1 – The New South
I. Introduction
1. South destroyed in the war – remember Sherman's March to the Sea
2. New split in Southern culture:
1. Old South – those who wanted to go back to plantation-style agriculture
2. New South – those who believed the CSA lost the war because of King Cotton
1. Henry Grady – preached that the South must industrialize to be like the North
2. More diverse/efficient agriculture
3. Widespread education and vocational training
4. Racial harmony would provide a stable environment for economic growth
1. Impossible with Southern culture
II. Economic Growth and Opportunity
1. Textile Production – most dramatic arena for growth
1. 1880-1900 – mills go from 161 to 400, 5x expansion of workers, 8x demand for cotton
2. 1900 – South is producing more cloth than New England
2. Tobacco – Duke family from NC monopolizes cigarette production
3. Coal production – from 5M tons in 1875 to 49M tons in 1900
4. Lumber – driven by housing demand
5. Agriculture – most of the South remains agricultural, even by 1900
1. Cotton, rice, and vegetable crops thriving
2. Most Southerners having a very difficult time getting by
3. Sharecropping – work owner's land for return of crops (usually half)
4. Tenant Farmers – worker might own a mule and his own tools
5. Inefficient – neither sharecroppers or tenants have incentives to do a good job
1. Owners aren't around to ensure good work is done
2. Practical slavery – can't save to get your own farm or build up your wealth
3. Destroys farmland – workers don't care enough to use manure/fertilizers
III. Southern Politics
1. Bourbons and Redeemers
1. Southern Politics and culture were organized around Democratic “big men”
1. Most powerful/influential/charismatic individuals in a community
2. Known as “Redeemers” by their friends, and “Bourbons” by their opponents
1. Redeemers – redeemed/saved the South from vicious Republican control
2. Bourbons – wanted to return to the Old Southern aristocracy
2. Leaders
1. Lawyers, merchants, and entrepreneurs
2. Allied with Northern industrialists
3. Believed in limited states government – just like the antebellum South
2. Political Maneuvers
1. Convict Leasing – hiring out prisoners as laborers
1. Mostly African-Americans – used leasing to “discipline” them into working
2. State debt – reduced as state governments refused to pay it
3. Regulatory Committees – to reduce corruption, ensure voting for all, and ensure public
health
3. Race Relations in the 1880s – okay actually
1. Little legal oppression of African-Americans through the 1880s
2. White Southern politicians are still very racist and white supremacist
3. African-Americans still allowed to vote in the South, and all Southern states have black
representatives through 1900
4. Segregation – schools, hotels, social relations, and churches (especially, and still)
4. Redeemers create a New South based on industry and respect for the Old South
IV. Jim Crow – 1890s see a dramatic entrenching of racial segregation
1. Black successes
1. Social influence increased
2. Education allowed more economic success and equality
3. New generation less willing to stand by - more assertive
2. White reactions – fear of “uppity” Negroes
1. Uppity=African-Americans believing they are equal and can do anything Whites can
1. Show modern “uppity” uses?
2. Racial violence and repression
1. Pass poll taxes – prevent African-Americans/poor from voting
1. Show modern believers in poll taxes?
2. White elites and racist thugs pass Jim Crow Laws to maintain white superiority
1. Fear of “Negro domination”
2. Recreates Old South just without slavery
3. Jim Crow – laws that mandate segregation in public places
1. Mississippi leads the way in disenfranchising Blacks with a new constitution
1. Residence requirement for voting – prevents Black tenant farmers who move yearly
2. Minor criminals lose voting rights
3. Poll taxes must be paid before voting – hurts poor whites/blacks
4. Literacy requirement – must be able to read the Constitution
1. “Understanding Clause” - demonstrate understanding to the satisfaction of
registrars – more willing to allow whites than blacks to vote
2. Louisiana's Grandfather Clause – if your grandpa could vote in 1867, you can vote
1. Blacks still lacked the vote in 1867
2. GA, NC, VA, AL, and OK all follow
4. Jim Crow Social Separation
1. New 1887 Supreme Court rulings allow individual discrimination, just not state/federal
1. Allows new “separate but equal” laws
2. Railroad cars first area to be segregated
1. 1896 – Plessy v Ferguson SCOTUS case
1. Homer Plessy – 1/8th African-American refused to leave a whites-only train car
2. Convicted of law violation, and appealed up to the SCOTUS
3. Court rules that segregation is within the power/authority of state governments
3. Segregation extended to every area of social life in the South
1. Jobs, parks, schools, hospitals, hotels, resaurants, sports stadiums
4. Violence
1. Lynchings – violent attacks on blacks who were outspoken or assertive
1. Almost 100 per year by 1900
2. Can also be used against black-supporting whites, but more rare
3. Mobs gather together and hang/beat victims that drew their attention
2. Response to Violence
1. Leave – migrate to the North – very few blacks do this
