APUSH Unit 6

6.1 Contextualizing Period 6

• between the end of the civil war (1865) and the beginning of the Spanish American War (1898) the US emerged as the world’s greatest economy

• railroads expanded more than 45,000 miles a decade

• gilded age

Economic Change

• railroads, steel mills and mining → capital intensive

• many were based in New York

• Europeans with extra money joined to fund stocks and bond sales

• increased technology increased productivity (ie. steel cheaper and stronger)

• second industrial revolution based on electric and oil related tech

• industries deonded on expanding markets

  • by railroads, steamships, networks of telegraphs, cables and later telephones

• American industries also began to look for international markets

Political Change

• business benefited from pro growth government policies

  • protected property rights

  • refrained from regulating business operations

  • sheltered domestic manufacturers with high tariffs

  • subsidized railroads with land grants and loans

• federal state and local gov’t ignored the problems of workers, farmers, consumers and growing cities

• generated debates over the role of gov’t in the economy

• suffered panics and depressions

• large wealth gap

Migration and Urbanization

• opportunities in new cities and west attracted migrants from rural areas

• late 1800’s wave of immigration from south and eastern europe and asia entered the US

• benefited economic growth and cultural diversity

• produced conflicts

• threatened native americans

• industrialization accelerated urban development

• unplanned or regulated growth lead a lack of sanitary systems, degrading the environment and weak law enforcement

• low wadges

• lack of housing

• overcrowding

• lead to poor conditions for many migrants

• an expanding middle class enjoyed more leisure

• developed urban culture

  • new sports

  • music

  • theater

• intellectual movements

  • both supported and challenged the laissez-fiare capitalism and social order

  • new ideas on art, religion, gov’t, education, architecture and literature

Reform Effects

• workers, farmers and growing middle class demanded changes in economic, political and cultural institutions

• farm organizations organizations protested against unfair railroad rates and banking policies

• industrial workers fought for higher wages and the right to organize

• women organized to gain voting rights + lead the campaign for temperance

• many were not originally successful but did provide the 20th century with reform ideas and political organizations to implement them

Analysis Questions

• Railroads were the most impactful as they effected the country and how it connected as a whole not just the west.

• The unit is defined from 1865 to 1898 as it is the period where every part of the US is mostly settled to the beginning of the new century

6.2 Westward Expansions: Economic Development

• the development of the West after 1865 differed due to industrialization

• building of transcontinental railroads across the Far West

Transcontinental Railroad

• promoted settlements on the Great Plain

• linked the West with the East → one great national market

• The First Route

• to make true on a promise from the civil war (land grants and loans for the building of the first transcontinental railroad to tie Cali to the rest of the Union) 2 companies split the job

• The Union Pacific (UP) started from Omaha Nebraska and built Westward across the Great Plains

• employed thousands of veterans + Irish immigrants under General Greenville Dodge

• The Central Pacific started from Sacramento California and built eastward

• led by Charles Crocker

• workers were as many as 20,000 Chinese immigrants laid track and blasted tunnels through the Sierra Nevada Mountains

• the 2 came together on May 10 1869 at Promontory Point Utah

• Four Additional Routes

• in 1883 three other transcontinental railroads were completed

• Southern Pacific → linked New Orleans to Los Angeles

• Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe→ linked Kansas City to Los Angeles

• Northern Pacific → linked Duluth, Minnesota with Seattle, Washington

• 1893 → Great Northern finished the 5th transcontinental railroad which ran from St.Paul Minnesota to Seattle

• many other shoreline and narrow gauge railroads were opened up to the western interior to settlements by miners ranchers farmers and business owners leading to more towns and cities

• Negative Effects

• many railroads were built in places with few customers so a small chance of a return on investment

• damaged the resources of the west severely

• nearly exterminated the buffalo

• mostly natives in this aerra paid a high human and cultural price

Settlement of the Last West

• the settlement and economic development of the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains and the Western Plateau did not seem promising

• before the 1860’s the land between the mississippi and the pacific was known as “the Great American Desert” by those passing to Oregon and Cali

• Plains west of the 100th meridian ( a latitude/longitude line cutting through the center of the US, Texas in half vertically) had few trees and was very dry

• winter blizzards and hot dry summers discouraged settlement

• 1865 Great Plains changed dramatically

• by 1900’s great buffalo herds were wiped out

• homesteads, ranches, crossroads by steel rails, new towns

• 10 new western states had come out

• only Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma remined as territories awaiting statehood at the end of the century

The Mining Frontier

• gold rush of 1849 set the pattern for other gold rushes

• method called placer mining to search for traces if gold in mountain streams

• only needed shovels and washing pans and other simple tools

• after this mining companies employed deep shaft mining that required expensive equipment and investors

• as they developed more experiences miners from Europe, Latin America and China

• Cali Gold Rush was the first in a series of gold and silver strikes in what became South Dakota, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona

• kept a steady flow of hopeful prospectors into the west and helped settlement

• The discovery of gold near Pike’s Peak, Colorado, in 1859 brought nearly 100,000 miners to the area

• also 1859 the discovery of the fabulous Comstock Lode (which produced more than $340 million in gold and silver by 1890) led to Nevada entering the Union in 1864

• Idaho and Montana also received early statehood largely bc of mining booms

• boomtowns→ overnight towns that became infamous for saloons, dance-hall girls, and vigilante justice

• quickly became abandoned as the gold/silver dried out

• mining towns that endured and grew and evolved evolved more like industrial cities

• ex. Nevadas Virginia City created by the Comstock Lode added theaters, churches, newspapers, schools, libraries, railroads and police

• San Francisco, Sacramento and Denver were all towns built to serve the mines but eventually boomed into cities

The Cattle Frontier

• cattle herding before was on a small scale by cowboys or vaqueros

• by the 1860’s 5 million heads of cattle roamed freely over the Texas grasslands

