2 - The Guilded Age ('77-'90) -- Completed Flashcards
Guilded Age - Westward Expansion Legislation/Events
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The Dawes Act ‘87 - authorised federal government to break up tribal lands and reservations,
Only NAs who accepted this were allowed to become US citizens- aimed to assimilate NAs into mainstream US society
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The Turner Essay - the fronteer was closed, but essential to development of self-reliance culture in US
- big influence on US culture, but also critisized for ignoring factors e.g. NAs, immigrants, promoted provincialism
Guilded Age - Industrial & Other Legislation/Events
- Interstate Commerce Act ‘87 - enables Congress to regulate railroads and freight rates (cost of transporting goods)
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Railroad strike of ‘77 - owners of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad announced a pay cut
- Largest industrial disturbance to date
- Worst in Pittsburgh: 5k workers fought 650 federal troops, $10 million worth of property damage
- 25 killed
- Military force restores order
- Haymarket Bomb
___ - Immigration
- Jim Crow laws in South
Guilded Age - Presidents
1T - Hayes, ‘77-‘80
0T - Garfield, ‘81
1T - Arthur, ‘81-‘84
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T1(/2) - Cleveland, ‘85-‘89
T1 - Harrison, ‘89-‘93
Hayes strengths & weaknesses
Strengths
* Won support of big business during railway strike
* Attempted Civil Service reform which paved the way for later legislation
___
Weaknesses
* Lacked the support of Congress
* Faced strong opposition from the ‘Stalwarts’ (a faction of Republican Party led by Senator Conkling)
* Achieved very little
* Hayes Coompromise ‘77
Garfield strengths & weaknesses
Strengths:
* Usurped Conkling, victory for Civil Service reform
* Post Office reform
* Decent progress for a short time in office
Weaknesses:
* Failed to make large scale change
* Presidency cut short by assassination in ‘81
Arthur strengths & weaknesses
Strengths:
* Made first legislative Civil Service reform
Weaknesses:
* Made little change to tariffs
* Passed two anti-immigration laws
Cleveland strengths & weaknesses
Strengths:
- Began to enact Civil Service reform
- Beat corrupt Republican candidate Blaine in ‘84 election
Weaknesses:
* believed Congress should have less power
* abused power of veto; vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for CW veterans
* did not cooperate with Congress; Democrat Pres. & Republican Senate
Guilded Age - Key Aspects of the North
- fears of socialist revolution
- Haymarket bomb
- Railway strike ‘77
- class divisions
- no trade union movement
- big buisness always had support of Gov. during strikes
- ‘60s to ‘80s saw 10M more Immigrants
- ‘districts’ of immigrants
- ‘Nativism’ - protection of ‘traditional’ US values from Immigrants
- ‘Yellow Peril’ - discrimination against Immigrants from China & Japan; non-english speaking, hard working labourers
- Urbinisation
- cramped poor conditions in cities
Guilded Age - Key Aspects of the South
- Little land redistribution
- struggling Cotton market - Britain made other arrangements for cotton during the Civil War, USA’s market share in ‘67 smaller than ‘57, Lack of cash in the economy
- Black education - Government education fell through very quickly when money ran out, Prevented black leadership in business or politics
- Industrialisation - Encouraged by the growth of railroads, Focused on cotton industry (I.e textile factories in the South)
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Black rights -
- ‘73 Slaughter House cases (14th Amendment did not prevent states setting their own citizens rights rules)
- ‘75 US vs Cruikshank (State could not set own rules but did not have to prevent infringements of rights by others)
- ‘83 the Supreme Court struck down the ‘75 Civil Rights Act
- Jim Crow laws
- Rise of racial violence and populism; ‘82-‘99, 2,500 people lynched
Guilded Age - Industrialisation: 4 main ‘Robber Barrons’
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Vanderbilt (railroads)
- Used profit from Steamboat operations to take over rail companies in the East
- Established a standard track gauge, one of the first to replace iron rails with steel
- Handled strikes brutally
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Carnegie (steel)
- Self-made millionaire immigrant
- Sold iron during Civil War, invented the Bessemer converter for better & faster steel production
- Monopolised through Vertical Integration
- Socialist & Philanthrapist, but exploited workers and ruthless to rivals
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J.P. Morgan (finance)
- Inherited $12M
- Major force behind creation of large companies (eg US steel corporation), ‘71, began his own private banking company
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Rockefeller (oil)
- Set up Standard Oil company in ‘70
- In ‘80s owned 85% of all US oil production
- World’s 1st Billionaire, donated to medicine, AA education, Baptist church
Guilded Age - Causes of Industrial status quo
- Robber Barons
- Railroads
- Westward Expansion
Guilded Age - Effects of Industrialisation
Guilded Age - Causes of Westward Expansion
- Transcontinental lines: 4 transcontinental railroads built ‘83-‘93
- Federal funding - 70M hectares of land grants
- State funding - $200M, 19M hectares of land grants
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- New agriculture inventions
- Dry farming methods
- Reapers, threshing machines, binders, combined harvesters, barbed wire, deep-drilled well and steel windmills
Guilded Age - Effects of Westward Expansion
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Railroad Expansion:
- More people in, more raw goods out
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Stimulated the growth of iron, steel, lumber and other industries, creating many jobs
___
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Agricultural Expansion:
- Wheat production: tripled (211M-599M) (‘67-‘90)
- Wheat exports: 6M-102M bushels/year (‘67-1900)