2. Accommodation – live quietly and attempt to not offend whites
3. Construct a separate culture apart from white influence
1. Churches – hub of black community
1. Foster racial pride and enable blacks to interact and express themselves
4. Economic opportunities – opens business opportunities for blacks
1. Blacks can't go to white businesses – means there is money to be made there
5. Women's Clubs – to provide social/economic care for African-Americans
1. Care for the sick, children, elderly, aid for single mothers
2. Provide help before government assistance
5. Black leaders
1. Ida Wells – worked to end racial/gender discrimination
1. Wrote articles attacking lynching as racist – lynch mob burned her printing press
2. Denied a seat on a railroad car because she was black – sued and won
1. Case overturned by Tennessee Supreme Court – state rights=racism
3. Helped to found the NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People – note the gender-neutral language
4. Wanted full equality for blacks/women
2. Booker T Washington – accommodationist
1. Educated in a postwar missionary school, then founded Tuskegee College for Blacks
2. Foremost educator of blacks in the country
1. Education allows an economic base, then social equality
2. Ignored political equality – that will come after social
3. Endorsed segregation – criticized for accepting white rule in exchange for
economic opportunities
3. W.E.B. Du Bois – lead critic of Washington
1. First black to earn a degree at Harvard ever
2. Scholar and teacher – attacked segregation and racism
3. Criticized Washington for only stressing vocational education
1. Wanted blacks to be educated in the same fashion as whites
2. Education will create bold leaders who will demand political/social equality
4. Civil rights movement – split between peace and militancy
2 – The New West
I. Western Migration
1. West offered economic opportunities and political/social equality post Civil War
1. Also was a story of greed, oppression, exploitation, and genocide
2. West had been thought of as the American Desert – unfit for white people
1. Then gold/silver, cattle ranging, and irrigation convince whites to go there
2. Migrants
1. 75% male, and predominantly white – mostly from Europe or America
1. Mostly middle class – enough money to move relatively easily
2. 200k Chinese between 1876 and 1890
II. Indian Wars
1. Violence – all this immigration results in conflicts with Native tribes
2. 1851 – Fort Laramie Treaty – established lands for western tribes
1. Tribes had to agree to allow whites to pass through their land on the way west
3. Wars – white settlers had begun to settle on tribal lands, not just pass through it
1. Fort Lyon – Colorado Indians gathered and promised protection by the Gov.
1. 200 men/women/children slaughtered by an army patrol flying a white flag
2. Indian Peace Commission – set up by Congress in 1867 for peace
1. Determines that Indians must be removed from white's path
2. Created the reservation system on the worst possible land
3. Medicine Lodge, KS – Kiowas, Comanches, Arapahos and Cheyenne agree
1. Sioux settle in the Dakota territory the next year
4. Red River War – 1874-1875 – Gen. Phil Sheridan disbands southern plains tribes
4. Great Sioux War – 1874-1876 – largest Indian conflict
1. Colonel George Custer – graduated last in his West Point class
1. leading an expedition into the Black Hills for adventure/glory
2. White miners begin moving into the hills looking for gold
3. Army is supposed to keep them out but doesn't
4. Sioux reported hunting off the reservation – Custer attacks
2. 15 battles throughout Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska
1. Sioux led by Chief Sitting Bull – great military leader
2. 1876 – Custer and a detachment of cavalry find the main camp
1. Sioux camped on the Little Big Horn River
2. Custer surrounded by 2500 soldiers with 210 of his own
3. His horse is the only survivor
3. Indians ultimately crushed by the Army – forced onto terrible reservations
5. Indian Defeat
1. Blackfeet and Crows beat in Montana, Modocs in California, Nez Perce in OR
2. Chief Joseph of Nez Perce tribe - “I will fight no more forever”
3. 1886 – Apache chief Geronimo captured – destroys the spirit of resistance
4. Ghost Dance – Wovoka – Paiute Indian in Nevada – has a vision
1. Indians must perform the Ghost Dance to bring about a messiah
1. Oppressed people everywhere ever create messiah tales of salvation
2. Circular dance with bursts of prophecy and prayer for salvation
3. Frightened Americans – fear of rising Indian resentment and resistance
4. Banned in 1890 in Lakota Sioux region – Sioux continue practicing
1. US Army rides into Wounded Knee SD to enforce the prohibition
2. Nervous soldier accidentally fires his rifle into a surrendering group
3. Everybody else fires – nearly 200 Indians and 25 soldiers killed
4. End of the Indian Wars – misunderstanding and violence throughout
III. Indian Policy
1. White Americans finally outraged at Indian treatment after Wounded Knee
1. Helen Hunt Jackson – novelist – focuses attention with A Century of Dishonor
1. 1881 – details white injustices
2. POTUS Rutherford B. Hayes - “many if not most of our Indian wars have had
their origin in broken promises and acts of injustice on our part.”
2. Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 – effort to “Americanize” Indians into white culture
1. Designed to help Indians – actually destroys their culture
2. Divided tribal lands into 160 acre plots for the head of each family
1. Government holds the land for 25 years – after the owner becomes a citizen
2. All Indians made citizens in 1924 eventually
3. Divided land much easier for white settlers to farm illegally on
1. Land not given to tribal heads was sold to whites
2. Land sharks swindle tribes out of the best land
4. 1887-1934 – Indians lose 86M out of 130M acres – kept the worst parts
IV. Cattle, Cowboys, and the End of the Open Range
1. Western frontier lands used for cattle ranches and trails – driven by cowboys
2. Cowboys – hired labor, not rakish adventurers
1. 30% Mexican or African-American, many Indians, many CW vets
1. Average age was 24 – very young group
2. Responsible for moving cattle from southern grasslands to northern RR depots
1. Open range – cattle can wander around anywhere they want
1. Make sure that you keep as many of your branded cattle as possible
2. Ride them north for shipping
2. Dead, dying, or starved cattle would arrive in East to be slaughtered
3. 1869 – G.H. Hammond invents a refrigerated cattle car
1. Cows can be slaughtered in Midwest when they are fat and shipped later
2. Explodes the cattle industry
3. End of the Open Range – Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire in 1873
1. Draught, sheep, overstocked cattle lands, and big business destroy open range
2. 1866-1886 – Era of the Cowboy is essentially over
V. Pioneer Women
1. Western society was still heavily male – women were numerical/social minority
1. No divorce/legal rights, and few property rights
2. Western survival required a degree of equality
1. Women often took over for deceased husbands – owning and working farms
VI. Closing of the Frontier – by 1890 census, there is no American frontier anymore
1. Frederick Jackson Turner – 1893 American historian
1. The Significance of the Frontier in American History - “Frontier Thesis”
2. Frontier defines America – closing represents a milestone
1. Democratic, open society, free markets, and rugged individualism
2. Thesis ignores minorities and women
3 – Big Business
I. Second Industrial Revolution
1. Big Business – IR encourages huge corporations that come to dominate politics/society
1. Owners incorporate all aspects of production to create giant firms
2. Others buy up their competition and control entire industries
3. Economic Growth after the Civil War - 1865-1898
1. Natural resources and the means to access and harvest them
2. Inventions that allow for more efficient labor and mass-production
3. Standard parts for production all nation-wide industry
4. Determined entrepreneurs craft new businesses and take advantage of open markets
5. Politics – high tariffs, provide federal land/cash to encourage industry/farmers
6. American agriculture fuels industry – wheat/corn to be milled, livestock to be moved
1. Encourages a network of roads and rails to allow industrial expansions
7. 2 coasts allow easy exporting
8. Easy power sources – water, wood, coal, oil, and electricity inexpensive
2. Second Industrial Revolution
1. First IR – began in Britain - steam engine, textile mills, and blast furnaces to make iron
2. Second IR – began in US/Germany with 3 developments
1. Interconnected transportation/communication network
1. Creates a national market for goods, and allows easy exporting and collaboration
2. Electric Power – 1880s
1. Electricity improves scale and efficiency of production
2. Electric transportation and lighting fuels urban expansion
3. Application of science to industry – We Do What We Must, Because We Can
1. Scientists and engineers work to improve industrial production and products
2. Kerosene/gasoline refined from oil, steel production improved
3. Better production=cheaper products=encouraged demand=increased production
II. Railroads – the first Big Business
1. Railroad Companies – used enormous resources and management structures
1. Opened the west to development and transported resources
2. First job was to rebuild the South and increase networking in the East
2. Transcontinental – new challenge of engineering and logistics
1. Impossible to build before the Civil War – South got all grumpy about routes
1. Lincoln orders one built during the Civil War – South not around to fuss
2. Union Pacific builds west from Omaha NE, Central Pacific east from Sacramento
2. Construction – hasty and had to be redone later
1. Bureaucrats cut corners and take advantage of government corruption to build fast
2. 2000 miles of rail laid across the plains and through the Rocky Mountains
3. Use federal troops to oppress and destroy Plains Indians “out of defense”
4. Still a totally sweet project – united America logistically and was incredibly difficult
3. Laborers
1. Union Pac uses primarily European immigrants, CW vets, and former slaves
2. Central Pacific uses almost entirely Chinese immigrants - “coolies” - racial slur
1. Thousands of Chinese immigrants move to America to make money and return
1. Irish workers go on strike “Did [the Chinese] not build the Great Wall?
Surely they can build a railroad!” - horrendously racist comment
2. Willing to endure low pay and dangerous working conditions – 1200 died
1. $26/month to work 12 hour days, 6 day weeks – provide their own food/tents
2. Whites made $35/month and were fed/sheltered
3. Prevented from citizenship and put in segregated communities in California
4. Finished – May 10 1869 – Promontory Point UT with a golden spike
1. And no giant spider
3. Financing – RRs built by private companies with government contracts
1. Government grants land to connect the country – improves economy
1. RRs can move mail and soldiers if necessary
2. Railroad Executives – dishonest businessmen known as Robber-Barons
1. Profit from government contracts – overcharge and keep the extra
2. Jay Gould – Prince of Railroad Buccaneers
1. Bought railroads in disrepair, fixed them superficially, then sold them for profit
2. Used corporate funds to bribe judges and buy politicians
3. Destroyed everything he touched financially/morally – died with $100M
3. Cornelius Vanderbilt – CW steamboat shipping company – switches to railroads
1. Connects New York city with Chicago for shipping
2. Consolidated various railroads into his control
III. New Inventions
1. US Patent Office registers 276 new inventions in 1790; 235,000 registered in 1890
2. Steel making and oil refining improved
3. Refrigerated cars explode beef/mutton/pork industries
4. Corrugated Rollers – process Great Plains wheat under the Pillsbury Company
5. Barbed wire, steam turbines, air brakes, farm tools, typewriters, vacuum cleaners
6. Internal combustion engines/motion pictures by the very late 19th century
7. Communication – Alexander Graham Bell
1. 1876 – Telephone patented by Bell Telephone Company
8. Electricity
1. Edison – invented some things; stole many more from his employees
1. Great at public relations
2. Began the first electrical grid in New York – power electric lights to 85 homes
1. Running on direct current – can only transmit power for 2 miles or so
2. Tesla
1. Family life
1. Born in 1856 in Austrian Empire in Croatia
2. Studies electricity in Prague
3. Moves to New York in 1884 to work for Thomas Edison
4. As close to a mad scientist as possible
1. OCD – doesn't stay in hotel rooms not divisible by 3
2. Hates round things
3. Once fired a secretary for being too fat
4. Supposedly stayed celibate his entire life
5. Often linked to the 1908 Tunguska explosion
1. 1000x more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb – in 1908!
