10: The Other Civil War Flashcards
The anti-renter movement in the Hudson Valley, beginning in earnest in 1839, was a protest against this Dutch-established system by which a few wealthy families controlled almost all of the land
The patroonship system
The Rensselaer family ruled over this many tenants and had accumulated this size fortune
80,000; $41 million
Rebellion leaders and organizers of the anti-renter movement were jailed and executed, among them this popular figure (not exeuted)
Smith Boughton
The legal punishments weighted against agitators did what to the anti-renter movement
Moved it away from violent rebellion and toward moderate political activism
The bills and court decisions of the 1850s and 60s limited the worst features of the Hudson Valley feudal land system, but preserved the essential structure of what relationship?
Landlord-tenant
The Dorr Rebellion was prompted by this Rhode Island charter rule
Only owners of land could vote
Describe Dorr’s rebellion
Thomas Dorr and his followers drafted a new constitution in Rhode Island allowing all whites to vote, not simply land-owners, which had significant support even among landowners. Then Dorr ran an unofficial election for governor and had an inauguration. But, upon a failed attack of the state Arsenal, Dorr fled, and federal support came to crush the rebellion. Upon Dorr’s return he did not have the support to beat the Law & Order coalition and fled again. Martial law was installed. Some concessions were made but you still had to own some real estate and pay a tax to vote. The Law and Order group won the next election. Dorr was arrested and put in jail but later pardoned to end his martyrdom.
What two factors made it necessary to grow a base of support among whites in the 1830s and 40s?
The developing factory system and increased immigration
Epidemics in 1830s and 40s New York were caused by what?
Lack of sewage in poor neighbourhoods
What were two methods of creating stability in reaction to economic booms and busts in the mid-19th century?
Decrease competition/move toward monopoly; having the government aid business interests
True or False: From 1850 to 1857 railroad men got 10 million acres of public land for free from state legislatures
False, they got 25 million acres by bribing with stocks, free railroad passes, etc.
What was the priority of the men running the country in the years leading up to the civil war, money & profit, or slavery?
The former
This term is used for the political movement whicch aimed to create a coalition of middle-class whites and wealthy entrepreneurs
Jacksonian democracy
This early feminist and Utopian socialist, speaking in 1829 to a labour union in Philadelphia, asked if the Revolution had been fought “to crush down the sons and daughters of your country’s industry under. . . neglect, poverty, vice, starvation, and disease. . . .” and wondered whether the new technology was lowering the value of human labour, making people appendages to machines, and crippling the minds and bodies of child laboureres
Frances Wright of Scotland
A city-wide trades’ union in Boston in 1834 referred to the declaration of independece and said that laws which have a tendency to raise any peculiar class above their fellow citizens by granting special priviledges are
Against the primary principles of the DoI
Describe the Baltimore riot in 1835
The Bank of Maryland collapsed. Suspecting fraud, a crowd gathered and began breaking windows of bank officials. Rioters destroyed a house, militia attacked and killed 20 people, wounding 100.
The court referred to labour unions forming in the 30s as “conspiracies to _____ _____ and therefore illegal”
restrain trade
Name the riot which occured in New York in 1837
The Flour Riot
How many people in New York were described by an observer in 1837 as living in”utter and hopeless distress”
200,000 (out of a pop. of 500,000)
A general strike in 1835 Philadelphia successfully fought for what?
A ten-hour work day (caviat that employees could sign a contract to agree to work more)
What was the result of the Kensignton catholic-protestant riots of 1840s?
Fragmentation of Philadelphia working class-transforming class conflict into religious and political conflict
Irish ships fleeing famine to America were crowded with people afflicted by this disease?
Typhoid/Typhus
How many were killed or wounded when a largely Irish mob stormed a fashionable New York Opera House in 1849?
200
What was the name of the organization that led the first independently female strike in US history? (1825)
The United Tailoresses of New York
What threat forced the “Lowell Girls” (a textile dormitory-work situation for women in Lowell, Massachusetts) to end their strike in 1834?
The threat of hiring others to replace them
Following the first Lowell strike, the Factory Girls’ association was formed, and 1,500 struck in 1836 against boardinghouse charges. What was the outcome of this strike?
After a month, the strikers’ money ran out, they were evicted, and many went back to work. The leaders were fired.
In 1835, 20 mills went on strike to reduce the workday from how many hours to how many hours, and won what concessions after 6 weeks?
13.5 to 11; won a 12 hour workday and 9 on Saturdays
The Female Labor Reform association in Lowell got the legislature to hold the first what?
Investigation of labor conditions (it resulted in a pass for the mills and no changes)
The shoemakers of Lynn, Massachusetts started what?
The largest strike in the US before the civil war
The factory workers in Lynn, MASS, wrote “The division of society into the producing and the non-producing classes. . . introduces us to the distinction of capital and labour. . . labour now becomes a _______ . . . Antagonism and opposition of interest is introduced. . . capital and ______ stand opposed” 4 years before the publication of “The Communist Manifesto”
Commodity; labour
“The Revolution at the North” refers to this event (hint: 1860)
A mass strike throughout New England of shoe workers, approximately 20,000 were on strike at one time in 25 towns
What caused the New England shoe workers strikes to die out?
