Period 6: 1865 - 1898 Flashcards
President Grant (1868-1878)
Grant wins for the Republicans, first election that blacks can vote in and they vote Republican; administration plagued w/ corruption
Credit Mobilier affair
Under Grant, VP and members of Congress involved in railroad stock scandal
Whiskey Ring (1875)
Private secretary of Grant helped steal 3 million from the fed. gov. in a tax corruption scheme
Grantism
term used to describe corruption in politics
Boss Tweed
Boss of Tammany Hall (political machine) who used bribery, graft, fraudulent elections to steal $ from ppl and get them to vote for him; ex. of local political corruption
Thomas Nast
political cartoonist who would #expose Boss Tweed
Panic of 1873
severe economic collapse which further distracts the nation from enforcing Reconstruction
Causes: 1. overproduction in industries
2. over speculation by bankers: too much $ loaned out
- hard times were worst on debtors and they wanted to relax tight money policies
- big businesses like JP Morgan consolidate RRs and created monopolies
Hard $ v. Soft $
debate between “hard currency” and “greenbacks” so farmers and debtors want more greenbacks so they can pay their debts off faster
Election of 1876, Compromise of 1877
Republican Hayes vs. Democrat Tilden, political controversy as 3 S. states were contested so the Compromise of 1877 says that the S. would recognize Hayes as President as long as he pulls federal troops from the S. and end Reconstruction, and provide patronage for S. and fed. aid for transcontinental RR
- End of Reconstruction!
Civil Rights Cases of 1883
Court says that the 14th amendment only protects against gov. violations of civil rights so ppl can discriminate all they want; overturns the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and leads to Jim Crow
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
separate but equal is constitutional
“New South”
promoted southern rebuilding, industrializing and development of economy but it remains mostly agrarian w/ sharecropping and tenant farming carrying the economy
Disenfranchisement of blacks
- literacy tests
- poll taxes
- property requirements
- grandfather clauses: exempted from electoral requirements anyone who voted in 1860 (white ppl)
Chinese immigration
large increase in Asian immigration so important during the various mining booms and railroads, caused spike in nativism towards Asians in the W. -> Chinese Exclusion Act
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
prohibited further immigration of Chinese laborers; first time immigration restrictions put in place based on race and nationality
Gilded Age
post Civil War post Reconstruction time of rapid economic and population growth; term coined by Mark Twain bc all looks prosperous on the outside but so much corruption on the inside like rise of poverty and bad working conditions bc of industrialization
Civil Service reform, Half-Breeds, Stalwarts
patronage used by both political parties so civil service jobs given to supporters (“to the victor belongs the spoils”)
Half-Breeds: advocated civil service reform
Stalwarts: supporters of patronage
2nd Industrial Revolution
growth of large scale industry and production of steel, petroleum, power and machines to produce goods
Steel Industry, Carnegie, Vertical integration
Andrew Carnegie used vertical integration (company controls every stage in production process) in the U.S. Steel Corporation
Oil Industry, Rockefeller, Horizontal integration
Standard Oil Trust run by Rockefeller which used horizontal integration (eat up all the competition like the squid cartoon thing)
Sherman Antitrust Act
prohibited trusts but didn’t say what a trust was so they started calling unions trusts and it was a bad law
Laissez-faire capitalism
no gov. regulation of business, gov. pro business pro trust usually policies
Social Darwinism
belief that Darwin’s ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest could be applied to the marketplace so those who were rich were meant to be better and helping the poor was bad bc it disrupted natural order
Gospel of Wealth
Protestant defense of wealth saying that God gave the wealthy their riches and that they had a God-given responsibility to use it to benefit society through philanthropy (Carnegie)
Marketing
department stores and mail order companies and consumer culture
Impact of industrialiation
raised the standard of living for more ppl bc they could afford the new mass produced technologies but created sharper class divisions, 10% controlled 90% of the wealth
Changes in labor during Industrial Revolution
before there was more value on artisan skill but now in factories were prized on productivity not quality and workers did monotonous asks under the “tyranny of the clock” Just like ur boy JURGIS from THE JUNGLE
Employment strategies for defeating unions
lockout, blacklists, yellow-dog contracts, calling in private guards and state militia, getting court injunctions
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
RR companies cut wages during depression and strike at Ohio Railroad spread and for the first time federal troops were used to end labor violence (Pres. Hayes)
National Labor Union
first union which advocated higher wages and the 8 hour workday which they succeeded to do
Knights of Labor
open to all workers, reform goals included worker cooperatives, abolition of child labor, abolition of trusts and monopolies; preferred arbitration rather than strikes; was v popular then declined after Haymarket Bombing
Haymarket Bombing (1886)
bomb explodes during public meeting in Haymarket Square which causes public to view labor union movement as a radical and violent and filled with Marxists