• easy to get back into bc both the land and cattle were free

• “Texas” hardy longhorn cattle

• Railroads and Cattle

• railroads into Kansas opened up eastern markets to cattle

• Joseph G. McCoy built the first stockyards in the region in Abilene Kansa

• held cattle that could be sold in Chicago for 30 to 50 dollars per head

• towns sprung up along railroad to handle the cattle being transported

• many cowboys were african american or mexican and made a dollar a day

• Decline of the Cattle Drives

• began to end in 1880s

• overgrazing destroyed the grass

• a blizzard and drought of 1885-86 killed 90% of the cattle

• homesteaders also used barbed wire fencing to cut off formeley open land

• wealthy cattle farmers made huge ranches and scientific ranching techniques

• significance: Americans shifted from pork to beef

The Farming Frontier

• Homestead Act of 1862

• encouraged farming on the great plains

• offered 160 acres of public land free to anyone who settled there for 5 years

• mixed with railroad opportunities both native born and immigrants poured west between 1870 and 1900

• 500,000 families got land from the homestead act

• 5x that had to purchase land as the best land ended up in the possession of railroad companies and speculators

• Problems and Solutions

• sodbusters

• extreme winters and summers

• water was scarce

• wood for fences was rare

• Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire in 1847

• helped farmers to fence in their lands

• mail order windmills to drill deep wells providing some water

• 160s acres was not enough land for farming

  • long spells of bad weather

  • falling prices of crops

  • cost of new machinery due to the failure of 2/3 of the homesteaders farms by 1900

• Western Kansas lost ½ its population between 1888 and 1892

Success on the Great Plains

• dry farming

• deep plowing techniques to make the most of the available moisture

• planted hardy strains of russian wheat

• withstand extreme weather

• government programs to build dams and irrigation systems saves many western farmers

• people reshaped the rivers and physical environment to provide water for agriculture

Farmers Organize

• end of 1800s farmers became a minority

• # of farms doubled from 1865 to 1900

• # of people working as farmers from 60% to 37% from 1860 to 1900

• farmers faced growing economic threats

  • railroads

  • banks

  • global markets

• Changes in Agriculture

• farming became increasingly commercialized and specialized

• north and west focused on cash crops like corn or wheat

• for both national and international markets

• farmers became more dependent on large expensive machines

  • steam engines

  • seeders

  • reaper-thresher combines

• farms ran like factories

• small farms could not compete and were driven out of business

• Falling Prices

• increased production of wheat and corn in the US, Argentina, Russia, Canada

• drove prices down for farmers around the world

• in the US each dollar became worth more

• deflation from more downward pressure on prices

• farmers with mortgages faced both high interest rates and the need to grow more and more to pay off old debts

• caused more debts, foreclosures, more independent farmers forced to become tenants and sharecroppers

• Rising Costs

• farmers from victimized

• industrial corporations were able to keep prices high

• monopolies

• wholesalers and retailers (middlemen) took their cut

• railroads, warehouses and elevators took what little profit remained by charging high or discriminatory rates for the shipment and storage of grain

• Texas unfair to farmers

• local and state gov’ts taxed property and land heavily

• did not tax income from stocks and bonds

• protective american industry tariffs were viewed as another unfair tax paid by farmers and consumers for the benefit of industries

Fighting Back

• independence and individualism stopped farmers from collective action

• began to unionalize

• National Grange Movement

• The National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry was organized by Oliver H. Kelley primarily as a social and educational organization for farmers

• within 5 years there was a chapter in every state

• National Grange movement expanded

• became active in politics and economics

• defend the common man

• established cooperatives

  • businesses owned and run by the farmer to save costs charged by middlemen

• In Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin helped local business successfully lobby 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 rebates to privileged customers

• Munn V Illinois (1877) supreme court case upheld the right of a state to regulate business

• Farmers Alliances

• taught scientific farming

• always had the goal of economic or political action

• serious potential for creating a political party

• by 1890 one million farmers had joined

• In the south poor black and white farmers joined

• Ocala Platform

• when a national organization of farmers, the national alliance met in Ocala florida

• called for

  • direct election of US senators

  • lower tariffs

  • graduated income tax (the more money you make the more tax you pay)

  • a new banking system regulated by the federal gov’t

• demanded that treasury notes and silver increased the amount of money in circulation

• wanted to create inflation to increase crop prices

• proposed federal storage for crops and federal loans

• wanted the gov’t to take over middle man + creditors activities to be rid of them

• did not form a political party

• politicians who supported received desired electoral votes from farmers

• many of these reform ideas would become part of the populist movement

  • shook the foundation of the 2 party system in the elections of 1892 and 96

Analysis Questions

• Both saw the west as a vast mystery but after 1860 it was seen as full of opportunities not a wasteland that cannot sustain life.

• New towns, buffalo herds were wiped out, damage to the climate, displacement of native americans and deflation.

• The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 was greatly responsible for the migration west as it made the transcontinental railroad which made it much easier to get to the west which pushed many to go.

• Utilized horses, depended on buffalo, became more stationary and made treaties.

• Industrialization of American agriculture destroyed Thomas Jeffersons dreams of American Agriculture Virtue as it made growing food something that only one section of the country had to do. Each person did not need to grow their own food to be feed efficiently or efficiently.

• What impact did the National Alliance have on the political landscape at the time?