2. New York
1. Current Wars
1. Edison sets up direct current (DC) power stations to generate electricity
2. Edison bets Tesla $50,000 that he can't improve on Edison's designs
3. Tesla proves that alternating current (AC) power is far more efficient
4. Edison refuses to pay - “You don't understand our American humor”
5. Edison launches a massive PR campaign to discredit Tesla and keep his DC
empire
1. Electrocutes animals using AC – Topsy the Elephant at Coney Island
2. SHOW VIDEO? - disturbing
6. AC wins the current wars because it is a better technology
2. Alternating Current
1. Allows small induction motors to use electricity to power household
appliances
2. Tesla's AC system is the electrical system that powers almost all global
lighting
3. Designs a power station at Niagara Falls – praised worldwide as a hero
3. New inventions
1. Tesla will die with over 700 patents for devices
2. Florescent lighting, lasers, wireless communications, remote controls,
robotics
3. VTOL aircraft designed and proposed
4. X-Rays – Tesla publishes pictures of a man's x-ray before Roentgen
5. Radio – patented a radio design in 1896 that Samuel Marconi would later
build
1. Tesla's design of circuits is still the basic pattern for radio/television
6. Proved that the Earth itself could function as a conductor
1. Ran power wirelessly through the ground
7. Death Ray
1. Invented as a check against the use of aircraft in warfare
2. Supposedly would use directed particle beams to shoot down planes
3. Never proven or built but awesome
IV. Entrepreneurs/Robber Barons
1. John D. Rockefeller – son of a con-man and devout Baptist mother
1. Passion for systematic organization and self-discipline – decides to bring order to oil
2. Built Standard Oil Company in Cleveland Ohio – refine from Pennsylvania Oil Fields
1. Realized the competitors were driving the price down – reducing profits
2. Buys out competition – forces out those who won't sell
3. Controls 95% of American oil production by 1879
3. Vertical Integration – control all aspects of oil production/transportation
1. Destroys any company that resists his control
4. Trust – Trustees control various oil companies under Rockefeller control
1. Monopolizes oil – can set the price wherever he wants – dangers of monopolization
2. Inevitable result of unregulated capitalism
3. Gets broken up by Ohio Supreme Court as a monopoly
5. Philanthropy – begins tradition of giving away his fortunes
1. Supported education and medicine
2. Gave away more than $500M during his life – in 1890 dollars
2. Andrew Carnegie – Scottish immigrant to Pennsylvania
1. Worked his way up through the railroad industry from a secretary
2. Moved from railroad to steel industry – steel was an old material made newly cheap
1. Did to steel what Rockefeller did to oil
3. PR man – not an engineer
1. Continual innovation to reduce costs and improve productions
2. “The Gospel of Wealth” - philosophical treatise on capitalism
1. “Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth”
