Section 1 of 2
Westward Expansion
The Great Plains
•Native Americans disrupted expansionist
dreams of white settlers in the east for
decades
•During the 1860s Indian tribes on the Great
Plains began disrupting dreams of Manifest
Destiny
•As president, Andrew Jackson moved the
Cherokees from the SE along the Trail of
Tears to reservations in present-Oklahoma
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
The Great Plains...Cont’d.
•Perhaps Jackson didn’t
think America would
stretch across the plains
•He didn’t address the
situation of the Natives
roaming free around the
Great Plains
•Geographically, the
Great Plains stretch
from North Dakota to
Eastern New Mexico
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The Great Plains...Cont’d.
• Scientists believe the
plains formed 60 million
years before 1860
• The Rockies rose out of
the sea, caused the
shallow sea to the east
to dry up
• Left a bare surface
• Little vegetation
• Only roaming animals
(grazing) survived well
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Tribes of the Great Plains
• The Sioux are a great example of tribes
on the plains
• Originally from northern Minnesota area
• Crossed MO River in 1760
• Nomadic people—followed the buffalo
• Acquired horses from SW
tribes/became skilled riders and
warriors
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Tribes of the Great Plains...Cont’d.
• Claimed the entire
plains north of
Arkansas River as
hunting grounds
• Religion was
polytheistic=many
gods
• Traded w/French
trappers for kettles,
blankets, knives, and
firearms
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The “Great American Desert”
• Americans first thought the Great Plains
were better off with the Indians
• Agriculturally, Americans thought the land
was worth little
• When gold was discovered in California
(1840s) Americans wanted a quicker way
west
• 12,000 wagons traveled to Oregon and
California
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The “Great American Desert”...Cont’d.
•Missouri was called the
“Gateway to the West”
•It was the last
“civilization” before the
plains
•The 1st wagon train of
white travelers left
Missouri in 1842
•Travelers faced natives,
little food, vicious
weather, tight conditions
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The Railroad
•After the US gained
territory from Mexico
(1848) the TransContinental RR was built
•The route west was
through Indian country,
very few towns and little
white population
•The Government spent
a lot of $ building the
lines
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The Railroad...Cont’d.
•Union Pacific built from Nebraska
•Central Pacific built from further east
•Met at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869
•During the 1880s, 40,000 miles of track
were laid linking California to New Orleans
and Kansas City to Minnesota
•Nearly 5 million longhorn cattle grazed on
Texas ranches
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The Railroad...Cont’d.
•It was unprofitable to
drive them north
•By 1865 the Missouri
Pacific RR reached
Sedalia
•If ranchers got cattle to
Sedalia the cars would
move them west
•Cattle was worth $40 in
the north and $5 in Texas
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The Homesteaders
•To convince Americans
to move west the US
government passed the
Homestead Act (1862)
•Granted 160 acres of
land to settlers in Kansas
•An attempt to move
settlers west
•Moving west was a
major decision
•Caused gender shifts
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The Homesteaders...Cont’d.
•Gender Role-the tasks
(jobs), attitudes & actions
society believes a man or
women should complete
or possess
•Women were to cook,
clean and raise children
•Men were for manual
labor, providing and
“thinking” for the family
•Women worked
alongside men on the
plains
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The Indian Wars
•The Trans-Continental
Railroad spread across
the plains
•Ranchers’ lands grew
•Homesteaders settled
the plains
•Gold was still dug in
California
•Indians faced extinction
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The Indian Wars...Cont’d.
•Sioux Chief Red Cloud said in 1870:
•“The white children have surrounded me
and left me nothing but an island…When we
first had all this land we were strong; now
we are all melting like snow on a hillside,
while you [white Americans] are grown like
spring grass.”
•By the 1870s most Americans agreed
Indians should be moved off the plains or
concentrated somewhere
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The Reservations
•Reservations required
assimilation to white culture
•Assimilation-taking on the
attitudes, appearance, and
sensibilities of another culture
•South Dakota—Sioux
•Oklahoma—Plains tribes and
Choctaws, Cherokees,
Chickasaws, Creeks, and
Seminoles
•Southwest—Apaches,
Navahos, Utes
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The Reservations…Cont’d.
•Many tribes refused to move
onto reservations
•Chief Joseph (Nez Perce)
•Marched his people 1,500
miles from Oregon to Canada
•Apaches fought w/Geronimo
in New Mexico
•Tribes also fought throughout
Kansas, Oklahoma, and
Texas
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Little Big Horn
•In 1868, a treaty was made between Sioux
and the US government
•Sioux would always own Powder River hunting
grounds
•In 1875, US government ordered Sioux to
vacate Powder River and move to reservations
•Chief Sitting Bull led Sioux and Cheyenne
warriors to the Little Big Horn River, west of the
hunting grounds
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Little Big Horn…Cont’d.
