Unit 6 APUSH Vocab

Unit 6 APUSH (1865-98)

Transcontinental Railroads

The development of the western United States after 1865 differed from the settlement patterns before because of industrialization. The biggest difference was the building of transcontinental railroads across the US. The great age of railroad building happened at the same time settlements were being built in the last Western Frontiers. Railroads not only promoted the settlement of the Great Plains, but also connected the West and East together economically, creating a national market. During the Civil War, Congress authorized land grants and loans for the building of the first transcontinental Railroad to connect California with the rest of the Union. Two newly incorporated railroad companies divided the work, The Union Pacific (UP) started in Omaha, Nebraska and built West across the Great Plains. The UP would employ thousands of war veterans and Irish immigrants under the direction of General Grenville Dodge. The Central Pacific started from Sacramento, California, and built Eastward. Led by Charles Crocker, the workers, including as many as 20,000 Chinese immigrants, took on the great risks of laying track and blasting tunnels through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The two railroads came together on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, Utah, where a golden spike was ceremoniously driven into the rail tie to make the linking of the Atlantic and Pacific states. In 1883, three other transcontinental railroads were completed. The Southern Pacific tied New Orleans to LA. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe linked Kansas City and LA. The Northern Pacific connected Duluth, Minnesota, with Seattle, Washington. In 1893, the Great Northern finished the fifth transcontinental railroad, which ran from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle. Companies built many other short line and narrow-gauge railroads to open up the Western interior to settlement by miners, rangers, farmers, and business owners, leading to more towns and cities. Progress came with significant costs. The railroads helped to transform the West during this period, but many proved failures as businesses. They were built in areas with few customers and with little promise of returning a profit in the near term. The frenzied rush for the West’s natural resources seriously damaged the environment and nearly exterminated the buffalo. Most significantly, the American Indians who lived in the region paid a high human and cultural price.

Great American Desert

At first, the settlement and economic development of the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Western Plateau did not seem promising. Before 1860, these lands between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast were known as “the Great American Desert” by pioneers passing through on the way to the green valleys of Oregon and the goldfields of California. The plains west of the 100th meridian had few trees and usually received less than 15 inches of rainfall a year, which was not considered enough moisture to support farming. Winter blizzards and hot dry summers discouraged settlement. However, after 1865 the Great Plains changed so dramatically that the former “frontier” largely vanished. By 1900, the great buffalo herds had been wiped out. The open western lands were fenced in by homesteads and ranchers, crisscrossed by steel rails, and modernized by new towns. Ten new western states had been carved out of the last frontier. Only Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma remained as territories awaiting statehood at the end of the century. California’s great gold rush of 1849 set the pattern for other gold rushes. Individual prospectors poured into the region and used a method called placer mining to search for traces of gold in mountain streams. They needed only simple tools such as shovels and washing pans. Following these individuals came mining companies that could employ deep-shaft mining that required expensive equipment and the resources of wealthy investors. As the mines developed, companies employed experienced miners from Europe, Latin America, and China. The California Gold Rush was only the first of a series of gold strikes and silver strikes in what became the state of South Dakota, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona. These strikes kept a steady flow of hopeful prospectors pushing into the western mountains into the 1890s that helped settle the West. The discovery of gold near Pike’s peak, Colorado,in 1859 brought nearly 100,000 miners to the area. In the same year, the discovery of the fabulous Comstock Lode led to Nevada entering the Union in 1864. Idaho and Montana also received early statehood, largely because of mining booms. Rich strikes created boomtowns, overnight towns that became infamous for saloons, dance-hall girls, and vigilante justice. Many of these, however, became lonely ghost twins within a few years after the gold or silver ran out. The mining towns that endured and grew evolved more like industrial cities than the frontier towns depicted in western films. For example, Nevada’s Virginia City, added theaters, churches, newspapers, schools, libraries, railroads, and police. Mark Twain started his career as a writer working on a Virginia City newspaper in the early 1860s. A few twins that served the mines, such as San Francisco, Sacramento, and Denver, expanded into prosperous cities. The economic potential of the vast open grasslands that reached from Texas to Canada was realized by ranchers in the decades after the Civil War. Earlier, cattle had been raised and rounded up in Texas on a small scale by Mexican cowboys, or vaqueros. The radiations of the cattle business in the late 1800s, like the hard “Texas” longhorn cattle, were borrowed from the Mexicans. By the 1860s, wild herds of about 5 million head of cattle roamed freely over the Texas grasslands. The Texas cattle business was easy to get into because both the cattle and the grass were free. The construction of railroads into Kansas after the war opened up eastern markets for the Texas cattle. Joseph G. McCoy built the first stockyards in the region, at Abilene, Kansas. Those stock yards held cattle that could be sold in Chicago for the high price of $30 to $50 per head. Dodge City and other cow towns sprang up along the railroads to handle the millions of cattle driven up the Chisholm, Goodnight-loving, and other trails out of Texas during the 1860s and 70s. The cowboys, many of whom were African Americans or Mexicans, received about a dollar a day for their dangerous work.

