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The Gilded Age (1877-90) Flashcards

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1
Q

Name some key events from the presidency of Hayes

A
  • Created a special cabinet committee to draw up new rules for federal appointments (move against the spoils system)
  • Railroad Strike of 1877
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2
Q

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Hayes presidency

A

Strengths:
- Won support of big business during railway strike
- Attempted Civil Service reform which paved the way for later legislation

Weaknesses:
- Lacked the support of Congress
- Faced strong opposition from the ‘Stalwarts’ (a faction of Republican Party led by Senator Conkling)
- Achieved very little

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3
Q

Name some key events from the presidency of Garfield

A
  • Supported Civil Service reform and took down Roscoe Conkling
  • Continued reform of the Post Office and forced the resignation of one of the ringleaders of the ‘Star routes’ conspiracy
  • Was shot on the 2nd July 1881 and died 19th September 1881
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4
Q

Describe how Garfield took down Roscoe Conkling

A
  • Strengthened federal authority over the New York - Custom House, stronghold of Conkling
  • Appointed Conkling’s arch-nemesis Robertson to run the Custom House
  • Conkling and a fellow senator resign, confident their legislature would vindicate their stand and re-elect them
  • In fact, 2 other men were elected and it was a victory for Garfield
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5
Q

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Garfield’s presidency

A

Strengths:
- Usurped Conkling, victory for Civil Service reform
- Forced resignation of Star Routes leader
- Decent progress for a short time in office

Weaknesses:
- Failed to make large scale change
- Presidency cut short by assassination

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6
Q

Name some key events from the presidency of Arthur

A
  • Pendleton Act of 1883 was the creation of the first Civil Service Commission
  • First federal immigration law, excluding paupers, criminals and the mentally ill
  • Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
  • Tariff Act of 1883 reduced tariffs by an average 1.47%
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7
Q

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the Presidency of Arthur

A

Strengths:
- Made first legislative Civil Service reform
- Managed to weaken the initial Chinese Immigration Act

Weaknesses:
- Made little change to tariffs
- Passed two anti-immigration laws

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8
Q

Name some key events from the Presidency of Cleveland

A
  • 1884 Presidential Campaign
  • Over time he replaced Republican office holders with democrats but more chosen by merit alone than in previous administrations
  • Vetoes
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9
Q

Describe the 1884 Presidential election

A
  • The Republican candidate, James G Blaine, was charged with corruption involving railroad interest as well as being accused of anti-catholic bias and fathering an illegitimate child
  • Republicans against corruption (‘Mugwumps’) abandoned Blaine and became known as ‘goo-goos’
  • Cleveland won with a narrow margin of 37 electoral votes
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10
Q

Describe Cleveland’s abuse of vetoe

A
  • Believed Congress should have less power
    Democratic President facing a Republican senate, used lots of vetoes
  • Vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War veterans
  • Vetoed bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service
  • Vetoed Texas Seed Bill in 1887 ($10,000 to purchase seed for farmers in several Texas counties whose crops who had been ruined by drought)
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11
Q

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Cleveland’s presidency

A

Strengths:
- Began to enact Civil Service reform
- Beat corrupt Republican candidate Blaine

Weaknesses:
- Abused power of veto
- Did not cooperate with Congress

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12
Q

Describe some key aspects of the North

A
  • Home of banking and commerce
  • Railroads connected national trade
  • Urbanisation fuelled by immigration and industrial expansion
  • 1860’s to 1890’s = 10 million immigrants
  • Fears of a socialist revolution
  • No/few trade unions
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13
Q

List some reasons for division within the North

A
  • Immigration
  • Railroad tensions
  • Urbanisation
  • Disunity of working class
  • Radical fringe
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14
Q

Describe how immigration caused divisions in the North

A
  • Between ‘districts’ of immigrants
  • Between ‘new’ and previous generation immigrants
  • Divisions immigrants brought with them (eg Orange Riots, Irish Catholics vs Irish Protestants , New York 1870 and 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
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15
Q

Describe how railroad tensions caused divisions in the North

A
  • 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
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16
Q

Describe how urbanisation caused divisions in the North

A
  • Overcrowding, poverty, poor housing and poor hygiene
  • Immigrants from all over forced to live in close quarters
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17
Q

Describe how disunity of the working class caused divisions in the North

A
  • No trade union movement
  • Serious divisions due to immigration and competitive labour prices
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18
Q

