Hist 106 Exam 1 Study Guide

Social Darwinism

opposed reform and government regulation of business, housing, and sanitation

believed that the poor are lazy and rich are hard working, survival of the fittest, European race is superior, against reform, capitalism is the natural way of things, immigration restrictions, laissez-faire capitalism (gov. Keeps its nose out of it to allow for free market)

Herbert Spencer

Social Darwinism was based on his writings, he applied the principle of natural selection to society

-developed theory of social selection

-thought animals evolved by adapting to their environment

-survival of the fittest reserved the strong and weeded out the weak 

-against government regulations of businesses, housing, and sanitation

William Graham Sumner

William Graham Sumner: argued that government action to help the poor and the weak interfered with evolution and “sapped the species of its vigour”

Farmer’s Alliance

Started the People’s Party: The Populist Party in Omaha, Nebraska

-demanded the unlimited coinage of silver, a progressive income tax, laws restricting immigration, an 8 hour workday, federal ownership of railroads and telegraph systems

-nominated James Weaver of Iowa

-preceded populism

Populism

Farmers’ problems

-overproduced which drove prices down

-no tariff barriers which increased competition and kept prices down

-crop lien system: indebted to banks and agents who lent them money for tools, fertilizer, seed, and other supplies

-railroads charged high rates to ship crops

Farmers’ Alliances: 

-Northwest alliance and Southern alliance

-Eastern industrialists were against their interests

-purchased warehouse, grain elevators, and food processors

- the progressives advanced ideas that originated with the populists: power to the people, direct election of US senators

The Grange

offered social events and educational programs, became politically active and pushed for Granger laws, which established state commissions that regulates the prices charged by railroads and grain warehouses

Mugwumps

the Gilded Age Northeastern Republicans who wanted to combat patronyms with civil service

Howard Taft

• fought big business by busting trusts, 

• dollar diplomacy (invest in underdeveloped countries)

• Intervened in Cuba, Philippines, Hawaii, Guman, and Puerto Rico

Dollar Diplomacy

-policy under Howard Taft

-the state department helped American companies/bankers invest in less developed countries

-intervened in Latin America countries with political/economic problems

Howard Taft Policies

• Payne-Aldrich Tariff: barely reduced tariff rates

-Roosevelt thought he failed to continue his Progressive work, but this was not true

• Conserved more land and busted more trusts than Teddy Roosevelt, filed twice as many anti-trusts suits

• Supported giving women the right to vote

• Mann-Elkins Act (1910): Gave the ICC power to set rates, stiffen regulations, and put telegraph companies under ICC jurisdiction

• Federal Children’s Bureau: to promote the welfare of youth

• Bureau of Mines: to oversee the mining industry

• Election of 1912: Wilson (D), Roosevelt (R ), and Taft (R ), Wilson won

-Bull Moose (Progressive) party is formed by Roosevelt, the “New Nationalism,” called for a strong federal government, graduated income tax, workers compensation, regulation of women and child labor, federal minimum wage, and women's suffrage

-Wilson caused his program the New Freedom, emphasized small government, free enterprise, not a planned economy

Teddy Roosevelt

• Modernized army, established Army War College, and doubled the strength of the navy

-imposed stiff tests for promotion

-general staff to oversee planning of the military

-an imperialist who used racism to justify the building of Empires

-famous as the big trust buster

Panama Canal

• Roosevelt supported the building of this canal

-The French sold Canal to America

-The US offered Canada 10 million dollars for a 6 mile wide canal

-Panamanians revolted against the Columbians

-Roosevelt funded the Panamanian fighters, who won independence

-Roosevelt secured control of 10 mile wide canal zone, in return they payed Panama ¼ million dollars annually 

-For 10 years, 60,000 workers cut through the jungle, 

-Canal opened Aug 15, 1914, from 1903-1920

The Drago Doctrine

Under Roosevelt, prohibited armed intervention by other countries to collect debts: foreign debt was a problem, violated the Monroe doctrine that prohibited European intervention in Western hemisphere

Roosevelt Corollary

• major announcement to the Monroe Doctrine: America had a right to intervene in Latin American domestic affairs to ensure stability

Roosevelt Foreign Policy

• Taft-Katsura Agreement: Negotiated by Taft: recognized Japan’s dominance over Korea, in return for a Japanese promise not to invade the Philippines 

• Root-Takahira Agreement: Guaranteed the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China