6.3 Westward Expansion: Social and Cultural development

• settlement of the west was different due to the native american, mexican american, asian immigrants and other migrant groups influence

The Closing of the Frontier

• Oklahoma Territory was once set aside for natives

• opened for settlement in 1889

• great rush west

• 1890 U.S Census Bureau declared that the entire frontier except for a few pocket had been settled

• Turner’s Frontier Thesis

• 3 years after the Bureaus declaration Frederick Jackson Turner published an influential essay: “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”

• the west as an evolutionary process of building civilization

• first hunters, then cattle rancher, miners and farmers, then people who established cities and towns

• 300 years of frontier experience had shaped American culture

• promoted independence and practical-mindedness

• wasteful of natural resources

• Role of Towns and Cities

• historians challenged this by saying that frontier cities were not a late addition

• urban markets made frontier development possible

• linked to markets in the east

  development of the frontier especially after 1865 was interdependence with the growth of towns and cities

• American Without a Frontier

• Turner saw the frontier as a safety vent for discontent in society

• no more promise of a fresh start

• would the US now follow the patterns of class division and social conflict like Europe

• however largest migration was not from east to west but from rural to cities

• more opportunities for migrants

• dominance of rural America was declining

American Indians in the West

• natives in the west belonged to many different groups

• New Mexico and Arizona → Pueblo groups like the Hopi and Zuni

  • lived in permanent settlements

  • raised crops and livestock

• Navajo and Apache peoples of southwest

  • nomadic hunter gathers

  • but adopted a more settled way of life

  • crops

  • livestock

  • arts and crafts

• Pacific Northwest →Chinook, Shasta, other tribes

  • developed complex communities based on abundant fish and game

• 2/3 of western tribal groups lived in the Great Plains

• Nomadic tribes (Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Crow, and Comanche) had given up farming after the introduction of the horse

• by 1700s were skillful riders

• way of life centered around hunting buffalo

• lived in smaller bands (300 to 500 ) of larger tribes

• late 19th century conflicts with US gov’t due to their lack of understanding of their loose organizations and nomadic lifestyle

• Reservation Policy

• in 1851 in councils negotiations began at Fort laramie Wyoming and Fort Atkinson Wisconsin as the federal gov’t started to make indian reservations

• most did not follow the guidelines and still followed the buffalo

• Indian Wars

• in the 1800s settlers by miners, ranchers and homesteaders lead to violence

• US troops vs Plains Indians very brutal

• US responsible for several massacres

• 1866 though during the Sioux war Sioux fighters wiped out an army column under captain william fetterman

• after these wars a series of treaties attempting to isolate Plains Indians by promising them gov’t support

• however when gold was found on native land miners would not leave

• soon minor chiefs not involved in making the treaties and young warriors denounces the treaties and tried to return to ancestral lands

• new round of conflict began in 1870

• Indian Appropriation Act of 1871

  • ended recognition of tribes as independent nations by the federal government

  • ended negotiation of treaties to be approved by Congress

• Conflicts include

  • red river war aginst comanche in the southern plains

  • second Sioux War led by sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in the northern plains

• before the Sioux were defeated they destroyed Colonel George Custer’s command at Little Big Horn in 1876

• Chief Joseph’s try to lead a band of Nez Percé into Canada ended in defeat and surrender in 1877

• constant pressure of US army caused tribes to comply even after violated treaties

• slaughter of most buffalo dommed plain peoples way of life

• Plain Indians had to change their traditions as a nomadic hunting culture

• Ghost Dancers and Wounded Knee

• Ghost Dance movement →religiously inspired movement to try to resist government control

• gov’t tried to suppress it

• famous Sioux medicine man Sitting Bull was killed during his arrest

• December 1890 U.S Army gunned down more than 200 American Indian men women and children in the battle (massacre) of Wounded Knee in the Dakotas

• marked the end of the Indian Wars

• Assimilationists

• injustices were documented in a book by Helen Hunt Jackson- A Century of Dishonor (1881)

• created sympathy but also generated support for assimilation

  • advocate for formal education

  • job training

  • conversion to Christianity

• set up boarding schools such as Carlisle School in Pennsylvania

• separated Indian children from their family and taught them white culture farming and industrial skills

• Dawes Severalty Act (1887)

• new phrases in relationship between US govt and American Indians

• Dawes Act of 1887

  • designed to break up tribal organizations which they thought kept indians from becoming civilized and law abiding citizens

  • divided trail lands into plots of 160 acres depending on family size

  • citizenship was granted to those who stayed on the land for 25 years and “adopted the habits of civilized life”

• distributed 47 million acres of land to american indians

• 90 million acres of the best land was sold over the years to white settlers by the govt speculators or natives themselves

• disease and poverty had reduced the number of natives to 200,000

• most lived in wards of the federal govt

• Changes in the 20th and 21th Centuries

• 1924 people realizes the forced assimilation had failed so citizenship was granted to all natives

• part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, Congress adopted the Indian Reorganization Act (1934)

  • reestablishment of tribal organization and culture

• after that the number of people who identified as American indians increased

• today more than 3 million natives all in different tribes live in the US

• Mexican Americans in the Southwest

• Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821 increased trade and cultural exchange with the US

• Santa Fe Trail

  • nearly a 1,00 mile overland route between Santa Fe New Mexico and western Missouri linked the regions

• opened spanish speaking southwest to economic development and settlement

• Mexican landowners in the Southwest and California were guaranteed their property rights and granted citizenship after the Mexican War

• drawn out legal proceedings often resulted in the sale or loss of lands to new Anglo arrivals

• Hispanic culture was preserved in dominant Spanish-speaking areas

  • like the new mexico territories

  • border towns

  • barrios of cali

• Mexican Americans moved through the west to find work

• many ended up in the sugar beet fields and mines of Colorado and building railroads

• Mexican Americans, Native Americans and white settlers competed for land and resources

• The Conservation Movement

• concerns over deforestation

• paintings and photographs of the western landscapes pushed Congress to preserve western icons like Yosemite

• dedicated the Yellowstone area as the first national park in 1872

• 1800s secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz pushed for the creation of forest reserves and a federal forest protection service

• Pres Benjamin Harrison + Grover Cleveland reserved 33 million acres of national timber

• closing of frontier ers Americans became more and more concerned about the loss of public lands and the natural treasures they contained

• Forest Reserve Act of 1891 and the Forest Management Act of 1897

  • withdrew federal timberlands from development and regulated their use

• conservationists- believed in scientific management and regulated use of natural resources

• Preservationists (such as John Muir- leading founder of the Sierra Club in 1892) - aimed to preserve natural areas from human interference

• establishment of Arbor Day in 1872- day dedicated to planting trees

• educational efforts of the Audubon Society and Sierra Club reflected a growing environmental awareness by 1900

Analysis questions

• The british enclosure act was detrimental for the lower class as now they had no land to farm and support themselves so they found factory jobs which in turn boosted industrialization. The enclosure of Western land in the US had a similar effect where it lead to urbanization where the lands continued to develop and evolve. It was also greatly dependent on industrialization as many founds jobs in that field like building railroads.

