To Begin…

Please pull out your notes from Friday, as
we need to finish that lecture.

Welcome Ms. Rentschler
Discrimination in the Courts

Civil Rights Cases
(1883)

Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896)
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Jim Crow laws
Discrimination at the Polls

Literacy tests
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Poll taxes
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Residency
requirements

Grandfather Clause
Discrimination in the Workplace

African Americans
received few if any
industrial jobs

Sharecropping and
tenant farming

Crop-lien system
African-American Response
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Leadership of black
churches
African-American
entrepreneurs
Social, fraternal, and
service organizations
Prominent individuals
◦
◦
◦
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W.E.B. Dubois
Booker T. Washington
Ida B. Wells
Henry McNeal Turner
Westward Expansion
To what degree did the West exist as a “land
of opportunity”?
12/6
Western Frontier Commercials
“On one level, the settlement of the West beyond the Mississippi River
constitutes a colorful drama of determined pioneers and cowboys overcoming
all obstacles to secure their visions of freedom and opportunity amid the
region’s awesome vastness. On another level, however, the colonization of the
Far West involved short-sighted greed and irresponsible behavior, a story of
reckless exploitation that scarred the land, decimated it’s wildlife, and nearly
exterminated the culture of the Native Americans” (Shi, 623).

We’ll examine the two sides of Western Life through
the development of commercials. Each group will be
assigned a perspective. Some will develop persuasive
commercials designed to influence westward
migration. Others will develop satirical commercials
designed to discourage westward migration.
Railroads and the West

Allowed for
expansion of
railroads
◦ Transcontinental
railroads

Impacts
◦ Economic
◦ Environmental
◦ Social/Political
Life in the West: Native Americans

Problems:
◦ Disease
◦ Shrinking grazing and hunting
lands
◦ Extermination of buffalo
◦ U.S. violation of treaties

Indian Wars
◦ Little Big Horn (1876)
◦ Battle of Wounded Knee
(1890)

Dawes Act (1887)
◦ Assimilation
◦ Dissolved tribal authority
and land ownership
◦ Land and eventual citizenship
Life in the West: Miners/Cowboys

Miners:
◦ Encouraged boom and bust
towns
◦ Wild and lawless

Cowboys
◦ Short lived lifestyle
◦ Drove herds of cattle to
railroad hubs
◦ Diversity through Mexican
influence and African-American
presence
Life in the West: Settlers

Homestead Act (1862)
◦ 160 acres if paid small fee and
worked it for 5 yrs
◦ Frontier “closed” by 1890

Adaptive agriculture
◦ Dry farming
◦ Irrigation
◦ Innovations like barbed wire,
combine, steel plow

Important role of women
Struggling Farmers
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Natural problems –
drought, erosion, bugs
Hurt by transportation
monopolies and protective
tariffs
Bonanza farms turned west
into plantation-like system
Money supply
◦ deflation v. inflation
◦ Goldbugs v. Silverites
…To End
The passage of the Homestead Act and the completion of
the transcontinental railroad helped to fulfill the
United States commitment to
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Reconstruction
racial equality
Manifest Destiny
conservation of natural resources
Social Darwinism
…To End
In the late 1800’s, the goal of the Federal Government’s
policy toward Native American Indians was to
A. destroy tribal bonds and thus weaken their traditional
cultural values
B. grant them full citizenship and due process
C. give their tribal groups authority over their own affairs
D. increase the land holdings of western tribes
E. develop economic partnerships to promote
industrialism in the West
…To End
In the late 19th century, farmers desired “cheap money”
policies because farmers believed that rising prices for
their crops would
A. cause the price of undeveloped farmland to drop
B. require banks to lend them more money at reduced
interest rates
C. force manufacturers to reduce the prices of
manufactured goods purchased by farmers
D. decrease competition among farmers
E. enable them to pay back their loans more easily