Disunited America

Question 1

The North

What were key aspects of the North?

Answer 1

• Home of banking and commerce
• Railroads connected national trade
• Urbanisation fuelled by immigration and industrial expansion

Question 2

The North

How much immigration in north?

Where from?

What did they form?

Answer 2

• 1860’s - 1890’s = 10 million immigrants
• Immigrants from Germany, Britain, Ireland, Europe and China
• ‘Districts’ of immigrants from the same places

Question 3

The North

What were political concerns in the North?

Answer 3

• Fears of a socialist revolution
• Haymarket Affair 1886
• No/few trade unions

Question 4

The North - Divisions within the state

What were the immigration divisions in the North?

Answer 4

• Between different ‘districts’ of immigrants
• Between ‘new’ and previous generation immigrants
• Division brought with them (e.g Orange Riots, Irish Catholics vs Irish Protestants, New York 1870 & 1871)
• ‘Nativism’ = protection of ‘traditional’ American values from foreign influence
• ‘Yellow Peril’ = immigrants from China, didn’t speak English, hardworking and cheap labour; Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

Question 5

The North - Divisions within the state

What were the railroad tensions?
- solution?

Answer 5

• ‘Freight rates’ (the amount charged by the railroad corporations to move goods)
• Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, enables Congress to regulate railroads and freight rates

Question 6

The North - Divisions within the state

What were issues related to urbanisation?

Answer 6

• Overcrowding, poverty, poor housing and poor hygiene

- Immigrants from all over forced to live in close quarters

Question 7

The North - Divisions within the state

What was the disunity of the working class?

Answer 7

• No trade union movement
• Serious divisions due to immigration and competitive labour prices

Question 8

The North - Divisions within the state

What was the radical fringe?

Answer 8

• Fears of a socialist revolution (The Haymarket Affair, 1886)

Question 9

The West

What were the key aspects of the west? + 1 act

Answer 9

• Mass expansion into the West
• Government encouragement
• Federal territories
• Homestead Act 1862
• Railroads

Question 10

The West

What showed divisions within the state in relation to Native Americans

Answer 10

• The Great Sioux War, 1876
• Sand Creek Massacre, 1864
• Battle of Little Bighorn, 1876
• Reservation policy and Americanisation

Question 11

The South -??

What were key aspects of the South?

Answer 11

• Post-reconstruction governments =
• carpetbaggers
• Little land distribution during reconstruction

Question 12

The South

What were issues with the cotton market?

Answer 12

• Struggling
• Britain made other cotton arrangements during the Civil War
• USA’s market share in 1867 smaller than in 1857
• Lack of cash in the economy

Question 13

The South

What were issues related to black education?

Answer 13

• Government education fell through very quickly when money ran out
• Prevented black leadership in business or politics

Question 14

The South

What was industrialisation encouraged by?

What did it focus on?

Answer 14

• Encouraged by the growth of railroads
• Focused on cotton industry (i.e textile factories in the South)

Question 15

The South

What were issues/ acts to lower black rights?

Answer 15

• 14th Amendment did not prevent states setting their own citizens rights rules
• 1883 the court struck down the 1865 Civil Rights Act
  ‘Separate but Equal’ and Jim Crow laws
• Rise of racial violence and populism

Question 16

The South

What were divisions within the state?

Answer 16

• Black vs White
• Black vs Government/law enforcement
• Landowners vs the poor