• “Gentlemen’s Agreement” in China: Roosevelt would allow Japanese children to attend school with America’s in San Francisco, in return Japan would stop Japanese laborers from coming to the US

• Tour of the “Great White Fleet:” 20 month world tour, over 46,000 miles down South American coast, Roosevelt wanted to show the world that the Pacific is part of our ‘homewater’

Woodrow Wilson

-Denounces dollar diplomacy as economic imperialism but ends up intervening even more in Latin America

-Defends the Monroe Doctrine, supports Roosevelt Corollary,

Military interventions in Cuba (1 time), Panama (2 times), and Honduras (5 times)

Dominican Republic and Haiti: marines established an intervention, military gov and fought off anti-American rebels

-Diaz was eventually overthrown

-Madeira was assassinated

Marines seized Veracruz

-Wilson wanted to oust Huerta

-Latin American sailors arrested in Tampico: were released but tensions grew

-19 Americans and 300 Mexicans killed

Pancho Villa

Pancho Villa: revolted against the New President, wanted to prevent an American intervention, raided America in Columbus, New Mexico

-Wilson ordered General. John J. Pershing to capture Villa, but it failed and Wilson ordered him home

-the venture into Mexico revealed the themes of his foreign policy: moralism, a desire for peace, which shaped Wilson’s foreign policy toward Europe

The Plan of San Diego

in the midst of the Mexican Revolution, Mexican refugees came to the west of the US. The Plan called for Mexicans to rise up against government Authorities and separate 5 states bordering Mexico to become a separate Republic, called for the execution of all non-Hispanic Americans over the age of 16

-US killed 1000s of Mexican-Americans, and the Plan fizzled

Wilson supported Progressivism with these acts:

• Federal Farm Loan Act: allowed 12 federal land banks to offer loans to farms for 5-45 years at low interest rates

• Warehouse Act of 1916: farmers could secure federal loans using their crops stored in warehouses

• Federal Highways Act: financed new highways in rural areas, turnpikes and roads not just for the states

• Smith-Lever Act (1914): provided federal programs to educate farmers about new farm machinery

• Adamson Act: established an 8 hour workday for railroad workers, mandated that employers paid workers time and a half for work beyond 8 hours

The Knights of Labor

• national labor union (1869) grew rapidly, called for the end of convict labor, an 8 hour work day, and equal pay for women doing equal work, greater use of paper currency

-condemned socialism, class warfare, and violence

-preferred boycotts rather than strikes

-organized all wage workers (men, women, immigrants, skilled and unskilled, and african americans), excluded lawyers, doctors, and bankers

-Terence V Powderbly became the president, but did not support strikes

-but membership grew as strikes became more frequent

-went from 100,000 to 700,000

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

founded by Samuel Gompers in 1886, unlike the Knights of Labor, the AFL organized skilled workers and focused on practical gains: better wages, shorter hours, better conditions, and avoided utopian ideas. 

Haymarket Square riot (1886)

• grew out of a demand for an 8 hour day, 40,000 Chicago workers went on strike and violent clashes erupted between workers and scabs (non-union workers brought to break up the strike by the employer)

-two strikes were shot dead, one person set off a bomb

-Chicago: labor activism

-newspapers said anarchists were terrorizing Chicago

-7 anarchist leaders sentenced to hang despite lack of evidence connecting them to the bomb

• After 1893, the Knights of Labor evaporated due to public hostility over the riot

Railroad Strike of 1877

class tensions at an all time high

-railroad companies cut wages by 10 percent

-Martinsburg, West Virginia, railroad workers walked off the job ad blockaded railroad traffic

-spread to 100s of other towns and cities

-100s of people died and millions of dollars of property was damaged

-looted and burned cities until federal troops stopped them

-workers drifted back to work and the strike ended

-Impending civil war between capital and labor

-participation of women in the violence

Pinkertons

private police force/private investigators designed to protect the mill in the Homestead Steel Strike (1872): Andrew Carnegie’s steel mill near Pittsburgh. 