Barbed Wire

The long cattle drives began to end in the 1880s. Overgrazing destroyed the grass, and a winter blizzard and drought of 1885-6 killed of 90% of the cattle. Another factor that closed down the cattle frontier was the arrival of homesteaders, who used barbed wire fencing to cut off access to the formerly open range. Wealthy cattle owners turned to developing huge ranches and using scientific ranching techniques. They raised new breeds of cattle that produced more tender beef by feeding the cattle hay and grains. The Wild West was largely tamed by the 1890s. HOwever, in these few decades, Americans’ eating habits changed from pork to beef, and people created the enduring legend of the rugged, self-reliant American cowboy.

Homestead Act

The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged farming on the Great Plains by offering 160 acres of public land fee to any family that settled on it for a period of five years. The promise of free land combined with the promotions of railroads and land speculators induced hundreds of thousands of native-born and immigrant families ot attempt to farm the Great Plains between 1870 and 1900. About 500,000 families took advantage of the Homestead Act. However, five times that number had to purchase their land, because the best public lands often ended up in the possession of railroad companies and speculators. The first “sodbusters'“ on the dry and treeless palin’s often built their homes of sod bricks. Extremes of hot and cold weather, plagues of grasshoppers, and the lonesome life on the plains challenged even the most resourceful of the pioneer families. Water was scarce, and wood for fences was almost non-existent. The invention of barbed wire by Joseph Glidden in 1874 helped farmers to fence in tehri lands on the lumber-scarce plains. Using mail-order windmills to drill deep wells provided some water. Even so, many homesteaders discovered too late that 160 acres was not adequate for farming the Great Plains. Long spells of severe weather, together with falling prices for their crops and the cost of new machinery, caused the failure of two-thirds of the homesteaders’ farms on the Great Plains by 1900. Western Kansas alone lost half of its population between 1888 and 1892. Those who managed to survive adopted “Dry Farming” and deep-plowing techniques to make the most of the moisture available. They also learned to plant hardy strains of Russian wheat that withstood the extreme weather. Ultimately, government programs to build dams and irrigation systems saved many western farmers, as humans reshaped the rivers and physical environment of the West to provide water for agriculture.

