APUSH Period 6 Notes

The West | Westward Expansion: Economic, Social, & Cultural Development | Topics 6.2 & 6.3

Native Chiefs

Sitting Bull: Sioux medicine man, chief, and political leader of his tribe at the time of the Custer massacre during the Sioux War.

Geronimo: Apache chief who raided white settlers in the Southeast as resistance to being confined to a reservation

Chief Joseph Nez Perce: Leader of Nez Perce, fled with his tribe to Canada instead of reservations, but US troops came and forced them back into their reservations.

Conflicts Between Natives and the U.S.

• After the Civil War, Plains Indians surrendered land when government “promised” they would be left alone and provided with supplies

• A Century of Dishonor (1881) - Helen Hunt Jackson recounts abuse, broken promises by the government, and forced removals and massacres.

• Dawes Severalty Act (1887) designed to promote assimilation: dissolved tribes as legal entities & eliminated tribal ownership of land, promoted ideas of “rugged individualism” by granting individual heads of family 160 acres of land to farm (abandoning nomadic lifestyle) & promised Indians U.S. citizenship… in 25 years. Humanitarians disrespected native culture: “kill the Indian; save the man”

Battles on the Plains

• Cruelties on both sides: “battle” = a white victory but “massacre” = native victory

  • Custer’s Last Stand - (Battle of Little Bighorn) Custer’s 400 soldiers decimated by Crazy Horse & Sitting Bull’s 2500 warriors

  • Battle of Wounded Knee to stamp out the Ghost Dance adopted by the Dakota Sioux

  • Buffalo Soldiers (1/3 of frontier troops were Black)

• Plains Indians forced to surrender due to near extermination of the buffalo & railroad allowing easy transport of troops & settlers

Unrest in the West

• Grange Movement - initial goal was to enhance farmers’ isolated lives by organizing social activities. Shifted goals to improvement of the farmers’ collective plight.

• Farmer’s Alliance

  • GOAL: break up the strangling grip of the railroads & manufacturers through cooperative buying & selling

  • Opposed monopolies & supported relief for debtors (prelude to Populism)

  • Weakened itself by ignoring the plight of landless tenant farmers, sharecroppers, farmworkers, & excluding Black people

The Populists

• 1892 - Populists won congressional seats & over 1 million votes for presidential candidate, James B. Weaver. Racial divisions limited success in the South, but electoral success in the West.

• SUPPORTERS: frustrated farmers fed up with Wall Street (debts) & industrialists (monopolies) who seemed to control the government.

• Called for nationalizing railroads, telephones, and the telegraph; a graduated income tax; free and unlimited coinage of silver (to answer debtors’ demands for inflationary policies)

• OPPONENTS: Republicans, industrialists, “Gold bugs”

The Mining Industry

Context - Development of the west due to the building of railroads, discovery of mineral resources & government policies (Homestead Act)

• 1858 gold discovered in Colorado too —> “Pike’s Peak or Bust”

• 1859 - Comstock Lode in NV led to boom & a quick path to statehood (& 3 votes for Lincoln).

• Boomtowns, known as “Helldorados,” sprouted from the desert sands —> lawlessness —> often turned into ghost towns

Effects: wealth helped finance the Civil War & build railroads. The silver and gold enabled the Treasury to resume specie payments (metal coinage vs. paper) and injected the divisive silver issue into American politics.

The Meat Industry

• Ranching - problems getting meat to Eastern markets before the Transcontinental Railroad —> then shipped to meat packers in Chicago & Kansas City

  • Long Drives: cattle drives across the open Plains from Texas to railroad depots in Kansas —> cowboys threatened by harsh weather (no grass to graze) and encroachment of homesteaders who fenced in their plots.

    • 1866 -1888 over 4 million steers driven north by these White, Black, & Mexican cowboys.

Agriculture

• Homestead Act (1862) - up to 160 acres of land for $30 for living on it for five years & “improving” it

  • Before: public land was sold primarily for revenue

  • Now: it was given away to encourage a rapid filling of empty spaces and to provide a stimulus to the family farm—”the backbone of democracy”

• People mistakenly thought the Plains were barren

  • “sodbusters” use heavy iron plows & barbed wire

  • By 1890, mechanization led to bonanza farms (large farms of over 15,000 acres) that drove smaller farmers out of business

• 1889 Oklahoma opened for settlement: “sooners & boomers” —> 60,000 inhabitants by the end of the year

• Federally financed irrigation projects helped develop agriculture

The “New South” | Topic 6.4

Key Concept: Despite the industrialization of some segments of the Southern economy- a change promoted by Southern leaders who called for a “New South”- agriculture based on sharecropping and tenant farming continued to be the primary economic activity in the South.