Describe how the radical fringe caused divisions in the North

A
  • Fears of a socialist revolution
  • Haymarket Bomb 1886
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19
Q

List some key aspects of the South

A
  • Post-reconstruction governments = Redeemers/ Bourbons
  • Little land redistribution
  • Cotton market
  • Black education
  • Industrialisation
  • Black rights
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20
Q

Describe the cotton market in the South

A
  • Struggling
  • Britain made other arrangements for cotton during the Civil War
  • USA’s market share in 1867 smaller than 1857
  • Lack of cash in the economy
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21
Q

Describe black education in the South

A
  • Government education fell through very quickly when money ran out
  • Prevented black leadership in business or politics
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22
Q

Describe industrialisation in the South

A
  • Encouraged by the growth of railroads
  • Focused on cotton industry (I.e textile factories in the South)
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23
Q

Describe black rights in the South

A
  • 1873 Slaughter House cases (14th Amendment did not prevent states setting their own citizens rights rules)
  • 1875 US vs Cruikshank (State could not set own rules but did not have to prevent infringements of rights by others)
  • 1883 the Court struck down 1875 Civil Rights Act
  • Jim Crow laws
  • Rise of racial violence and populism
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24
Q

Describe the divisions within the South

A
  • Black vs White
  • Black vs government/law enforcement
  • Landowners vs the poor
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25
Q

Who were the 4 main robber barons and their specialist areas?

A
  • Vanderbilt and the railroad
  • Carnegie and steel
  • Morgan and finance
  • Rockefeller and oil
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26
Q

Describe Vanderbilt and the railroad

A
  • Cornelius and son William Vanderbilt = railroad tycoons
  • Originally made fortune through steamboat operations (worth $11 million by 1962)
  • Used profit to buy out and consolidate rail companies in the East
  • Established a standard track gauge and one of the first to replace iron rails with steel
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt died in 1877, richest man in America
  • Fortune passed to his son William who expertly manipulated capital and handed strikes brutally
  • William Vanderbilt died in 1885, the richest man in world
27
Q

Summarise Andrew Carnegie and steel

A
  • Arrived in American as a poor Scottish immigrant
  • Started work in a railroad company where he sold iron during the Civil War and invested the profits in iron works
  • He used Bessemer Converters to make better and cheaper steel from iron
  • Made Homestead Steelworks in Pennsylvania which brought all processes of steel manufacturing together
  • Initially manufactured rails but moved into bridges, machinery, wire and armour plaiting for the US Navy
  • In 1900, sold it all to J.P Morgan for $480 million
28
Q

Describe the practices of Andrew Carnegie

A
  • Rarely bought out competitors
  • Sold steel at competitive prices
  • Monopolised through vertical integration
29
Q

Describe Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropy

A
  • Self-made millionaire
  • Donated to unis, hospitals, free libraries, parks, swimming baths and churches
  • Set up Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
30
Q

Describe why Andrew Carnegie attracted criticism

A
  • For being a socialist and philanthropist
  • Exploiting workers (low pay & long hours) and being too ruthless to rivals
31
Q

Describe J.P Morgan and finance

A
  • Inherited $12 million but increased his fortune through his skills as a financier
  • Major force behind creation of large companies (eg US steel corporation)
  • 1871, began his own private banking company
  • Criticised for creating monopolies and flaunting wealthy
32
Q

Describe John D Rockefeller and oil

A
  • Bought his first oil refinery in 1862
  • 8 years later set up Standard Oil Company in Ohio
  • 1880’s = owned 85% of all American oil production
  • World’s first billionaire
  • Gave $550 million to medicine, African-American educational institutions and the Baptist Church
33
Q

Describe the National Railroad Strike

A
  • 1877
  • Owners of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad announced a pay cut (the 4th in as many years)
  • Largest industrial disturbance to date

Worst in Pittsburgh:
- 5,000 workers fought 650 federal troops
- Workers burnt 500 cars, 104 locomotives and 39 buildings
- 25 killed
- $10 million worth of property damage
- Military force restores order

34
Q

What were the key effects of the National Railroad Strike 1877?

