period 6 apush

years

1865-1898

why is it called the gilded age?

everything covered in gold (coined by Mark Twain)

society looks prosperous but actually had serious problem

immigration before civil war

mostly irish and german immigrants

immigration 1865-1915

4x the amount of immigrants than the previous 50 years

from southern/eastern EU, Canada, Mexico and Asia

nativism

prioritize native born wants/needs over those who immigrated

increased nativism calls for assimilation, anti-Catholicism (America is largely protestant)

leads to immigrant bans/restricton

push vs pull of immigrants

push: lack of farm/industry in EU, famine, religious persecution

pull: growth of industry in US, more jobs with better pay, cheaper transportation, cities → communication for immigrants

chinese immigrants

many came with gold rush

payed less than white laborers (leads to tensions as employers are more likely to higher chinese than white in some cases), job competition

chinese exclusion act (1882)

barred further chinese immigration

first congressional law to target ethnicity :(

progressives

use govt to fix societal problems

housing, living conditions, working conditions, etc

leads to some govt reform

urbanization pros and cons

pros: convinence, amenities, work

cons: pollution, diseases, small apartments

this is also when suburbanization began to become more prominent

Taylorism

repetitive tasks, scientific management

Laissez Faire

govt back off economy (adam smith)

liberalism

max freedom for everyones (no govt intervention)

individualism

you are in control of your destiny

social darwinism

explain why wealth is not evenly distributed, explain poverty, poor people are not smart/hardworking etc

old system

risk/profits of business belonged to 1 person, partnership, small group

new system

investments shared across many people

sell stock of company to raise capital, investors have minimal, only responsible for initial investment,

larger investment, larger profits

innovation labs

corporations create innovation labs to invent inventions

things to benefit society

(ex: edison, tesla)

trusts

organizations that controls smaller corporations

monopolies and examples

when 1 singular corporation controls a single industry

(ex: Carnegie steel)

vertical intergration

control all parts of production process

Carnegie steel: mines, RRs, steel mills

horizontal integration

control of other companies

pacific railway act (1862)

gov gave money to two companies to build RRs

authorized the creation of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad by providing federal land grants and loans to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad companies

131 million acres of public land through emminent domain

exceptions from state laws

budgets larger than state budgets

3% of pop worked in this industry

1883 → industry created time zones to standardize schedules

predatory pricing

lower prices so people buy → creating a monoply

once they are successful they raise prices

this is illegal

why are monopolies bad

high prices, lack of choice, end competition, poor quality, dependency/fragility

what groups were anti monopolies

populists, progressives, farmers, union member

unions

power in numbers

knights of labor → abolish child labor and monopolies

american federation of labor (AFL) high wages, better conditions

farmers struggle

initial boom in farming → RR droves up land value, access to more markets

RR monopoly hurts farmers → priorities corporations, shipping is expensive

small farmers don’t have capital for shipping, ivesting in new tech

don’t like gold standard

form unions

gold standard

A monetary system where the currency's value is fixed to a specific amount of gold, allowing convertibility.

Many, especially farmers, felt trapped by deflation under the gold standard, advocating for bimetallism (using both gold and silver) to increase money supply, lower interest rates, and raise crop prices.

populist platform

emerged as national party after 1892 recession

opposed to monopolies

income tac, nationalize the RR, immigration restrictions, direct election of senators, gold/silver standard (more money in econ)

pop fails, 2 party prevails

William Jennings Bryan (1892)

He gained support by championing issues vital to Populists, particularly the "free coinage of silver" (bimetallism) to help farmers and debtors.

Mary Lease’s message

the populist message

farmers and wage laborers political voices weren’t being heard

capitalism = bad, the gov is supporting capitalists

how was the west transformed after the civil war? What was the role of corporations?

reps wanted to bring west into union → exerted (unchallenged) authority over econ dev

homestead act, pacific railway act, national bank act

land mostly given to RR, corp bought land for agricultural business

why was there a populist revolt in 1873? What did the Grange want?

people getting free land but had to take loans for material, jay cooke & company bankruptcy

pop revolt began when farmers banded together calling for corperative farming and regulation of banks and RR and to END CORPORATE MONOPOLIES

nearly a million small farmer from the south and midwest flocked to grange organization and issued a FDOI

saw big companies and finance capitalism as “fraud against the people”

How did these populist revolts lead to the Chinese exclusion Act?

KoL (specifically factory workers) didn’t like immigrants → particularly the Chinese

nativism of populists → first ever immigration law → chinese exclusion act → ban on chinese immigration into US, weren’t uncluded int eh 14th amendment, chinese already in the US couldn’t be citizens

Conquest of the Plains

Cheyenne and Siox stood their ground, but Plain warfare ended in 1886 when Geronimo became one of the last native leaders to surrender the the US army

Dawes Severalty Act

granted fed gov the authority to divided native land into allotments and guarenteed US citizenship to naitves who agreed to live on allotments and give up tribal membership

led to forced assimilation and continued take over of lands

RR strikes and why did so many fail

many strikes against cut wages

1877 → Hayes sends fed troops to end strikes 9first use of power to support business against labor)

avg of 1 RR strike per week

describe how “rights guaranteed to the people were proffered, instead, to corporations”

said couldn’t tax RR bc it was unconstitutional (corps = persons, under 14th amendment)

conkling helped draft the 14th and argued for corps (probably lied about meaning of 14th)

14th now mainly supported corporations over actual peopel (specifically AA)

guaranteed RR equal protection and due process of law

how were women influencing politics in the late 19th century?

