Gilded Age: Politics and Expansion
1 Presidents of the Gilded Age (1877-1888)
Essential Questions:
Describe the rise of machine politics in local and state governments during the
Gilded Age.
Analyze and evaluate the impact of presidential policies and congressional actions
during the late 19th century.
Machine Politics
Political machines were informal, political organizations within each
______________ party. They maintained power through corruption of the political
system.
Emerged in ______________ areas to alleviate problems associated with
urbanization, such as housing, transportation, jobs, public services (i.e.: crime,
pollution, sanitation, etc.).
They developed into power centers to coordinate the needs of businesses,
immigrants, and the underprivileged, often using threats and bribery.
In return for performing these functions, they asked for people‘s ______________
on Election Day.
Tammany Hall
The most notorious of the political machines was the New York City
______________ Party group known as ―Tammany Hall.‖
Tammany was controlled by William ―Boss‖ ______________ in the 1860s and
1870s, and was imprisoned in 1874.
Boss Tweed was immortalized by the famous cartoonist Thomas ______________.
Political Cartoons:
National Politics
Election of 1876
Samuel J. ______________ (D) versus Rutherford B. ______________ (R)
Compromise of 1877
Hayes becomes president
End of ______________
Postmaster General
Southern Transcontinental RR
Election of 1880
*
*
Divisions within the Republican Party
Stalwarts
Name given to individuals that supported the practice of rewarding supporters by giving them
______________.
A.K.A.: the spoils system or patronage
Vice President Chester ______________
Halfbreeds
Name given to Republican reformers, who wanted to adopt a ______________ system to replace
the system of patronage.
A.K.A.: civil service reform
President James ______________
Assassination
Garfield named James G. Blaine Sec. of State and named other Halfbreeds at the expense of
Stalwarts.
Charles J Guiteau, a supporter of Stalwarts, shot ______________ in a D.C. train station. It took
Garfield 11 weeks to die!
Guiteau was found guilty and hanged, and Garfield became a martyr for reform, ensuring the
passage of civil service reform.
President Chester Arthur, formerly a Stalwart, champions the reform begun by Garfield.
The Pendleton Act
The Pendleton Civil Service Act of 18____
Established merit system of making appointments to office based on the basis of aptitude rather
than connection.
Established Civil Service Commission to administer competitive ______________.
Arthur classified 10% of government jobs as Civil Service.
90% classified by 1970.
Under this act, civil service employees could not be ______________ for political reasons.
Politicians had to look elsewhere for financial support and found it in big ______________.
Election of 1884
Democrats Come to Power
Grover Cleveland won the election with support of the Republican ―______________,‖ civil
service supporters who refused to back the Republican candidate, James G. Blaine.
Democrats wanted federal positions, and Cleveland was not able to deliver; thus, he lost support
of the Democrats and the Mugwumps.
Cleveland supported lowering the tariff rate, which created a distinction between the platforms of
Republicans and Democrats.
______________ Commerce Act and ______________ Severalty Act
Election of 1888
President Benjamin Harrison
Republicans gained support by portraying Democrats as advocates of ―______________ trade.‖
The ______________ Tariff (1890) raised tariffs to their highest level EVER.
The ______________ Antitrust Act (1890) made ―restraint of trade or commerce‖ illegal. During the
1890s, the act was used by government and business to prevent labor unions from ______________.
Essential Conclusions:
During the last half of the 19th century, corrupt political groups emerged in state and local governments
looking to solidify control. These machines often utilized illegal means to achieve their ends, namely votes
for their party members.
Civil service reform and the issue of the tariff become major focal points of the Democrats and
Republicans during this time period, creating two distinct and opposing platforms from which to attract
voters.
2 African Americans and Segregation
Essential Questions:
How did the political and social atmospheres of the post-Reconstruction South affect the lives of
African Americans in the United States?
Analyze the roles of the state and federal governments in preserving (OR NOT) the rights of African
Americans in the late 19th century.
Post-Civil War Era
Following the Civil War, three new amendments to the Constitution are ratified:
_____th: (1865) abolished slavery
_____th: (1868) prohibited states from denying equal protection and due process to its citizens
_____th: (1870) prohibited government from denying a person‘s suffrage on the basis of race
Civil Rights Act of 1875
guaranteed equal accommodations in ______________ places
prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection
no provisions for enforcement
Redeemers in the New South
With the Compromise of 18_____, the federal government shifted its attention away from
Reconstruction to Westward Expansion and Industrialization, resulting in the return of the South to a solid
Democratic base.
These ―______________‖ immediately sought to disfranchise African Americans, through the use of
literacy tests, poll taxes, and the ―grandfather clause.‖
New laws were passed to separate (segregate) the races…the Era of JIM CROW begins.
