(Class12) The Gilded Age Flashcards
1
Q
The Gilded Age
A
- The Gilded Age in United States history is the period of the late 19th century, from the 1870s to about 1900.
- The term for this period came into use in the 1920s and 30s and was derived from writer Mark Twain’s 1873 The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold covering
- It was preceded by the Reconstruction Era that ended in 1877
- Succeeded by the Progressive Era that began in the 1890s.
- The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the North and West
2
Q
The Long Walk
A
- 1864
- In Southwest
- The Navajo people
- Removal similar to that of the Cherokee in the 1830s (Trail of Tears)
- A forced march from their homeland in Arizona to the desolate Bosque Redondo Reservation in New Mexico
- The reservation land they were given was not productive land
3
Q
Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pa.
A
- Flagship Indian boarding school in the United States from 1879 through 1918.
- Founded in 1879 by Captain Richard Henry Pratt under authority of the US federal government
- The first federally funded off-reservation Indian boarding school
- School Slogan: “To civilize the Indian, get him into civilization. To keep him civilized, let him stay.”
4
Q
The Dawes Act
A
- In 1887, Congress passes the Dawes Act, or General Allotment (Severalty) Act.
- Proposed by Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts – individual private property not community property for native Americans
- Dawes ended the general policy of granting land parcels to tribes as-a-whole by granting small parcels of land to individual tribe members.
- Each unmarried Indian man and woman was eligible to receive 160 acres of land from reservation property
- Those who took allotment also earned US citizenship
- Fostered individualism
- But was a detriment to tribal culture
- Land needed for these allotments was less than Indian lands as a whole
- Government could sell surplus lands to white settlers
- Effectively reduced Indian land by almost 2/3 (from 138 to 48 million acres)
- By 1890 Indians lost almost 98% of their land to the US government
- Dawes Act actually divested Indians of their land
5
Q
Jason “Jay” Gould
A
- Leading American railroad developer and speculator
- Referred to as one of the ruthless “robber barons” of the Gilded Age, whose success at business made him one of the richest men of his era.
- He was hated and despised
- Clever Speculative buyer of RR stocks
- Railroads that fell into his hands often went bankrupt
- For Gould corporate failure often meant personal success
- His dealing encouraged the overbuilding of railroads
6
Q
Andrew Carnegie
A
- He built the Steel Industry (Carnegie Steel)
- The steel industry was really a direct result of the Railroads
- Iron rails were used first and cracked frequently
- Steel was stronger and more flexible but too expensive
- Englishman Henry Bessemer developed a way to make steel cheaply that could be used for railroad rails- called Bessemer Steel
- Carnegie ran with it
- Scottish immigrant
- Came to United States in 1848 at age 12
- Started cleaning bobbins in textile factory
- Skill as telegraph operator landed him job at RR
- Invested in Wall Street and became a millionaire before age 30
- But distained speculation and preferred manufacturing
- Wanted to make something tangible
- Steel became America’s first big manufacturing enterprise
- Carnegie’s first steel mill, the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, Pennsylvania.
- Began producing steel rails in 1874
- In 20 years - production went from 70 tons/week to 10,000 tons/week
- Vertical integration was pioneered by Carnegie
- Everything was done by Carnegie from mining ore to final product
- No outsiders involved
7
Q
Standard Oil Company
A
- Oil in the 19th Century was largely needed for lubricating machinery and kerosene for lamps
- Competition was high
- Oil Refining began in the mid 19th century
- Ultimately John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Company would control 90% of the oil refinery production in the United States
8
Q
John D. Rockefeller
A
- Born in Richford, New York, to con artist William Avery Rockefeller who peddled quack medical cures
- Father taught him to drive a hard bargain
- By 1865 John D Rockefeller controlled the largest oil refinery in Cleveland
- Embraced the Corporation business structure
- In 1870 incorporated Standard Oil Company
- Smart and ruthless business man
- Considered to be the wealthiest American of all time by virtually every source
- Richest person in modern history
9
Q
Spelman College
A
- In 1884, Rockefeller provided major funding for a college in Atlanta for African-American women, which became Spelman College
- Named for Rockefeller’s in-laws who were ardent abolitionists before the Civil War – the Spelmans
- The oldest existing building on Spelman’s campus, Rockefeller Hall, is named after his wife.
10
Q
Alexander Graham Bell
A
- Scottish born and educated
- Bell’s father, grandfather, and brother did work on elocution and speech
- His mother and wife were deaf
- Came to US after college
- Wanted to find a way to teach the deaf to speak
- Discovered a way to transmit voice over wire
- Demonstrated it first in Philadelphia in 1876
11
Q
John Pierpont Morgan
A
- American financier and banker who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during the Gilded Age
- Loathed competition – looked to consolidate businesses
- In 1892, Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric
- Instrumental in the creation of the United States Steel Corporation, International Harvester and AT&T.
- Power broker
- Morgan’s expertise was consolidation and reorganization
- He began reorganizing railroads in 1885
- Arranged an agreement between two of the largest railroads in the country, New York Central and Pennsylvania
- Minimized a potentially destructive rate war and rail-line competition between them
- In 1886 he reorganized two more major railroads with the aim of stabilizing their financial base.
- He helped to achieve railroad rate stability and discouraged overly chaotic competition
- Railroads were ultimately run by bankers and not by railroad men
12
Q
Morgan and Treasury Gold
A
- The Federal Treasury was nearly out of gold in 1895, at the depths of the Panic of 1893
- Morgan meets with President Grover Cleveland
- Comes up with a plan to use an old civil war statute that allowed Morgan and the Rothschilds to sell gold directly to the U.S. Treasury, 3.5 million ounces, to restore the treasury surplus in exchange for a 30-year bond issue.
- Morgan had to sign contract guarantee to the US government that gold would stay in the US
- He did
- JP Morgan Saved the treasury
13
Q
Social Darwinism
A
- Herbert Spencer in Britain and William Graham Sumner in the US developed theory of Social Darwinism
- Progress comes about as a result of relentless competition in which the strong survive and weak die out
- Survival of the fittest in the social context not biological
- Millionaires are the product of natural selection
- Social Darwinism equates wealth and power with fitness
- Glorified great wealth and justified economic inequality
14
Q
Stalwarts
A
- Led by Republican party boss Roscoe Conkling of New York
- Fiercely supported patronage (spoils) system
15
Q
Mugwumps
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- Reformers from Massachusetts and New York
- Deplored the spoils system and advocated for civil service reform
