Period 2: Social Roles Start to Change (Reconstruction - Roaring 20s)

Period 2

Social Roles Start to Change (Reconstruction - Roaring 20s)

• Topic 6: Blacks After the Civil War: Reconstruction- Harlem Renaissance (1865-1920s)

• Topic 7: Gender and Sexuality from the 1860s-1920s 

• Topic 8: Immigration: Opening and Shutting the Golden Door (1880s-1924)

• Topic 9: The Fight for Economic Equality amidst the Rise of Capitalism (1880s-1920s)

Reconstruction

1865-1877; the period of economic (capitalism), social (north/south and racial relations), and political (reunification) transformation of the United States after the Civil War and the end of slavery

Demographics of American Thinking Post-Civil War

The only real voices in government were northern republicans, so congress was very like-minded and a lot of amendments were passed

Southern Democrats' view on Reconstruction

Black people wouldn't be enslaved anymore, but also wouldn't be granted any other rights (voting, citizenship). Thought life would go back to the way it was, excluding the absence of slavery. Wanted the federal government to stay out of state affairs.

Moderate Republicans' view on Reconstruction

More focused on equal opportunites than equal results (through freedom of labor, everything else would follow). Recognized AA wouldn't be on equal footing, so would provide support for them to have more opportunities. Federal government should be a tool to provide economic autonomy, equal opportunities would follow.

Radical Republicans' view on Reconstruction

Radical advocaters for equality: thought equality = equality of rights (can only have equal opportunities if equal rights are protected). Saw Reconstruction as a way to build America completely anew

Topic 6: Blacks After the Civil War: Reconstruction

Blacks After the Civil War: Reconstruction- Harlem Renaissance (1865-1920s)

• Black Americans view the end of Civil War as hope 4 new + goals of economic, social/cultural, & political opportunities to acquire through individual, federal & state actions

  • early reconstruction supported + granted by gov

• Catch: social change in marginalized groups requires ally in position of power

Blacks Economic Aim post civil war

goal: want land (is what they know + can do & = generational wealth)

agency + pushback:

• Feds: 1865 Shermans Feild Order 15/40 acres & a mule = taken from white owners & given to free slaves

  • Feds: Andrew Johnson returned land to owners

  • Sharecropping = most freed returned to plantations & were charged rent greater than their pay (no profit, debt)

• Benjamin Montgomery: gifted land by kindness of owner & became wealthy plantation owner

  • state: black codes

  • state: jim crow laws

• Landowners, businessowners, existing

  • inidivd: violence & lynchings

Blacks Social & Cultural Aim post civil war

goal: Integration vs. Voluntary Separatism –how do you navigate living in a white dominated society? form families, form communities

agency + pushback

• Family, unify; Marry

• Creation of churches; creation of schools  

• Mound Bayu: founded by Isiah Montgomery → will never be fully free in presence of oppressor (risks: have to agree to all white political power, don’t change social structure)

  • state: black codes, jim crow

  • individ: violence & lynchings

    
    

Blacks Policial Aim post civil war

goal: self-governance (political representations and/or voluntary separatism) full citizenship, right to vote, right to hold office

agency + pushback

• Voting, Hold Office (2000 offices) 

• fed: 13th, 14th, 15th amendments (1865’, 68’ 70’)

  • fed: Bargain away Reconstruction

  • fed: Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)

  • state: Restrictions on voting rights (poll taxes, literacy tests), Isiah Montgomery voted in favor of literacy test

  • individ: violence & lynchings

13th Amendment

1865: Reconstruction (Lincoln)

• Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude across the United States, except as a punishment for crime

• historic shift, formally ending centuries of legalized slavery.