• The proclamation of 1763 was a British ruling that did not allow colonists to settle West in newly acquired lands.The Treaty of Paris 1783 ended the American Revolution giving them a bit of the western land that they were previously banned from. The Indian Removal Act removed any natives from “deseried” land so that the white Americans could remain there. These all connect as they are all laws or rulings that determine who could live on western land.

• Some label these as massacres as they see the wars as unfair and the US as slaughtering the natives while others see them as equal wars.

• A Century of Dishonor both prompted pity for natives but also put the idea of assimilation into the minds of many.

• Latinos in the west were guaranteed property rights and granted citizenships

• The Hudson River School related to the reaction to the explosion of the American Environment during the Gilded Age as it was the first truly American art form. These purely American ideals transferred into criticizing the new society in which they lived.

• Conservationists wanted to protect against human destruction and raise awareness and preservationist wanted to stop all human activity

• John Muir was a preservationist.

6.4 The “New South”

• South was recovering from the Civil War

• New South as a self sufficient economy built on modern capitalist values, industrial growth, modernized transportation and improved race relations

• its agricultural past and race division remained

Growth of Industry

• Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution spread the gospel of the New South

• local govt offered tax exemptions to investors and the promise of low wage labor to attract business

• growth of cities, textile industry and improved railroads → new south

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

  • Memphis, Tennessee, prospered as a center for the South’s growing lumber industry

  • Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, became the capital of the nation’s tobacco industry

• Georgia, North and South Carolina became the chief producers of textiles overtaking the north

• by 1900 the south had 400 cotton mills employing 100,000 white workers

• south switched to standard gauge rails like in the north and west so it joined the national rail network

• The South’s rate of postwar growth from 1865 to 1900 equaled or surpassed that of the rest of the country in population, industry, and railroads

• slowed by two things

  • north had financial control and dominance over the south (3/4 of the south railroads and complete control over the steel industry)

  • failure of local and state govt to expand public education

  • the north did invest in technical or engineering schools fo white or black residents, south did not

  • little economic opportunities due to lack of skills

  • southern industrial workers earned ½ the national average and worked longer hours than workers elsewhere

Agriculture and Poverty

• growing industry remained largely agricultural

• poorest part of the country

• more than ½ of the regions white farmers and ¾ of the black farmers were either tenant farmers who rented land or sharecroppers who paid for the use of land with a share of the crop

• southern banks had little money to lend out

• borrowed supplies from local merchants

• kept farmers completely tied and in debt

• barely got by year by year

• Cotton and other Crops

• postwar economy was still tied to cotton

• between 1870 and 1900 the number of acres planted in cotton more than doubled

• cotton prices declined by 50% in the 1890s

• many farmers lost their farms

• some wanted to plant other things

• George Washington Carver, an African American scientist at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama

• promoted the growing of such crops as peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybean

• shifted southern agriculture towards a more diversified base

• Attempts to Organize

• small farmers remained in a cycle of debt and poverty

• by 1890 farmers southern alliance had over one million members

• the colored farmers national alliance had around 250,000

• both rallied behind political reforms to help their economic problems

• South and North and west did not gang together due to economic interests of the upper class and racism

Segregation

• democratic politicians (redeemers) who came into power after reconstruction ended won support from the business community and White supremacists

• used race as an distraction so real issues did not get addressed

• Discrimination and the Supreme Court

• supreme court struck down protection reconstruction laws for black americans

• Civil Rights Cases of 1883

  • court ruled that congress could not ban racial discrimination practiced by private citizens and business including railroads and hotels

• 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson supreme court upheld a Louisiana law requiring separate but equal

• court ruled that it did not violate 14th amendment due to guarantee of equal protection of the laws

• Jim Crow Laws southern states adopted in the beginning of the 1870s

• Loss of Civil Rights

• laws to prevented black citizens from voting

  • literacy tets

  • poll taxes

  • political party primaries for whites only

  • grandfather clauses

• Supreme Court approved such laws in an 1898 case that upheld the states rights to use literacy tests

• Lynch mobs killed more than 1400 Black men during the 1890s

• economic discrimination was widespread keeping african americans out of skilled trades and factory jobs

• poor whites and immigrants learned the industrial skills that would help them rise

• african americans remained in farming and low paying domestic work

Responding to Segregation

• Ida B. Wells, editor of the Memphis Free Speech, a Black newspaper campaigned against lynching and the Jim Crow laws, death threats and destruction of her printing press forced her to continue her work up north

• Bishop Henry Turner formed the International Migration Society in 1894 to help people go to africa

• many moved to kansas or oklahoma

• Booker T. Washington

• Booker T. Washington advocated for ways to accommodate oppression

• established an industrial and agricultural school for african americans in alabama

• Washington preached virtues of hard work, moderation and economic self help

• supported Atlanta Compromise

  • belief that black and white southerners shared a responsibility for making their region prosper

• thought african americans should focus on working hard at their jobs not challenging segregation and discrimination

• 1900 made the national negro business league

  • established 320 chapters across the country to support business owned and operated by african americans

  • racial harmony and economic cooperation

  • Praise from Andrew Carnegie and Pres. Theodore Roosevelt

• Responses to Washington

• some thought he was too willing to accept discrimination

• other african american leader W.E.B. Du Bois would demand an end to segregation and the granting of equal civil rights to all americans

• others praised washington for paving the way for black self reliance and support for black owned businesses

• White supremacy and segregation continued to dominate the south until the civil rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s

• “New South” was only achieved after WW2

Analysis Questions

• The economic development helped to build a job market and industry after almost everything was destroyed in the war.

