Unit 8: Industrialism, War, and the
Progressive Era (1877 – 1912)
New South and Last West
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Politics in the New South (new vision:
economic diversity and laissez-faire)
Redeemers – Democratic comeback in politics
after Reconstruction
„ Whites and African Americans in the South
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Continued poverty due to late start in
industrialization and poorly educated workforce
„ George Washington Carver-scientist at Tuskegee
„ Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) – “separate but…”
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Subordination of freed slaves: Jim Crow –
segregation laws like…
-disenfranchisement – literacy tests, poll
taxes, grandfather clauses
-barred from serving on juries/ learning
trades
-lynch mobs
-message in cartoon?
Responses to Segregation
Ida B. Wells – editor of “Free Speech” black
newspaper campaigned against lynchings
and Jim Crow
Booker T. Washington – Booker T and
Tuskegee – philosophy?
WEB DuBois – NAACP – philosophy?
Southern Economy
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Sharecropping – “New slavery”
Industrial stirrings
Farming increasingly commercialized and
specialized
„ Cotton still king (prices down), some
diversified
„ Developed into leading steel center
(Birmingham Ala.), lumber (Memphis),
Richmond (tobacco), textiles (Ga. SC, NC)
„ New railroads
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Cattle Kingdom
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Open-range ranching
„ Cattle drives
„ Influence of railroads – ship
out cattle – Abilene Kansas,
Chicago
„ Changed American diet
„ Closing due to – winter
blizzard and drought (1885
– 1886), Homesteaders and
Glidden’s barbed wire
Day of the cowboy
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Myths and reality?
Turner’s frontier
thesis?
Building the Western Railroad
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Influence?
Transcontinental Railroad
and Promontory Point,
Utah
Workers?
Risks?
Impact on big business?
Vanderbilt, stock
companies, politics (land
grants, loans)
Subordination of Indians: dispersal
of tribes
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Farmers and permanent
settlers (Pueblo and
Hopi)
Nomadic tribes lived on
Plains (Sioux, Cheyenne,
Crow, and Comanche) –
horse from Spanish
Misunderstandings with
American government
Reservation Policy (Ft.
Laramie. Atkinson)
Indian Wars
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Conflicts due to
settlement of miners,
cattlemen, homesteaders,
failed treaties
Sand Creek – 1864 –
Cheyenne women and
children massacred
Sioux War – 1865 – 1867
– army column wiped out
by Sioux
1870s – new round of
wars include legendary
figures Sitting Bull, Crazy
Horse, and George Custer
Assimilation and Aftermath
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Buffalo hunted out
Helen Hunt Jackson A Century of Dishonor
Carlisle School in Pennsylvania
Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
Ghost Dance Movement 1880s
Wounded Knee (1890) - last “battle” in
the Dakotas
20th Century – 1924 – US citizenship
granted to all Native-Americans
FDR’s Indian reorganization Act (1934)
Carlisle School – Before and After
Farming the Plains; problems in
agriculture
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“Great American Desert”
Homestead Act of 1862 –
encouraged settlers with free
land and railroad promotions
(1870 – 1900)
Problems included severe
weather, falling prices for
crops, new machinery costs
“Sodbusters”
Mail-order windmills for water
Dry farming and Deep plowing
techniques/ Grangers and
Farmer’s Alliances
Mining Bonanza
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Gold and silver strikes –
“Big” ones - Pike’s Peak
(Co), and Comstock Lode
(Nevada – entered Union)
Boomtowns- San
Francisco, Denver/ Ghost
towns- lifestyle?
California – hostility
between Native born
Americans and Chinese
immigrants – Chinese
Exclusion Act (1882)
Industrialization and Corporate
Consolidation
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A. Industrial growth: railroads, iron, coal,
electricity, steel, oil, banks
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By 1900 US leading industrial power due to:
Natural resources
„ Labor supply
„ Growing population combined w/ advanced
transportation
„ Capital was plentiful
„ Laborsaving technologies
„ Friendly government policies
„ Talented entrepreneurs
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Laissez – Faire Conservatism
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1. Gospel of Wealth and Andrew Carnegie
(Steel industry), self-made man
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Message?
2. Myth of the Self-made Man? Protestant
work ethic/ Horatio Alger stories
3. Social Darwinism and survival of the
fittest
4. Social critics and dissenters – Robber
Barons or Captains of Industry?
Rockefeller and Standard Oil/ JP Morgan
and banking and steel/ anti-trust
movement
Robber Barons?