14th Amendment

1868: Reconstruction (Andrew Johnson)

• Granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the U.S. (slaves+ their descendants = citizens)

• granted equal due process rights + civil rights (equal protection under law)

  • end of reconstruction: republicans shift to Lassie Faire economics & argue 14th ammendment abt economic equality not civil rights

15th Amendment

1870: Reconstruction (Grant)

• Prohibited any denial of voting rights based on race, color, or previous enslavement

• aimed to ensure that African American men could vote, though many states still imposed barriers (poll taxes, literacy tests w/ grandfather clauses)

Plessy vs Ferguson (1896)

Jim Crow laws (segregation laws) do not violate the 14th Amendment - "Separate but equal" does not violate the 14th Amendment. This marks the beginning of the Jim Crow era in the south.

The Black Codes

Gave the South the ability to preserve white supremacist practices. Black people were subject to different laws than white people:
- Couldn't testify against whites
- Couldn't serve on juries
- Couldn't vote
- Required to sign labor contracts to prove they were employed, failure to show/have a contract could send them to jail
Many are violations of constitutional rights, and black people arrested frequently and forced to do unpaid labor, which the state would then auction off to private companies that would pay the state - laborer wouldn't get paid.

Radical Republican Reaction to Black Codes

In response to Johnson's white supremacist, pro-Southern Reconstruction plan the Radical Republicans move even further to the left and now put forth a legislative and Constitutional agenda that will enshrine Civil Rights in the Constitution. They knew Johnson had to be stopped and with their supermajority, they put several plans through Congress to counter Johnson's single minded thinking of the lower white class, and they can override Johnson's inevitable veto.

End of Reconstruction

In the election of 1876 it's Rutherford B. Hayes (R) vs Samuel Tilden (D) and results are disputed, north says that if the South lets Hayes win, they will withdraw military forces, which basically marks the end of reconstruction. Hayes is unmotivated toward the causes of equality, the public is fatigued of it, and the court has undermined almost every attempt at equality.
The Republicans shift their ideology away from the equality-oriented motivation and in a more conservative, capitalist direction (away from civil rights, toward economic development). Reconstruction roughly considered over in 1876, but by Plessy (1896), reconstruction is definitely over

New modes of resistance post southern pushback

w/ rise of new modes of oppression, blacks unified w/ new forms of resistance (1900s)

• Big → Booker T. Washington

• Bold → W.E.B. Du Bois

• Heroes → Harlem Renaissance

• Make → Marcus Garvey

• Waves → The Great Migration

Booker T Washington

big: reform the South strat: chage comes from bottom up (emphasized black AND white cooperation)

• New South: believed white ppl would eventually realize their value if they learned a trade, started buisness + stayed in own lane

• i.e. turn inward but cooperate w/ white society (a bit idealist)

  • ex: CJ Walker started BLACK haircare buisness = first self made women millionare

W.E.B Dubois

bold: reform America strat: change comes top down

1st to earn Harvard Degree, NAACP, Talented Tenth (believed Africans should be led by educated 10%)

• counter global stereotypes & propaganda by expanding culturally (cant make economic prgress in society that views them as less than)

• Racist narrative: dehumanizing beasts which justified Jim Crow

• Counter narrative: Dandyism = showing them as polished

Harlem Renaissance

reform America strat: = application of W.E.B Dubois idea to counter global sterotypes (1920s-1930s)

• demonstrating culture for 1st time bc now have time (work hrs) & access & becomes v popular across America

• Jazz/Blues

• Subversive Film

• Literature/Poetry

Marcus Garvey

America is “irredeemable” strat: so just leave

blacks & whites can’t coexist bc of natural hierarchy so must segregate voluntarily (blacks can be kinds in OWN country)

• driven by Red Summer wave of racial violence and riots

• Garveyism: unifications of blacks + black nationalism/ pan-nationalist

• formed Universal Negro Improvement Association

The Great Migration

South is “irredeemable” strat: so just leave

1910-1930 (second wave,1930 to 1970)

• 2nd Industrial Revolution companies pay for this movement + provide job demand (union, living wage, good conditions)