• The Norths economic dominance and the south’s lack of proper schooling both held back a large scale transformation of the economy.

• The cottonocracy did not completely stay throughout the Gilded Age as so many people planted cotton that the value of ti went down however it remind an extremely popular crop in the south.

• The redeemers were very popular as they played on the fear of racist whites and were able to completely change the conversation away from real policy.

• This is true as many laws prevented african americans from voting even though that is a right guaranteed in the 14th amendment.

• Poor white were able to get jobs such as in factories that were more skilled where you could move up a social class. However african americans were limited to unskilled domestic labor jobs.

• Washington was more focused on african americans working and gaining new skills while DuBois wanted to deconstruct segregation.

• Washington’s strategy was embraced more as it disrupted society less.

• Later like in the 50’s during the civil rights movement DuBois’ strategy was embraced more

6.5 Technological Innovation

• communications

• transportation

• basic industries

• electric power

• urban growth

• all improved by tech innovations

Inventions

• telegraph by Samuel F.B Morse

• Cyrus W. Fields invention of an transatlantic cable in 1866

• messages across the sea in minutes

• internationalized markets and prices for basic commodities such as

  • grains

  • coal

  • steel

• typewritter (1867)

• telephone by Alexander Graham Bell 1876

• cash register 1879

• calculating machine 1887

• adding machine 1888

• all became essential tools for business

• for the consumer

  • George Eastman’s Kodak camera 1888

  • Lewis E. Waterman’s fountain pen 1884

  • King Gillette’s safety razor and blade 1895

The Steel Industry

• new process of making large quantities of steel- more durable than iron

• 1850’w both Henry Bessemer in England and William Kelly In the US discovered that basting air through molten iron produced high-quality steel

• the great lakes region emerged as a center of steel production due to its abundant coal reserves and aces to iron ore of Minnesota’s mesabi Range

Edison and Westinghouse

• Thomas Edison

• search lab in Menlo Park NJ 1876

• worlds first modern research lab

  • phonograph

  • dynamo for generating electric power

  • mimeograph machine

  • motion camera picture

• improvements to the light bulb was the most significant

• electric light revolutized life

• George Westinghouse

• 400 patents

• air brake for railroads 1869

• transformer for producing high voltage alternating current (AC)

• made lighting cities possible

Technology and Growth of Cities

• Changes in Transportation

• walking → cable cars + horse drawn → electric trolleys, elevated railroads and subways

• massive suspension bridge Brooklyn Bridge 18183

• made it possible for longer commutes between different areas

• Skyscrapers

• cities went up not out

• building → profit

• 1885 Chicago became home for first skyscraper built by William Le Baron Jenny

• made possible by Otis elevator and the central steam-heating system with radiators in every room

Marketing Consumer Goods

• R. H. Macy in New York + Marshall Field in Chicago made the large department store popular in cities

• Packaged foods- Kellogg and Post

• refrigerated railroad cars and canning let Gustavus Swift change the eating habits of Americans with mass produced meat and veggies

• Advertising promoted a consumer economy and created a consumer culture in which shopping became a passtime

Analysis Questions

• A new strategy to make steel that allowed for skyscrapers and very strong iron to be produced. Those in construction or in the metals business were the intended audience. Wealthy titans of industry were most privy to this technique. The purpose was to make strong steel.

• They were similar as they both completely changed everyday life however post civil war advancements are more significant as they set the stage for current day life.

6.6, The Rise of Industrial Capitalism

• more inventions→ management and financial structures that helped create large scale industries

The Business of Railroads

• business leadership, capital, technology markets labor and government support → development of the nation’s first big business- railroads

• after civil war railroad mileage increased more than 5 fold in a 35 year period

• 35,000 miles in 1865 to 193,000 miles 1900

• subsidized the growth by providing companies with low interest loans

• and millions of acres of public land

• railroads created → market for goods which encourages mass production, mass consumption, economic specialization

• railroads building encouraged coal and steel industries

• prior to 1883 each region could determine when noon was for itself based on when the sun was directly overhead

• country had 144 different time zones

• 1883 that ended

• The American Railroad Association divided the country into four time zones

• railroad time became standard

• most important creation was modern stockholder corporation

• needed to develop complex structures in finance, business management and the regulation of competition

Competition and Consolidation

• local lines caused

  • different gauges (distance between tracks)

  • incompatible equipment

• consolidation after civil war

• trunk line was a major route between large cities

• small branches connected the truck line with outlying towns

• Cornelius Vanderbilt → earned millions in steamboat business to merge local railroads into New York Central Railroad

• ran from 4500 miles of track to Chicago from NY

• Problems and corruption

• investors overbuilt in 1870s and 1880s

• suffered mismanagement and fraud

• Jay Gould entered the business looking for a quick profit

• made millions by selling off assets and water stock

  • water stock → inflating the value of a corporation’s assets and profits before selling its stock to the public

• companies offered rebates and kickbacks to favoried shippers while charging more to smaller customers like farmers

• forming pools→ competing companies agreed secretly to fix rates and share traffic

• Concentration of Railroads Ownership

• financial panic of 1893 → ¼ of all railroads into bankruptcy

• Bankers quickly took control and consolidated them lead by J. Pierpont Morgan

• less competition = stabilized rates and reduced debts

• by 1900 7 giant systems controlled nearly 2/3 of the railroads in the nation

• more efficane

• dominated throughout powerful men

• dominated the boards of competing railroad copportations through interlocking directorates

• created national railroad monopolies

• Railroad Power

• public, local communities, states and federal government invested

• early regulation did little good

• federal Interstate Commerce Commission was seen as a failure til 20th century congress expanded its powers