4. Distributor of Wealth – disliked the word “philanthropy”
1. Promote social welfare and world peace
2. Gave money to universities, libraries, hospitals, parks, concert halls, pools and
churches – 800 organs donated to churches worldwide
3. JP Morgan – Financier – channeled European investment money into America
1. Investment banking – buy company stocks and sell them at a profit
1. Become involved in decisions made by companies owned
2. Began to organize railroads under his personal control
1. Personally controlled about 18% of the entire American railroad system
3. Buys up steel and iron production companies to do the same things
4. Stern, imperious man – creates the first billion dollar company U.S. Steel Corp.
4. Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck
1. Create a mail-order system to sell goods wholesale to farmers at lower prices
2. Unites America culturally – everybody is buying the same goods
1. Brings urban variety to rural Americans at affordable prices
2. Sears Catalog becomes the 2nd most widely read book in America
4 – Big Labor
I. Social Trends
1. Standard of Living – rising for everybody (but rich getting richer)
1. High demand for industrial workers – immigrants, women, and children esp.
2. Dangerous working conditions - $3.50/hr in 2009 dollars
1. 59 hour workweek was average – steelworkers tend to work 84hr/week
2. Poor health and safety conditions – US had the highest accident rate in world
1. Only industrial nation to not have workmen's comp
2. Impersonal relationships – you might know the guy who made your shoe
1. Now shoes are made in factories by unknown workers
2. Charlie Chaplin movie
2. Child Labor – kids have always worked in farms – let's send them to factories
1. Child jobs – operating industrial machines, sorting coal, stitching clothes, etc.
1. 1880 – 1 out of every 6 children was working full time
2. Favorite employees in the South – preferred over African-Americans
2. Terrible conditions – no safety equipment or health precautions
1. Shut up in dusty textile mills all day – respiratory problems common
II. Strikes and Protests – began slowly to improve working conditions
1. Molly Maguires – Penn coal workers – dangerous conditions and afraid to organize
1. Adopt violence, beatings, and killings to right perceived wrongs
2. Attack owners and demand better working conditions
3. Later turned out that the mine owners had been responsible
1. Destroy public perception of unions
4. 10 workers ultimately executed; wages reduced as punishment
2. Railroad Strike of 1877 – first major interstate strike in US
1. Wages reduced for workers due to bad economy – workers outraged
2. West Virginia workers walk off their jobs and block the tracks
1. Turns into a mob that begins burning RR property
3. Violence spreads from Maryland to San Francisco
1. Put down by federal troops
4. No system of national organization – strike peters out
1. Fear of class war – Marxist theory here?
3. Sand-Lot Incident – California workers riot against Chinese immigrants
1. Bad economy – blamed on the Chinese taking industrial jobs
2. Congress forbids any Chinese immigration in 1882 for ten years
4. Knights of Labor – Uriah Stephens – Philadelphia Mason
1. National organization for workers – based on secrecy and mystery
1. Built in the 1870s and peaks in the 1880s
2. Reforms desired:
1. Creation of bureaus of labor statistics to help workers
2. 8 hour work days
3. Paper currency – helps those who owe money
4. Equal pay for equal work by all workers – we still don't have this today
3. Falls apart due to bad leadership and the failed railroad strike
5. Samuel Gompers and the AFL
1. AFL – American Federation of Labor – skilled craftsmen, not industrial workers
1. Feared industrial labor – would destroy their craft's identity
2. Grouping of many smaller organizations of skilled workers – not one big one
2. Samuel Gompers – head of the AFL from 1886 to 1924
1. Concrete goals, not utopian hopes
1. Higher wages, shorter hours, and better conditions
2. Closed Shops – would only hire unioned laborers
3. Union-Preference Shops – only high others if no unioned workers
available
2. Rough and tumble leader – thick skinned, like to drink/smoke with workers
1. Willing to use strikes and boycotts
2. Drove the AFL to great success – 4 million members by 1920
1. Still around – will play a role in 2012 election
2. Will endorse Democrats – D's help workers, R's help owners
1. In general
III. Violence
1. Anarchy in the U.S.
1. Belief that government acts to oppress the poor and help the rich
2. Popular in Europe – European countries busy deporting all their anarchists
1. Straight to America
3. Propaganda of the Deed – violent attacks on government representatives
1. President McKinley shot by an anarchist in 1901
2. Haymarket Affair - 1886
1. Knights of Labor strikers demanding an 8-hour workday at Internat'l Harvesters
1. Chicago police sent in to break up the strike – 1 striker killed
2. Chicago Anarchists hold meeting the next night to protest the killing
1. Speeches promoting anarchism – police sent in to break them up
2. Somebody throws a bomb at the police – killing 1 and wounding others
3. 7 anarchists executed after a trial in which no evidence connected them
1. 6 spoke German (anti-immigration) and one was a KoL (anti-labor)
3. Causes widespread panic and revulsion of anarchists/unionism/immigrants
3. Homestead/Pullman strikes – 1890s
1. Homestead – steel strike in 1892
1. Factory owner killed by an anarchist – destroys public sympathy
2. Pullman – railroadstrike in 1894
1. Broken by Grover Cleveland with federal troops
2. Said that mail had to be delivered – illegal to prevent that
4. Mother Jones – Irish Catholic woman who moved to Chicago after her family died
1. Chicago – hotbed of industrial radicalism and unionism – Jones loves it
2. “Mother” of the labor movement – organizer for the Knights of Labor
1. Gives speeches and encouragement to strikers, recruits new members, raises
money, defied courts and berated policemen to aid workers
2. Promoted higher wages, shorter hours, safer workplaces
1. Wanted especially to destroy child labor
3. Occasionally arrested – once sentenced to 20 years in jail – IL gov pardoned her
1. Marched thousands of child laborers to the home of President Roosevelt
2. Kids were short, many with mutilated hands/fingers from industrial accidents
4. “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living” - died in 1930
1. Helped raise working age to 14, and raise average worker pay
IV. Socialism and Unions
1. Socialism – never popular in America
1. Political system in which land/industry is owned by the people at large
2. Community-controlled, not privately-controlled
3. Peaks in America in 1912 – splits post WWI into Communist Party
2. Eugene V. Debs – organized the Social-Democratic Party in 1897
1. Jailed for 6 months after the Pullman strike – becomes a socialist in prison
2. Ran for president in 1900 – got almost 100k votes
1. 400k in 1904, and 1M by 1912 – never wins but gets many votes
5 – American Immigration
AP – Immigration Paper – 5-7 pages compare/contrast 1820-1840 with 1870-1890 immigration