  • assembly line, car, machinery, canned goods

• Labor Queue Theory: hire based on perception ability to work… WWI takes white men, immigrants are undesirable = BLACK MEN yay work

  • demographic change in cities, social mobility, class leap for blacks

Topic 7: Gender & Sexuality

Gender & Sexuality (1860s-1920s)

• 1840s: 1st women rights movement begins out of Secound Great Awakening (jesus is returning we must purifty) = equality rooted in identicalness

  • god made everyone equal so end all forms of oppression thru legal & cultural change

• 1848: Seneca Falls Convention

• rights via 15 amendment? 69’

• rights via 14 amendment: Minor vs. Happersett 1875’

• Victorian Area = shift to science, biological differences

• The Womens Suffrage Movement

• 19th amendment (1920)

• 1920s changing attitudes abt sexuality, birth control, gays

Seneca Falls Convention

1848: First Women’s Rights Convention in the United States that raisess awareness

• Held in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848 

• Articulates the movement’s critique of women’s oppression and the movement’s goals

  • Women’s Oppression: Totalizing

    • Lack property rights

    • Have no economic opportunities

    • Have no rights within marriage

    • Can’t vote or run for office 

  • Movement’s Goals: Change Everything 

Civil War & Women Campaign

• After the Civil War, the Radical Republicans propose extending voting rights to African Americans

• The Women’s Rights Movement seizes on the opportunity, and begins to lobby the Radical Republicans to create a universal suffrage amendment

• In 1869, the 15^th Amendment was proposed.

• The amendment would make it unconstitutional to deny a person the right to vote on the basis of race.  

• In the end, it said nothing about sex

  • bc some lawmakers didnt believe in equality while others figured it wouldnt pass

    • ironically movement difficult bc cant discriminate due to “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” but can for other reasons (poll tax, sex)

14th Amendment: Womens Rights

Minor vs. Happersett 1875

Facts: Virginia Minor turned away from polls in Missouri when she tries to vote =

• husband, Frances Minor, sued the registrar who denied her application on her behalf (under Missouri law she could not sue on her own).

Argument: Uses the 14^th Amendment to argue that as an American citizen she is entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship

Ruling; The unanimous decision of the US Supreme Court found that women born or naturalized in the United States were indeed American citizens

• But, the Supreme Court also found that voting was not one of the “privileges and immunities of citizenship” and therefore states need not grant voting rights or suffrage to women.

• Puts an end to trying to use the legal system to enfranchise women!

Victorian Era: Women’s Rights

1837-1901: shift to science, biological differences

• rigid gender roles: Victorians believed that men and women were fundamentally different beings = should occupy diff social roles + complement eachother

  • = sex-segregation: schools, colleges, military, sports, social clubs bc women were good at diff things (should be trained seperate) + young men were horny & distracted by women

Victorian Era: Sexual Fears

Saw young ppl as hosts of the problems which might result in change

= Individuals: Men need to practice sexual control (Graham Kellogg)

= Society: society needs laws to limit + control sexual behaviors & attitudes

• Anothny Comstock & Comstock Laws (1873): made it illegal to send via mail “obscene” material (tools or information abt, abortion, contraception, gayness, disease) entire topic of gayness & reproduction = obscene

Fears: Homosexuality, Pornography, Masturbation, Promiscuity, Prostitution 

Women’s Suffrage

strict gender roles, sex-segregation & social control = shift in movment

• 1890: National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) focus on changing law in STATES (cant use const (15th)

• campaigning + propaganda buy into stereotypes (show married, white, educated, wealthy women): voting is extension of women’s place in domestic sphere

• 1912: National Womens Party: Alice Paul r more radical & AMENDMENT focused w/ parades, speeches, burning Woodrow Wilson’s speeches

Anti-Suffrage Movement

men & women published anti-suffrage propaganda bc gender roles viewed as love & generosity of husband to women + holds world together