• midwestern regulations were overturned by supreme court

Industrial Empires

• second industrial revolution after civil war

• large scale production of steel, petroleum, electric power and machinery

• Andrew Carnegie and the Steel Industry

• Andrew Carnegie owner of steel business

• scottish born

• worked his way up from poverty

• was the superintendent of a Pennsylvania railroad

• 1870’s started making steel in Pittsburgh

• out did competitors with salesmanship and tech

• vertical integration → company controlled every stage of the process- mined the materials to transport to product

• by 1900 20,000 employees

• produced more steel than all the mills in Britain

• retired to philanthropy

• sold his company for 400 million

• morgan bought it and made a new corp

  • United States Steel

  • first billion dollar company

• controlled more than 3/5’s of the steel business

• Rockefeller and Oil

• 1863 John D Rockefeller founded company that would quickly wipe out all competition and take control of the oil industry

• Standard Oil Trust

  • a monopoly

  • controlled 90% of the oil refinery

• applied new tech and efficient management practices

• extort rebates from railroad and cut prices to force rivals to sell out

• when he retired he was worth 900 million

• Controversy over Corporate Power

• companies organized in various ways

• trust

  • organization or a board or trustees

  • Standard Oil where they managed former computers

• Horizontal integration

  • One company taking control of all former competitors in a specific industry

• Vertical integration

  • one company controls every stage of development

  • Carnegie steel control

• holding company

  • created to own and control diverse companies

  • J. pierpont Morgan

• bad for economy

• monopolies slowed innovation

• overcharged consumers

• developed excessive political influence

Laissez-Faire Capitalism

• federal state and local government supported with

• high tariffs

• building infrastructure

• public schools and universities

• 19th century ideals lead ppl to reject government regulation

• beliefs known as “laissez faire”

Conservative Economics

• Adam Smith argued mercantilism was less efficient than inviissble hand

• Smith believed:

  • Unregulated businesses → improve goods and services at lower prices be of self-interest.

• 19th cen American business leaders:

  • Used laissez-faire (no government interference) to defend their practices.

• The rise of monopolies in the 1880s:

  • Hurt competition needed for natural regulation.

• Despite this, laissez-faire ideas:

  • Were still used by business leaders to block government regulations

• Social Darwinism

• Darwin’s theory of natural selection:

  • Offended religious conservatives but supported economic conservatives.

• Herbert Spencer promoted Social Darwinism:

  • Believed natural selection should apply to business.

  • Thought wealth should go to the “fit,” benefiting everyone.

• William Graham Sumner:

  • Brought Social Darwinism to American sociology.

  • Believed helping the poor hurt society by keeping the “unfit” alive.

• Sumner’s ideas:

  • Supported racial intolerance.

  • Ideas about race superiority lasted into the 20th century

• Protestant Work Ethic

• Some Americans believed religion was a better reason than Social Darwinism for the wealth of industrialists.

• John D. Rockefeller:

  • Followed the Protestant work ethic (success showed God’s favor and was a reward for hard work).

  • Believed God gave me my riches

• Reverend Russell Conwell:

  • Gave a popular lecture Acres of Diamonds

  • Taught that everyone had a duty to get rich.

• The Concentration of Wealth

• by 1890 richest 10% of US popo controlled 90 percent of nation’s wealth

• millionaires, the beakers, fabulous lives

• ignored the gap

• saw them as “self made men”

• Horatio ALger Jr. wrote books from rags to riches

• most who were successful where white middle to upper middle class men whose father was in business or banking

• Business Influence Outside the United States

• late 19 century → increased desire to do business in Latin America and Asia

• wanted raw materials

• 1900 → imports from Cuba, Brazil and Asai (sigar and rubber) 30% of US imports

• wanted to sell products abroad

• 15 % of world export

Analysis Questions

• The Pacific Railway Act

• They were needed so train schedules would run

• It was detrimental for smaller railroad companies

• It bankrupt ¼ of smaller railroads which caused them to be consolidated by larger companies

• Those who worked on the railroads needed protection. Farmers also needed economic protection as transpiration rates increased.

• Carnegie’s strategy was superior as it did not create a monopoly

• Capitalism was a major aspect of the American identity in the Gilded Age. Steel and railroads were privately owned and profited immensely. The lower class was seen as disposable and had a very poor quality of life. Throughout tother previous periods in Americans history however, capitalism did not play such a large role as companies the size of Standard Oil did not exist.

• Social Darwinism was used as an excuse to be racist and to not aid those who need it.

• Philanthropy is when someone with alot of money donated large sums to charities or other institutions that benefit the greater good.

• Rockefeller had a great deal of power through his Oil empire. He had alot of political power as well and can basically do whatever he wants. The intended audience is the working man who dislikes how Rockefeller can exploit them and face no consequences. This is also likely from the same point of view. The purpose is to say that Rockefeller has too much power and congress in his pocket. He is not being held accountable for his actions because he has so much money.

6.7, Labor in the Gilded Age

• new wealth in the 19th century

• 1865-1989 known as gilded age

• captains of industry

Challenges of Wage Earners

• hard on workers

• Wages

• by 1900 2/3 of all americans worked for wages

• usually labored 10 hours a day 6 days a week

• wages determined by demand

• wages were barely above basic substance

• David Ricardo (1772–1823)

  • “iron law of wages” argued that rising wages would only increase the working population

  • availability of more workers would in turn cause wages to fall

  • creating a cycle of poverty and misery and starvation

• real wages rose steadily in the 19th cen

• still most wage earners could not support a family on one income

• depended on the income of women and children

• by 1870 12 percent of children were employed

• by 1900 20 percent

• 1890 11 million of the 12.5 million farm families averaged less than 380 s a year

