2 - The Guilded Age ('77-'90)

Question 1

Guilded Age - Legislation/Events

Answer 1

• Jim Crow laws in South
• 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
• 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
    ___
• Interstate Commerce Act ‘87 - enables Congress to regulate railroads and freight rates (cost of transporting goods)
• 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
• Transcontinental Railroads
• Immigration

Question 2

Guilded Age - Presidents

Answer 2

1T - Hayes, ‘77-‘80
0T - Garfield, ‘81
1T - Arthur, ‘81-‘84
___
T1(/2) - Cleveland, ‘85-‘89
T1 - Harrison, ‘89-‘93
T2(/2) Cleveland (again), ‘93-‘97

Question 3

Hayes strengths & weaknesses

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Garfield strengths & weaknesses

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Arthur strengths & weaknesses

Answer 5

Strengths:
* Made first legislative Civil Service reform

Weaknesses:
* Made little change to tariffs
* Passed two anti-immigration laws

Question 6

Cleveland strengths & weaknesses

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Guilded Age - Key Aspects of the North

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

Guilded Age - Key Aspects of the South

Answer 8

• 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)
• 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

Question 9

Guilded Age - Industrialisation: 4 main ‘Robber Barrons’

Answer 9

• 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
• 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
• J.P. Morgan (finance)
  
  • Inherited $12M
  • Major force behind creation of large companies (eg US steel corporation), ‘71, began his own private banking company
• 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

Question 10

Guilded Age - Causes of Industrialisation

Question 11

Guilded Age - Effects of Industrialisation

Question 12

Guilded Age - Causes of Westward Expansion

Answer 12

• Transcontinental lines: 4 transcontinental railroads built ‘83-‘93
  
  • Federal funding - 70M hectares of land grants
  • State funding - $200M, 19M hectares of land grants
    ___
• New agriculture inventions
  
  • Dry farming methods
  • Reapers, threshing machines, binders, combined harvesters, barbed wire, deep-drilled well and steel windmills

Question 13

Guilded Age - Effects of Westward Expansion

Answer 13

• Railroad Expansion:
  
  • More people in, more raw goods out
  • Stimulated the growth of iron, steel, lumber and other industries
    ___
• Agricultural Expansion:
  
  • Wheat production: 211M-599M (‘67-‘90)
  • Wheat exports: 6M-102M bushels (‘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
• Agricultural Collapse:
  
  • ‘70s ‘glut’
  • Corn prices: 78-31 cents a bushel (‘67-‘73)
  • Farmers with loans went bankrupt

Question 14

Guilded Age - Industrial Unrest

Answer 14

• 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
• 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

Question 15

Guilded Age - Causes of Immigration

Answer 15

• 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
• Pull Factors
  
  • Adverts in guidebooks, pamphlets and newspapers
  • Railroads:
    
    • Loans with low interest
    • Classes in farming
    • Building of churches and schools

Question 16

Guilded Age - Effects of Immigration

Answer 16

• Initial reaction:
  
  • Allowed industrial development
  • Welcomed
    ___
• Economic fear bred ethnic intolerance:
  
  • Drain on American resources
  • Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882
  • Racist culture
  • Antisemitism
    ___
• 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

Question 17

Guilded Age - Foreign Policy

Answer 17

• 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
• 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
• 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

Question 18

Guilded Age - African American Progress

Answer 18

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)
___
Education
* ‘77-‘87, the number of back schools doubled

Question 19

Guilded Age - African American Limitations

Answer 19

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
___
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

Question 20

Guilded Age - Native Americans

Answer 20

• 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