Besides laws controlling African American life, the use of intimidation, and often violence, kept black
people from attaining political, educational, and economic opportunities.
The New South for African Americans
New South: attempt to ______________ the southern economy and ______________ agriculture, and
sought Northern investment to expand railroads.
While white southerners sought to establish this New South, African Americans and many poor whites
remained tied to the land through sharecropping and tenant farming.
The Exodusters
In 1879, Benjamin Singleton led about 20,000 African Americans to ______________ from the South,
in an attempt to escape prejudice and racism following the Compromise of 1877.
Booker T. Washington
Founder of the ______________ Institute in 1881.
Believed in achieving economic goals rather than legal or political ones.
Addressed mixed audience in a speech called the ______________ Compromise in 1895.
―The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to
spend a dollar in an opera-house.‖
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
In 1892 Ida B. Wells launched a crusade against ______________ in her home state of Tennessee.
In her Memphis Free Speech newspaper, she cited greed as well as racial prejudice as causes behind
lynching.
After a mob destroyed her printing press, she was forced to leave town, and eventually published a
book from her new home, ______________.
Court Cases
______________ v. Ferguson, 1896, upheld segregation laws using 14th Amendment with equal
protection doctrine of ―separate but ______________.‖
Williams v. ______________, 1898, the Supreme Court allowed for the use of literacy tests and poll
taxes because they applied to all voters and did not discriminate based on race.
W. E. B. Du Bois “…color discrimination is barbarism.”
Leader of a new generation of AA activists born after the Civil War.
1903 The Souls of Black Folk
Wanted full equal rights for blacks, integrated ______________, and equal access to higher
education.
Believed ―the Negro race, like all others races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.‖ He
called these men the ―Talented ______________.‖
Essential Conclusions:
The leaders of the ―New South,‖ following the period of Reconstruction, systematically stripped
African Americans of basic civil rights and liberties, through intimidation and legal maneuvering. The
Supreme Court upheld these actions through its decisions.
The reactions of African Americans varied, which was obvious in the views of activists like Booker T.
Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
During this time period, most African Americans grudgingly accepted their fate, and remained victims
of Jim Crow.
3 West: Native Americans Guided Notes
Essential Questions:
Examine the means of resistance utilized by Native Americans in response to the intrusion of various
groups moving into the West.
Evaluate the evolving policies of the United States‘ government regarding Native American tribes.
The Plains Indians
Overwhelmingly nomadic hunters and gatherers, the ______________ were life to the Indians.
flesh for food
dried dung for fuel (―a hard matter that the Buffalo should furnish the meat and then the fuel to cook
it)
hides for clothes, bowstrings, blankets, shelter
bones for tools
A train in 1868 had to stop and wait for 8 hours for a single herd to cross.
1865: 15 million roaming the plains
1885: fewer than ______________ remained
In part caused by railroad expansion, desire for Buffalo Robes, tongues (delicacy) and machinery
belts, as well as rampant slaughter.
Government Policy in the Plains
1851 First Treaty of Ft. ______________
Reserved most of The Great ______________ for Native Americans.
Allowed for passage of American settlers through the area. Why are people moving through the
region?
Tens of thousands of Indians lived on the Great Plains as nomadic buffalo hunters.
Conflict in the Plains
1860s
U.S. government intensified its effort into herding Indians into still smaller and smaller reservations.
1864, ______________ Creek Massacre (Colorado)
Gold rush of 1858 brought settlers to the CO Territory.
Colonel J.M. Chivington‘s militia massacred some four hundred Indians led by ______________ Kettle
who were trying to surrender to the government.
1866 Fetterman Massacre
A Sioux war party led by ______________ Horse ambushed Captain William Fetterman‘s command of
81 soldiers and civilians who were constructing the Bozeman Trail to the Montana ______________.
1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge (Southern Plains Indians)
1868 2nd Treaty of Ft. Laramie (______________ Indians)
Agreed to move more limited reservations.
Atrocities
“They were scalped, the brains knocked out; the men used their knives, ripped open women, clubbed
little children, knocked them in the head with their guns, beat their brains out, mutilated their body in every
sense of the word.”
The Indian Wars 1868 – 1890
Almost incessant warfare raged in various parts of the west between Indians and whites.
Most cavalry were civil war veterans.
_____% of the western troops were black (called ______________ Soldiers).
The Sioux Wars, 1876 – 1877
Sparked by ______________ seekers moving into the ______________ Hills, South Dakota.
Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse joined forces.
Battle of the Little Bighorn (______________‘s Last Stand), Montana.
64 cavalry led by George Custer were wiped out by 2500 Indians.