Cover motivations of immigrants, roles in the US, and reactions
6 – Urban Religion and Reform
I. Urbanism – biggest population movement of 19th century was to cities – not the West
1. Living Conditions
1. Tenement housing – multistory apartment buildings – 90% of urban populations
1. Up to 32 families in a 6 story building – many with just a single room
2. No privacy, free space, or sunlight – children had nowhere to play but the streets
3. Rampant disease, and high mortality – 3/5 Chicago babies died before age of 1 year
2. Urban Expansion
1. Vertical – steel-frame construction, heat radiators, elevators
2. Horizontal – electric cable cars, steam powered trains, electric subways
2. Public Reform
1. Sewers only developed in the late 19th century – spread disease and contaminate water
2. Livestock problems – 1900: 3.5M horses in cities producing 20 lb. of manure daily
1. 15,000 dead horses had to be removed from New York alone every year
3. Sanitation, garbage disposal, fresh water, sewage removal
1. Human waste dumped into rivers – high phosphorous content grows algae
1. Algae removes oxygen from water, and animals die
2. Unintended consequences – Flush It and Forget It mentality
3. Public Education – created to “Americanize” immigrant families
1. 78% of Americans educated by the state in 1920
2. Secondary education – focus on classical language and mathematics
1. Later on vocations – bookkeeping, typing, drafting and tool-use
3. Higher Education – greatly expands after the Civil War due to high demand
1. Elective system – flexible system of choosing majors allows more students
2. Highly masculine atmosphere – women gained access in the East slowly
3. Graduate school – highly technical and advanced study to expand knowledge
1. Popular after the Civil War – American universities based on German ones
II. American Popular Culture – dense urban populations encourage mass culture
1. Vaudeville - “Who's on First”
1. Variety shows – comedians, singers, music, minstrels, plays, jugglers, gymnasts
2. Hugely popular with everybody – variety reflects the diverse urban populations
2. Saloon Culture – popular with working classes especially
1. 1900 – more saloons than grocery stores in America
1. Intellectual and social center of American neighborhoods
2. Public homes – men gather there who work 6 days/week, 10 hours/day
1. Social clubs and political gatherings- men gather to talk and discuss things
2. Women only begrudgingly admitted – never to the main hall
3. Encourage anti-liquor crusaders – fear that working men are drinking away their money
1. Women's Christian Temperence Union and Anti-Saloon League
2. Fear that drunken men were contributing to violence, crime, and divorce
3. Men were (on average) never drinking more than 4% of their paycheck per year
3. Women's Recreation
1. Married women have little leisure time – too busy with home/children
2. Single women – dance halls, theaters, picnic grounds, Coney Island (in New York)
1. Public beaches and movie theaters by the 1920s
2. Leisure activities offer escapism from chores and work
4. Spectator Sports
1. Sports bring together urban Americans of all colors/classes in giant spectacles
2. (American) Football = regular football+rugby
3. Basketball – 1891 – Dr James Naismith nails 2 peach baskets to the wall of his YMCA
1. Vanderbilt becomes the first collegiate basketball team in 1893
4. Baseball – national pastime of America by 1850
1. Created by Alexander Cartwright – New York bank clerk –
1. Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York created in 1845
1. Stockbrokers, bankers, and physicians
2. Cincinnati Red Stockings – 1869 – first professional baseball team
3. 1900 – American League organized
4. Racially segregated – African-Americans had their own leagues
1. First major league African-American – Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1869
2. African-Americans banned – Jackie Robinson becomes the next in 1947
III. Social Change and Reform
1. Theories
1. Positivism – Auguste Comte
1. Human progress is inevitable and will move humanity upwards in a line
2. Society can be studied scientifically and its development charted
1. Requires data to be collected from society
2. Will result in useful laws of social development that can be used
3. Scientific way of organizing society – not religious
3. Challenges existing views
1. Catholicism – humanity's nature is fundamentally unchanging – Original Sin
2. Sociology – offshoot of positivism
1. Darwin says that societies are destroyed by economics – fight for resources/survival
2. Question: how does societies stay together when pulled/pushed apart?
3. Study societies using historical experience and scientific principles
3. Social Darwinism
1. Importance of Darwin – fundamentally changes everything
1. 1831 and the HMS Beagle
1. Darwin had long been interested in the new geological developments
1. Reads Lyell's The Principles of Geology on the trip
2. Galapagos Islands
1. Beagle stops here for science
2. Darwin sees a huge variety in local plants/animals
3. Notices that the animals on different islands are subtly but distinctly
different
4. Begins to question the reason/mechanism for this
3. Evolution and Natural Selection
1. Joint-publishes The Origin of Species with Alfred Wallace in 1859
2. Wallace described natural selection
1. Some traits allow an animal to reproduce more readily/easily and are
passed on
2. Mechanism for this (genes) not yet realized
3. Evolution
1. The gradual process that species arise from environmental pressures
2. Thus the world is ever-changing, and in constant conflict
3. Survival is a battle for resources, and the fittest survive and reproduce
4. Reproduction is the centerpiece