19th Amendment

1920: due to NWP pressure and WWI

• began w/ NAWSA in states: beginning in midwest & west, a lil north, bassically no east coast due to Western Expansion need for white women & men

ALL WOMEN CAN VOTE!

social changes 1920s post 19th amendment

• Women change: women have rights to vote, inc education, inc work

• Sexuality: more social interaction between men & women, changed look (flappers) + changed behavior (drank, cigarettes, displayed sexuality)

  Sex changes:

• sex outside marrige

• commercially available birth control (but illegal: ex Margaret Sanger sex educators)

• Gay: underground communities (faciliated by only men could be out at night drinking)

  • underground bc gay sex and cross-dressing = illegal

  • gay bars also catered to race

Topic 8: Immigration

Immigration: Opening and Shutting the Golden Door (1880s-1924)

Citizenship linked to whiteness:

• Naturalization Act 1790

• Dred Scott v. Standford 1854

Immigration: 1880-1910

• increase in immigration due to push & pull factors

• 18 mill ppl

• poor immigrants brought new ethnicities, languages, religious, #’s

14th Amendment: meant anyone born in US can be citizen = shift

Naturalization Act

1790: citizenship is linked to whiteness

• Established rules for citizenship

  • Had to have lived in the US for two years 

  • Had to be a “free white persons” of “good moral character”

Dred Scott v. Standford

1854: citizenship linked to whiteness

• American citizenship did not extend to black Americans 

SHIFT to Restrictions on Immigration & citizenship (1875-1924)

new immigrants = fears of racial change, catholics, polical radicalism (anarchism & socialism), & “undesirables” (criminals, physically & mentally ill or imoral) & economic competition = nativism

• nativism: politics should prioritize native residents over immigrants

New Laws on Immigration:

People Can Fear Every Immigrant Influx

• Page Act 1875

• Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

• Foran Act 1885

• Ellis Island Opens 1892

• Immigration Act of 1917

• Immigration Act of 1924 + Quotas

  • consequences

New laws on Citizenship

Page Act 1875

• Banned the immigration of Chinese women who might engage in prostitution (which was interpreted to mean nearly all Chinese women)

Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

• Banned the immigration of all Chinese laborers to the United States 

Foran Act 1885

• Prohibited the migration of contract labor (men and women hired abroad to work in the United States) 

Ellis Island Opens 1892

•  Immigrant-receiving station in New York City 

Immigration Act of 1917

• Imposed literacy tests on immigrants, created new categories of inadmissible persons, and banned immigration from the “Asia-Pacific Zone” 

  • Literacy: Defined as the ability to read 30–40 words of one’s own language from an ordinary text

  • Inadmissible people: the cognitively impaired, alcoholics, anarchists, contract laborers, convicts, epileptics, the illiterate, the mentally ill, the impoverished, those with certain physical disabilities, political radicals, polygamists, prostitutes, and vagrants. 

  • The Asia-Pacific Zone: Defined through longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates but excluded immigrants from China, India, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Russia, and most of the Middle East 

Immigration Act of 1924 + Quotas

height of fears: goal to only permit “desirable” immigrants who fit American identity (western europeans)

• Set an immigration cap on the total number of immigrants coming to the US from outside of the Western Hemisphere: 165,000

  • This amounted to about 20% of the number of immigrants who had been coming to the US before World War I

• Established a quota system: Quotas for specific countries were based on 2% of the US population from that country recorded in the 1890 census.

• No one who was ineligible to become a citizen could be admitted to the United States as an immigrant.