Mary E Lease → populist women’s suffrage advocate → argued that for temperance women needed to vote

prohibition party (1872) → became the first party to declare favor of womens’ suffrage

Willard’s home protection party → merged with the prohibition party

decribe Henry George’s argument in Progress and Poverty

the technological progress brought wealth to very few and poverty for many

devised an economic plan that involved abolishing tax on labor and instead imposing a single taxation on land

agreed with Tocqueville that democracy in America is possible through econ equalitiy, but argued that financial capitalism was destroying democracy by making econ equality almost impossible

supported women suffrage but not Chinese rights

said he defended Jefferson and jacksons views

People’s Party

most successful third party in American history

didn’t oppose capitalism, but opposed monopolies

what made the People’s Party racists and nativist?

wanted to exclude citizenship to anyone from Africa or Asia

Lease wanted all manual labor to be done by Africans and Asians 👀

white = superior

what reforms did the People’s Party support

diminish political powers of blacks and immigrants

secret ballot = de facto literacy test → disenfranchised AA in rural south and immigrants in North, used in north to prevent democrat immigrants from voting

graduated income tax → rich pay more instead of high tariffs

relationship between populism, universities and journalism

pitted people against the state → politics of state became a product of formal academic study (pol sci)

after 1859 (rise of darwinism) and the german education model (divided uni into departments) → secular expertise

in 1880s and 1890s the spirit of populism and social sciences drove American newspapers into obsession with fact

journalist as profession → devoted to facts

Panic of 1893

14 of the RRs filed for bankruptcy

wealthy companies bought RR → leads to monopolies

Bessemen Process

steel production (lots)

steel industry takes off

Andrew Carnegie → vertical integration

John D Rockefeller → horizontal integration

Gospel of Wealth

Carnegie said wealthy had a god given duty to give money to the people

Sherman Anti Trust Act

break up monopolies, “criminalize anything that restrains commerce”

no horizontal integration (but was unsucessful)

corps argue strikes “restrain commerce” → backfires and actually break unions

classes

middle class, white collared class

laboring class → bad work environment, poor, child labor

workers conditions

poor, dangerous conditions

12-16 hr work days

low wages ($10000 or less in todays money)

increase in child labor

no insurance, no unemployment help

company towns

employees can rent from company, shop in company stores

sometimes paid in coupons

seen as solution to poor working conditions, housing crisis

beneficial to company

ex: pullman → outside Chicago

who were the Knights of Labor?

KoL = crusade against “kings of the industry” → said the wealthy had too much power

8hr work day, no child labor, equal pay for women, govt ownership of industry

used laws and strikes

seen as violent after a bit

american federation of labor

skilled workers of a particular craft

focus on short term conditions

more conservative, long lasting

used strikes to achieve change (but strikes for smaller change as issues came up)

haymarket riot (1886)

knights seen as radical (fears of socialists, immigrants)

police, bombing, death

hive pinkertons

infiltrate unions, break strikes, protect the corporation

use of 14th amendment

corps = artificial people and are protected

dem bloc

white southerners (preservation of white supremacy), catholics, recent immigrants (esp Jews), urban working poor (pro-labor), most farmers

rep bloc

northern whites (pro business), AA, northern protestants, old WASPS (support anti-immigrant laws), most of the middle class

how did the large range of people supporting both parties effect voting?

creates two relatively equal parties in terms of numbers

no independent voters, everyone knows how they will vote

its all about turn out

don’t have to be a citizen (immigrants can be persuaded easier to vote for one side)

leads to corruption (incentives to increase turnout)

labor force growing

rural farmers → migrated to industrial cities looking for work due to commercialization of agriculture

women and children → working class men could not support a family on his wages alone

migrants and immigrants → immigrated from Europe and Asia, unskilled workers found jobs in America’s growing industrial sector

politcal machines

focused on immigrant vote

turns politics into business

buy/sell political favors

use insider info for personal benefits

makes city more expensive/corrupt

a lot of gilded age issues not solved because people in power were connected to political machine

ex: Tammany Hall → dominated by Irish, huge political machine

reservation system

Ok territory taken

strict boundaries for natives to live

sioux wars → sioux wins :)

indian appriation act → ended fed recongition of native sovereignty

ghost dance system → did dance for ancestors help, didn’t work

assimilation movement

mckinely elected (1896)

gold found and increased money supply - gold standard upheld

National Grange Movement (the grange)

formed in 1868

begain as a social and educational prgram for isolated farmers

shifted focus to prosperity of individual farmers against big business

lobbied western states legislatures to provide regulation over railroads inflated pricing for crop transport

munn v illinois - SC ruled regulatory oversight of railroad corporations was constitutional (in public interest to keep food prices low)

colored farmers alliance

black farmers made their own coorporation (worked for similar outcomes as grange)

causes of industrial growth

technological change → expansion of RR, electricity

communication network expansion → telegraph

urbanization and territorial expansion → new markets and access to materials

pro business government policies → McKinely tariff, politicians didn’t support government regulation bc they had ties to businesses, gov didn’t regulate RR system (sided with corps 15 out of 16 SC cases)

industrial corps owed much of their progress to gov help

changes in business

resigned financial structures → investments

management revolution → middle managers → white collar/middle class

advances in marketing

growing labor force → more immigrants, deskilled labor

John D Rockefeller

owned standard oil company

horizontal integration → due ot the size of his company he could undercut prices of his competitors and buy their company (owned about 4/5 of oil industry)

Great RR strike of 1877

RR cut wages to save money during recession

unionized RR workers went on strike

spread to 11 states and grew so tense pres hayes sent in troupes to restore order

over 100 people dead

corps had to hear grievances of workers

pullman strike

made sleeping cars for trains

when panic of 1893 hit, pullman cut workers wages

strike

train comps banded with pullman and put fed mail on trains so that in would impact the gov