1. Nature is “red in tooth and claw”
5. Idea faced criticism both in science and without
1. No mechanism at the time for natural selection/passing of traits
2. Nobody liked to think of chimpanzees in their family tree
4. Thomas Huxley
1. Darwin's “bulldog”
2. Writes Darwin a letter in days of OoS release
1. Says that Darwin will be buried in criticism and outrage
2. Huxley says “I will go to the stake with you for your theories”
3. Argues strongly for Darwinian Evolution in print and in debates
1. Archbishop asks him if he had apes on his mother or father's side
2. “I would rather be the offspring of two apes than be a man and be
unable to face the truth”
4. Publishes his own material suggesting that Man is also a part of
evolution
5. Darwinian Revolution
1. Evolution is a radical shift in how people view the world
2. Man is no longer a separate, sacred being apart from the natural
world
3. Darwin does not require a god to grant morality
1. Rather, morality and ethics arise from environment
4. Rejects the Newtonian World View
1. Idea that the universe is governed by mechanical laws in harmony
2. Now, nature is a constant, bloody fight for survival
3. Controversial
6. This new change in biology will upset many people
7. Makes it impossible for man to be above nature observing
1. Must participate – scary
2. Social Darwinism – Herbert Spencer
1. Apply “Survival of the Fittest” to humanity
1. Evolutionary thought only applies to biology – not sociology
2. Rich and powerful must be the most fit – all others are irrelevant
3. Government should not aid the less-fortunate – they must die off for progress
1. Charity only impedes progress – don't help anybody
4. Gets grafted onto racism – African-Americans are poor because they are inferior
1. All other non-white races are inferior, and science (if you want it to) supports
5. Throw nationalism in – Holocaust
3. Reform Darwinism – Lester Frank Ward
1. Governments can help every human which will promote progress
1. Education and elimination of poverty
2. Social Gospel – use of religious churches to aid humanity
1. Older churches often embrace social Darwinism to justify doing nothing
2. YMCA – aids young poor men, Salvation Army helps the “right kind” of people
3. Urban Reform
1. Settlement House Movement – help the practical needs of the urban poor
1. Jane Addams and Hull House – in Chicago – got her a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931
1. Young college-trained women encourage urban poor in education and culture
2. Avoid the assumption that they know what is best for poor families
3. Sponsor health clinics, lectures, music/art, men's clubs, and employment aid
2. Others in major cities – not enough to have a strong impact
3. Pursue political solutions to these problems
2. Women's Rights Movement
1. Susan B. Anthony – argues that the 15th A should guarantee the vote to women too
1. It doesn't
2. Split after the Civil War into 2 factions
1. National Woman Suffrage Association – Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
1. Founded to pursue the vote and other causes
2. American Woman Suffrage Association – focus solely on suffrage
3. National-American Woman Suffrage Association – unites 2 groups in 1890
1. E.C. Stanton – president for 2 years, Susan B. Anthony after that until 1900
2. Got woman's suffrage in Wyoming in 1869, Colorado in 1893, UT/ID in 1896
3. 19th Amendment – passed in 1919 – gives women full voting rights
4. Other Women's issues
1. YWCA – Christian urban outreach
2. New England Women's Club – formed to give women a social club like men
3. New York Consumers' League – educate female consumers about evil companies
4. Women remain largely domestic, but make important gains
7 – Gilded Age Politics – Wizard of Oz project
I. Urban Boss Politics – Political Machines
1. Local rings of party insiders – men who control the candidates of each party
2. Machine – network of political organizers and activists who get votes
3. Boss – in charge of the Machine
1. Organized neighborhoods, mediated disputes, helped the poor, distributed patronage
2. Maintained social order and stability
3. Extremely corrupt and inefficient – use bribes/kickbacks for political control
4. Boss Tweed – boss of New York in the 1850s/1860s
1. Ran a political operation out of Tammany Hall
2. If you wanted to run in/around New York City, you needed him on your side
II. Partisan Politics
1. Political mediocrity – both parties unwilling to deal with tough issues – afraid to lose votes
1. Yet voter turnout of 70-80% - are Americans ok with mediocrity?
2. No strong presidents between Lincoln and Roosevelt
1. Belief that Congress should be the strongest arm of the federal government
2. Few programs or laws of real importance
3. Very little differences between the parties – other than the tariff
2. Partisan Politics – intense loyalty and social inclusion to one's party – often generational
1. Parties take care of their members – use patronage to distribute jobs to voters/donors
2. City machines use influence/money to aid the poor to get their votes
3. Rallies, picnics, and social events are entertainment for many Americans
3. Breakdown
1. Republicans – mostly Northern Protestants, African-Americans, CW vets
1. Nativism – restriction of immigration/foreign employment, English as official lang.
2. Legislate morality – strong pro-temperance and pro-Protestant Christianity
2. Democrats – much more varied group – still true today
1. Southern whites, Northern immigrants/Catholics, Jews, freethinkers, skeptics
3. “A Republican is a man who wants you to go to church every Sunday. A Democrat says
if a man wants to have a glass of beer on Sunday, he can have it.” -Chicago Democrat