• Labor Discontent

• factory work was impersonal and unskilled

• worked under the tyranny of the clock

• rebelled by missing work or quiting

• 20% eventually dropped out of the industry

The Struggles of Organized Labor

• 19 cen were the most deadly and frequent labor conflicts in nations history

• Industrial Warfare

• tactics used to defeat unions:

• Lockout: the act of closing a factory to break a labor movement before it could get organized

• Blacklist: a roster of the names of pro-union workers that employers circulated so that these people could not find work

• Yellow-dog contract: a contract that included as a condition of employment that workers could not join a union

• Private guards and state militia: forces used by employers to put down strikes

• Court injunction: judicial action used by an employer to prevent or end a strike

• made fear of unions

• before 1900 managment won most battles

• Tactics by Labor

• workers were divided on best way to defend themselves

• some unions

• some strikes, boycotts etc

• collective bargaining→ the ability to negotiate as a group with an employer over wages and working conditions

• The Great Strike of 1877

• worst violence in 1877

• economic depression

• railroads cut wages to reduce cots

• strike on Baltimore and Ohio Railroads quickly spread across 11 states

• joined by 5,000 workers from other industries

• national scale

• pres Rutherford B Hayes used federal troops to end it

• 100 people killed

• some companies increased wages and working conditions

• some got harsher

Attempts to Organize National Unions

• craft unions before 1860 focused on one type of work

• National Labor Union

• National Labor Union (Founded 1866):

  • First attempt to organize all workers across the U.S.

  • 640,000 members by 1868

  • Higher wage

  • Eight-hour workday

  • Equal rights for women and African Americans

  • Monetary reform

• won eight hour work day for federal government workers

• lost support after the 1873 depression and unsuccessful strikes in 1877

• Knights of Labor

• second national labor union

• began in 1869 as a secret

• leader Terence V Powderly

• went public in 1881

• open to african americans and women

• reforms include:

  • workers cooperatives

  • no child labor

  • no trusts or monopolies

  • setting labor disputes by arbitration

  • loosely organized so could not control strikes

• grew rapidly

• peaked at 730,000 members in 1886

• reclines rapidly after violence of Haymarket riot in Chicago that turned public opinion against the union

• Haymarket Bombing

• first May Day labor movement

• Chicago had 200 anarchists who wanted to violently overthrow the govt

• a general strike as called

• May 4 a workers held a public meeting in Haymarket Square

• police tried to break it up

• someone threw a bomb and killed several cops

• bomb thrower was never found

• eight anarchist leaders were tried

• 7 sentenced to death

• many concluded that unions were radical and dangerous

• American Federation of Labor

• bread and butter unionism

• narrower economic goals

• founded in 1886 as a combination of 25 craft unions

• lead by Samuel Gompers

• walk out until working conditions improved

• by 1901 largest labor union 1 million members

• no major success until 20 cen

• Strikes and Strikebreaking in the 1890s

• growing discontent for labor and continued power of management

• Homestead Act

• Hnrey Clay Frick manager of Carnegie steel precipited a strike in 1892 by cutting wages nearly 20 percent

• used lock out, priviate gates, and strike breakers to defeat them

• set the movement back until 1930s

• Pullam Strike

• Workers in Pullman’s company town near Chicago went on strike after he cut wages and fired worker reps

• They asked the American Railroad Union (ARU) for help

• Eugene V. Debs, the ARU leader, told railroad workers to boycott Pullman cars, causing major disruptions across the country

• Railroad companies linked Pullman cars to mail trains and got President Grover Cleveland involved

• Cleveland sent in the army to keep the mail trains running

• federal court ordered the workers to stop the strike, and Debs and others were arrested for not following the court order

• caused the strike to end he strike ended

• The Supreme Court’s decision in In re Debs (1895) gave employers a powerful legal tool (court injunctions) to stop strikes

• Afte jail, Debs became interested in socialism and thought more radical solutions were needed

• helped start the American Socialist Party in 1900

• Conditions in 1900

• in 1900 only 3% of workers were in unions

• beginning to demand the need for better

• industrial growth centered around nartheast and midwest

  • largest pop

  • best transportation

• most capital

  Analysis Questions

• similar as they were more mass produced but different as the second industrial rev required less skill and more momentous work

• They were more different than alike

• In 1910 there was the biggest jump

• Steel had the biggest influence as it provided a blueprint for how to set up at large scale company

• Adam Smith would say they do not

• He would say yes bc there needs to be safety and labor regulations

• He would say yes for the same reasons

• The govt needed to step in and negotiate a fair contract between asgers and business owners

• unfettered business as then questionable people gain significant power and could abuse it

• The common man was now forced into the factories were it was very hard dangerous work for very low pay

• The problems of constant strikes and a gigantic wealth gap. Gov was left to question of more regulation was needed on oth the sides of the wagers and the sides of the owners

Topic 6.8, Immigration and Migration in the Gilded Age

• in a few years Chicago grew from a town of 4,000 to the country’s second largest

• a city of immigrants

• ¾ of pop were with foreign born of children of the foreign born

Growth of Immigration

• in last ½ of 19th cen US pop more than tripped from 23.2 million to 76.2 million

• Push and Pull factors

• Pushes- bad things people are fleeing

• Pulls- good things people are going to

• pushes from europe

  • poverty of displaced farmworkers driven from the land by political turmoil and the mechanization of farm work

  • overcrowding and joblessness from population growth

  • religious procession specially against Jews in eastern Europe

• Pulls

  • political and religious freedom

  • economic opportunities in the west and abundance of factory jobs

  • inexpensive one way passage from Europe via steamboat

• “Old” Immigrants from Europe

• throughout the 1800’s most immigrants came from northern and western Europe

  • British Isles

  • germany

  • Scandinavia

• most were protestant

• english speaking

• high level of literacy and occupational skills made it easy for them to get jobs and assimilate into society