National Grange Movement

By the end of the 1800s, farmers had become a minority within American society. While the number of US farms more than doubled between 1865 and 1900, people working as farmers declined from 60% of the working population in 1860 to less than 37% in 1900. At the same time, farmers faced growing economic threats from railroads, banks, and global markets. With every passing decade in the late 1800s, farming became increasingly commercialized —- and also more specialized. Northern and western farmers of the late 19th century concentrated on raising single cash crops, such as corn or wheat, for both national and international markets. As consumers, farmers began to procure their food from the stores in town and their manufacture goods from mail-order catalogs sent to them by Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck. As producers, farmers became more dependent on large and expensive machines, such as steam engines, seeders, and reaper-threshers combines. Larger farms were run like factories. Unable to afford the new equipment, small, marginal farms could not compete and, in many cases, were driven out of business. Increased production of crops such as wheat and corn in the United States as well as in Argentina, Russia, and Canada drove prices down for farmers around the world. In the UNited States, since the money supply was not growing as fast as the economy, each dollar became worth more. This put more downward pressure on prices, resulting in deflation. As prices fell, farmers with mortgages faced both high interest rates and the need to grow more and more to pay off old debts. Of course, increased production only lowered prices. The predictable results of this vicious circle were more debts, foreclosures by banks, and more independent farmers forced to become tenants and sharecroppers. Farmers felt victimized by impersonal forces of the larger national economy. Industrial corporations were able to keep prices high on manufactured goods by forming monopolistic trusts. Wholesalers and retailers took their cut before selling to farmers. Railroads, warehouses, and elevators took what little profit remained by charging high or discriminatory rates for the shipment and storage of grain. Railroads would often charge more for short hauls on line with no competition than for long hauls on lines with competition. Taxes also seemed unfair to farmers. Local and state governments taxed property and land heavily but did not tax income from stocks and bonds. The tariffs protecting various American industries were viewed as just another unfair tax paid by farmers and consumers for the benefit of the industrialists. A long tradition of Independence and individualism restrained farmers from taking collective action. FInally, however, they began to organize for their common interests and protection. The National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry was organized in 1868 by Oliver H Kelley Primarily as a social and educational organization for farmers and their families. Within five years, chapters of the Grange exists in almost every state, with the most in the Midwest. As the National Grange Movement expanded, it became active in economics and politics to defend members against middlemen, trusts, and railroads. For example, Grangers established cooperatives (Businesses owned and run by the farmer to save the costs charged by middlemen). In Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, the Grangers, with help from local businesses, successfully lobbied their state legislatures to pass laws regulating the rates charged by railroads and elevators. Other Granger laws made it illegal for railroads to fix prices by means of pools and to give rebated to privileged customers. In the landmark case of Munn v. Illinois (1877), the Supreme Court upheld the right of a state to regulate businesses of a public nature, such as railroads. Farmers also expressed their discontent by forming state and regional groups known as Farmer’s alliances. Like the Grange, the alliances taught about scientific farming methods. Unlike the Grange, alliances always had the goal of economic and political action. Hence, the alliance movement had serious potential for creating an independent national political party. By 1890, about 1 million farmers had joined farmers’ alliances. In the South, both poor White and Black farmers joined the movement. That potential nearly became reality in 1890 when a national organization of farmers, the national Alliance, met in Ocala, Florida, to address the problems of rural America. The Alliance attacked both major parties as subservient to Wall Street bankers and big business. Ocala delegates created the Ocala Platform that called for significant reforms:

• Direct election of US senators (in original US Constitution senators elected from state legislatures)

• Lower tariff rates

• A graduated income tax

• A new banking system regulated by the federal government

In addition, the Alliance platform demanded that Treasury notes and silver be used to increase the amount of money in circulation. Farmers wanted to increase the supply of money in order to create inflation, thereby raising crop prices. The platform also proposed federal storage for farmers’ crops and federal loans, freeing farmers from dependency on middlemen and creditors. The alliances stopped short of forming a political party. However, local and state candidates who support alliance goals received decisive electoral support from farmers. Many of the reform ideas of the Grange and the farmers alliances would become part of the Populist movement, which would shake the foundations of the two-party system in the elections of 1892 and 1896.

Granger laws

As the National Grange Movement expanded, it became active in economics and politics to defend members against middlemen, trusts, and railroads. For example, Grangers established cooperatives (Businesses owned and run by the farmer to save the costs charged by middlemen). In Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, the Grangers, with help from local businesses, successfully lobbied their state legislatures to pass laws regulating the rates charged by railroads and elevators. Other Granger laws made it illegal for railroads to fix prices by means of pools and to give rebated to privileged customers. In the landmark case of Munn v. Illinois (1877), the Supreme Court upheld the right of a state to regulate businesses of a public nature, such as railroads.

