Gilded Age - DE US History

Time period of the Gilded Age

1876-1901

the process of covering ONLY the surface in gold

Gilding

big problems of the gilded age

monopolies, immigration, no housing, and political corruption

the gilded age is a REACTION to

reconstruction

government leaving corporations alone, more creativity due to less regulations, materialistic population

characteristics of a laissez-faire govt

if a company doesn’t succeed it isn’t “fit” enough

social darwinism

spread of wealth during the gilded age

huge rich and poor gap

1st industrial revolution

textiles

2nd industrial revolution

steel

getting iron to turn into steel

Bessemer process

factors of gilded age

laissez-faire govt, cheap labor, major advancements in technology, legal monopolies, and lots of raw materials

tycoons of industry

Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt known for

creating standard railroad width, his fortune starts with steamboats

ripple effects from vanderbilt

pocket watch, luxury rail cars, and time zones

Metalmen

Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and Henry Clay Frick

Philanthropy

donating money to get your name put on something

JP Morgan buys Carnegie Steel for

$480 million

what company did John D Rockefeller own/create (produced 90% of oil in US)

Standard Oil Company

Holding Companies

people pool money to buy big companies then sell them piece by piece

presidency in the gilded age

none serve 2 consecutive terms, let businesses do their thing, no name presidents

politics are ___ during the gilded age

local

local politicians in charge of how

elections take place

Democratic Political Machine

Tammany Hall

Give people what they want and

they’ll vote for your guy

“your guy” inflated contracts and

the city boss distributes kickbacks to companies

top of the political machine

city boss

second on the political machine pyramid, organize voter drives and get people to polls

ward boss

bottom of the political machine, got new immigrants to specific neighborhoods, often based on countries

captains

push factors

reasons to leave old country

pull factors

reasons to come to new country

Chinese immigrants usually worked on

transcontinental railroad

prohibits immigration for 10 years and bans Chinese from becoming US citizens

Chinese Exclusion Act

bans Chinese from coming to us entirely, not liften until 1934

1872

How the other half lies (Jacob Riis, 1890)

audience is upper middle class, shows tenements and ethnic neighborhoods

during the gilded age the ___ class emerges

middle

above poverty level, considered to be the “american dream”, includes skilled laborers (crazy hours, unsafe, decent wages)

middle class

jobs dealing with people, created in gilded age, on salary

managers

managers make

$1000 per year

workers make

$2 a day

killed yearly working

35,000

injured yearly working

1,000,000

women and children are paid

less

work schedule (generally)

10 hrs a day, 6 days a week

dollars needed yearly for survival

600

scabs, pinkertons, lockouts, blacklisting, yellow-dog contracts, court inductions, open shop

management tools

boycotts, sympathy demonstrations, picketing, closed shops, organized/wildcat strikes

labor tools

brutes from corporations

pinkerton agents

bosses won, no one considered rebelling as an option, went on strike because their pay got decreased

Lowell “Mills Girls” 1834

child labor at an all time high during the

1870-80’s

no minimum wage to work, paid less, often worked in mining or textiles

child labor

1868 Oliver kelley, people trying to lower costs of transporting goods via railways

Grange-Farmers organize

James McParland, destroyed the mines, brought down by Pinkerton detectives

Molly Maguires 1870

who started the Knights of Labor

uriah stephens

8 hr workday, work cooperatives, worker-owned factories, abolition of child + prison labor, equal pay for men/women, safety codes, stop foreign labor, increase amount of money in circulation

Goals of the knights of labor

@ McCormick reaper machine company, people protest (4 dead and several injured)

Haymarket Riot 1886

American Federation of Labor founder

Samuel Gompers

Who could join AFL

skilled workers only

AFL Goals

less hours + better pay, strikes, leading union in the US

dozens killed, @ Carnegie steel co. and Pinkerton agents reopened the factory, led to pinkerton’s surrendering to the workers

