American History—Chapters 13
and 14
Great Plains
• Great Plains—Grassland that extend
through the western part of America
• Native Tribes
• Many different tribes (Iowa, Sioux, Cheyenne)
• Hunted and followed buffalo (tepees)
• Issues with White Man
• Wanted to move west for land, gold, RR
• Different views on land ownership
• RR forced the government to get involved
White Man vs Indians
• Massacre at Sand Creek
• 150 innocent Cheyenne women and children dead
• Treaty of Ft. Laramie
• Bozeman Trail—hunting trail used by the Sioux
• Treaty of Ft. Laramie—some Sioux signed this, said they
would live along the Missouri River
• Sitting Bull (Sioux Leader) did not sign this treaty
• Black Hills (GOLD!!!)
• George Custer—US general in charge of the 7th Calvary,
supposed to make sure the Indians didn’t interfere
• Battle of Little Big Horn---Custer’s Calvary was surrounded
and killed by Sitting Bull and others
Government Solves the
Problem??
• Assimilation
• Force the minority group to give up beliefs to fit into the main
culture of the dominant group
• Tried to force the Native Americans to live more like white
people.
• Dawes Act
• Act that tried to Americanize the Native Americans
• Gave them 160 acres to work with…problem was that most of
the good land was stolen back by the white people
• Main Problem: Death of the buffalo due to over
hunting by whites
End of the Indian Problems
• Battle at Wounded Knee
• Sitting Bull and others used the Ghost Dance to try
to get their land back/get rid of the white people.
• US Military saw this as a threat and surrounded
• Gun went off, US Army attacked and killed over
300 Native Americans
• Last major battle between the Native Americans of
the Plains and the US Army
Cowboy Time
• Longhorns
• Cattle that the Spanish brought over
• Vaqueros—Mexican Cowboy’s
• Why so popular?
• Demand for beef was high, especially in cities
• Long Drives—Cowboys would herd cattle, transport them to RR
and then ship them all over the country
• Cowboy Life
• All different races and color (Mexicans, Whites, Blacks, Native
• Very difficult—most were done by the age of 40, weather,
stampedes, Indian attacks all made it very dangerous
• Cattle Industry fell apart because of bad weather, overgrazing of
land, and barbed wire.
Moving to the Plains
• Transcontinental RR
• Government bought a bunch of land to build a RR that went
across the country
• Central Pacific (Sacramento) and Union Pacific (Omaha) were
the 2 companies that built it.
• Caused people to move out west
• Homestead Act
• Gave 160 acres of free land to anyone that would settle and
farm the area of the Great Plains
• Successful in Iowa/Minnesota (good land)
• Not so successful in other places b/c of bad land, cattle drives
and angry Native Americans
Moving West Again
• By 1890, most of the land in American was
owned by white people (govt. or citizens)
• Life was very difficult
• Soddy---sod homes that people lived in (no trees)
• Natural disasters, Indians, loneliness
• New Inventions helped make it easier to farm
• Morrill Act
• Gave money to establish Agricultural Colleges (ISU)
• Helped improve farmers productivity
Farming is not easy
• Difficulties
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Have to buy expensive machines to be successful
Low crop prices made it hard to pay back debts
Shipping Prices on RR were outrageous
Drought made it impossible to grow things…farmers began to
go into more and more debt.
• It cost more to take wheat from the Dakotas to Minneapolis
than it did to take wheat from Chicago to England
• Started to work together to get rights..
Farmers…Assemble
• Grange
• Organization created by Oliver Kelly
• Farmers would work together to improve lives
• Main target was the RR
• Farmers Alliance
• Came after the Grange
• Tried to improve financial conditions (loans, interests)
• Populism
• Movement of the People (political movement)
• Farmers need political power…formed the Populist Party
Farmers and Politics
• Populist Party
• Demands: more money in circulation, income tax
reform, federal loan program, 8-hour work day
(non-farmers) and better conditions.
• Successful in the west, able to elect a handful of
senators and governors.
• Ideas from the Populist Party would become
the platform of the modern Democrat Party
• Government is responsible for fixing social and
economical problems.
Economy is bad…like today??
• Panic of 1893
• RR went bankrupt and farmers were in debt
• People began to panic and the stock market crashed
• Thousands of banks closed, 20% Unemployment
• What should money be made of?