Munn v. Illinois

In Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, the Grangers, with help from local businesses, successfully lobbied their state legislatures to pass laws regulating the rates charged by railroads and elevators. Other Granger laws made it illegal for railroads to fix prices by means of pools and to give rebated to privileged customers. In the landmark case of Munn v. Illinois (1877), the Supreme Court upheld the right of a state to regulate businesses of a public nature, such as railroads.

Frederick Jackson Turner

The historical perspective on the social and cultural development of the West has changed since the 1890s. The Oklahoma Territory, once set aside for the use of American Indians, was opened for settlement in 1889, and hundreds of homesteaders took part in the last great land rush in the West. In 1890 the US Census Bureau declared that the entire frontier—except for a few pockets— had been settled. Three years after the Census Bureau declaration, historian Frederick Jackson Turner published a provocative, influential essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” He presented the settling of the frontier as an evolutionary process of building civilization. Into an untamed wilderness came wave after wave of people. The first were hunters. Following them came cattle ranchers, miners, and farmers. Then the last would be the foundation of towns and cities. Turner argued that 300 years of frontier life had shaped American culture, promoting independence, individualism, inventiveness, practical-mindedness, and democracy. But people also became wasteful of natural resources Historians have argued against Frederick’s claims, notably that towns in the frontier provided huge importance. For example, 19th century “boosters” tried to create settlements overnight in the middle of nowhere in the frontier. Urban markets also played a huge role in the frontier. The cattle frontier was able to have the successes that it had because it was connected to urban markets such as Chicago due to the railroads that were in the West. The development of the Western Frontier became integrated with the development of cities and towns. The closing of the frontier scared Frederick, who viewed the frontier as way to release discontent in American society. The frontier was always a place to have a fresh start, but Frederick worried that without it the US would follow the same class struggles and society as Europe. While many debate over Frederick's thesis, the biggest migration of the time was people moving from rural to urban, simply put there was more opportunity in urban areas. Not only was the West coming to an end, but the decline of rural America.

“The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893)

Three years after the Census Bureau declaration, historian Frederick Jackson Turner published a provocative, influential essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” He presented the settling of the frontier as an evolutionary process of building civilization. Into an untamed wilderness came wave after wave of people. The first were hunters. Following them came cattle ranchers, miners, and farmers. Then the last would be the foundation of towns and cities. Turner argued that 300 years of frontier life had shaped American culture, promoting independence, individualism, inventiveness, practical-mindedness, and democracy. But people also became wasteful of natural resources Historians have argued against Frederick’s claims, notably that towns in the frontier provided huge importance. For example, 19th century “boosters” tried to create settlements overnight in the middle of nowhere in the frontier. Urban markets also played a huge role in the frontier. The cattle frontier was able to have the successes that it had because it was connected to urban markets such as Chicago due to the railroads that were in the West. The development of the Western Frontier became integrated with the development of cities and towns. The closing of the frontier scared Frederick, who viewed the frontier as way to release discontent in American society. The frontier was always a place to have a fresh start, but Frederick worried that without it the US would follow the same class struggles and society as Europe. While many debate over Frederick's thesis, the biggest migration of the time was people moving from rural to urban, simply put there was more opportunity in urban areas. Not only was the West coming to an end, but the decline of rural America.