Effects of Technological
development on worker/ workplace
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Concentration of wealth –
richest 10 % controlled 9/10
of nation’s wealth
Expanding middle class
By 1900 2/3 of Americans
worked for wages
Working women – only 5%
of married women factories (textile, garment,
food-processing),
“Feminized” occupations –
secretaries, bookkeepers,
typists, operators. Lower
wages and status
Union Movement
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1. Knights of Labor (Powderly) and
American Federation of Labor (Gompers) –
which one was more successful? Why?
2. Haymarket Square bombing – strike for 8
hour day in Chicago – bomb killed 7 police
officers – anarchists found guilty – union
criticized – Knights of Labor folded
Homestead Strike (1892) (Pittsburgh) –
wages cut 20%, manager used lockout, guards,
and strikebreakers – failed strike
Pullman strike – Eugene V. Debs, President
Cleveland convinced to send army in to break up
strike (mail disrupted)
Haymarket Square Bombing
Urban Society
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Lure of the City
Immigration
„ “Old” Immigrants
through 1880s – from?
„ “New” Immigrants
1890s – WWI – from?
„ Restricting
Immigration –
supported by labor
unions, nativist society
(American Protective
Association), Social
Darwinists
City Problems
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Slums – Pollution, Poverty,
Crime, tenement living, 10
cent spots, sewage
Machine Politics – Boss
Tweed and Tammany Hall –
Thomas Nast
City changes – streetcar
cities (lived according to
income, may live miles from
work), skyscrapers (Steel,
elevators, steam heating),
ethnic neighborhoods,
residential suburbs
Public city – municipal
government
Awakening conscience; reforms –
middle class movement
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Social legislation – Social
Gospel (applying Christian
principles to social
problems), Salvation
Army,
Settlement houses: Jane
Addams and Lillian Wald
– aid to immigrants
Stanton and Anthony’s
NAWSA – continued to
fight for suffrage –
Wyoming – first state to
grant voting rights to
women
WCTU and Carry Nation – convinced
states to close down saloons
Intellectual and Cultural
Movements
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Education –more public schools,
compulsory laws, McGuffey’s Readers
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Colleges and Universities
Increased due to land-grants under Morrill Act,
philanthropists, women colleges (Smith, Bryn
Mawr, Mount Holyoke)
„ New curriculum – modern languages, sciences,
research, inquiry
„ German model
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Realism in literature and art
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Mark Twain – realist author, stepped away
from romanticism of post-civil war
Naturalist writers who explained how
emotion and experience shape lives –
Stephen Crane Red Badge of Courage,
Jack London Call of the Wild
Painting – Realism, “Ashcan school”,
Whistler’s Mother
Mass Culture
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Use of leisure –
spectator sports,
circus, wild west show
Publishing and
journalism – Masscirculation
newspapers Pulitzer’s World, and
Hearst’s Journal and
magazines like Ladies
Home Journal
National Politics, 1877 – 1896: The
Gilded Age
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“Forgettable presidents” – Hayes, Garfield,
Arthur, and Fillmore
Issues - Tariffs, Money, Patronage
Tariff controversy – Democrats objected to
high tariffs (raised prices on consumer goods),
Republicans favored them (protect industry)
„ Railroad Regulation – Granger laws
overturned, Interstate Commerce Act 1886
ineffective at first
„ Trusts – pros and cons?
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Agrarian Discontent
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Problems – falling prices,
rising costs, middlemen
costs, railroads and haul
rates
National Grange Movement
(1870s) – Oliver Kelley –
led to laws to protect
farmers
Munn vs. Illinois-state to
regulate business of public
nature (RR)
Farmer’s alliances – 1880
and 90s - Ocala platform –
1. direct election of
senators, 2. lower tariffs, 3.
income tax, 4. new banking
system, also wanted silver!
– influenced Populist Party
Crisis of the 1890s
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Populism – People’s Party – Omaha
Platform – direct election of senators,
initiative and referendums, silver!, income
tax, 8 hour day for workers
Political alliance to tackle trusts and
laissez-faire capitalism
Third-party
Silver Question
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Panic of 1893 due to overspeculation, bankrupt
railroads, farm foreclosures
Cleveland championed gold
standard
Coxey’s Army – jobless on
march to Washington –
wanted public works
program – denied and sent
home
Debtors wanted silver!
Election of 1896 – McKinley
(Republican) vs. Bryan (Democrat/
Populist)
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William Jennings
Bryan and “Cross of
Gold Speech”
McKinley and Hanna
campaign compared
to Bryan?
Bryan hurt by rising
wheat prices and
scared workers
Significance of election of 1896
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Wizard of Oz
End of stalemated politics in Gilded Age
Era of Republican dominance
Populist demise
Urban dominance
Modern politics – international affairs
Progressive Era
Origins of Progressivism
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Progressive attitudes
and motives –
diverse, but many
from middle class city
- improve lives and
preserve democracy
for the people
The Muckrakers –
phrase coined by?
