APUSH Unit 6, 1877 to 1898 (the Gilded Age)

Causes of Westward Migration

Homestead act, gold rush, transcontinental railroad

barbed wire

Used to fence in land on the Great Plains, eventually leading to the end of the open frontier.

Transcontinental Railroad

Railroad connecting the west and east coasts of the continental US

Homestead Act (1862)

1862 law that gave 160 acres of land to citizens willing to live on and cultivate it for five years. Purpose of the Act was to settle the west.

Grangers / the grange movement

The name given to us US farmers - committed to fighting high transport prices from the rail lines

Chinatown

A section of an urban area with a large Chinese population

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 law that prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers

Chinese immigration

Chinese immigrants pour in after 1848, discovery of gold, and building of the transcontinental railroad. By 1880, 200,000 were living in the U.S. leaving China for work and because of civil war in China. They were industrious, and competed for jobs with white Americans, causing hostility.

Ghost Dance Movement

Religious dance movement of the late 1880s and early 1890s that combined elements. Indians practitioners hoped that they could, through sacred dances, resurrect the great bison herds and drive whites back across the Atlantic.

Sitting Bull

Sioux chief who led the attack on Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Homesteaders

Settlers who claimed land on the Great Plains under the Homestead Act.

New South

After the Civil War, this was an idea for a self-sufficient southern economy built on modern capitalist values, industrial growth, and improved transportation. However, sharecropping and tenant farming continued to dominate the economy (despite the people who pushed the idea of the "New South")

Plessey vs Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court Case upholds segregation as legal using the rule of: "separate but equal" allowed southern states to claim they were still upholding the 14th amendment l (equal protection)

Jim Crow Laws

Laws designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites. These laws came into full effect after Reconstruction was over (after 1877), and the laws mirrored the Black Codes that existed at the start of Reconstruction

How Jim Crow laws limited voting rights

Literacy tests, grandfather clauses and poll taxes limited black voting rights

technological innovation in the late 19th century

use of electricity, expansion of rail, expansion of factory systems, steel production, reliance on oil

Guilded Age

Golden on the outside, but corruption and political problems on the inside. View of the business practices at the time (late 1800s) that made America looked good on outside (rich like Rockefeller and Carnegie) while many workers are extremely poor

industrial food production

large-scale businesses involved in mass food production, processing, and marketing, which primarily rely on labor-saving machines

trust

A group of corporations run by a single board of directors

John D. Rockefeller

One of the "captains of industry" (Standard Oil was his company) that created a monopoly in oil refineries

labor union

An organization of workers that tries to improve working conditions, wages, and benefits for its members

strike

refusal to continue to work until a problem is resolved.

Who are the "new" immigrants of the late 1800s?

People from southern and eastern Europe, and from Asia. At the same time many African American migrants are moving from within the U.S. are moving in large numbers

Americanization / assimilation

Belief that assimilating immigrants (or American Indians) into American society would make them more loyal citizens

Social Darwinism

The application of ideas about evolution and "survival of the fittest" to human societies. Used as justification for business practices of the rich, and for imperialism (expansion and colonization of new lands) . Social Darwinists believed that those at the top of the economic system (or bottom) deserved to be in their social places, as it was natural.

Laissez-faire economics

Theory that opposes government interference in economic affairs beyond what is necessary to protect life and property.

People's Party (Populist Party)

U.S. political party formed in 1892 representing mainly farmers, favoring free coinage of silver and government control of railroads and other monopolies, formed in 1892, the populist party was created by farmers' alliances. The peoples' party supported the abolition of national banks and the government ownership of railroads

Wounded Knee Massacre

In December 1890, army troops captured some of Sitting Bull's followers and took them to a camp. Nearly 300 Sioux men, women, and children were killed by the army's gunfire; this marked an end to a period of Indian armed resistance & the "Indian Wars"

Capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership of capital (land, factories, resources, farms) rather than government ownership

collective bargaining

Process by which a union representing a group of workers (rather than individual workers bargaining with their management) negotiates with management for a contract

Pacific Railroad Act

Helped fund the construction of the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad with the use of land grants and government funds; helped to settle Western states (including CA / Los Angeles) more quickly; also helped to ship raw materials and manufactured goods across the country

New technologies in the late 19th century (second industrial revolution)

expansion of railroad; invention of the telephone; gas powered tractors (1890s); the Bessemer process (steel production, rather than reliance on iron)

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Carnegie Steel Company. By the late 1800s, his company dominated the American steel industry. Sold his company to JP Morgan, and donated most of his wealth (the Social Gospel)

Rockefeller

created the trust (and used horizontal integration) of Standard Oil

Standard Oil Company

came to symbolize the trusts and monopolies of the Gilded Age. Controlled 95% of the oil refineries in the U.S. By the turn of the century it had become a target for trust-busting reformers, and in 1911 the Supreme Court ordered it to break up into several dozen smaller companies.

Utah Statehood

One of the conditions for granting this (since it was a strong majority-Mormon state), was that a ban on polygamy be written into the state constitution.

Battle of Little Big Horn, 1876

Also called Custer's Last Stand, was an engagement between various Western tribes and the U.S. Army. Most famous of all Indian Wars; remarkable victory for the American Indian tribes; every soldier in the 7th Cavalry was killed (including Custer). In the years that followed, U.S. government retaliated, rescinding treaties and putting the Native Americans on reservations

Dawes Act (1887)

An act that removed Indian land from collective, tribal possession, redivided it, and distributed it among individual Indian families. Designed to break tribal mentalities and promote individualism and assimilation of the Indians to the broader American

Voting restrictions after the 15th Amendment (1870)

poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, intimidation of voters (KKK)

sharecropping

System in which landowners leased a few acres of land to farmworkers in return for a portion of their crops. Sharecroppers often had to go into debt to Usually this turned into a system where the sharecropper was in a permanent cycle of debt to the owner of the farm.

monopoly

Complete control of a product or business by one person or group

Horizontal Integration

Type of monopoly where a company buys out all of its competition within the same industry (e.g., Rockefeller buying out all the competing oil interests)

Vertical Integration

Practice where a single entity controls the entire process of a product, from the raw materials to distribution (e.g. Carnegie and the steel industry)

Farmers' Alliance movement

continuation of the Grange movement (but larger organization) expressing discontent, supported free silver, government loans for farmers, silver standard for money

Populists/ Populist party

emerged from the Grange / Farmers Alliance - the party goals were appeal for the common people. By 1896, many of their ideas were adopted by the Democratic Party nominee (William Jennings Bryan). Goals of the Populist party: wanted to replace the gold standard, proposed free silver, wanted a progressive/graduated income tax, regulations on railroads and banks, and ability of people to vote directly on laws

socialism

A system in which society, usually in the form of the government, owns and controls the means of production (farms, factories, etc.); Socialists of the late 19th c. U.S. supported this as an alternative to the laissez faire industrial system of the time

Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act

1883 reform law that replaced the spoils system in the federal bureaucracy with a merit-based professional system. Today, most federal workers are NOT appointed by the president, but are career officials (this started with the Pendleton Civil Service Act)

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)

First federal action against monopolies, it was signed into law by Harrison and was extensively used later, by Theodore Roosevelt for trust-busting.

Gospel of Wealth

a book, and idea, Carnegie that described the responsibility of the rich to be philanthropists. This softened the harshness of Social Darwinism as well as promoted the idea of philanthropy.