-Henry Clay Frik, chief executive, refused to renew a contract with the union that was a part of the AFL

-hired 316 Pinkerton police to protect the mill

-14 hour gun battle ensure

Spanish American War

-USS Maine: not actually blown up by the Spanish, but began the War

-US helped the Revolution in the Philippines: some did not support getting involved with the Philippines, others did not

-US Philippine war

-Soldier captured in the Philippines and became prisoners

-We now control the Philippines instead of the Spanish

-Cuban independence 

-Annexation of Hawaii 

-Spanish succeeded Guam and Puerto Rico

Causes of American Expansion for the Spanish American War

• End of the frontier: announced in 1890 census, sparked fears of diminishing opportunities, further growth must take place abroad

• Need for new markets: factories and farms produce more goods than domestic markets can consume, look for new overseas markets

• Imperialism: scramble for empire, measured their greatness by how many colonies they had

• Social Darwinism, racism, and religion: argument that the survival of the fittest required the triumph of superior races and subordination of inferior races

-Natural selection made Anglo-Saxons superior

-bring commerce and democracy to uncivilized lands

-Christianize inferior races

Annexation of Hawaii

• Waystation to the markets of Asia. In 1875, The Reciprocity Treaty was signed, where Hawaiian sugar entered US tax free and Hawaii could not lease/grant territory to another nation

-Sugar planters became powerful on the islands

-revolt with Hawaiian natives against the American sugar planters 

-US won and annexed Hawaii in 1898

USS Maine

• sent to Havana harbor to protect American lives and property. Exploded Feb. 15th, killed 266 sailors

-American press blamed explosion on a Spanish mine 

-Remember the Maine and to hell with Spain: American slogan against the Spanish

-Spain refused to withdraw its forces from Cuba and Congress declared war on April 25th

Manila Bay

• victory in the Philippines led by Dewey where 6 American warships defeated the Spanish navy

Rough Riders

• most famous unit: Teddy Roosevelt, ex-convicts, ex-police, Cherokee

San Juan Hill

• battle where Roosevelt led the charge against the Spanish

-On July 25th, US forces took control of Puerto Rico

-July 26th, the Spanish surrender Cuba

Treaty of Paris

• signed December 10, 1898

-Cuba declared independent

-US received Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines

-Only 379 American were Killed In Action

-US now a world power with a colonial Empire

Phillipine-American War

• June 2nd, Philippines declared war against the US

-lasted from 1899-1902

-100,000s Fillipinoes died

-April 1st, 1901, they surrendered, but some fought for another year

• American Anti-Imperialist League: imposed annexation and argued that it violated the principle of self-determination

-included Andrew Carnegie, Jane Adams, Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Pres. of Harvard

-Imperialists won the debate

-July 4th, 1901, William Howard Taft took control of the Philippines as governor

Platt Amendment

•  1901, circumscribed Cuban independence, required they never sign a treaty with another country, right of US to intervene in Cuba whenever it saw fit, built naval base at Guantanamo Bay

Dawes Severalty Act (1887)

• broke up the tribal lands, break up tribal living, turn Native Americans into farmers, allotted 160 acres to each head of household, gave individuals acreage to farm on, cost the government less money to house them of reservations then to fight them militarily, Senator Dawes didn’t like the Indian’s communal way of life

-between 1887-1897, they lost 86 million acres, wanted to Americanize the Natives

The Sedition Act

• imposed harsh penalties on anyone using disloyal, profane, or abusive language towards the flag, Federal Government, Constitution, or Uniforms of the Armed Services

-more than 1500 people arrested, no spies convicted under Espionage act

-Wilson wanted to bring down the left: 100s of members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were arrested 

-anti-immigration

Sinking of the Lucitania

• German submarine sank the British passenger liner, and 128 Americans were killed 

-Wilson denounced Germany, the Germans argued that the ship carried Canadian troops and munitions

-causes US involvement in WW1

Causes of World War 1

• rising nationalism, militarism, and imperialism in Germany, France, and Russia. Germany wanted to challenge Great Britain 

• Military alliances

• Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand: flashpoint of the War

-Austria-Hungary dominated Serbia and annexed Bosnia. Serbians nationalists wanted to unite Slavs into Ugoslavia. June 28th, 1914, Austria Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Bosnia by a Serbian nationalist. Germany supports Austria-Hungary in avenging his death against Serbia, and they declare war on Serbia. Russia defends Serbia, and Germany declares War on France, Germany, and Belgium. Great Britain defend Belgium and World War 1 begins

Armistice Treaty

-France wanted reparations from Germany and Austria

-Great War ended when they arrived at an armistice: but millions had died for every nation that participated 

-Confirmed America’s status as a world power

Treaty of Versailles

Ends WW1 and made Germany responsible for $33 billion in reparations, give up territory and its colonies to France and Poland, accept responsibility for the war

-Germany’s humiliation aided Hitler’s rise to power

-the Republicans blocked the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, thought the League usurped American sovereignty