Little Big Horn

The Native Americans who lived in the West in 1865 belonged to a wide and diverse ray of cultures and tribes. For example, New Mexico and Arizona had groups such as the Zuni and Hopi living permanent settlements raising corn and livestock. The Navajo and Apache people of the Southwest were nomadic hunters who eventually adapted a more settled lifestyle, including the development of arts and crafts. In the Northwest, groups such as the Chinook and Shasta created complex communities with the abundance of fish and game. But, around 2/3rd of Native Americans around this time lived in the Great Plains. Most notably tribes include the Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Crow, and Comanche. These tribes let go of farming in colonial times after they were introduced to the horse by the Spanish. By the 1700s, they had become extremely skillful horsemen who centered their way of life around the Buffalo. Even though they lived in tribes of several thousand, they would groups themselves up in bands of 300-500. In the late 19th century, most of the conflicts between White settlers and Native Americans was due to the settlers lack of understanding of the lifestyle of the Native Americans. In the 1830s, President Andrew Jackson moved Native Americans in the East to the West with the Indian Removal Act, this was partly under the belief that lands west of the Mississippi River would forever be “Indian Country”. This expectation would soon fail, as settlers began moving to Oregon through the Oregon trail and the establishment of a transcontinental Railroad. Around this time, in 1851, negotiations began (councils) at fort Laramie (Wyoming) and Fort Atkinson (Wisconsin). The Federal Government would assign large tracts of land to Great Plains tribes, reservations, with definite boundaries. However, most of the plain tribes would refuse to restrict their movement to set boundaries and instead follow the normal migration of the buffalo. In the late 1800s, the settlement of miners, ranchers, and homesteaders on Native American land led to conflict. Fighting between Native Americans and US troops were extremely brutal, the US Army would often respond with large scale massacres of Native Americans in response. In 1866, during the Sioux War, the Great Plains tribes were able to gain an upper hand when a warband of Sioux destroyed an entire army column under Captain William Fetterman. After these wars, another round of treaties would occur where the Federal Government tried to isolate Native American tribes further on even smaller reservations. However, they did “promise” government support. But, gold miners refused to stay off Native American land of gold was found, which happened in the Dakota Black Hills. Very quickly, minor chiefs who weren’t involved in the treaty making and younger warriors would denounce the treaties and try to take back their land. A new round of conflicts began in the 1870s. The Indian Appropriation Act of 1871 ended the recognition of tribes as independent nations by the Federal government and ended all negotiations of treaties between Native American tribes and Congress. A few conflicts that occurred were the Red River War against the Comanche tribes in the Southern plains and the second Sioux War led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in the Northern Plains. Before the Sioux were defeated, they attempted and succeeded an ambush against Colonel George Custer’s troops at Little Big Horn in 1876. They devastated Colonel’s troops. However, in the Northwest, Chief Joseph’s courageous effort to lead a band of the Nez Perce into Canada failed and lead to surrender in 1877. The constant pressure of the US troops against tribe after tribe force them to comply with the Federal Government’s terms, even though the government violated the treaties. To add on, the harrowing decline of the Buffalo in the 1880s led to the end of the Plain’s lifestyle. Plains Native Americans had to change their traditions as a nomadic hunting culture.

Ghost Dance Movement

The last effort of Native Americans to resist the Federal Government was the spread of a new religious movement called the Ghost Dance Movement. Leaders believed that the dance would eventually bring back prosperity for Native Americans on the American Continent. The famous Sioux medicine man Sitting Bull was killed during his arrest, as the federal government began a brutal campaign to suppress the movement. Then in December of 1890, the US Army gunned down more than 200 Native Americans at the “battle” (massacre) of Wounded Knee in the Dakotas. This final act marked the end of the wars against the Native Americans on the prairies.

Helen Hunt Jackson

The crimes and injustices against Native Americans were chronicled in Helen Hunt Jackson’s best-selling book, A Century of Dishonor (1881). Although it created sympathy for Native Americans, especially in the East, it also created support for the end of Native American culture through assimilation. Reformers advocated for education, job training, and conversion to Christianity as a way to become “more civilized” and assimilate. People even created boarding schools to separate young Native American children from society and try to assimilate them to White culture and society, such as the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania.

Dawes Act of 1887

A new phase of the relationship between Native Americans and the federal government began in 1887. The Dawes Act of 1887 was passed, which was designed to break up tribal organizations, which was viewed by many Americans as preventing Native Americans from becoming “civilized”. The Dawes Act divided the tribal lands into plots of 160 acres, depending on family size. US citizenship would be granted to those who stayed on the land for 25 years and adopted more “civilized ways”. Under the Dawes Act, the Federal Government gave out 47 million acres to Native Americans. However, 90 million of Native American land was instead sold to White settlers, often the best land. By the start of the next century, the Native American population had declined due to disease and poverty to just 200,000 people.