A
  • Worker resolve to organise
  • Employers resolve to suppress
35
Q

Describe the Knights of Labour

A
  • Founded in 1869
  • Campaigned for the initiative and referendum and sought to build more cooperative labour management relations
  • Lobbied for 8 hour day and child labour restrictions
36
Q

Describe the Wabash Railroad Strike

A
  • 1885
  • When Wabash Railroad tried to break a local Union, the knights walked out in sympathy
  • The entire Southwest System was paralysed and Wabash was forced to negotiate
  • Within a year of this, Knights 3/4 million members
37
Q

Describe the decline of the Knights of Labour

A
  • Lots of newly joined members attempted industrial action but were rarely supported by others
  • Haymarket Bomb Outrage 1886 was blamed on the Knights
  • Within a year, membership halved; within a decade, all but extinct
38
Q

Describe the Haymarket Bomb Outrage

A
  • 1886
  • Strike at McCormick Harvester Works, Chicago
  • Police fired into crowd killing several
  • Black International organise rally in Haymarket Square the following evening
  • Someone threw a bomb - 1 policeman killed instantly, 60+ injured (6 of whom died later)
  • Police retaliated, fired into crowd, some fatalities

Aftermath:
- Seven arrested, all found guilty, several executed
- Contributed to the failure of the 1886 eight-hour day movement

39
Q

Describe the American Federation of Labour

A
  • Set up in 1885
  • Only skilled white men
  • Limited objectives

Learned from Knights mistakes:
- Recognised the autonomy of each trade
- Executive Council could not interfere in the internal affairs of member unions
- Taxed member unions to create a strike fund and maintain a secretariat
- Formed central and state federations

40
Q
A
41
Q

Describe some pull factors for immigration to America

A

Adverts in guidebooks, pamphlets and newspapers

Railroads:
- Reduced fairly land and sea
- Loans with low interest
- Classes in farming
- Building of churches and schools

42
Q

Describe the reaction to immigration

A

Initial reaction:
- Allowed industrial development
- Welcomed

Economic fear bred ethnic intolerance:
- Drain on American resources
- Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882
- Racist jokes and stereotypes
- Antisemitism

Nativism:
- Native plutocracy (wealthy, white Americans in control of the government) vs foreign working class
- Protestants vs Catholics
- Nativism = Protecting the interests of native-born/established inhabitants against immigrants

43
Q

Describe how employment for African Americans progressed

A
  • Could move between plantations and regions to find work
  • Many wanted higher income jobs and so moved from border states to areas such as Georgia and Mississippi
  • Some found employment in farming, building railroads, making turpentine and lumbering
44
Q

Describe how employment for African Americans was set back

A
  • 1870-1900 African American population doubled from 4 million to 7.9 million
  • Many remained in the South
  • Most were tied to farming (sharecropping had low wages and allowed for continued ‘masters’)
  • Boll weevil caused depressions and living standards deteriorated after 1892
45
Q

Describe how the standard of living for African Americans progressed

A
  • No legal segregation in the North
  • Greater possibility of franchise for black people in the North
  • Strong black culture emerging
46
Q

Describe how the standard of living for African Americans was set back

A
  • Black ghettos formed after migration North was met negatively
  • Frequently barred from trade unions
  • Poor quality housing
  • Limited access to employment, education and housing
47
Q

Describe how franchise for African Americans progressed

A

15th Amendment outlaws voting discrimination

48
Q

Describe how franchise for African Americans was set back

A
  • After reconstruction the number of black people in politics decreases
  • Southern states introduce rules to stop black voting and by 1910 there is near elimination of the black vote in the South
49
Q

Describe how equality for African Americans progressed

A

Separate facilities were supposed to be equal (in practice they were not)

50
Q

Describe how equality for African Americans was set back

A
  • Jim Crow laws introduced 1887
  • AA were perceived as an underclass
  • Social Darwinism introduced a hierarchy of races and was used as a justification for segregation
  • Court denies ‘The Civil Rights Cases’
  • 1882-1899, 2500 people lynched
  • Southern governments and police force did nothing to combat white violence and even when perpetrators were taken to court, all white juries meant there were rarely convictions
51
Q

Describe how education for African Americans progressed

A

1877-1887, the number of back schools doubled

52
Q

Describe how education for African Americans was set back

A
  • 1882 Senator Blair’s bill to provide millions to all black schools, rejected by Congress
  • By 1887, sill only 2/5 eligible black children enrolled in schools
  • White schools had longer terms and better funding
  • Few state subsidies for black students
53
Q