• = cut immigration in half, restrcutred demographic, why blacks start to take factory jobs

New laws on Citizenship

• Naturalization Act of 1870 & 1906

• Supreme Court Cases

  • Excluded, Born, Denied, Defined

  • Elk v. Wilkins 1884

  • United States v. Wong Kim Ark 1898

  • Takao Ozawa vs. United States 1922

  • United States vs. Bhagat Singh Thind 1923

Naturalization Act of 1870 & 1906

• White and Black immigrants could become naturalized US citizens

• Asian immigrants could not become naturalized US citizens 

• In 1906 the law was amended to require that immigrants learn English to become naturalized citizens 

Elk v. Wilkins 1884

• excluded: A Native person born a citizen of a recognized tribal nation was not an American citizen

United States v. Wong Kim Ark 1898

born: Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to parents who were both Chinese citizens who resided in the United States at the time

At the time, his parents were ineligible for naturalization under the Naturalization Act of 1870 

• In a 6-2 decision, the judges ruled that under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, Wong was a US citizen because he was born in the United States = birthright citizenship

Takao Ozawa vs. United States 1922

denied: Ozawa did not challenge the constitutionality of the racial restrictions but argued he should be and was denied  

• Takao Ozawa was born in Japan, but moved to the United States to go to school and work

• After 20 years of living in the United States he applied for citizenship but was denied under the Naturalization Law of 1906 which classified him as Japanese (not white or black)

• Ozawa filed a lawsuit. bc claimed that Japanese people should be properly classified as "free white persons" bc just as pale

  • The Supreme Court unanimously denied him, saying explicitly that whiteness only extended to “the Caucasian race”

  • One’s whiteness was not determined by things like skin color, but was rooted in scientific, anthropological understandings of race 

United States vs. Bhagat Singh Thind 1923

defined: Thind did not challenge the constitutionality of the racial restrictions but argued he should be and was denied  

• Bhagat Singh Thind was an Indian man who had moved to the U.S. as a young man

• He applied for citizenship and was denied because he was Indian and not white nor black

• Thind filed a lawsuit. attempted to be classified as a "free white person" within the meaning of the Naturalization Act bc Indians and Europeans share common descent from Aryans (Indo-Europeans) 

• He argued he was of the Caucasian race, as the Ozawa decision specified. 

  • The Court found that even though he was anthropologically Caucasian he was not white in “common understanding” of race 

  • In this case, the Supreme Court directly contradicted their ruling in Ozawa three months earlier

    • Ozawa = Doesn’t matter if your skin is white, whiteness is determined by Caucasianness

    • Thind = Doesn’t matter if you are Caucasian, whiteness is determined by “common understanding” (it’s arbitrary!--based on skin color or ethnicity, etc. ) 

Topic 9

The Fight for Economic Equality: The Labor Movement of the 1880s-1920s

• Second Industrial Revolution

• Taylorism

• Social Darwinism

• Labor Union Movement

• The Populist Movement

• Socialism

Taylorism x Social Darwinism

Taylorism: increased efficiency & broke up tasks to hyperspecialized (de-skilled, de-agency) interchangeable workers

= monopolies & state incorporation laws 1925-40 (market revolution)

& federal government facilitated this change in workforce

• Social Darwinism: supported growing wealth gap by saying it was inevitable, good and natural

Labor Union Movement

workers want: fair wages, reasonable hrs, safe working conditions, no child labor

goal of movement: put gov back on side of ppl from buisness

response: suppressed by courts, police, state militia, fed gov

• Knights of Labor: 1869, radical

• The Great Upheaval/ Great Railroad Strike: 1877

• American Federation of Labor: 1886 & Samuel Gompers = moderates

  • make change via reform (not challege system but be folded into it)

  • focus on negotiations bc real white Americans not crazy violent striking immigrants

The Populist Movement

The Populist Party: founded in 1891 x William Jennings Bryan

• appeals to ordinary ppl bc gov run by Wall Street

• reactionary → go back to old way of doing things (agraianism + farmers)

• Panic of 1893 popularized movement

• advocated for free silver which was put to end by Gold Standard Act of early 1900

Socialism

Karl Marxist theory: anti-capitalism & advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the gov

• The Socialist Party of America 1901: all ppl

• led by Eugene Debs