Results of the “New South”

• “New South” vision for capitalism industrialized society.

• Promoted by Henry Grady

  • Elements of white supremacy remain

• Success in some cities leading industries, ex. Richmond, Virginia (tobacco) or Memphis, Tennessee (lumber)

• Largely financed by the North, profits leave region, no expansion in education

  • Dependency on cotton, sharecropping, and tenant farming

Plessy v. Ferguson

• Homer Plessy and the “Committee of Citizens” challenge law segregating railway cars in New Orleans

• Plessy was 1//8th Black, deliberately sits in the white car to challenge law

• Supreme Court holds that the separate accommodations do not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Ammendment

  • Justice John Marshall Harlan, lone dissenter

  • Justice John Howard Ferguson ruled against Plessy

  • Creates “Separate but Equal” Doctrine

Jim Crow Laws

• In place from after the Civil War until the 1960s Civil Rights Movement

• Why were they called that?

  • From a minstrel show character called Jim Crow that made fun of African Americans

Fight for Equality

• Civil Rights Cases, 1883- weakening of the 14th and 15th Amendments

• Frederick Douglass active through the end of the century

  • Known for publishing “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”

• Ida B. Wells study on lynching, aggregates statistics

  • Lynching: the killing of a person by a mob; used as a tool of racial terror to intimidate & control Black communities

• W.E.B DuBois, graduate of Harvard, calls for action on equality

  • Niagara Movement

• Booker T Washington takes more pragmatic approach

  • “Atlanta Compromise” —> Washington praised the South for some of the opportunities it had given Black people since emancipation, and asked Whites to trust Blacks and provide them with opportunities so that both races could advance in industry and agriculture.

The Rise of Industrial Capitalism and Labor in the Gilded Age | Topics 6.6 & 6.7

The Gospel of Wealth

KEY TAKEAWAY:

• The Gospel of Wealth was patronizing in that the wealthy looked down on the lower classes and deemed them unfit to determine for themselves what kind of aid they needed.

Worker Unrest & Government Response

• Panic of 1873 - after collapse of major railroad co. —> Grant unable to stop downturn & unemployment reached 14%

• Great Railroad Strike of 1877 - protesting low wages & gained sympathy from other citizens —> Hayes sent federal troops to end the strike

• 1877 Railroad Strikes over wage cuts quelled by federal troops —> over 100 deaths

• 1886 Haymarket Square - labor demonstration turned violent as a bomb was thrown, killing 12 including police —> Radical anarchists blamed

• 1892 Homestead Steel Strike - battle with Pinkerton guards & ultimately federal troops who crushed the strike

  • Carnegie increased hours and decreased wages

• 1894 Pullman Strike - Eugene Debs led over 125,000 workers to strike - disrupts railroad industry

  • Strike ended by federal injunction & used Sherman Antitrust Act as rationale to end strike

Advocating for the Workers

• 1892 Populist Party established - demanded inflationary coinage, graduated income tax, government ownership of infrastructure, immigration restrictions, one term presidency, etc.

• National Labor Union - excluded Chinese, women, & blacks

• Knights of Labor - the “one big union”: allowed skilled, unskilled, men, women, White, and Black workers

• AFL - led by Samuel Gompers, an association of unions pursuing “bread & butter issues”: higher wages, shorter working hours & better conditions

Tackling the Trusts

CONTEXT: Big business had gone mostly unchecked by the government: industrial giants formed monopolies that drove out competition. Price fixing, pools, and cartels were common.

• The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by Congress to prohibit trusts.

  • Reflected a growing concern by the American public that the growth and expansion of monopolies were detrimental to the free market

  • However, vague wording of the act and its interpretation by a very conservative judiciary made the act ineffective at first—> used against UNIONS first.