Homestead Strike 1892

American Railway Union founder

Eugene V. Debs

who could join the ARU

railway workers who are skilled

towns built next to a factory, workers live right next to place of work

company towns

ARU boycotts Pullman cars because of

reduced wages due to 1893 economic panic

ARU Pullman boycott goes wrong because

US postal service only uses Pullman cars, president makes workers go back

1896 populism

raise less corn and a lot more hell

populists are the

3rd party

populist party is successful at state but not at

national level

8 hr workday, graduated income tax, limit immigration, govt controls railroads, secret ballot voting, single term presidency, senators elected rather than appointed, and more money in circulation w silver added to gold standard

populist party ideas

who invented the telephone and when

Alexander Graham Bell 1876

Who invented the phonograph and when

Thomas Edison 1877

Who invented barbed wire and when

joseph Glidden 1874

Who invented the subway and when

Charles Pearson 1863

Who invented the lightbulb and when

Thomas Edison 1879

Who invented the elevator and when

Elisha Granes Ortis 1880

Who invented the escalator and when

Charles A. Wheeler 1892

Who invented the typewriter and when

Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden, Sam W Soule 1868

Who invented the Kodak camera and when

george Eastman 1888

promoted the construction of transcontinental railroad in 1862

Pacific Railway Act

rail company chartered by Congress in 1862 to build a railroad from California to complete most of the western part of the transcontinental railroad

central Pacific railway

Congress commissioned them to build transcontinental starting in Nebraska

union Pacific railway

where the transcontinental railroad was completed on May 10, 1869

Promontory Point

granted 160 acres of public land to settlers who lived on and cultivated it for five years, encouraging westward expansion and land ownership

homestead act of 1862

set aside federal lands to create colleges to “benefit the agricultural and mechanical arts.” in 1862

Morrill Land Grant Act

November 1864, federal troops attacked a village of 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho on Sand Creek in Colorado.

Sand Creek Massacre

Union cavalry officer during the Civil War and a U.S. Army commander in the Indian Wars, most notably known for his defeat and death at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. 

george custer

in December 1890, marked the end of major armed resistance by Native Americans against the U.S. government, with U.S. troops killing approximately 150-300 Lakota people in South Dakota

Battle of Wounded Knee

religious movement among Native American tribes in the west, aiming to restore traditional ways of life and bring back deceased ancestors, in response to westward expansion and cultural disruption

ghost dance

Lakota war leader of the Oglala band who fought against the US government's encroachment on Native American territory, notably in the Black Hills War, including the Battle of Little Bighorn

crazy horse

Lakota leader who led his people in resistance against the U.S. government's policies, particularly during the Sioux Wars, culminating in the Battle of Little Bighorn. 

Sitting Bull

large-scale, commercially-oriented agricultural operations that utilized advanced machinery and techniques to produce single crops like wheat on a large scale

bonanza farms

African Americans who migrated from the South to Kansas in the late 19th century, seeking a better life and escaping the harsh realities of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow laws

exodusters

major "cowtowns" that emerged as important cattle market hubs during the late 19th century, facilitated by the railroad and the Chisholm Trail

dodge city and abilene

bison hunter that symbolized the “Wild West”

Buffalo Bill

Indian boarding school designed to assimilate Native American children into American culture by forcing them to abandon their languages, traditions, and customs

Carlisle School

traveling shows that romanticized the American west

wild west shows

herding of large cattle herds from ranches in the South and West to railheads in the East

cattle drive

law that authorized the federal government to break up tribal lands and give individual plots to Native Americans, aiming to assimilate them into society by encouraging farming and land ownership

Dawes Act 1887

historian known for his "Frontier Thesis," arguing that the westward expansion and the American frontier shaped American national character and identity by fostering democracy, individualism, and innovation

Frederick Jackson Turner

argues that the westward expansion and settlement of the American frontier was a defining factor in shaping American culture

Frontier Thesis

settlers who illegally entered the Unassigned Lands (later Oklahoma) before the official opening of the land run in 1889, gaining an unfair advantage in claiming land. 

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