• Gold vs Silver
• Gold—less coins, cause deflation (wealthy like)
• Silver—more coins, cause inflation (poor like)
• Election of 1896
• William McKinley (Rep) defeated William Bryan (Dem)
• Very sectionalized—was the end of the Populist Movement
Chapter 14
Expansion of Industry
We are growing…
• Growth
• After the Civil War, the US began to grow like crazy
• By 1920, we were the leading industrial producer in
the world
• Natural Resources, government support, cheap labor,
lots of people…
Inventors are smart people
• Many Inventions helped make the US strong
• Edwin L Drake—Steam engine that drilled for oil
– Oil boom (Kentucky, Ohio, Penn)
– Initially oil made into Kerosene (gasoline was thrown away)
– Eventually, they kept gasoline around
• Bessemer Process—takes the carbon out of raw iron,
makes the steel much easier to use
– RR, Barbed wire, farm equipment, bridges, skyscrapers
(Willam Jenny)
Inventors are smart people
• More Inventions
• Thomas Edison—light bulb
– Found ways to make electricity safe to use
– Changed how people lived, traveled (electric street cars),
business (located anywhere, open all night, safer)
• Christopher Sholes—invented the typewritter
• Alexander Graham Bell—invented telephone
• All of these inventions changed the world
– More jobs for women
– Made life easier, more modern
RR Time Again
• Transcontinental RR
• Completion was critical to the west being settled
• Conditions working on the project were horrible
– Central Pacific (Chinese) and Union Pacific (Irish and Blacks)
worked in horrible conditions
– Over 2000 people died making this RR
• Completed in 1869—Utah “Golden Spike”
• RR Time
• Before, each city would have separate times (12:00 in Chicago,
12:10 in NYC)—Problems
• CF Dowd—Divide the earth into 24 time zones, map
RR Causes Growth
• Business and Towns Expanded
• Why Mediapolis is where it is
• Chicago, Minneapolis, etc…
• George Pullman
• Built RR cars that people could sleep on
• Tried to create a whole town around his factory, control the
lives of workers (didn’t work)
• Credit Mobilier
• RR Scandal involving Grant’s administration
• Grange
• Kept fighting the RR companies for fair prices
• Interstate Commerce Act—gave the government the right to
set fair prices for RR activity
Andrew Carnegie
• Andrew Carnegie
• Became rich buy controlling the steel industry
• Wanted to make products the cheapest and hired the
best employees (incentive based)
• Controlling the industry
• Vertical Integration—buying out all the suppliers
(coal/iron fields, RR, etc)
• Horizontal Integration---buy out all the rival steel
companies
John Rockefeller
• John Rockefeller
• Made millions of dollars in the oil industry
• Created Standard Oil Company
• Complete Control of Oil Industry
• Merger—type of horizontal integration where companies come
together or merge
• Standard Oil Company—a bunch of oil companies merged
together to create this company)
• Formed a trust, led by Rockefeller, could now underbid any
other oil company.
• Trusts are not a legal type of merger
Social Darwinism
• Social Darwinism
• Belief that the smartest, hardest working people
would be the most successful in business.
• Came from Charles Darwin’s book on natural
selection, “only the strong will survive”
• Made the business world more competitive, people
tried to make more money
• Embraced by Rockefeller and Carnegie
Opposition
• Robber Barons
• People were mad at both Carnegie/Rockefeller
• Made a ton of $ but didn’t do much to improve conditions for
workers.
• Also were able to run other companies out of business by
under-bidding.
• Both men did donate much back to community
• Sherman Anti-Trust Act
• Made it illegal to have a trust that interfered with free trade
between states/countries.
• Very difficult to enforce, hard to define what was a trust
• More business’ have consolidated (join together)
Changes in the workplace
• Difference between North and South
• North was growing, South remained the same
• South was dependent on the North (RR, etc)
• Eventually able to improve industry (forestry, mining, tobacco)
• Changes in the Workplace
• Came together (unionized) to protest bad working conditions
• 12 hr. days, 7 days a week, no vacation, sick leave,
employment, or disability, young children worked..
• Injuries were very common, hundreds died each year in
preventable work injuries.
Unions
• National Labor Union/Knights of Labor
• Early unions, open to everyone
• 8 hr. work day and equal pay
• Craft Unions (American Federation of Labor)
• Skilled workers from all different trades
• Samuel Gompers
• Industrial Unions (American Railroad Union)
• All Laborers (Skilled/Unskilled) Eugene Debs-leader
• Similarities
• All of these used boycotts and strikes to get demands that they
wanted, all were able to improve the workplace
Socialism
• Socialism
• Government has total control of business, wealth,
and property
• Related on some levels to Communism
• Eugene Debs
• Mary Harris Jones (Mother Jones)
• Fought to give women/children more rights in
workplace
Government Intervention
• Different Occasions when Govt. took control
• Great Strike of 1877---RR Strike, ended by govt. troops
• Haymarket Affair---riot that occurred in Chicago, many
left dead
• Homestead Strike—steel workers went on strike,
attacked the people that worked in their place “scabs”
• Pullman Company Strike
• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire---Fire that killed 146
women, only had one exit in place.
• Even today, the Union remains powerful!