A.P. U.S. History
Mr. Krueger
 How did machinery revolutionize American Culture?
 Job Aspects
 Focus on Machines?
 How did the U.S. fare in comparison to the other
industrial powers of Europe?
 Did the government support Industrialization?
 New Idea: Interchangeable parts
 How important were Railroads?
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Steamships?
Communications?
Difference from European railroads?
Did the government sponsor railroads?
 Cornelius Vanderbilt
 J.P. Morgan
 Andrew Carnegie
 John Rockefeller
 George Eastman
 Thomas Edison
 Women and Children in the workplace
 Horrid conditions and long hours
 Labor Unions
 Unrest and strikes
 Court Cases
 Haymarket Riot
 Homestead strike
 Pullman Strike
 Cities became the symbol of New America
 Glass and Steel frames allowed the construction of
Skyscrapers.
 Electric elevators were first used in 1871.
 Immigrants crowded into the cities, but were forced to
live in the older sections. Nativist thoughts re-emerge.
 Ellis Island – major immigration station
 Rigorous testing of immigrants – most feared was the
eye exam for trachoma
 Island of Hope, Island of Tears
 “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses
yearning to be free.”
 Where did the new immigrants come from?
 What was domestic life like for them?
 What were important institutions for the new
immigrant families?
 Political Machines helped the explosive growth of cities.
 Corruption grew as did political confusion over local government
responsibility.
 Political machines traded services for votes.
 Leaders of political machines were called “Bosses”
 Tammany Hall
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Democratic Political Machine in New York
Famous leader – William “Boss” Tweed and the Tweed Ring
Plundered New York for tens of millions of dollars
New York City County Courthouse
Designed for $250,000
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Costs ran higher – $5.5 million for furniture, carpet, and shades
$180,000 for 40 chairs and 3 tables
$1.5 million for plumbing fixtures
$500,000 for plaster work
$1 million to repair the plaster work
 Total Bill - $2,870,464.06 – the six cents went to charity
 Actual cost – over 13 million dollars
 Political machines did help the city – population doubled every decade
and the machines helped to create infrastructure and provide for the
burgeoning population.
 George Washington Plunkitt – another leader of Tammany hall coined
the phrase “honest graft.”
 What was the changing role for women?
 What did people do for entertainment?
 How did higher education shape the United States?
 What is Social Darwinism?
 What are Settlement Houses and what did they do?
What is a famous example?
 1880 -1900 – 150 new colleges opened
 Morrill Land Grant – large grants to states to establish
colleges
 The act fostered 69 land grant institutions – including the
state universities of Wisconsin, California, Illinois, and
Minnesota
 Curriculum changed – more practical
 Women still fought for educational opportunities – formed
study clubs
 Study clubs read Virgil, Chaucer, history, architecture, and
discussed women’s rights
 Gave rise to women in colleges after the Civil War
 Exception: Dr. Edward Clarke (Harvard) argued learning
made women sterile
 1900 – 40% of college students were women
 4 out of 5 colleges admitted women
 Most did not accept minorities
 W.E.B. Dubois – African American sociologist and Civil Rights
leader – attended Harvard, but not fully accepted by institutions
within the college
 Booker T. Washington – Tuskegee Institute (Alabama)
 1900 – a model agricultural and industrial school
 He called for slow progress through self improvement. Blacks
should acquire property, and show their worth. He believed in black
equality.
 Dubois proposed a more aggressive approach
 He examined crime and wrote a book, “The Philadelphia Negro”
 Crime for blacks stemmed from the slum environment
 Change the environment and people will change, education is the
key to equality!
 Encouraged blacks to: seek professions, seek civil rights, seek
college education.
 Called for integrated schools and to educate the “Talented Tenth”
 High infant mortality rate, decreased fertility marked the time
period.
 Depression and Labor Unrest
 Henry George – “Progress and Poverty” – theory: land formed
the basis of wealth, and few could become wealthy because the
price of land rose.
 Poverty was evidence of sin, poor had themselves to blame and God
made the great to be great – common mindset
 Many challenge this and establish missions in the slums
 Settlement Houses created.
 Hull house (Jane Adams) taught: education, Shakespeare, English,
art, sewing, life skills
 Robert Woods, Lillian Wald, Florence Kelly, Harriet Vittum
 Other crisis centers included: Churches, Charity Organizations, and
Community Chests
 “Melting Pot Theory” emerges
 America as a house of “have” and “want” becomes a common
metaphor
 Read Plessy vs. Ferguson pg. 567
 Read Hardship and Heartache pg. 573
 Politics were a major source of entertainment in this
time period – more people than ever could read, and
more could vote.
 Discrimination was prevalent – literacy tests, Jim Crow
South.
 Party loyalties remained strong even after the Civil War.
Democrats regain footing and hold the House for many
years.
 Republicans sought civil rights and federal authority.
 Democrats sought state’s rights and limited
government
 North and South voted along party lines
 Interstate Commerce Commission
 Bland Allison Silver Purchase Act
 Pendleton Act
 Sherman Anti-Trust Act
 Sherman Silver Purchase Act
 National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union
 Ocala Demands
 Populist Party – reform party
 Mary E. Lease “raise less corn and more hell. If one man
has not enough to eat three times a day and another
man has $25 million, that last man has something that
belongs to the first.”
 Populists worked to unite many people and change the
policy of the Democratic Party.
 Have a presidential nominee, but do not win the
presidency. However, they have other politicians that get
elected.
 Very powerful protest and reform movements
throughout history.
 Lost support and was broken during party realignment.
 Economy expanded to drastically. Companies grew beyond
their market, Railroads overbuilt, businesses had borrowed
beyond capacity.
 Panic of 1893 – New York Stock Market – investors dumped 1
million shares of the Philadelphia and the Reading Railroad.
 Leads to the worst economic downturn experienced so far.
 People hurry to sell stocks and buy gold – depletes the U.S.
Treasury – this slumps to, and past the $100 million gold
mark in the treasury.
 People gather and the market plummets – “Industrial Black
Friday”
 The entire country suffers – banks revoke loans, crops
wither, prices fall. People grow angry at the government.
 “Battle of the Standards” – new voting patterns emerged –
decisive and “exciting” politics
 Free silver coinage was growing popular – offered a quick
solution to the economic problems
 Independent coinage – the U.S. would mint silver regardless of all
other nations. Belief: more money in the economy = more economic
activity.
 Silver also was tied to a patriotic sense that if the U.S. adopted silver
it would be independent of the world.
 The Republicans advocated the Gold Standard
 Bryan (Democrat) vs. McKinley (Republican)
 Different Campaign Approaches
 McKinley triumphs
 Economy grows – new techniques for mining gold and new gold
discoveries in Alaska and Australia
 Modern Presidency – new relations with Press, traveling across
country
 New Republican pledge – promote economic growth
 Gold Standard Act 1900