Indian Reorganization Act

In 1924, partially recognizing that assimilation had failed, the federal government gave citizenship to all Native Americans regardless if they had followed the Dawes Act. In FDR’s New Deal in the 1930s, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act (1934) which promoted the reestablishment of tribal organizations and culture. Since then, the number of people who identify as Native Americans has increased. Today, 3 million identify as Native Americans, as well as 500 tribes now live in the US.

Santa Fe Trail

Mexico’s independence from Spain 1821 increased the trade and cultural exchange with the US. The Santa Fe Trail, an almost 1,000 mile overland route between Sante Fe, New Mexico and western Missouri linked the regions. The trail opens up the Spanish-speaking Southwest to economic development and settlement. It was a vital link until the railroad in 1880. Mexican landowners in the Southwest and California were guaranteed their rights and citizenship after the Mexican American War. However, out-dated legal proceedings often resulted in the selling or loss of lands to new Anglo settlers. Hispanic cultures were preserved in the US through large Spanish speaking populations, such as the New Mexico territories, the border towns, and California. During this time, Mexican-Americans were moving out on to the West to find work. Many found jobs in the sugar beet fields and mines in Colorado, and building railroads in the region. Before 1917, the border with Mexico was open, and few records were kept for either seasonal workers or permanent settlers. Mexicans, like other European immigrants, were drawn to the explosive economic opportunity of the region. Mexican American, White settlers, and Native Americans competed for land and its resources.

John Muir

The worries of deforestation led to the conservation movements. Breathtaking paintings and photographs of western landscapes helped convince Congress to preserve Western icons such as Yosemite Valley, a state park in 1864 (national in 1890) and Yellowstone become the first national park in 1872. In the 1800s, Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz advocated for the creation of forest reserves and a federal forest service to protect federal lands from exploitation. Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland reserved 33 million acres of national timber. With the ending of the frontier, Americans become more concerned about the loss of public lands and the natural environment. The Forest reserve Acts of 1891 and the Forest Management Act of 1897 withdrew federal timberlands from development and regulated the industry. While most “conservationists” believed in scientific management and regulated used of natural resources, “preservationists”, such as as John Muir, a leading founder of the Sierra Club in 1892, went further by wanting no human interference in hunting grounds. The creation of Arbor day in 1872, a day dedicated to planting trees, and the educational efforts of the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club reflected the growing environmental awareness by 1900.

Sierra Club

The worries of deforestation led to the conservation movements. Breathtaking paintings and photographs of western landscapes helped convince Congress to preserve Western icons such as Yosemite Valley, a state park in 1864 (national in 1890) and Yellowstone become the first national park in 1872. In the 1800s, Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz advocated for the creation of forest reserves and a federal forest service to protect federal lands from exploitation. Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland reserved 33 million acres of national timber. With the ending of the frontier, Americans become more concerned about the loss of public lands and the natural environment. The Forest reserve Acts of 1891 and the Forest Management Act of 1897 withdrew federal timberlands from development and regulated the industry. While most “conservationists” believed in scientific management and regulated used of natural resources, “preservationists”, such as as John Muir, a leading founder of the Sierra Club in 1892, went further by wanting no human interference in hunting grounds. The creation of Arbor day in 1872, a day dedicated to planting trees, and the educational efforts of the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club reflected the growing environmental awareness by 1900.

“New South”

While the West was being developed, the South was recovering from the Civil War. Some Southerners hoped for a “New South” built on industrial growth, modernized transportation, improved race relations, and a self-sufficient economy. However, its agricultural past and racism hindered attempts to fully realize this dream. Henry Grady, an editor for the Atlanta Constitution, became a champion for a “New South” with economic diversity and laissez-faire capitalism in his editorials (opinions). To attract business, local governments would provide tax exemptions to investors and the promise of low-wage labor. The growth of cities, the textile industry, and improved railroad lines in the South symbolized efforts to create such “New South”. Some examples include:

• Birmingham, Alabama, developed into of the nation’s main steel producers

• Memphis, Tennessee, prospered as a huge hub for the timber industry.

