Depth studies: Gilded Age Flashcards
Positive impacts of the gilded age on African Americans. (3)
1) In 1865, only one in 20 African Americans could read, but by 1895 this had risen to one in two.
2) There was a significant increase in the number of African American organisations and in banks, insurance schemes and societies and companies run by African Americans.
3) By 1900, there were some 47,000 African American professionals including doctors, lawyers, teachers and artists. However this was out of a population of 8 million.
Positive impacts of the gilded age on labour and Trade Unions. (4)
1) Wages rose by 60% despite considerable growth in the workforce.
2) Growth in membership for unions such as the Knights of Labor (KOL) saw rapid growth from 20,000 in 1881 to 700,000 by 1886 and included both women and African-Americans.
3) American Federation of Labor established in 1886 sought to link all unions and establish mechanisms by which businesses and workers could negotiate.
4) Sickness clubs were established where workers contributed so that they had some incomes if they were ill.
Positive impacts of the gilded age on Women. (5)
1) Women in clerical positions increased ten-fold while women in factory work increased from 18% of the female workforce in 1870 to 22% in 1900.
2) Women became union organisers and by the mid-1880s there were 113 women’s assemblies and a female membership of 50,000.
3) 60,000 women took part in temperance demonstrations.
4) First training school for nurses set up in 1873 and by 1890 there were 35.
5) Young woman’s Cristian temperance Association established in 1867.
Positive impacts of the gilded age on Native Americans. (5)
1) The Dawes Act of 1887 made some Native Americans land owners and subsequently US citizens.
2) Reservations allowed the creation of farming communities and also access to better healthcare.
3) Reservations made it easier for Native American life and tribal customs to survive.
4) Two-off reservation boarding schools gave NAI access to better education and therefore the opportunity for better jobs, however access was often limited.
5) Defeat of Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn emphasised that the treatment of NAI needed to improve.
Limitations to the impacts of the gilded age on Native Americans. (5)
1) They lost much of their independence.
2) NAI lost their freedom and were denied civil rights as part of the reservation policy.
3) The land on reservations was poor quality and ill-suited to the NAI way of life.
4) Many NAI ended up selling the land they were given as part of the allotment policy.
5) Massacre of the Sioux at wounded knee.
Limitations to the impacts of the gilded age on women. (5)
1) Women were not represented by the majority of unions during this period, by 1900, only two percent of all trade unionists were women.
2) Divisions between different women’s groups weakened the development of their rights.
3) Association with temperance often weakened the suffrage movement.
4) Women were often paid lower wages than men for completing the same task.
5) Immigrant women were poorly paid and worked long hours in poor conditions.
Limitations to the impacts of the gilded age on African Americans. (5)
1) The Hayes-Tilden compromise led to Southern States imposing considerable racial segregation.
2) Legal segregation began with Transport in Tennessee in 1881.
3) In New York, Harlem effectively became a separate district for the city’s 23,000 African Americans by the early nineteenth century.
4) Voting laws meant that the African American voter had become powerless by 1895. – Taxes and complicated tests, as well as the ‘grandfather clause’ were designed to prevent African Americans from voting.
5) The last remaining African American congressman, George H White retire in 1901, leaving no African American Representation in congress.
Limitations of the impacts of the gilded age on labour and trade unions. (3)
1) Increasing inequality amongst the workforce – 2% of the population owned 30% of the wealth.
2) The wages of unskilled workers were just 30% of those of skilled workers.
3) Workers had few rights and worked long hours in poor conditions. In 1889, 2000 rail workers were killed in rail accidents.