•The US military wanted to
force the tribes back to the
reservation
•George Custer led the
assault of US Cavalry
•He did not know that the
Indian warriors outnumbered
him w/3 times his strength
•He divided his cavalry into 3
columns each being driven
back
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Little Big Horn…Cont’d.
•Custer faced one of the
fiercest Sioux—Crazy
Horse
•Custer ordered his men to
shoot their horses to make
a wall
•Custer and his men were
killed before the Indians
retreated from approaching
reinforcements
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Wounded Knee 1891
•In response to the outlawing of native
freedom (by the move to reservations)
many natives looked to the shaman
Wovoka
•Wovoka promised the “Ghost Dance”
would bring back dead natives, buffalo
would return, new soil would cover the
whites and restore the prairie
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
Wounded Knee 1891…Cont’d.
•The Ghost Dance
spread to Sioux
reservations at Pine
Ridge (SD)
•Scared white Indian
Agents who called for
protection
•Sitting Bull was killed in
Canada in December
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Wounded Knee 1891…Cont’d.
•Chief Big Foot was a
target and led his people
to the Pine Ridge
Reservation
•They camped by
Wounded Knee Creek
•While Bigfoot was
meeting with the US
officers someone fired a
shot
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Wounded Knee 1891…Cont’d.
•The natives scattered as the military
poured gunfire into men, women, and
children
•25 US soldiers were dead compared with
300 Sioux
•The massacre at Wounded Knee ended
the Ghost Dance movement and, for the
most part, the Indian Wars
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Section 2 of 2
The gilded Age
The “Gilded Age”
•The Gilded Age followed Reconstruction
•Lasted from 1877-1900
•Given the name by Missouri author, Mark
Twain
Gilded Age-Society was corrupt and gilded
to cover its impurities and imperfections
•Characterized by three qualities: Excess,
Greed, and Classism
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What’s So Bad About Excess?
•The Credit Mobilier
Scandal (1872)
•A director of the Union
Pacific RR created a
company (Credit Mobilier)
to receive all government
building contracts
•Paid $94 mil by Congress
•Only used $44 mil worth
•Sold shares to D.C.
movers for half price
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What’s So Bad About Excess?...Cont’d.
•Central Pacific RR
•Also created
companies to gain
government monies
•Benefited Leland
Stanford of California
•Used the money to
establish his famous
Univesity
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What’s So Bad About Excess?...Cont’d.
•Whiskey Ring Scandal
•US Treasury Dept. and
President US Grant’s
personal secretary
defrauded the government
•Millions in taxes
•Represented what was to
come
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Robber Barons
•Robber Barons-American businessmen
who made their fortunes from the
expanding railroads
•Term coined in 1878 at the height of the
railroad boom
•Three American capitalists especially
earned the name: “Robber Baron”
•J.P. Morgan Sr., John D. Rockefeller, &
Andrew Carnegie
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J.P. Morgan Sr.
•Drafted into Union army
after Gettysburg
•(Paid $300 for a filler)
•Purchased obsolete carbine
rifles for $3.50/piece
•Sold them to a buyer for
$11.00/piece
•Resold them back to the
government for $22.00/piece
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
J.P. Morgan Sr....Cont’d.
•When gold prices fluctuated
during the CW, he tried to rig
the system by shipping gold
out of the country
•He was a millionaire banker
•His banking house loaned
money to countless banks
•By 1900 he owned half of
America’s RR track mileage
•(His friends owned the rest)
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John D. Rockefeller
•Began an oil operation in Ohio in
mid-1860s
•Expanded to form Standard Oil in
1870
•He didn’t have a monopoly...
•Other smaller oil companies
existed
•Received rebates from the RR
(lower shipping costs=higher profit)
•Also made secret payments and
allowed price-cutting
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John D. Rockefeller...Cont’d.
•Controlled 90% of nation’s oil-producing capacity by end
of 1870s
•Government got involved (feared a monopoly)
•Standard Oil of Ohio could not legally own stock in other
oil companies (or conduct business in other states)
•Standard Oil became a trust
•Trust-Caretakers (trustees) manage the money
(because they have more power than the corp.) and
spread holdings (because of no restrictions on trusts,
only corporations)
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Andrew Carnegie
•Immigrant from Scotland
•Went from telegraph clerk
to private secretary of
president of Pennsylvania
RR
•Played the Stock Market
throughout the 1860s—
focused on steel in 1873
•Revolutionized the
manufacture of steel
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Andrew Carnegie...Cont’d.