Alfred Thayer Mahan

naval officer and strategist published, “The Influence of Sea Power Upon History,” which argued for a robust navy and a powerful navy was what made Britain a world power, pushed America to exploit raw materials, have markets overseas, create global naval bases, control the Caribbean, and export Christianity across the Pacific. Gov built 11 new battleships

Booker T. Washington

• born into slavery in Virginia in 1856, became the foremost black educator in the nation, President of the Tuskegee Institute, later Tuskegee University, which taught valuable trades to blacks

-taught that black should work hard, earn vocation, and not stir up trouble

-end Jim Crow behind the scenes

-Accommodationist and a pragmatist

W.E.B. Du Bois

•  one of Washington’s greatest critics, became the 1st African American to earn a Doctorate at Harvard in History and sociology, authored over 20 books, lands a job at Atlanta University and came out against Washington;s accommodationist approach, claiming that he wanted to please whites

-urged blacks to fight for the vote and equality under the law, pursue education

-wanted the civil rights laws on the books to be enforced

-thought segregation had to be reversed

-Washington responded to Du Bois and claimed that more equality in the South would result in more blacks being lynched

Plessy v Ferguson (1896)

Plessy refused to leave the whites-only railroad car. The Supreme Court ruled that segregation was not unconstitutional and established the separate but equal doctrine. States can create laws segregating public accommodations. Only Marshall Harlen dissents and stressed that the constitution is colorblind and does not separate citizens in classes and they are equal before the law

-Can have racially segregated facilities if they are “equal”

-Led to Jim Crow Segregation: separate but equal, named after jumping Jim Crow, a character played by a white man in black face, everything became separated

Andrew Carnegie

• involved in steel industry, his company produced more steel annually than in all of great britain 

• Steel businessman, The Gospel of Wealth, those with wealth need to help those who don’t have it, big on education/philanthropy, business model,

• Vertical integration (buying out steel companies)

John D Rockefeller

obsessed with systemization, money, and efficiency and entered the oil business and produced the first oil well that was distilled into kerosene (black gold)

-established the standard oil company

Horizontal integration: Buying the business of one’s competitors

-by 1879, standard oil controlled 90 percent of the nation’s oil refining

J P Morgan

 worked for an investment firm and invested in stocks and trusts that he owned (a financier), merged the companies he owned, controlled ⅙ of nation’s railroads, bought out Carnegie steel and turned into US steel first billion dollar corporation

Cornelius Vanderbilt

an American entrepreneur who amassed his wealth through shipping and railroads

Frederick Winslow Taylor

was a pioneer of scientific management, which boosts industrial productivity

-timed certain tasks like shoveling coal, filling a wheelbarrow and sequence tasks for the best efficiency

-specified how fast the work should be done/when the worker should rest

-proposed pay raises for those doing the most efficient work

-applied scientific management to the government: replace pol. Appointees with trained specialists, cities create Efficiency Bureaus to cut gov wastes and apply cost effective practices

Realism

Movement towards naturalism

• Regional stories: emphasized true relationships between people

-Joe Chandler Harris and George Washington Cable, Sarah Orned Jewitt

Mark Twain

• (Samuel Clemens): the most outstanding and notable of the realist authors

-The Adventures of Tom Sawyer used common speech and local dialects 

-changed American prose style

Muckraking journalism

• a style of investigative journalism that exposes corruption and wrongdoing in government and business

 Ex: Sinclair, Jacob Reeves, Lincoln Steffins, Ida Tarbel, Ray Standard Baker

-Roosevelt used it to get support for his policies

Meat Inspection Act

• In response to The Jungle, supported by public outrage, Roosevelt, and meat packing companies

-set rules for sanitary meat packing and government inspection of meat products

Pure Food and Drug Act

required manufacturers to list certain ingredients on a label, and banned the sale of adulterated, misbranded, and unsanitary food and drugs

Alice Paul

• the most militant women’s suffragist: urged activist to target politicians who didn;t support it, incite police to arrest them, do hunger strikes, organize 1000s of suffragists to protests Wilson’s inauguration

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

• 911 in NYC, 146 ppl died in a fire at a Shirtwaist factory, over 50 ppl leapt to their deaths, 

-outraged many Americans, led to municipal and state laws that addressed fire hazards, working conditions, women’s workers rights, and child labor

-laws require fire escapes and sprinkler systems

Disenfranchisement

The Mississippi Plan

The Grandfather Clause

Poll taxes/literacy tests

The Mississippi Plan (1890)

• series of state constitutional amendments adopted by 9 other states. 