The offering of higher wages to individuals
What does historian Alan Dawley conclude is the reason why rebellious shoemakers never organized into revolutionary political action?
Electoral politics drained the energies of the resisters into the channels of the system
In Europe, the struggle for political democracy was intertwined with that for economic equality, however, America first achieved what independently? (Allowing economic battles to be taken over by political parties that blurred class lines)
Political democracy
What happened to class issues during the civil war?
They became overshadowed by National issues, military and political unity in crisis of war.
True or False: Strikes largely ceased during the Civil War
False, many newspapers continued to report numerous strikes
By 1864, 200,000 people belonged to one of these
A trade Union
This group of people were not enthusiastic about a war (the Civil War) which they saw as being fought for the black slave or the wealthy capitalist
White workers in the North
What did the Conscription Act of 1863 do for the rich?
Allowed them to avoid military service by paying $300 or buying a substitute
What happened in New York when recruitment for the Union army began in 1863? (bonus: the number of this was the greatest in American history)
A mob wrecked the main recruitment station and started rioting through the city, destroying buildings and wealthy homes and murdering blacks. On the 4th day Union troops stopped the rioting. An estimated 400 were killed in all. (bonus: lives lost in a domestic violence incident)
The Federal Census of 1850 showed that this many Southern families received $50 million a year, while this many families, representing all others, received $60 million/year
660,000
How many soldiers had deserted the Union army by the end of the war?
200,000
The Morrill Tariff of 1861 did what?
Foreign goods more expensive, American manufacturers could raise their prices (forced American consumers to pay more)
How many acres of land were given by the government to railroads free of charge?
100 million
This was set up during the civil war and put the government into partnership with the banking interests, guaranteeing their profits
A National Bank
With strikes spreading, Congress passed the Contract Labor Law of 1864, which did this
Made it possible for companies to sign contracts with foreign workers as long as there workers pledged give 12 months of labor for the cost of emigration
According to Zinn, in the 30 years leading up to the Civil War, law was increasingly interpreted in the courts to suit what?
The capitalist development of the country
In the early 19th century, the courts ruled that if a worker signed a contract of 1 year and left before it was up, they were not entitled to any what?
Wages
When a Pemberton Mill collapsed in 1860 and 88 people died, the jury found what despite evidence that the structure had never been adequate to support the heavy machinery inside?
No criminal intent
A movement for an 8 hour workday began after the war with the help of this first national federation of unions in the US
The National Labour Union
A three-month strike of 100,000 workers in New York won what in 1872?
8-hour workday
Did black workers primarily join the National Labour Union?
No, finding it reluctant to organize them, they set up their own unions and carried on their own strikes
What did the National Labor Union resolve to do at their 1869 convention?
To organize women and Negroes
What happened to the National Labor Union as time went on?
It became more focused on political lobbying (see: Greenbacks) than on labor organizing)
What began the economic crisis of 1873?
The closing of the banking house of Jay Cooke
This ship filled with desperate labourers in 1878, left the US for South America and sank with all aboard
The SS Metropolis
Meetings of unemployed councils in the late 1870s asked for support from
Municipal governments
These Irish Pennsylvanian men were supposedly framed as committing acts of violence for being labor organizers (19 were executed)
The Molly Maguires
Companies imported these during the 1870s to break strikes
Immigrant workers
The Workingmen’s party of Illinoise declared what at a July 4th centennial celebration organized by German socialists in Chicago?
Their own independence from the ruling capitalists
The railroad strikes of 1877 began with what?
Wage cuts, and deaths and injuries
Who offered to pay army officers to assist West Virginia in stopping the strike at B & O railroad?
J.P. Morgan, August Belmont, and other bankers
What happened at the armory of the National Guard in Baltimore during the B & O strike?
A battle between a crowd of thousands of sympathizers and the NG, resulting in 10 men or boys dead, more wounded, one soldier wounded. Half of the 120 soldiers quit and the other half went to the train depot where a crowd of two hundred smashed a train and began another battle
How many were gathered at he Train Depot in Baltimore when Federal troops finally came and quieted the rebellion?
15,000
How many Pittsburgh workingmen were initially killed by Philadelphia troops during railroad strikes, instigating more unrest (the burning of 79 buildings and killing of 24 people, 4 soldiers)?
10
Which city came closest to a General Strike demanding Nationalization of the railroads during the railroad strikes of 1877? (bonus: which political faction had undisputed leadership?)
St. Louis (bonus: socialists)
What did the police do to the Workingmen’s Party headquarters in St. Louis?
Raided it and arrested 70 people
What was the outcome of the 1877 railroad strikes?
Some concessions were made, some wage cuts withdrawn, but the “Coal and Iron Police” as well as the National Guard were strengthened.