•Two main ideas: 1. Cut costs
(increase profit) &
2. Vertical integration (control
every step in production)
•Profit went into new equipment
and the business
•Controlled mines (raw
materials), boats (to move ore
on rivers), RR (to move to mill),
and a sales force (to market
goods)
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Consumer to Capital
•The Gilded Age was characterized by:
•Excess
•Greed
•Classism
•These three qualities revolved around one
of the main features of the period:
economic success
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
Consumer to Capital...Cont’d.
•Before the Gilded Age, American industry
produced consumer goods
•Consumer Goods—goods directly
related to agriculture & sold for consumer
use
•During and after the Gilded Age, industry
produced capital goods
•Capital Goods—goods that added to
productive capacity of the economy
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
Consumer to Capital...Cont’d.
•Examples:
•Consumer Goods—textiles,
shoes, paper, furniture
•Capital Goods—railroad
track, machinery, construction
material (steel)
•American industry relied on
vertical integration and
innovation
•Embodied in G.F. Swift
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G.F. Swift
•Chicago cattle dealer;
recognized that cattle
deteriorated as it went east
•Because of no refrigeration
•Wanted to dress it at the
Chicago stockyards & ship
it east
•How? A rolling refrigerator
•Developed a cooling system
& a fleet of refrigerated cars
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
G.F. Swift...Cont’d.
•Created refrigerated
warehouses
•Wagons distributed meat to
local butchers
•Facilities processed what was
left from butchering
•Dealt other grocery
commodities
•Used vertical integration like
Andrew Carnegie
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Mass-Marketing
•The refrigerated cars
worked but the public
wasn’t convinced
•Mass-marketing was
needed to change their
minds—this was the birth of
modern advertising
•Brand names & billboards
were born in the late 19th
century
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
Mass-Marketing...Cont’d.
•By 1900 companies spent
$90 million/year for space
in newspapers &
magazines
•Adverts urged readers to
bathe with Pears’ soap, eat
Uneeda biscuits, sew on a
Singer machine, snap
pictures w/a Kodak camera
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Women to Work
•During the Industrial
Revolution immigrants made
up a large # of the urban
workforce
•This was the same during the
Gilded Age
•Women began working in
urban jobs during this period
as well
•Over 4 million women worked
for wages in 1900
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
Women to Work...Cont’d.
•Wives were not supposed to work outside the
home (especially in middle-class or wealthy
families)
•Older women working outside the home
signaled problems (widowed, divorced, etc)
•Women’s work fell into 3 categories:
-1. Maids/domestic servants
-2. Teaching, nursing, sales, office work
-3. Industry (garment trades/textile mills)
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
The Common Worker During the Gilded Age
•Excess, greed, and classism benefited the
wealthy like Morgan, Rockefeller, and
Carnegie
•How did the Gilded Age effect the
everyday worker? What did they want?
•An egalitarian society in which every
citizen might hope to become
economically independent
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
The Knights of Labor
•This desire led to the
formation of the Noble and
Holy Order of the Knights of
Labor
•Founded in 1869 as a secret
society of garment workers in
Philadelphia
•Spread to other cities by
1878 like the Masons of IOOF
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
The Knights of Labor...Cont’d.
•Their big idea: establish
factories and shops
owned/run by the
employees
•Public “education” was
their main outcome
•KOL, like trade unions,
were favorite causes of
radical political parties
•Communism & Anarchism
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Haymarket Square Riot
•Anarchy—a stateless/antigovernment society
•Chicago anarchists held
public meetings like the fateful
meeting in Haymarket Square
•Large #’s of anarchists/trade
unionists, mostly German
immigrants, met at Haymarket
Square
•Police moved in to break up
the rally...
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
Haymarket Square Riot...Cont’d.
•Someone threw a bomb into the crowd of
police, killing and wounded several
•A small group of anarchists were tried,
found guilty, and executed
•Anti-Union hysteria broke out after
Haymarket Square
•Broke strikes through force, compiled
blacklists, & outlawed union activity
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
The Homestead Strike
•Homestead, Penn. Was the site of one of
Carnegie’s steel mills
•Carnegie had always said that workers
had the right to organize and it’s wrong to
bring in strikebreakers
•He also believed in making money and
believed skilled workers could be replaced
by advanced machinery
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
The Homestead Strike...Cont’d.
