15.3: Politics in the Gilded Age

MATES US History I, Holland 2024

The Gilded Age

period from 1870s-1890s characterized by extravagant displays of wealth and excess of America’s wealth

political machines

organized group that controls a political party in a city

graft

illegal use of political influence for personal gain

William “Boss” Tweed

• “graft poster-child”

• head of Tammany Hall (NYC Dem. political machine)

• cartoonist Thomas Nast helps raise suspicion of graft

patronage

giving of govt. jobs to people who helped a candidate get elected (kind of like the spoils system)

civil service

nonmilitary govt. jobs

Rutherford B. Hayes

(1877-1881) 19th U.S. President, Republican

• put independents in cabinet

• set up commissions to fight corruption at nation’s customhouses

James A. Garfield

(1881) 20th U.S. President, Republican

• gave most of his patronage jobs once elected

• shot and killed by a lawyer he turned down for a job

Chester A. Arthur

(1881-1885) 21st U.S. President, Republican

• converted reformer

• Pendleton Civil Service Act

Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883)

• est. a civil service exam

  • (means that people couldn’t get govt. jobs handed to them without proper qualifications)

• leads to alliance between govt. and big businesses (money had to come from somewhere)

Grover Cleveland

22nd and 24th U.S. President, Democrat

• only president to serve 2 nonconsecutive terms

• went against big businesses and tried to lower tariffs

Benjamin Harris

(1889-1893) 24rd U.S. President, Republican

• supported big businesses, raised tariffs