“waving the bloody shirt”: A reference to a common phrase used to describe an electoral campaign strategy. Ulysses Grant used this to get elected to presidency a short period after the Civil War. Since Grant was a general during the Civil War, the good reputation he earned spread through the country and appealed to a lot of northerners and ex-slaves who could now vote.

Tweed Ring: One of the most major scandals in the Gilded Age, located in New York City. It was headed by a burly man named Tweed, and the organization managed to extort $200 million from the city. Briery and fraudulent elections were also common. Eventually, the NY Times found concrete evidence against Tweed and published it, denying a $5 million bribe in the process. However, not much attention was drawn to the scandal until political cartoons depicting the event were illustrated by cartoonist Thomas Nast. NY attorney Samuel Tilden prosecuted Twee in court, locking Tweed in jail where he died.

Credit Mobilier Scandal: Another major scandal in the Gilded Age, when the transcontinental railroad was being built in America and was headed by two government subsidized companies: Union Pacific and Central Pacific. Unfortunately, some insiders from Union Pacific got greedy and created the company “Credit Mobilier”. Credit Mobilier then hired Union Pacific at high prices, causing high dividends for Union Pacific stockholders. Stocks were used as bribes among congressmen. When an investigation occurred, two congressmen and the vice president (to Grant) were directly implicated.

panic of 1873: This panic caused more than fifteen thousand Americans to go bankrupt, and caused the big soft-money vs hard-money currency debate during the Gilded Age. Debtors and black Americans were most affected. Debtors wanted money from the Civil War to be put back in circulation to increase inflation, also known as the soft-money principle. Creditors wanted to increase the money’s value via deflation, known as the hard-money principle. President Grant wasn’t much help during this period because he didn’t have political or economic experience, but he vetoed a bill to print more money, ultimately siding with hard-money. Congress passed a moderately-conservative Resumption Act of 1875 where the government would continue to withdraw greenbacks and would allow greenbacks to be redeemed in gold at face value. The Treasury followed contractionary measures, restoring government credit but worsening the panic.

Gilded Age: This term was coined by writer Mark Twain, referring to the three decade long period after the Civil War (1869-1896). Gilded means to be covered in gold; Mark Twain chose the word to make a comment on society: that although it looked pretty, there was much turmoil underneath.

patronage: A common indicator of some corruption in government, where jobs are distributed based on political support, not on experience.

Compromise of 1877: Where Rutherford Hayes of the Republican party was allowed to assume office after disputed votes in exchange for the end of military reconstruction in the South. Three states had disputed votes in the Hayes-Tilden election and the race was extremely close. The election deadlock was broken by an electoral commission with members from Congress and the Supreme Court. Democrats also wanted federal aid to be used to build the Southern railroad, but this promise wasn’t fulfilled. The Compromise of 1877 was finalized 3 days before the inauguration.

Civil Rights Act of 1875: This was the “end” to reconstruction, as it demonstrated that Republicans were slowly loosing interest in racial equality. It was the last major Reconstruction act which attempted to guarantee equal accommodation and tried to prohibit discrimination in jury selection. It was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, where the 14th amendment only protected against government violations of civil rights-not against individual violations.

sharecropping: A system where ex-slaves and poor whites stayed reliant on old Southern slaveholders. Storekeepers gave credit to those who needed food and supplies in exchange for part of the harvest. Contracts would be manipulated so the debtor would stay for longer and continuously be in a cycle of debt. It could be seen as a close second to slavery and dependence on the Southern elite.

Jim Crow (laws): Sets of state-level laws which systematically placed legal codes of segregation. This also included attempts to stop the black vote via hard literacy requirements, voter registration laws, and poll taxes.

Plessy v. Ferguson: The court case which declared “separate but equal”. It encourage segregation in the South by claiming segregational laws were constitutional under the 14th amendment. However, the facilities were not “separate but equal”: black facilities were noticeably worse than the white counterparts. They often received a worse education and way of life.

Chinese Exclusion Act: The first law to restrict immigration based on nationality. The labor force especially hated the Chinese, who when the gold craze ended, took up unwanted jobs and faced many social hardships. The Chinese Exclusion Act banned most immigration (labor/contract based) from China from 1882 to 1943. Some wanted to strip Chinese Americans born on US soil of their citizenship, but the Supreme Court ruled against it in the court case US v Wong Kim Ark.

Pendleton Act: The act that distributed presidentially classified jobs based on ability, not political support by a Civil Service Commission. Andrew Garfield, president at the time, was assassinated due to opposing patronage (the person who killed him supported patronage.) After this, the Pendleton Act came into place even though the Vice President once showed signs of supporting patronage. By 1884, 10% of federal jobs were classified.

Homestead Strike: Where steelworkers were angry over pay cuts and possessed rifles and dynamite. 60 were injured and 10 were killed. Federal troops eventually forced the strike to end.

grandfather clause: Local codes that stated anyone who’s ancestors voted before 1860 were exempt from (voting) literacy tests and poll taxes. Black slaves could not vote before 1870, and had to face the extremely difficult literacy test and expensive poll tax, making the clause biased. It was an attempt to suppress the African American vote.

Jay Gould: Worked with “Jubilee Jim” Fisk to corner the gold market in 1869. Their plan would only work if the Treasury did not sell gold, and relied on Grant and his brother-in-law. Gould bid high prices on gold so they could profit from the inflated value. The scheme failed when the Treasury sold gold on Black Friday and the price dropped dramatically.

Horace Greeley: Editor of the New York Tribune, nominated by both the Liberal Republican Party and the Democrat Party. He lost to Grant by a large margin.

Rutherford B. Hayes: Republican Governor of the swing-state Ohio and elected president in 1876 by the Compromise of 1877. His election ended the era of Reconstruction.

James A. Garfield: Republican president elected in 1887 but was assassinated due to his position as a ‘half breed’ - someone who supported civil service reform. His killer was a Stalwart, someone in favor of patronage, and it was intended that the Stalwart vice president take power instead of garfield. This disgusted the general public and brought about civil service reform.

Chester Arthur: Stalwart vice president assuming Garfield’s power who surprised everyone with his steps to civil reform. He didn’t offer patronage and instead prosecuted those involved in fraud.

Grover Cleveland: Democratic nominee for the 1884 presidential election and the first Democratic president since Buchanan. He believed in a laissez-faire government but played a role in the economy when necessary. He dealt with fraudulent military pension. He also tried to lower the tariff, but failed; because of this, public reaction was mostly negative.

Thomas B. Reed: Republican Speaker of the House who was dominant and forced Congress to take action. Normally, Democrats would not verbally speak during attendance, technically stopping all proceedings. To combat this, Reed would physically take attendance; he spurred movement and was able to pull together multiple expensive projects supporting the “Billion Dollar Congress”.

Tom Watson: Populist leader from Georgia who initially promoted interracial affairs in politics but then turned racist and advocated for black disfranchisement.

William Jennings Bryan: Young Democratic congressman advocating for “free silver” to cause inflation. He gained some support but Cleveland used his executive power to break the debate against free silver.

J.P. Morgan: The “banker’s banker” and the head of the Wall Street syndicate. Morgan and other bankers agreed to lend the government gold worth $65 million, and charged interest of $7 million. This helped restore confidence in the Treasury and the value of the dollar, but the secrecy of the deal turned public opinion negative.