• Richmond, Virginia, became the nation’s leading city in the tobacco industry after being the capital of the former Confederacy

Georgia, North, and South Carolina would overtake the New England states in producing textiles. By 1900, the South had around 400 cotton mills that had 100,000 white workers. Southern railroad companies quickly converted the gauges for railroads in the South to the same as the East and West, connecting the South to the national rail network. The South’s rate of postwar growth equaled or surpassed that of the rest in the country in population, industry, and railroads from 1865-1900. However two factors slowed the industrial progress of the South. 1: Northern Financing dominated much of the economy, Northern investors controlled 3/4ths of the Southern railroads and by 1900 the steel industry. Large amounts of profits went to the pockets of investors and financiers in the North instead of recirculating in the South. Adding on to this, was that the South failed to expand public education in the state and local level. They didn’t create technical and engineering schools for White or Black residents like the North had done. As a result, few Southerners had skills needed in the Industrial Development. Without a good education, the Southern workforce faced many limiting economic opportunities. Southern industrial workers (94% were White), earned half that national average and worked longer hours than any other work elsewhere.

George Washington Carver

While industry did grow in the South, the region still was largely agricultural and also still the poorest. By 1900, more than half of the region’s Whiter farmers and ¾ of the Blacker farmers were either tenant farmers or sharecroppers. Since people were poor, and the profits of industry flowed North, Southern banks had little money to lend to farmers. This shortage caused farmers to borrow supplies from local merchants with a lien, or mortgage, on their crops. This combination caused farmers to become serfs tied to the land by debt. They barely got by. The South’s postwar economy also remained tied to the growing of cotton. Between 1870 and 1900, cotton planting doubled. Increasing the amount of cotton only made things worse since the result of more cotton lowered prices by more than 50% by the 1890s. Per Capita income in the South declined while farmers lost their farms. Some Southern farmers wanted to diversify the crops they grew in order to escape the cycle of debt. George Washington Carver, an African Americans scientist at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, proposed that more farmers grow peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybeans. His work helped play an important role in helping shift the agriculture of the South to be more diverse. Despite some diversity, most small farmers in the South remained in a cycle of debt and poverty. Just like the North and West, hard times produced discontent. By 1890, the Farmer’s Southern Alliance claimed more than 1 million members, while a separate group for African Americans, the Colored Farmer’s National Alliance, had around 250,000 members. Both organizations focused on political reforms to help solve farmers’ issues. If poor Black and White farmers would have come together in the South, they would have become a potent political force. However, racial attitudes of White people and economic interests of the upper class in the South stood in the way.

Tuskegee Institute

Some Southern farmers wanted to diversify the crops they grew in order to escape the cycle of debt. George Washington Carver, an African Americans scientist at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, proposed that more farmers grow peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybeans. His work helped play an important role in helping shift the agriculture of the South to be more diverse. Despite some diversity, most small farmers in the South remained in a cycle of debt and poverty.

Civil Rights Cases of 1883

When Reconstruction ended in 1877, the North withdrew protections of African Americans and left the South to solve their own problems. Democratic politicians who were in power, known as redeemers, won support from the business community and white supremacists. White supremacists wanted African Americans to be treated as inferior and create separate, or segregated, public facilities by race. The redeemers often used race to help deflect attention from real concerns such as tenant farming and the working conditions of the South. These redeemers discovered that they could exert political power by using the racial fears and racism of Whites. During Reconstruction, federal laws helped protect African Americans from discrimination by local and state governments. However, starting in the late 1870s, the US Supreme Court struck down these laws. In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the Court ruled that the government can’t ban racial discrimination done by private citizens and businesses, which included railroads and hotels, used by the public.

Plessy v. Ferguson

In 1896, in the major case Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana State law that created “separate but equal accommodations” White and Black railroad passengers. The Court declared that Louisiana didn’t violate the 14th Amendment’s “equal protections” clause.