 1. Residency requirement for voting entailed living in state for 2 years and local state for 1 year. Against black sharecroppers

2. Crimes disqualified voters

3. All residents had to pay taxes on time, including a poll tax (fee to vote), made it difficult for both poor whites and blacks to vote

4. All voters had to be able to read/ understand the US Constitution

-whites thought blacks were genetically inferior

-keep “negroes” in their place

The Grandfather Clause

• allowed illiterate whites to vote if their grandfathers had been able to vote

-Many illiterate whites had a hard time passing literacy tests, but they didn't want to disenfranchise them

-Goal to disenfranchise african americans whose grandfathers had been slaves

-black vote fell 62 percent

-some poor whites did not have to pay the poll tax

Jane Addams and Hull House

• most famous settlement house, established 1869 in Chicago, founded by Jane Addams, a middle class unmarried woman, she aimed to share the lives of the poor and express the spirit of Christ

-started off as a two story-building but other were added

-uplift the poor by providing lectures, job training, music lessons, nursery, a coffee house, medical dispensary, gym, and public bath

-hundreds of settlement houses in place by 1940

-Addams was politically active and pushed for playgrounds, women’s suffrage, improving living conditions, and peace (not being involved in WW1)

-first woman to be awarded the Nobel peace prize

Wounded Knee Massacre (1890)

• Colonel James Forscythe forced Indians onto reservations to turn over their weapons. Medicine man performed the ghost dance, a shot rang out, and 200 Indians were gunned down in the snow, 25 soldiers were killed. Forscythe exonerated of any wrongdoing and 20 soldiers received the Congressional Medal of Honor

-some politicians and religious leaders raised objections

-Rutherford B Hayes objected to the negative treatment of indians

-reformers pushed a policy to americanize native americans by turning them into landowners or self-sufficient farmers 

Sand Creek Massacre (1864)

• Government of Colorado proclaimed war on Indians, Colorado militia under command of John M. Chippington scalped and brutally attacked 105 Indian men, women, and children. 

-Congress and US army launched an investigation

-Chippington resigned and became a Denver sheriff

-Indians retaliated by attacking the whites, so the gov. Sent them west

-1867 Peace Commission created by Congress tried to move native americans further West

-Pres. Ulysses S. Grant supported a peace policy: wanted native americans to be citizens

-William Tecumseh Sherman wanted to fight Indians and force them to reservations

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Halted further immigration from China extended into the 20th century, lasted for decades

Square Deal

Policy of Roosevelt

• featured the three Cs: control of corporations, conservation of national resources , and new regulations to protect consumers 

-Many Progressivists are afraid of the growing power of large businesses/corporations, hurt workers by cutting wages, regions, cities, and towns by manipulating freight charges 

Exodusters

• African American that are moving West and North, called exodusters because they constituted an “exodus” from the racism, discrimination, and poverty of the Deep South

-Many became cowboys, ¼ of the cowboys in Texas cattle drives

League of Nations

could maintain the peace through diplomacy, economic and military sanctions, central to a treaty, arbitrate international conflict, prevent another World War 

Part of Wilson’s 14 point plan after WW1, but America did not join

Henry Grady

• editor of the Atlanta Constitution, a newspaper

-greatest proponent of the new South

-said that the Old South is dead

-New South of union and freedom

-wanted new south to be a perfect democracy: small farmers with mills, factories, and cities, no planter aristocracy or dependency on cotton

The Pullman strike (1894)

• paralyzed the economy of 27 states

-made sleeping cars (Pullman Palace Car Company)

-Pullman laid off 3,000 workers, and wages reduced by 25 to 40 percent

-workers went on strike and shut down most of the railroads, stopping traffic through Chicago

-July 13, Union called off the strike

Federal Reserve Act

•  intended to correct the problems of decentralized banking, which caused instability and inefficiency, Wilson created 12 regional federal reserve banks apply credit to private bans at a discounted rate, allowed government to introduce a flexible paper currency

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC): defined unfair trade practices and issued cease and desist notices 

Progressivism

• Reformers focused on problems stemming from industrialization and urbanization

• Inner-city poverty, tainted food, unsanitary apartments, low pay, dangerous working conditions, and political corruption

-cities lacked good housing, sanitation, and medical care

-progressivists wanted to secure the rights of women

• During the progressive era, the power of the federal government grew and presidents asserted a more prominent leadership role

• Most progressives were Christian moralists who felt that politics had become a contest between good and evil