Indians were forced to flee to Canada, but later returned to surrender.
The Flight of the Nez Perce, 1877
Sparked by gold prospectors & reservation reduction by 90%.
Chief Joseph tried to lead his followers to ______________ (1500 mile trek).
Caught 30 miles from the border and sent to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
―I am tired of fighting. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. -Chief Joseph
The Apache
The Apache were also told to go to a reservation, the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona.
In 1881, Army troops moved in and caused Chief ______________ and about 75 followers were to
flee
For 5 years, they evaded capture and raided settlements.
Finally, in 1886 he surrendered, which marked the end of all armed resistance to the reservation
system.
Assimilation
1887: ______________ Severalty Act (Dawes General Allotment Act)
Dissolved many of the tribes as legal entities.
Wiped out tribal ownership of land.
Provided ______________ acres to adult males for farming.
Could gain citizenship in 25 years.
Remained official government policy until Indian Reorganization Act of 19____.
A Century of Dishonor 1881
Helen Hunt ______________
Attacked govt. treatment of Indians and the breaking of treaties.
Oklahoma Land Rush
Due to the enactment of the ______________ Act, land becomes available in Oklahoma, Indian land
that is.
Boomers
______________
The Ghost Dance, 1889
______________, a Paiute medicine man, claimed that traditional Indian ways of life would be revived
if Indians performed the Ghost Dance.
Many Sioux Indians embraced the ideas, adding a militant tone.
After the outlawing of the Ghost Dance, Indian police set out to arrest ______________, who is killed
in the attempt, leading many Indians to flee the reservation.
"I want my people to stay with me here. All the dead men will come to life again. Their spirits will come to
their bodies again. We must wait here in the homes of our fathers and be ready to meet them in the
bosom of our mother."
Battle of Wounded Knee, 1890
300 Indians are slaughtered as they were being escorted back to the reservation.
Marked the ______________ of the Indian Wars in the Plains.
The Miners
Throughout the period of Westward expansion, men were drawn to the region with hopes of becoming
instantly rich…namely, they had the ______________. Naturally, the clashing of these rough and ready
men with the Native Americans living in these areas led to conflicts.
The U. S. government devised legislation in support of settlers, while attempting to assimilate the
Indians.
Mining in the Klondike
As ―boomtowns became ―______________ (ghost towns), gold was discovered in the Klondike and
______________ regions of Alaska.
Essential Conclusions:
As men sought their fortunes in ranching, mining, and farming throughout the West (―Go West, young
man‖), Native American tribes first attempted to resist white encroachment.
American policy, first through extermination, later with the system of reservation, and, finally, forced
assimilation, meant that Native Americans were pushed farther and farther away from their ancestral
lands and their way of life.
4 West: Farmers and Populists
Essential Questions:
Analyze the challenging conditions faced by farmers and ranchers moving into the Great Plains.
Describe and evaluate the causes and consequences of political mobilization by farmers in the late
19th century.
Cattle on the Plains
Following the Civil War, an increase in immigration and migration to ______________ areas resulted
in an increased demand for beef and agricultural products, as railroads expanded into the
______________.
The ______________ longhorn breed was suited to the dry, harsh conditions of the Great Plains, and
soon men looking for the romance of life in the West found themselves at home on the range.
The Cattle Boom, 1860s – 1880s
Due to increasing populations in the West, improved fencing techniques, and further expansion of the
railroads, the short-lived long drive was no longer possible. This led to an increase in large-scale, fencedin cattle ranches throughout the Great Plains.
______________ and droughts in 1886-1887, coupled with overexpansion and ______________, also
contributed to the end of the Cattle Boom.
The Government Opens the Plains
______________ Act of 1862
The government lured settlers by promising 160 acres of public land, on the condition that they live on
and improve the land for _____ years, paying only around $30.
The government was basically giving away land to fill it with settlers, and 1/2 million families took
advantage of the opportunity (_____rds failed).
Another 2.5 million families bought western land from railroads, land companies or the states.
Adapting to the Plains
Solutions
Problems
Despite the numerous hardships faced by
Farmers on the Great Plains faced:
farmers, their success was aided by:
extreme weather conditions
improved ______________
lack of rainfall
new wheat strains
lack of ______________ for
steel plow
building
steel windmill
prairie fires
barbed wire
hostile Indians
dry farming techniques (planting seeds
isolation from civilization.
deeper)
______________ housing
Farmers Organize
1867 National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry (The ______________)
Organizer Oliver _____________ wanted to stimulate the minds of farm folk by social,
educational and fraternal activities, and had attracted 800,000 members by 1875.
The Grange began to establish cooperatives for both consumers and producers.