The Gilded Age

Mark Twain called the late 19th century the “Gilded Age”. By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath

Connecting America: The Railroad

• By 1864, Vanderbilt transferred millions from steamboats to railroads

• Transcontinental Railroad (1869) - Union Pacific from East & Central Pacific from West

  • Government provided land grants

• “Pittsburgh Plus Pricing” - gave price breaks to northern manufacturers

  • Interstate Commerce Act of 1877 - nominal restrictions but set precedent for gov to protect public interest against private enterprise

• Created an enormous domestic market & made true westward expansion possible but at the cost of nature and natives.

The Men Who Built America

• Vanderbilt: Made his fortune in steam boats then built a railway between Chicago and New York. He popularized the use of steel rails in his railroad and consolidated control using coercion and threats

• Rockefeller: Created Standard Oil which controlled 95% of all of the refineries in the US by 1877. Used “Horizontal Integration”, buying out or controlling a majority of stock in competitors to avoid competition

• Carnegie: Used “Vertical Integration” to control every step of the steel-making process; his goal was to improve efficiency and control the quality of the product at all stages of production by eliminating competition and the middle man. Sold Carnegie Steel to JP Morgan & engaged in philanthropic endeavors (“Gospel of Wealth”)

• JP Morgan: Banker and investor who played a role in the consolidation of a number of industries, including the creation of General Electric & the buyout of Carnegie Steel to create US Steel. He also loaned the US government around $70 million in 1895 when gold was draining from the treasury at a dangerous rate.

“Captains of Industry” or “Robber Barons”?

• Laissez-Faire government policies led to immense wealth for business owners but poor conditions for workers

  • Hands-free economy

• Social Darwinism - “Survival of the Fittest” though more influenced by classical economists than Darwin

  • American Dream - “up by your bootstraps”

• Combinations became common business practices:

  • rebate - rail barons granted secret kickbacks to powerful shippers for steady traffic

  • pool - agreed to divide the business in an area & share profits

  • trust - multiple companies in the same industry consolidate control by placing their shares under a board of directors, essentially creating a monopoly and limiting competition.

Development of the Middle Class and Reform in the Gilded Aged | Topics 6.10 & 6.11

Recap: The South wants to build up their industries in combination with their strong agricultural outputs = “New South”, Robber Barons are making a ton of money in their industries partially by exploiting laborers, labor unions are on the rise, and the Populist Party: demanded inflationary coinage, graduated income tax, government ownership of infrastructure, immigration restrictions, one term presidency, etc.

Pro-Silver and William Jennings Bryan

1. Supporters: owners of silver mines in the West, farmers who believed that an expanded currency would increase the price of their crops, and debtors who hoped it would enable them to pay their debts more easily.

Divergence in interests between Eastern manufacturing/banking and Western farmers

Debates Over Currency and the Tariff

• Industrialists supported high tariffs like McKinley Tariff —> Poor farmers had to buy high-priced manufactured goods but sell goods on competitive, unprotected global market

• Democratic Party favored bimetallism while Republicans supported adherence to the Gold Standard

• Sherman Silver Purchase Act required the Treasury to increase its purchases of silver for gold, which drained the Treasury’s gold (people exchanging silver currency for gold)

• Depression of 1893 —> JP Morgan loaned the government money as gold drained from the treasury

Differences between Democrats and Republicans during the Gilded Age

• Democrats:

  • Lutheran & Catholics

  • More recent immigrants

  • Opposed government efforts to impose a single moral standard on the entire society

  • South and in the northern industrial cities

• Both

  • Agreed on tariff & civil service reform

  • Strong, loyal following who voted on party line (80% voter turnout)

• Republicans

  • Puritans

  • Strict codes of personal morality and believed that government should play a role in regulating both the economic and the moral affairs of society.

  • Midwest and the rural and small-town Northeast

  • Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)—a politically potent fraternal organization of several hundred thousand Union veterans of the Civil War

  • Large manufacturers

City Life

1. At the end of the 19th century, the price of goods decreased & workers’ real wages increased, providing new access to a variety of goods & services

2. Glittering city lights, department stores, telephones, skyscrapers & feats of engineering like the Brooklyn Bridge.

3. Standards of living improved, while the gap between rich and poor grew

• Issues of waste disposal highlight new consumer culture & lack of urban planning

• Urban slums - dumbbell tenements poorly ventilated with a shared toilet housed immigrant masses

Growth of the Middle Class

• Growth of white-collar work, more factories needed more managers

• Women began to fill jobs previously filled by men

  • Feminized fields often lost status and wages, such as teaching or nursing

• Education expanded - public high schools, state schools, women’s colleges, HBCUs