•Mill was fortified w/tall
wooden fence topped
w/barbed wire to keep
strikebreakers out
•2 barges w/armed guards
headed up the river toward
Homestead to take control of
the steelworks
•Strikers fought back and the
Pennsylvania milita was called
in
•Union leaders were arrested
on charges of riot, murder, &
treason
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
The Pullman Strike
•Pullman, Illinois was a model
factory town built by George
Pullman, inventor of the
sleeping car
•Panic of 1893 (economic
recession) motivated Pullman
to cut wages for his workers
but not rent
•A worker’s committee issued
a complaint
•Pullman responded: it’s not
my responsibility
•He then fired the committee
This Presentation is Available Online at: www.livingamericanhistory.blogspot.com
The Pullman Strike...Cont’d.
•Pullman workers refused to
operate, repair, or maintain
the cars
•RR companies were losing
money and attached US Mail
cars to every train hauling
Pullman cars
•When strikers stopped the
trains the companies
appealed to the government
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The Pullman Strike...Cont’d.
•The federal government said the mail could
not be obstructed
•The leaders of the strike were charged and
sentenced w/prison terms
•The strike fell apart from no leadership
•It also indicated the ideology of
government:
•The federal government will side w/big
business
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The Wizard of Oz as Populism
Crazy Theory, Half Truth, or Right On?
What was Populism?
• Populism—political ideology supporting the rights
and power of the people in their struggle against
the elite (worker against tycoon)
• Populists were largely Midwestern agriculturalists
who sided with the Democratic party
• One major element of the Populist movement was
their desire to use silver to equalize the nation’s
currency
• Republicans wanted to keep the gold standard
(which we have today)
What was Populism…Cont’d.
• The depression of the 1890s reeked havoc on American
workers
– Farm prices bottomed out
– Union militancy rose among the urban working class
• Americans wanted a change
• That change was found in the 1896 election between
Republican candidate William McKinley and PopulistDemocrat William Jennings Bryan
• “The Cross of Gold”
• L. Frank Baum (author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
was a Populist who supported Bryan
Populism and Oz: the Symbolism
• Although some debate
exists on the accuracy
of the Populism/Oz
comparison, the
symbolism is certainly
evident:
• Every major character
and location can be
traced to an element of
the Populist movement
Populism and Oz: the Symbolism…Cont’d.
• The word “Oz” is the
abbreviation of ounce—as
in ounce (oz) of gold (the
Republican position)
• Dorothy—represents
“everyman” (symbolic of the
commoner)
• Innocent
• Ability to recognize Oz for
its tricks
• Midwestern (home of
Populism)
Populism and Oz: the
Symbolism…Cont’d.
• Munchkins—represent
the “little man”
• Common laborers
• Controlled by the
Wicked Witch of the
EAST (we’ll get to that
shortly)
• “The Lollipop Guild”
• Guilds were an early
form of unionism
Populism and Oz: the
Symbolism…Cont’d.
• Scarecrow-the farmer,
naïve to the tricks of
the world
• Muted and dumb by
the Wicked Witch of
the EAST
• One of the wisest of
the traveling
companions along the
Yellow Brick Road
Populism and Oz: the
Symbolism…Cont’d.
• Tin Man-the
dehumanized
industrial worker
• Becomes mechanical
(like industry)
• Loses his skilled trade
• Unable to love (his
work?)
• Needs constant oil
• Needs Standard Oil
Populism and Oz: the
Symbolism…Cont’d.
• Cowardly Lionrepresents William
Jennings Bryan
• Had a “loud roar”
• Had a good platform
• Unable to back it up
though
• Parades as a humble
king figure
Populism and Oz: the
Symbolism…Cont’d.
• Wicked Witch of the
West—western
industrial influence
• The loss of the
common farmer in the
west
• Adoption of
industry/urbanization
• Destroyed by
water=pure nature
• Removal of machinery
Populism and Oz: the
Symbolism…Cont’d.
• Wicked Witch of the
East—represents
eastern
industrialization
• Birth of the problem for
Populists
• Killed/destroyed by the
innocent farmer’s
daughter’s house from
the Midwest
Populism and Oz: the
Symbolism…Cont’d.
• Yellow Brick Road-the
gold standard
• A road paved with gold
goes nowhere
• The Republican
platform with their
reliance on the gold
standard keeps the
status quo in Oz
Populism and Oz: the
Symbolism…Cont’d.
• The Silver Slippers—
silver standard
(bimetallism)
• MGM made the
slippers red to
showcase Technicolor
• In the original book,
published in 1900, the
slippers were made of
silver
Populism and Oz: the
Symbolism…Cont’d.
• Winged Monkeys—used
in cartoons of the time to
ridicule politicians
• May have represented
police/private detective
agencies/strike-breakers
• Wizard of Oz—the
president
• McKinley was often
called a wizard of politics