• Irish and German Roman Catholics faced significant discrimination

• “New” Immigrants from Europe

• 1890 to outbreak of WW1 in 1914 source of immigration changed

• eastern europe

• Italians, greeks, croats, slovaks, poles and russians

• poor and illiterate peasants who left autocratic countries and did not get democratic traditions

• ROman catholic, Greek orthodox, Russian orthodox or Jewish

• por ethnic neighborhoods in NY, Chicago or other major cities

• 25% were birds of passage- young men contracted for unskilled factory, mining or construction who would return after their had a fair sum of money for their families

• Immigration from Asia

• first large migration came after gold was discovered in Cali in 1848

• Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 ended immigration of people from China

• Japanese, Korean and Filipinos settled in Hawaii and Cali and other states

• Anti asian in congress passed restriction in 1917 and 1924 that almost completely stopped immigration from the entire continent

• Only Filipinos could bc US took possession of the Philippines

Immigration and Growth of Cities

• urbanization and industrialization developed together

• shift from rural to urban became stronger as decades passed

• in 1920 more Americans lived in urban areas than rural

• in late 19th cen millions of young americans from rural areas seeked economic opportunities in cities

• few returned

• african americans from the south joined them

• between 1897 and 1930 one million black southerners resettled in the north and west

• Patterns of Urban Development

• cities in late 19th cen had internal structure and design change

• transportation separated workers by social class

• streetcar suburbs (communities the grew along transit routes leading to an urban center) to escape the pollution, poverty, and crime of the city

• higher income immigrants left older sections of the city to the working mostly immigrant poor

• reflected and contributed to the class, race, ethnic and cultural divisions in american society

• Ethnic Neighborhoods

• to increased profits landlords divided inner city housing into small windowless rooms

• slums and tenement apartments could cram more than 4,000 people on one block

• NYC passed a law in 1870 that required each bedroom to have a window

• built dumbbell tenements buildings with open ventilation shafts in the center to provide windows for each room

• overcrowding promoted the spread of cholera, typhoid and tuberculosis

• immigrant groups created distinct ethnic neighborhoods where each group could maintain its own language and religion

• their own newspapers and schools

• crowded, unhealthy and crime ridden served as springboards immigrants and their children to achieve their “american dream”

• the growth of immigrants after 1865 renewed populist protests to keep down the number of immigrants especially the ones who differed by ethnicity languages and religions

Analysis Questions

• While both waves of immigration were people from Europe looking for opportunities, before the civil war they were mostly from western europe and spoke english while after the war they were mostly from eastern and southern Europe and did not speak English.

• An emigrant is a person who leaves a country while an immigrant is a person who settles in a new country.

• A bird of passage is someone who came to the US for a specific amount of time to make money then goes back to their home country with the money. An immigrant stays in the new country.

• Nativism was fueled by more cultural than economic forces as it was driven by white native born americans and even though they claimed they feared for their economic opportunities they more so did not want the national culture to be influenced.

• More opportunities caused migration from rural to urban areas. As well as the detrimental effect that the new captains of industry companies had on small farmers.

• Internal migration had more in common with foreign migration as they were both leaving an opportunity baron society in hopes of more economic opportunities. While westward migration they could have existed in their old places but they wanted to explore.

• Americanization helped to form a national identity and melt all of the cultures present in the US at the time together.

6.9, Responses to Immigration in the Gilded Age

• 1886 congress passed a number of new laws restricting immigration

Opposition to Immigration

• several groups from 1865 to 1898 restricted immigration

  • Labor union members who were motivated by economic concerns as immigrants were used as strikebreakers and to depress wages

  • employers who feared that immigrants would fight for radical reforms

  • business owners who often blamed strikes and labor movements on them

  • Nativists who felt alarmed that immigrants would take their jobs and weaken their culture Protestants who were openly prejudice against ROman Catholics

  • Largest anti catholic organization was the American protective Association n the 1890s

  • social darwinists who believed all non-europeans were inferior than english and germanic descent

Restriction on Chinese and other immigrants

• first major laws limiting immigration were aimed at chinese

• hostility came towards western states

• California passed a Miner Tax of 20 dollars a month on all foreign born miners

• 1882 Chinese exclusion act not fully lifted until 1965

• contract labor law of 1885 restricted temporary workers in an effort to protect american workers from competion

• literacy test was at first veoted by pres. cleavland but eventually passed in 1917

• Ellis Island immigration center had to pass medical examinations and pay a tax before entering

• severe depression in 1890s increased natvism

• impact of restrictions

• did not stop the flow of incomers

• between 1860-1920 foreign born population numbers stayed between 13 and 15 percent

• statue of libery remined a beacon of hope for the poor and oppressed of south and eastern europe until the Quota Acts of 1920s almost closed it

• Boss and Machine Politics

• political machines- tightly organized groups of politicians

• each had a “boss’ who was the top political who gave orders

• Tammy Hall in NYC started as a social club and later developed into a power centers to coordinate the needs of businesses immigrants and the under privekked

• would find jobs and apartments for immigrants could also be greedy

• sole from tax payers

• 1860s 65% of public buildings fund

Boss and Machine Politics

• Polticial machines each had a boss

• most famous Tammy Hall

• sometimes helped immigrants sometimes embezzled

• by 1860s 65% of public funds went to Tammy hall

Settlement houses

• concerned about immigrants white upper middle class men and women moved inot ethnic neighborhoods

• lived in settlement houses

• taught English, early childhood education, industrial arts neighbored threate’s and music schools

• Hull House stated by Jane Addams

• by 1910 more than 400

• children took advantage of these opportunities

Analysis Questions

• Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion acts and more bills specifically limiting migration from Asia but no other places.

• Other immigrants to show how they will let everyone but asian people in

• An asian immigrant who sees asian immigration getting restricted but nothing else.

• To show the prejudge towards asian immigrants

• Political machines are immoral as even though they sometimes helped people like finding immigrants housing they also embezzled in the process. By the 1860s 65% of public funds went to Tammy Hall.