Gilded Age 1875-1915

Question 1

What percent of land was still subject to sharecropping throughout the gilded age?

Answer 1

75%

Question 2

What types of crops would white land owners force African American workers to farm and why?

Answer 2

• Labour intensive crops e.g. cotton
• Cotton bolls ripened at different times, meaning machine harvesting would be too indiscriminate
• It was efficient to have cheap labourers farming labour intensive crops

Question 3

What % of Black farmland was not used for cotton or corn?

Answer 3

3.7%

Question 4

What % of White farmland was not used for cotton or corn?

Answer 4

10.1%

Question 5

What is the term used to describe the variety of crops planted?

Answer 5

Diversification

Question 6

What its the name of the insect that attacks the cotton crop?

Answer 6

Boll Weevil

Question 7

When did the Boll Weevil arrive in the US and where did it spread?

Answer 7

• 1892
• From Mexico, into Texas, and across the Southern States

Question 8

What was the change in area of land owned by African Americans between 1875 and 1910?

Answer 8

3 million hectares to 15 million hectares

Question 9

What % of African Americans owned their own land?

Answer 9

25%

Question 10

What % of African Americans still lived in the South in 1900?

Answer 10

Almost 90%

Question 11

Why were White employers prejudiced in their hiring of African Americans into industry?

Answer 11

• To avoid the perceived tension between black and white workers
• A fanaticism in preventing black men from working in proximity to white women

Question 12

What were parallel businesses?

Answer 12

Businesses set up by African Americans to service black communities (e.g. hairdressers, restaurants) that were otherwise left without services due to segregation.

Question 13

How could it be said that a black middle class was forming?

Answer 13

African Americans found jobs like ministers, lawyers, and other well paying professions.

Question 14

What evidence is there to suggest that black literacy rates were rising?

Answer 14

Black newspaper editors, reporters, and readers.

Question 15

How did increasing literacy rates aid African American progression in the long term?

Answer 15

It laid the foundations for civil rights activity led by educated leaders.

Question 16

List 4 conditions African Americans faced in the North

Answer 16

• Lack of employment opportunities
• Confinement to specific areas (Ghettos - poor quality but pricey housing)
• Low level of education
• Being barred from trade unions

Question 17

What was the type of segregation did black people faced in the North?

Answer 17

De Facto - in actuality/reality

Question 18

What social benefits arose throughout the gilded age?

Answer 18

A strong black culture developed.

Question 19

Between what years did southern states introduce segregation on trains?

Answer 19

1887-1891

Question 20

How many states introduced segregation on trains?

Answer 20

• 8 Southern States (3 of which extended the segregation to waiting rooms)

Question 21

Name 7 things that were segregated by Jim Crows Laws following 1891

Answer 21

• Parks
• Shops
• Playgrounds
• Cemeteries
• Public Facilities (swimming pools)
• Places of Entertainment (theatres and cinemas)
• Professional Sports

Question 22

What is Social Darwinism?

Answer 22

The belief that people become more powerful in society because they are innately better

Question 23

What did Social Darwinism justify?

Answer 23

The white working class’s intense emotional feelings of superiority over black people

Question 24

When was the Plessy V Furguson Case?

Answer 24

1896

Question 25

What did the Plessy V Ferguson case determine?

Answer 25

Segregation of carriages on trains was constitutional (so long as it was equal), and set the legal precedent for all segregation.

Question 26

Name 5 additional voting requirements implemented by Southern States in an attempt to remove black voting rights

Answer 26

1. Poll Tax
2. Property Requirements
3. Literacy Tests
4. Grandfather Clauses
5. Residency Requirements

Question 27

Name 2 property requirements people in Southern States had to fulfill in order to vote.

Answer 27

1. $300 worth of land
2. 400 acres of land

Question 28

Although there was not immediate change, when was African American voting in the South all but outlawed?

Answer 28

1910

Question 29

What did the Mississippi V. Williams case determine?

Answer 29

The Mississippi poll tax and similar devices were considered constitutional, undermining black voting rights

Question 30

When was the Mississippi V. Williams Court Case?

Answer 30

1898

Question 31

Name 3 African American Leaders

Answer 31

1. Booker T. Washington
2. WEB Dubois
3. Ida B. Wells

Question 32

What did Booker T. Washington stand for?

Answer 32

• African Americans should simply make peace with the establishment and work with the south
• “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to progress”

Question 33

What did W.E.B. Dubois stand for?

Answer 33

• Direct confrontation with the South was necessary to achieve true equality and civil rights
• Believed the “talented tenth” of African Americas would raise the race up with them

Question 34

What organisations did W.E.B. Dubois found?

Answer 34

• The Niagara Movemement
• The NAACP (National Association of the Advancement of Coloured People)

Question 35

What was the Springfield Riot?

Answer 35

Violent attacks on the African American community, after the authorities refused to hand over a black man who allegedly raped a white woman

Question 36

When was the Springfield Riot?

Answer 36

1908

Question 37

What did the Springfield riot trigger?

Answer 37

The formation of the NAACP

Question 38

What did the Guinn V. US case determine?

Answer 38

The Grandfather clauses in Maryland and Oklahoma were deemed unconstitutional in a court case backed by the NAACP

Question 39

Over what time period did Lynchings occur?

Answer 39

1877-1950

Question 40

What are Lynchings?

Answer 40

When white mobs would beat and torture an African American before murdering them, usually by hanging.

Question 41

What justifications did white people use for lynchings?

Answer 41

The victims were often accused of committing a serious crime like raping a white woman, which was considered an action so vile, that it could not wait for courts. Many of these allegations were proved false by Ida B. Well’s journey across the South.

Question 42

What party was President Grover Cleveland in?

Answer 42

Democrats

Question 43

What was Grover Cleveland’s stance towards the mistreatment of African Americans? (2)

Answer 43

• He affirmed the rights of all Americans regardless of colour
• However, he favoured protecting state’s rights and allowed them to pursue whatever policies they individually wanted to implement

Question 44

What party was Theodore Roosevelt in?

Answer 44

Republican

Question 45

What was Theodore Roosevelt’s stance towards the mistreatment of African Americans?

Answer 45

• He met with Booker T. Washington
• However, he did not really address the question of black civil rights

Question 46

What party was President William Howard Taft in?

Answer 46

Republican

Question 47

What was William Howard Taft’s stance towards the mistreatment of African Americans?

Answer 47

• Met with Booker T. Washington
• However, took little interest in black civil rights, regarding it as a question of state’s rights

Question 48

What party was President Woodrow Wilson in?

Answer 48

Democrat

Question 49

What did Widrow Wilson do in regard to the issue of segregation?

Answer 49

• He segregated government agencies
• He appointed segregationist southerners
• He dismissed all black advisors in the federal government
• He refused to associate with black leaders