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Magazines – exposed
corruption
Lincoln Steffens and
Ida Tarbell
Municipal, state, and national
reforms
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Political: suffrage
Secret ballot
„ Direct primaries (started by La Follette of
Wisconsin – nominated by voters!)
„ Direct election of senators (1913 - 17th
Amendment)
„ Initiative, referendum, and recall
„ Cities take control of water supplies, gas
lines, electric power plants, urban
transportation systems
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Socialism: alternatives
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1901 – Socialist Party of
America
Eugene V. Debs –
candidate for president in
5 elections (1912 almost
a million votes), involved
earlier in Pullman strike,
critic of business and
champion of labor
Influence on public
ownership of utilities, 8
hour day, and pensions
Black America
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Washington-Tuskegee and work for
equality
Du Bois- wrote Souls of Black Folk criticized Washington and demanded
equality
Garvey – Back to Africa
2. Urban migration – North and cities
3. Civil rights organizations – Niagara
Movement and NAACP, National
Urban League
Women’s role: family, work, education,
unionization, and suffrage
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Carrie Chapman Catt –
president of NAWSA –
National American Women
Suffrage Association –
wanted vote to empower
women and care for family in
industrial society
Alice Paul – militant
suffragists – pickets, parades,
and hunger strikes
Nineteenth Amendment –
1920 – women’s suffrage
after WWI
Roosevelt’s Square Deal –
anthracite coal strike – actions?
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1. Managing the
trusts – trustbuster –
targeted railroads –
Northern Securities
Company
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ICC
Elkins Act (1903)
Consumer Protection –
Upton Sinclair’s The
Jungle – Pure Food
and Drug Act and
Meat Inspection Act
Conservation
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Forest Reserve Act (1891) – used to
preserve more federal land
Newlands Reclamation Act – irrigation
projects
TR and Taft
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1. Pinchot (TR’s man)Ballinger (Sec. Of Interior)
Controversy – Pinchot
criticized Ballinger’s sale of
public lands in Alaska – Taft
fired Pinchot
2. Payne-Aldrich tariffs –
promised to lower tariffs,
raised them
busted more trusts than TR
Split in Progressive Party –
TR and Taft
Foreign Policy, 1865 - 1914
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Seward and the Purchase of Alaska – 1867
– Seward’s Folly? Seward’s icebox?
Russia?
The new imperialism – needed markets
and sources of raw materials
International Darwinism:
missionaries, politicians, and naval
expansionists
Missionaries and
Josiah Strong’s
Anglo-Saxon
“fittest”
„ Republican
politicians – protect
industry
„ Mahan’s Sea Power
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Spanish – American War (1898) –
“Splendid Little War”?
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Causes
Jingoism (extreme nationalism)
„ Cuban revolt
„ Yellow press
„ De Lome letter
„ Sinking of the Maine
„ McKinley’s War message – end
barbarities, protect American property,
injury to business and trade, and
menace to our peace
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Remember the Maine!
Cuban independence
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Teller Amendment – once
peace, Cuba would
control own government
Rough Riders
Platt Amendment (1901)
– resented by Cuban
nationalists – had to
agree never to sign a
treaty that impaired
independence, don’t build
up debt, US could
intervene if problems,
naval base at
Guantanamo Bay
Debate on Philippines
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Victory at Manila Bay – Commodore
George Dewey
Aided by rebels led by Emilio
Aguinaldo – turned against US when
independence not granted – fought
for 3 years
Benevolent Assimilation
Result of war – Cuban independence
and US acquired Puerto Rico, Guam,
and Philippines
The Far East
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John Hay and the
Open Door Policy –
concerned about
spheres of influence,
passed to ensure US
access to trade
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Boxer Rebellion
(1900) – attacked
foreigners
Far East
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Russo-Japanese War (1904
– 05)– Treaty of Portsmouth
– TR and Nobel Prize
“Gentlemen’s Agreement” –
schools and immigration
from Japan
Great White Fleet
Root-Takahira Agreement –
US and Japan – mutual
respect of each other’s
possessions in Pacific
Theodore Roosevelt
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The Panama Canal
„ Revolution in Panama
„ Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
(1901) – US build on own
„ Building the canal –
dangerous, Dr. Gorgas helped eliminate yellow
fever due to mosquitoes
„ Important connection for
trade and for military
purposes
Roosevelt Corollary
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US would intervene
whenever necessary
in Latin America
Police Power
Manage collection of
European debts
Strengthened the
Monroe Doctrine
Taft and Dollar Diplomacy
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Belief that American
financial investment in
China and Latin
America would lead to
greater stability there –
hurt by antiimperialism