gold on the outside

• During the gilded age we get our first millionaires ever

• Urbanization was rapid

• Many people were moving to cities in search of factory jobs

• Issues in our cities: Overcrowding, crime, disease, poverty, exploitation

Social Darwinism

• Survival of the fittest

• Used Darwin’s theory of natural selection to explain the economic evolution of human society

• Wealth was the result of strong work ethic

• Ism is a belief system what do you believe in you believe in survival in the fittest meaning you have this view of people and if you’re rich you’ve earned that and if you’re poor you’ve earned that because seen as lazy and unsuccessful

• Big on laissez-faire

• Herbert Spencer 

• Came from a guy named Charles Darwin 

• New term coined in late 1800s Gilded Age 

Robber Barons V Captains of Industry

• Two different ways at looking at the same thing

• First multi millionaires

• During second industrial Revolution

• If you’re a socialist you will see them as robber barons

• If you’re a social darwinist see them as captains of industry

• Robber Barons means thieves 

Captains of industry 

• Hard work

• Innovative

• Increased production

• Cheap production

• philanthropy

Robber barons

• Exploited labor

• Created monopolies/sabotaged competitors

• Corrupted the government

• Greedy 

The start of labor unions

• During the first industrial revolution of the early 1800s there were no unions

• They come later in the second industrial revolution in the late 1800s 

• Unions make life better for the worker

• Unions are all about strength in number 

• They make life more expensive for the owner which is why owners don’t like them

• Unions have gotten workers a lot of good things over the years 

• Unions strike and you have no income if you strike

• Sometimes when you strike the owner says okay I’m going to fire you too I’ll hire replacement workers(scabs)

• Sometimes your strike works and sometimes it doesn’t 

• With strikes comes a lot of violence 

• There's a lot of death and destruction 

• People love their money and if you take it there would’ve been violence

The Battle of Wounded Knee (1890)

• After the civil war (1861-1865) ex-soldiers of both North and South teamed up and headed west for Native American wars

• As americans came out west it was always ugly

• Native americans were there first and when white man came it got ugly 

• It all ends at the battle of wounded knee in South Dakota during which soldiers of the US army 7th Cavalry Regiment indiscriminately slaughtered hundreds of Sioux men, women and children

• End of Native American existence 

• Last battle and if you’re native american you’re either dead or have fled to Canada or Mexico 

Native Americans

• Today native americans are the lowest in terms of misery statistics

Plessy V Ferguson

• 1896

• One of the top 2 supreme cases ever

• Louisiana enacted the Separate Car Act which required separate railway cars for blacks and whites 

• IN 1892 Homer Plessy who was seven eighths Caucasian agreed to participate in a test to challenge the Act

• He was solicited by the Comite de Choyens(committee of citizens) a group of New Orleans residents who sought to repeal the Act

• They asked Plessy who was technically black under Lousianna law to sit in a whites only car of a Louisiana train

• The railroad cooperated because it thought the Act imposed unnecessary costs via the purchase of additional railroad cars

• When Plessy was told to vacate the whites only car he refused and was arrested

• At trial Plessy’s lawyers argued that the separate car act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments 

• The judge found that Louisiana could enforce the law insofar as it affected railroads within its boundaries

• Plessy was convicted 

• The real winner of Plessy vs Ferguson was Jim Crow

• Plessy is the Rosa Parks of the 1800s

• He knew what he was doing he wanted to get arrested so it would’ve been taken to court 

• The supreme used the separate but equal policy 

• If you separate people you marginalize them

• The facilities were never equal

• Separate but equal allowed Jim Crow to flourish 

• Plessy was looking for a good thing but a bad thing came out of it 

• Brown vs board of education 60 years after this case finally justice prevailed in America

• They said in 1954 separate but equal is a joke 

• This is when Jim Crow started dying 

The Spanish-American War

• 1898

• Was an 1898 conflict between the US and Spain that ended SPanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in US acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America

• Very quick and easy war for US

• Fought spain in cuba because spain grabbed cuba when colombus was around

• Yellow journalism got people to help the Cuban struggle 

• The Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish American War was signed on December 10 1898

• Spain renounced all claim to Cuba ceded Guam and Puerto Rico to US

• The Manifest destiny would now go overseas 

• After the spanish american war, Philippines islands, Guam, Cuba, Puerto Rico belonged to America