• Middle classes began to migrate to the suburbs

  • Cleaner, more space, lower cost, commuting options

Growth of Leisure Time

• People exposed to the same information, ads drive costs down

• Amusements

  • Traveling circuses (Barnum and Bailey), Variety Shows (Vaudeville and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West)

• Music - Scott Joplin and Ragtime, Jelly Roll Morton and Razz, and Blues music

• Sports

  • Professional Baseball, college football

Alternative Economic Visions

• Artists

  • Trend towards realism and impressionism with everyday subjects

• Agrarians

  • Crushed by debt, seeking loose money in form of greenbacks or coining silver

• Socialists

  • Labor organizer Eugene V. Debs moves further into Socialism, creates the Socialist Party

• Social Gospel

  • Movement that sought to apply Christian principles to social problems

  • Fixing social issues leads to salvation

• Other religious denominations and organizations turned to societal problems

  • The Salvation Army

Gender Structure in the Gilded Age

• Women’s Colleges

  • By 1900 women make up 1/3 of college students

• Reform Movements

  • Settlement House - Jane Addams and Hull House, early Social Work

Controversies over the Role of the Government in the Gilded Age and Politics in the Gilded Age | Topics 6.12 & 6.13

Laissez-Faire Economics

• Industrialists benefited from lack of regulation and minimum wages

  • Argues economic growth and jobs they created outweighed negative effects

• Preferred hard money, backed by gold to maintain their wealth

  • Influenced government to give subsidies and raise tariffs but NOT regulate

Government Intervention Beneficial to Industrialists

• Railroad land grants- used to leverage construction of RRs, speculated on value, construction mired by scandal —> resulting in monopolies fixing prices

  • Credit Mobilier Scandal:

    • Union Pacific RR company executives created a FAKE construction company called Credit Mobilier of America

    • Union Pacific used federal money to pay Credit Mobilier

    • Credit Mobilier billed Union Pacific nearly double the actual construction cost

    • Union Pacific got the money from the federal government to “pay” the cost, which was really only half, so they pocketed the difference and used the excess money to bribe politicians for favorable laws and regulations… money talks

  • Tariffs- protective tariffs (McKinley Tariff 1890 and Dingley Tariff 1897)

  • Coining Silver - “Crime of 1873” —> stopped coining silver, kept inflation down & strengthened industrialists’ position

  • Regulation - slow progress with the Sherman Antitrust Act, creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission, Supreme Court limits regulation in US v. EC Knight Co

Foreign Policy

• Hawaii

  • Business interests in sugar plantation secure exclusive trading rights

  • 1890 McKinley Tariff hurt profits on sugar exports

  • 1893 American settlers and diplomats involved in overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani and monarchy

  • Annexation rejected by President Grover Cleveland

Political Issues of the Gilded Age

• Lingering Divisions

  • Republicans continue to “Wave the Bloody shirt” —> got Grant elected by using his popularity from the Civil War

    • Support from northern states, African Americans, and reformers

  • Democrats continue to hold “Solid South”

    • Democratic Political Machines mobilizing in cities

    • Support from Catholics and Jews

• Tariffs

  • Republicans still wanted high protective tariffs

    • Protected factory owners

    • Prompted retaliatory tariffs

  • Democrats wanted lower tariffs, like the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894

    • Made imports cheaper for consumers

• Currency

  • Panic of 1893, drain on gold convinced workers and farmers the Gold Standard was a problem

  • Split Democratic Party

    • Gold Bugs vs Silverites (who wanted a 16:1 exchange rate to gold)

• Corruption

  • Political Party Machines operated on patronage

  • Reason for high voter turnout —> mobilized immigrants in cities

  • Practice of graft in city government

  • Discontented job seeker Charles Guiteau assassinated President Garfield

    • Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act introduced meritocracy to bureaucracy

Populist Party

• New Populist Party consolidated views of previous Farmers’ Alliance

  • unlimited coinage of silver, graduated income tax, government ownership of railroads and telegraphs, action to stabilize crop prices, 8 hour work day, direct election of senators

• 1892- First Presidential Campaign, James Weaver

  • Wins 5 states, 8.5% of popular vote

• 1896- William Jennings Bryan, Democratic candidate adopts the silver platform

• Bryan loses the election to McKinley

• Aspects of the Populist party platforms will be adopted by Progressives in the 20th century