III. Corruption and Reform
1. Civil Service Reform
1. Spoils – parties appoint their own members to local and national levels
1. Invites corruption and incompetence – becomes the key reform of the late 19th c.
2. Rutherford B. Hayes – Republican POTUS from Ohio - “His Fraudulency”
1. Attempted to introduce the merit system – exams given to determine competence
2. Used his own merit system for appointments
1. Did not fire people for politics, and didn't allow public employees to donate
3. Stumbled his way to the end of his term – didn't run for reelection
2. 1880 Campaign and Garfield's Assassination
1. Election of 1880
1. Democrats – Winfield Scott Hancock – Union officer at Gettysburg
2. Republicans – split at their convention over who to nominate
1. Stalwarts – Republicans who supported Grant's administration – nominate Grant
2. Half-Breeds – only half loyal to Grant – nominate Sen James Blaine of Maine
1. Campaign slogans almost write themselves
3. No compromise between the two possible – Rep. James Garfield nominated
1. Chester A. Arthur nominated to VPOTUS – New York Stalwart
2. President James Garfield – wins electoral college, not popular vote
1. Shot in the back 4 months into office by Charles Guiteau - “I am a Stalwart”
3. President Chester A. Arthur – unimpressive candidate but effective president
1. Eliminated postal fraud kickbacks
2. Vetoed a pork spending bill and the Chinese Immigration Act – both overturned
3. Pendleton Act – civil service reform – independent cs committee to oversee exams
1. Brings government jobs out of patronage system and protects employees
3. 1884 Election and Grover Cleveland
1. Campaign
1. Republicans dump Arthur for Senator James Blaine from Maine – great politician
1. Party insider who publicly wined/dined political elites
2. Democrats choose Stephen Grover Cleveland from New York
1. Defeated Tammany Hall in New York as Governor
2. Republicans uncovered a secret child he had with a New York widow
3. Rhyming slogans on both sides
1. “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine!”
2. “Ma, Ma, where's my pa? Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!”
3. Cleveland wins a nasty campaign
2. Cleveland's Accomplishments
1. ICC – Interstate Commerce Commission – regulate RRs to make safer/cheaper
2. Tariff – wanted to lower tariff to encourage more small businesses
1. Costs him his job in 1888
4. Harrison's Reforms
1. Benjamin Harrison – Republican Senator from Ohio and grandson of WHH
1. Raised tons of money from big business leaders afraid of Cleveland's low tariff
2. Got a Republican Congress – means significant legislation can be passed
3. Oversaw 6 new states: ID, WY, ND, SD, MT, WA by 1889
2. Dependent Pension Act – pension money given to Civil War veterans
3. Sherman Silver Purchase Act – bought 4.5M oz. of silver
1. Issued paper money redeemable in gold/silver – much more on this in a minute
4. McKinley Tariff Act – raised the tariff on all imports to new heights
1. Loses Congress to Democrats over higher consumer prices/high public spending
1. People also afraid that Republicans were going to take away alcohol
5. Sherman Anti-Trust Act – most important act of Harrison
1. Outlawed monopolies of industries – US Steel through Microsoft
2. Forbade conspiracies to fix prices and restrain foreign/interstate commerce
3. Ambiguously written, and rarely enforced until 1901
IV. Populism – new political party
1. Roots
1. Agrarian politics – fear of the power of industry and industrial workers, and elites
2. Southerners/farmers organize to demand better prices for their crops
3. Drew from racist Southern evangelical Protestantism and fear of learning
1. Modern GOP?
2. 1892 – Populist Convention held in Omaha to select a presidential candidate
1. Platform
1. Allow farmers to borrow government money against their crops
2. Graduated income tax – progressive tax system
3. Better bank protection for poor farmers
4. Nationalized rail/telegraph/telephone systems – to prevent corporate abuse
5. Restricted immigration – to entice industrial workers to support them
2. Candidates – Fmr Union General James Weaver and Fmr CSA Gen for VP
1. Destroyed by Grover Cleveland (D) by siphoning votes from Harrison (R)
V. Depression and the Silver Solution
1. Inadequate Currency – nation doesn't have enough currency for the growing economy
1. Gold standard – dollars reflect the price of gold – fluctuates the value
2. Not enough gold and paper currency to cover the economy
3. Silver was being used but not enough – will lead to a crisis
2. 1893 Depression
1. Railroads and banks collapse just as Cleveland is sworn into office – national panic
2. Closing banks means that thousands of business fail – unemployment at 20%
3. Violence and riots common – Populist “Army” marches on Washington DC
4. Currency Issue – chief problem of the economy
1. Americans demand more silver coins to allow easier money borrowing
2. Republicans support gold standard – William McKinley nominated for POTUS
3. Democrats support silver – William Jennings Bryan – Southern populist - 1896
1. “Cross of Gold” speech at DNC Convention – wildly popular
1. Argued that the producers in America were enslaved by Eastern bankers
1. (Bankers=code for “Jews”)
2. Used Christian imagery to champion the poor and oppressed
2. Campaigned on the Social Gospel – government exists to help the poor
1. First candidate to do this
2. Legalize strikes, federal subsidies for farmers, tax the rich, ban corporate
campaign sponsorship, and outlaw liquor
3. Government, of course, exists to help white folks
1. WJB is fine with segregation and Southern racism
4. Gets nailed as a socialist and communist – just like today?
5. Outspoken evangelical Protestantism loses him Catholic support
1. And most everyone else – McKinley landslides in
3. McKinley Administration
1. High tariff to increase manufacturing – brings economy back to prosperity
2. South Africa, Alaska, and Yukon Gold Rushes – puts nation firmly on gold standard
3. America begins to turn outward – economic prosperity and industrialization are sexy
1. Populism dies with WJB's defeat – will be readopted in 20th century by Progressives
2. New interest in global concerns – America realizes it can be a world power
3. Increased scope for national politics in economy/society