Midterm Exam Flashcards
“The Gilded Age”
Characterized by industrialization, big business, political corruption, and organized labor.
Gilded Age Republicans
Allied with Big Business
Promoted high tariffs on imported goods
Industrial Revolution
Caused by:
Corporate Agriculture
Technological innovations
The expansion of railroads
Transportation and Communication
The two most important to accelerate the nation’s industrial growth
Life for industrial workers
First to be laid off
Low wages
No safety regulations
Long hours
National Labor Union
Was the first national labor union
- Wanted 8-hour workdays
- Workers’ cooperatives
- Promoted Greenbacks
- Wanted equal voting rights for African-Americans and Women.
Knights of Labor
A national labor group; Became the nation’s largest labor union
Did not believe in organizing members by trade.
Promoted:
- The elimination of convict labor competition
- An 8-hour work-day
- Equal pay for men and Women
Great Railroad Strike, 1877
Started after the financial Panic of 1873
Railroads slashed wages
Announced there would be another reduction
Workers at Martinsburg West Virginia walked off their jobs
Was the first nationwide worker uprising
For the first time, state Governors mobilized state militias to disperse the rioters.
Rioters returned to work, accepting pay cuts
The Haymarket Riot of 1886
Chicago workers went on strike for an 8-hour workday
Violence broke out between strikers and non-union workers hired to replace them;
2 strikers die
Organized a protest in Haymarket Square,
Ended in violence when the police arrived and an unknown assailant threw a bomb at the cops;
The Homestead Steel Strike
Henry Clay Frick became CEO in 1889
Cuts cost by threatening to lay off workers and replace them with machinery
June 25th management threatens to close the mill unless an agreement could be met within 4 days.
Local Pinkertons were called to protect the mill, but once a fight ensued, they were sent packing.
Soon the state militias were sent in to disperse the workers, and they were replaced with non-union workers.
November 20th workers ended their strike, took the wage cuts, many were blacklisted
The Pullman Strike 1894
Paralyzed the economies of the states in the West
During the Depression of 1893 Pullman laid off over half of his workers and cut wages for those left, but refused to lower workers’ rents or the food in the company store.
A workers’ grievance committee was created and 3 of its members were fired
In June Pullman refused to are to negotiations with workers and Railway Union workers stopped handling trains containing Pullman’s railcars.
Railroad executives hired strikebreakers to work the railways, and deputies were sent to protect them, but this did not stop strikers from assaulting them and destroying property.
July 13th the union called off the strike.
“The New South”
Called for the plantation elite to be replaced by a society of small farms owned by both blacks and whites.
Textile mills were the chief accomplishment to industrialize the textile industry.
Due to few Southern banks after the Civil War, people operated with little to no cash: this led to the Crop-Lien System.
Gilded Age Democrats
Conservative Pro-business White supremacists Embraced industrialization Sought state taxes and expenditures Attempted to get a hold on the patronage system
The Industrial Workers of the World
A global labor union
Sought to destroy the capitalist system and replace it with workers’ unions
Western land giveaways
Homestead Act 1862; Congress provided free 160-acre homesteads to settlers in the West.
Railroads and the Economy in the West
People in the West struggled, while the elite railroad owners became filthy rich
Ida B. Wells
First African American to file a suit challenging discrimination
Court decided in her favor
Helped found the NAACP
Worked for womens’ suffrage
Was often in direct opposition of Booker T.
Booker T. Washington
Became the president of the Tuskegee Institute
Had a talent for fundraising
Did not encourage the fight against racial segregation
Prioritize:
- hard work
- self-improvement
- avoiding trouble
W.E.B Du Bois
Was Washingtons most prominent rival
First African American to receive a PhD
Prioritized:
- The right to vote
- The challenging of racial segregation
- Equal rights enjoyed by white Americans
Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Aldoph Plessy refused to leave the whites-only car on the basis of him only being 1/8th black
Was convicted of violating the law
Courts ruled that the states maintained the right to racially segregate
The Great Sioux War
The largest military campaign since the end of the Civil War
15 battles that lasted 15 months
Natives were defeated
The Sand Creek Massacre
John Evans called whites to kill the “hostile Indians” who killed a white family.
Persuaded “friendly Indians” to gather to be protected from the attack on the perpetrators
Evans attacked the camp of peaceful natives
Urban Working-class tenements
Overcrowed apartments
Bred disease, frustration, and crime
“New Immigrants”
Came from southern and Eastern Europe
According to Dillingham Commission, they were “a threat to America’s future”
Created their own little villages like Chinatown in New York, but drove out the previous residents
Nativists
Believed that the Anglo Saxon race was superior
Resented Chinese laborers for taking their jobs
American Protective Association APA
Pledged to never employ Roman Catholics
Worked often in Republican party organizations
helped shape the 1894 elections in the northern states.
Social Darwinism
Argued that society and its institutions evolved through natural selection
Implied the need for laissez-faire government policies in businesses and requirements for minimum sanitization requirements.