- Time to produce 15 bushels of wheat: 35-15 labour hours (‘40-1900)
- Cattle & ranching boom, leads to profits and many land disputes involving vigilante systems
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Agricultural Collapse:
- ‘70s ‘glut’
- Corn prices: 78-31 cents a bushel (‘67-‘73)
- Farmers with loans went bankrupt
Guilded Age - Industrial Unrest
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Railroad strike of ‘77 - owners of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad announced a pay cut
- Largest industrial disturbance to date
- Worst in Pittsburgh: 5k workers fought 650 federal troops, $10 million worth of property damage
- 25 killed
- Military force restores order
-
Haymarket Bomb ‘86
- Police fired into crowd killing several
- Rally the following evening, someone threw a bomb
- 7 policemen kiled
- Police retaliated, fired into crowd
- Aftermath: 7 arrested & found guilty, some executed
- Contributed to the failure of the ‘86 8-hour day movement
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Knights of Labour
- After walking out and forcing negotiations for the Wabush Railroad Strike ‘85, gained 3/4 of a Million members
- Campaigned for: more cooperative labour managment relations, 8-hour working days and child labour protections
- Haymarket Bomb blamed on them, membership dropped
- Replaced by American Federation of Labour, exclusive to skilled white men & had more limited objectives
Guilded Age - Causes of Immigration
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Push Factors
- Industrial & Agricultural revolutions
- Increasing population
- Agricultural and industrial depression in Britain, Norway & Sweden
- Agricultural mismanagement in Ireland
- Persecution of Jews in Russia
- Revoked ban on emigration in Japan
- Devastation from Taiping Rebellion in China
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Pull Factors
- Adverts in guidebooks, pamphlets and newspapers
- Railroads:
- Loans with low interest
- Classes in farming
- Building of churches and schools
Guilded Age - Effects of Immigration
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Initial reaction:
- Allowed industrial development
- Welcomed
___
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Economic fear bred ethnic intolerance:
- Drain on American resources
- Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882
- Racist culture
- Antisemitism
___
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Nativism:
- Native plutocracy (wealthy, white Americans in control of the government) vs foreign working class
- Protestants vs Catholics
- Nativism = Protecting the interests of native-born/established inhabitants against immigrants
Guilded Age - Foreign Policy
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US Navy
- ‘an alphabet of floating tubs’
- ‘82, Secretary of the Navy (Hunt), advocated for expansion
- Only 42/140 ships were operational
- Only 17 steamships
- Growing advocation for Navy expansion
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Hawaii
- ‘75, US begins to import Hawaiian sugar duty free
- In return the Hawaiian gov must refuse concessions such as importing manufactured goods to other countries
- ‘87, treaty with Hawaii expanded to build a naval base at Pearl Harbour
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Latin America
- ‘81, Blaine begins to advocate for a Pan-American conference; in ‘89 18 countries met in Washington
- Only achieved reciprocity agreements and a weak arbitration system signed by less than half and with an opt-out clause
- Allowed the organisation of future conferences
Guilded Age - African American Progress
Employment
* Could move between plantations and regions to find work
* Many wanted higher income jobs and so moved from border states to areas such as Georgia and Mississippi
* Some found employment in farming, building railroads, making turpentine and lumbering
___
Standard of living
* No legal segregation in the North
Greater possibility of franchise for black people in the North
Strong black culture emerging
___
Franchise
* 15th Amendment outlaws voting discrimination
___
Equality
* Separate facilities were supposed to be equal (in practice they were not)
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Education
* ‘77-‘87, the number of back schools doubled
Guilded Age - African American Limitations
Employment
* ‘70-1900 AA population doubled from 4M to 7.9M
* Many remained in the South
* Most were tied to farming (sharecropping mostly maintained status quo)
* Boll weevil caused depressions; living standards deteriorated after ‘92
___
Standard of living
* AA ghettos formed after migration North met negatively
* Barred from trade unions, Poor housing, Limited access to employment, education and housing
___
Franchise
* After Rc, no. of AAs in politics decreases
* Southern states introduce rules to stop AA voting; near emilination of AA vote in South by ‘10
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Equality
* Jim Crow laws ‘87
* AA perceived as underclass
* Social Darwinism/hierarchy of races justification for segregation
* Court denies ‘The Civil Rights Cases’
* ‘82-‘99, 2,500 people lynched
* White violence unpunished due to police and all-white jurors
___
Education
* ‘82 Sen. Blair’s bill to provide millions to all black schools, rejected by Congress
* By ‘87, 2/5 eligible black children enrolled in schools
* White schools had longer terms and better funding
Guilded Age - Native Americans
- Dawes Act ‘87
- authorised federal government to break up tribal lands and reservations,
- Only NAs who accepted this were allowed to become US citizens
- aimed to assimilate NAs into mainstream US society
- Massacre at Wounded Knee ‘90
- US Cavalry Regiment surrounded a camp of Sioux NAs near Wounded Knee Creek in S.Dakota
- While attempting to disarm the Sioux, a shot was fired and the soldiers began to open fire
- Hundreds of Native Americans killed
- Ghost Dance movement
- Spiritual movement that hoped to restore the world as it was before colonisation, people danced until they collapsed