Describe the Dawes Act

A
  • 1887
  • Authorised federal government to break up tribal lands and reservations into individual plots
  • Only Native Americans who accepted these individual allotments were allowed to become US citizens
  • The object was to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream US society
54
Q

Describe the Massacre at Wounded Knee

A
  • December 29th, 1890
    US 7th Cavalry Regiment surrounded a camp of Sioux - Indians near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota
  • While attempting to disarm the Sioux, a shot was fired and the soldiers began to open fire
  • Hundreds of Native Americans killed
55
Q

Describe the Ghost Dance movement

A
  • Spiritual movement
  • According to the teachings, the Ghost Dance ceremony would reunite the spirits of dead and living for a successful battle with the White Americans, restoring the Native American way of life
56
Q

Describe how railways developed life in the West

A

Transcontinental lines:
- The Southern Pacific (1883)
- The Northern Pacific ( 1883)
- The Atchison (1884)
- The Great Northern (1893)
- 4 transcontinental railroads built 1883 to 1893

Help:
- Federal - 70 million hectare land grants
- State - $200 million, 19 million hectare land grants

Benefits:
- People in, raw goods out
- Stimulated the growth of iron, steel, lumber and other industries
- Land next to the railroad fetched 2x the normal amount but government traffic on land grant lines had a 50% discount

57
Q

Describe how agriculture developed life in the West

A

New inventions
- Dry farming methods
- Reapers, threshing machines, binders, combined harvesters, barbed wire, deep-drilled well and steel windmills

Expansion:
- 1867 to 1890, wheat production = 211 million bushels to 599 million
- Wheat exports = 6 million bushels (1867) to 102 million bushels (1900)
- 1840 to 1900, the time to produce 15 bushels of wheat = 35 labour hours to 15 labour hours

Collapse:
- 1870’s glut
- Corn prices = 78 cents a bushel (1867) to 31 cents a bushel (1873)
- Farmers with loans went bankrupt

58
Q

Describe how cattle and ranching developed life in the West

A

Cattle trails:
- At the end of the Civil War, ranching based in Texas
- 1867, McCoy devises the Long Drive Route
- 1866 to 1885, 5.71 million cattle are taken North by the Long Drive Route

Meatpacking:
- Starts with Armour in 1868
- Much exploitation

Cattle-ranching:
- Replaced cattle drives

Disputes over land and water:
- Very common
- Vigilante systems

Boom:
- Large-scale corporate enterprise
- 1883 = British own 8 million hectares of Western grazing land
- 1880’s Eastern and European investment in ‘Beef Bonanza’

59
Q

Describe how cowboys developed life in the West

A

40,000 cowboys 20 years after the Civil War
Background:
- 1/3rd were Mexican, AA, Asian or Native American
- Many were ex-confederate soldiers

Life:
- 18 hour day
- Weather and dangerous animals
- $25 to $30 a month

60
Q

Describe how the end of the open range changed life in the West

A

Disaster:
- Summer of drought
- Severe winters 1885 - 1887
- Up to 90% western cattle die

The end:
- By 1890, open range and cowboys were over
- American shift from eating pork to eating beef

61
Q

Describe the Turner Essay

A

1893, Frederick Turner, presented a conference paper called the ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History’
He claimed:
- The key to America was ‘the existence of an area of free land’
- The excess of land acted as a safety valve against social discord and violence
- The harshness of the frontier created self-reliant individuals
- America was different in social structure to Europe
- The US had a unique form of democracy

It attracted much criticism:
- 1942, ‘The Frontier & American Institutions: A Criticism of the Turner Thesis’
- 1949, ‘Westward Expansion, a History of the American Frontier’
- General thoughts = ignored women, hasty generalisation, ignores immigrants and Native Americans, promoted provincialism

62
Q

Describe the Navy during this period

A
  • an alphabet of floating tubs’
    1882, Secretary of the Navy (Hunt), advocated for expansion
  • Of the 140 ships, only 42 were operational
  • Only 17 steamships and 14 were from the Civil War
  • Captain Thayer advocated and published ‘The influence of Sea Power Upon History’ (1890) and ‘The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire’ (1892)
63
Q

Describe Hawaii during this period

A
  • 1875, US begins to import Hawaiian sugar duty free
  • In return the Hawaiian gov must refuse concessions such as importing manufactured goods to other countries
    1887, Bayard expands the treaty with Hawaii
  • Now have permission to build a naval base at Pearl Harbour
64
Q
A

US History (3 decks)

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