Jim Crow laws

The federal court decisions of the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 as well as Plessy v. Ferguson, created a wave of segregation laws, commonly known as Jim Crow laws. These laws, originally from 1870 but being readopted, segregated washrooms, drinking fountains, park benches, and most public spaces. Only streets and most stores was not restricted according to a person’s race.

literacy tests

Other discriminatory laws resulted in the disenfranchisement of Black voters in 1900. In Louisiana for example, 130,334 Black voters were registered in 1896, however by 1904 only 1,342 were (a 99% decrease). Southern states created various political and legal devices to prevent African Americans from voting, among the most common were literacy tests, poll taxes, and White only primaries. Many Southern states also adopted grandfather clauses, which allowed a man to vote if his grandfather had voted in elections before Reconstruction. The Supreme Court again approved such tests in a case in 1898. Other discrimination occurred too in the South, African Americans couldn’t serve on juries. If convicted of a crime, African Americans often were given worse punishments than Whites. In some cases, African Americans accused of crimes didn’t get the formality of court-ordered sentences, instead they were lynched. Lynch mobs killed more than 1,400 Black men during the 1890s. Economic discrimination was also widespread, keeping most Southern African Americans out of skilled trades and factory jobs. Therefore, while poor Whites and immigrants learned the industrial skills that helped them rise to the middle class, African Americans often remained engaged in farming and low-paying domestic work.

poll taxes

Southern states created various political and legal devices to prevent African Americans from voting, among the most common were literacy tests, poll taxes, and White only primaries. Many Southern states also adopted grandfather clauses, which allowed a man to vote if his grandfather had voted in elections before Reconstruction. The Supreme Court again approved such tests in a case in 1898.

grandfather clauses

Southern states created various political and legal devices to prevent African Americans from voting, among the most common were literacy tests, poll taxes, and White only primaries. Many Southern states also adopted grandfather clauses, which allowed a man to vote if his grandfather had voted in elections before Reconstruction. The Supreme Court again approved such tests in a case in 1898.

Ida B. Wells

Segregation, disenfranchisement, and lynching left African Americans in the South oppressed but not powerless. Some responded with confrontation such as Ida B Wells. Ida B Wells was an editor of the Memphis Free Speech, a Black newspaper, who campaigned against lynching and the Jim Crow laws. Death threats as well as the destruction of her printing press caused Wells to carry her work from the North. Other Black leaders advocated for leaving the South, such as Bishop Henry Turned who formed the International Migration Society in 1894 to help Blacks move to Africa. Many African Americans moved to Kansas and Oklahoma.

Booker T. Washington

A third response was to accommodate it, advocated by Booker T Washington. Washington was born enslaved, but ended up graduating from Hampton Institute in Virginia. In 1881, he established an industrial and agriculture school for African Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama. African Americans learned skilled trades as well as the virtues of hard work, moderation, and economic self help from Washington. Washington viewed having money would empower African Americans more than a political ballot. Speaking at a convention in 1895 in Atlanta, Washington argued that Black Southerners as well as white Southerners shared a responsibility for making the South prosper, known as the Atlanta Compromise. He wanted African Americans to work hard at their jobs and not challenge segregation. In return, Whites should support education and some legal rights for African Americans. In 1900, Washington organized the National Negro Business League, which created 320 chapters across the country. The NNBL helped support business owned and operated by African Americans. Washington also further emphasized economic cooperation, as well as racial harmony, which won much praise from Whites such as Andrew Carnegie and President Theodore Roosevelt.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Later civil rights leaders had mixed feelings to Washington’s approach. Some criticized him as to willing to accept discrimination, such as WEB Du Bois who would demand an end to segregation after 1900. He also argued fro granting equal civil rights to all Americans. Some writers however praised Washington for paving the way for Black self-reliance because of his emphasis for supporting and creating Black-owned businesses.

Atlanta Compromise

Speaking at a convention in 1895 in Atlanta, Washington argued that Black Southerners as well as white Southerners shared a responsibility for making the South prosper, known as the Atlanta Compromise. He wanted African Americans to work hard at their jobs and not challenge segregation. In return, Whites should support education and some legal rights for African Americans. In 1900, Washington organized the National Negro Business League, which created 320 chapters across the country. The NNBL helped support businesses owned and operated by African Americans. Washington also further emphasized economic cooperation, as well as racial harmony, which won much praise from Whites such as Andrew Carnegie and President Theodore Roosevelt.