Gilded Age Flashcards

President Hayes:

• Compromise of 1877 → removed troops from south in exchange for votes

• Railroad Strike of 1877 → stopped using federal troops

James A. Garfield

• Opposed spoils system and political patronage

• Assassinated over job-related grievance

Chester A. Arthur

• Chinese Exclusion Act → stopped Chinese immigration

• Pendleton Civil Service Act → merit based hiring

Grover Cleaveland

• Vetoed many aid bills

• Believed in small govt

• Used federal troops to stop Pullman strike

Benjamin Harrison

• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (regulated monopolies)

• McKinley Tariff

William McKinley

• Spanish-American war (obtained Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico)

• Stopped Chinese Exclusion Act

Edison

Invented lightbulb → led to longer hours

Coupler

Invented auto connected railway cars

Graham Bell

Invented telephone → better communication across long distances

Bessemer Process

Better way of manufacturing steel, more efficient

Tenements

Small, crowded apartments with not great conditions for poorer people, spread disease and sickness

Urbanization

Movement of people into cities → 40% of people in the city

Factory Life

12 hour shifts, 6 days a week, dangerous chemicals and machinery, no govt incentive to improve

Processing Centers

• Ellis Island - New York, European immigrants

• Angel Island - San Francisco, Asian immigrants

Reasons for immigration

Religious persecution, scarcity of land (Europe), Meiji Restoration (Japan), Gold Rush/Taiping Revolution China

Nativism

• Some groups better than others

• Good → Brits, Germans, Scandinavians

• Bad → Slavs, Latin Americans, Asians, Irish

Chinese Exclusion Act:

Banned most working Chinese people for 10 years, excluding students, teachers, merchants, and govt officials

Gentleman’s Agreement

Japan limited unskilled laborers, US repealed San Fransisco school segregation

Melting pot theory:

People from other cultures would meld into American culture. Largely untrue

Homestead Act

160 acres of free land, but often resulted in debt, due to poor conditions and locusts. 60% fail rate

Social Darwinism:

“Survival of the fittest” used to justify killing Native Americans

Dakota War

Dakota people attacked American settlers and government, ended in an American victory and mass execution of some of the Dakota

Sand Creek Massacre

Militia (American) attack on peaceful base flying white flag