Reform Darwinism
Promoted people to help one another
The government should pursue the elevation of poverty and promote the education of the masses
One of the pillars of the progressive movement.
Lester Frank Ward
Wrote Dynamic Sociology: pointed out that social Darwinism neglected the human mind.
Farmers Alliance
Organized social and recreational activities
Encouraged political action and economic cooperation to address the chronic debt, declining crop prices, and droughts
Called for the federal government to take control of the railroads, create an income tax on the wealthy and a subtreasury plan.
Subtreasury plan
Farmers would store their crops in a warehouse funded by the federal government and obtain loans that would be for up to 80% of the value of the crops
Was nixed by Congress
1893 Depression unemployment rate
25% if unskilled laborers lost their jobs
Others took hefty wage cuts
The unemployment rate hovered around 20%
Yellow Journalism
Hearst’s effort to manipulate public opinion by encouraging his reporters in Cuba to distort, exaggerate, or makeup stories.
End of the 19th-century imperialism for America
Used social Darwinism to justify economic exploitation and territorial conquests abroad.
Based on national glory, commerce, racial superiority, and evangelism
Took territories illegally, while allowing Cuba to remain independent.
Spanish-American War
Lasted 114 days
American ships blockaded Spain ships
Spain tried to escape, but US ships destroyed them
The US takes the Philippines
The US seized all of the Spanish forts
Spain asks for peace giving US Purto Rico, Guam, and the Philipines
The U.S Philippine War
The Philippines declared their independence
Named their president
US soldiers fired on the insurrectos, igniting the war
Lasted for 3 years
The US won
Open Door Policy
Outlined in Secretary of State John Hay’s Open Door Note
Announced that China should remain open to European and American trade and that no one nation should try to control it.
Socialist Party of America
Supported by militant farmers and German/Jewish immigrants
Served as the radical wing of Progressivism
Focused on working conditions and closing the income gap by progressive taxation
Muckrakers
America’s first investigative journalists
Were crucial in informing readers of political and corporate wrong-doings
Social Gospel
Churches and synagogs began preaching community service to address the needs of the less fortunate
YMCA and YWCA
Salvation Army
Catholics and Protestants charged that Christianity became too closely associated with the upper and middle class.
Rejected the view of social Darwinists
Municipal Reform
Two Taylorist ideas to reform city and county governments
- Commission system: placed ultimate authority in a board composed of commissioners who combined both legislative and executive powers in heading up city departments
. - City-Manager plan: an appointed administrator ran a city or county government in accordance with policies set by the elected council and mayor.
The Wisconsin Idea
Created by Robert M Follette:
Promoted nonpartisan state government using the Legislative Reference Bureau; provided officials with nonpartisan research, advice, and help to draft legislation.
Fredrick Winslow Taylor
Championed progressive Efficiency
Was a industrial engineer who became a celebrated business consultant helping owners implement scientific management.
Showed employers how to cut waste and improve productivity.
The four-way 1912 presidential race
Democrat: Woodrow Wilson
Republican: William Howard Taft
Socialist: Eugene Debs
Progressive: Theodore Roosevelt
The Federal Reserve Act
First major banking reform since the Civil War
Created a national banking system
Had 12 regional districts
Adjusted the nations currency supply
When banks were short on cash, they could borrow from the Federal Reserve
Western migration
Due to the Homestead Act, land in the West was free
Freight rates were astronomically high
The decline in crop price created a chronic indebtedness
Fought native attacks, tornados, and droughts constantly
Daws Severalty Act of 1887
Directed at Native Americans: divided tribal lands and “allotted” them to individuals, granting acreage to each head of a family and lesser amounts to others.
Colombia, the US, and the Canal Zone
Two treaties were obstacles to the Canal zone:
- The Bidlack Treaty - ensured control over Panama to Colombia.
- The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty - British agreed to stop acquiring Central American Territory, the US joined in agreeing to build a canal by mutual consent only
When Panama declared their independence from Colombia; Roosevelt helped and widened the canal to 10 miles
For a down payment and a yearly fee, the US could claim free use of the canal.
Roosevelt Corollary
The 1904 war debts led Roosevelt to send two warships to the Dominican Republic to ensure that they paid their debts, to keep Garmany and Britain out of the Western Hemisphere.
Progressive Era reformers
Started with Theodore Roosevelt
Federick Winslow Taylor
Robert M. La Follette
The Roosevelt Taft Feud
Taft allowed for Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger opened for federal lands to be used for commercial development.
Pinchot made his opinion that this went against Roosevelt’s environmental conservation, Taft fired him.
This thoroughly pissed off former President Roosevelt.
Progressivists Economic abuses
Dollar Diplomacy by Taft; government involved in protecting American investments.
From the end of the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century…
The value of manufacturers increased six-fold
Concerning US action in the Caribbean, President Wilson…
Kept marines in Nicaragua and sent marines to Haiti and the Dominican Republic
True or False: Voter turnout during the Gilded Age was significantly higher than today.
True