Strong support in the Midwest led to passage of ―Granger Laws‖ to protect farmers from
excessive rail rates & storage fees
______________ v. Illinois 1877
Wabash v. Illinois 1886
______________ Commerce Act 1887
1885 Farmers‘ Alliances
First established in Texas in 1877.
Under the leadership of Charles _____________, recruitment outside of Texas began in 1886,
in hopes of organizing and politicizing the farmers of the South and West.
Using some of the same tactics as the Grangers, the Farmers‘ Alliance numbered 1 million by
1890, but attained little political success.
Ocala Demands, 1890
Origins of the Populists or ______________‘s Party (1892-1896):
Emerged in 1890 when the Farmers‘ Alliances issued the ―Ocala Demands:
1. the direct election of ______________
2. a graduated income ______________
3. lower tariff rates
4. new federally regulated banking system
5. increase in the money supply (more silver)
Attracted Farmers‘ Alliance members mostly in the Midwest and West. (The
―______________ South remained Democratic).
Economic Crisis for the Farmers
Coinage Act of 1873
Demonetized the silver dollar and made ______________ the sole monetary standard
Early in the 1870s, US Treasury maintained 16 ounces of silver was worth 1 ounce of gold (16
to 1 ratio), but it was really a _____ to 1 ratio.
Panic of 1873
Caused by overexpansion of industry, agriculture and commerce including over speculation in
railroad construction and banking
When profits failed, loans went unpaid and the credit-based system collapsed which led to
______________.
After several silver discoveries, the value of silver decreased.
Farmers & debtors needed inflation to ease repayment of loans and began to refer to the
Coinage Act as the ―______________ of ‗73‖
Bland-Allison Act, 1878
U.S. Treasury would buy between $2 million and $4 million in ______________ each month.
(did not lead to inflation)
Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890
U.S. Treasury would purchase 4.5 million ounces of ______________ monthly. (passed to
make farmers happy, but did little to help them)
Rise of the Peoples Party
In 1892, reformers founded the National People's Party, commonly known as the Populist Party.
The fledgling third party consisted of the various ―popular issue groups,‖ including farmers‘
organizations, labor organizations, and debtors, who felt their complaints were not addressed by
the two mainstream political parties.
The Omaha Platform
Delegates meeting in Omaha, ______________ in 1892 were determined to do something
about the concentration of economic power in the hands of the trusts and bankers.
―It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government
of wall street, by wall street, and for wall street.‖
-Mary E. Lease
“…government injustice breeds two great classes of tramps and millionaires…”
-Ignatius Donnelly
The Omaha Platform Demands of the Populist
Political
Direct or popular election of senators
Initiative, referendums, and recall
Restrictions on ______________
Lowering of tariff
______________ Australian ballot
Economic
Unlimited coinage of ____________
Graduated income tax
Nationalization of railroads and banks
Loans and federal warehouses for farmers
______________ work day for industrial workers
Election of 1892
Panic of 1893
Worst economic disaster to date
_____% unemployment
lasted 4 years
Gold was being drained from the treasury due to the Silver Purchase Act of 1890.
President ______________ supported the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act which
alienated Democrats and farmers.
Coxey’s Army, 1894
Jacob Coxey marched on D.C. from ______________ (Populist) and was joined by about 500
unemployed
Demanded the government finance a public works program worth $500 million to relieve
______________
Coxey was arrested for walking on the grass in D.C. and the movement collapsed.
Democrats & Populist Unite
 
Election of 1896
William McKinley
** Victory for big ______________, big cities, middle-class values and conservatism.
The last attempt to win the White House with the ______________ vote and marked the end of
a strong Populist party movement.
Panic of 1893 came to an end in 1897.
______________ Tariff Act of 1897 raised tariff to 46.5%.
Gold Standard Act of 1900 established a gold-based currency (all money backed by gold until
1933).
Turner Thesis
1890, the U.S. Census Bureau declared that the entire ______________, except for a few
isolated pockets – had been settled.
Reacting to this announcement, Frederick Jackson ______________ wrote an influential essay,
―The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893)
He argued that 300 years of frontier experience had played a fundamental role in shaping the
unique character of American society, challenging Americans to be inventive and practical – but
also ______________ toward natural resources.
The frontier had also acted as a powerful social leveler, breaking down class distinctions and
thus fostering social and political ______________.
Essential Conclusions:
Farmers (and ranchers) moving to the Great Plains during the last decades of the 19 th century
faced many and varied obstacles. Though many settlers who had gone West with high hopes
failed, others overcame their hardships in innovative new ways.
As farmers faced dire economic circumstances and foul weather, many found solace in
organizing supportive alliances to lobby government agencies, and, eventually, enter into
presidential politics