Nativism
 An anti-immigrant attitude
 Fear of the negative influence of “foreigners,” especially Roman Catholics
 Hatred of “New Immigrants” – from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia
 Led to Chinese Exclusion Act: banning Chinese immigration to the U.S.A.
 Reached its political height with the rise of the “Know-Nothing” Party, a secret
organization which sought to limit the political power of Catholics and immigrants
The Progressive Movement
 A major purpose of the Progressive movement (1900–1917) was to correct the
economic and social abuses of industrial society
 The Progressives wanted to improve society; they wanted to apply science and
technology to solve society’s problems
 They also wanted to expose abuses in business and government
 Muckrakers – writers that exposed societal problems – in the Progressive Era
included Jacob Riis [documented the lives of the urban poor], Upton Sinclair
[exposed unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry], Ida Tarbell [revealed
the unfair business practices of John D. Rockefeller], and Frank Norris [examined
the unfair practices of the railroad companies and their unfair treatment of
farmers]
Muckrakers
 Muckrakers were writers during the Progressive Era that revealed injustices and
unfair practices in business and government
 Muckrakers exposed the unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry, the
monopolistic practices of John D. Rockefeller, the unfair practices in the railroad
industry, the lives of the urban poor, and corruption in American cities
 Famous muckrakers included Lincoln Steffens, Jacob Riis, Ida Tarbell, Frank
Norris, and Upton Sinclair
 Muckrakers Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair influenced the federal government to
pass legislation to correct harmful business practices
 Ida Tarbell wrote The History of Standard Oil and encouraged regulation of
monopolies and Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, encouraging regulation of the
meat industry
The Term: Muckraker
 During the early 1900s, the term muckrakers was used to describe writers who
exposed the evils in American society
 Urbanization and industrialization had created many problems in American society
 Monopolies, corruption in government, poverty and unsanitary conditions in the
food industry were exposed by muckrakers
 By exposing problems, Americans learned about unfair practices in American
society
 Many Americans – as a result of reading articles written by muckrakers – wanted
government to address these problems
Seneca Falls Convention (1848)
 The first conference in world history for women’s rights
 Organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
 Demanding equal rights for women and particularly the right to vote, the Seneca
Falls Convention challenged patriarchy or male dominance
 A goal set at the Seneca Falls Convention (1848) was achieved during the
Progressive Era by the ratification of the woman’s suffrage amendment
 Yes, during the Progressive Era, the Nineteenth Amendment was added to the U.S.
Constitution granting women the right to vote or the right of suffrage
The Sixteenth Amendment
 The Federal Income Tax Amendment
 The type of federal tax authorized by the 16th amendment in 1913 was the income
tax
 Passed by Congress on July 2, 1909, and ratified February 3, 1913, the 16th
amendment established Congress’s right to impose a Federal income tax
 Income tax allows for the federal government to keep an army, build roads and
bridges, enforce laws and carry out other important duties
 The federal government realized in 1913 that in order for it to collect taxes
effectively, and not have to share that tax money with the states, federal income tax
was necessary
Homestead Steel Strike and Pullman Railcar Strike
 In the late 1800s, the Homestead steel strike and the Pullman railcar strike were
unsuccessful because the government supported business owners
 Workers went on strike [work stoppage or refusing to work] to demand higher
wages and better working conditions
 But in this time period, the government supported Laissez-faire policies and favored
business owners
 When workers went on strike, government support of business owners led to
government troops being called in to stop the strikes
 Federal troops put down the strikes
Dawes Act of 1887
 Passage of the Dawes Act of 1887 affected Native American Indians by attempting
to assimilate them into mainstream American culture
 To assimilate is to learn the culture of the dominant group
 Native American Indians were required to adopt the culture of white Americans –
to cut their hair, learn English, and acquire private property as opposed to shared
property
 Native American Indians were forced to abandon their cultural ways
 This policy greatly harmed Native American Indians
The Populist Party
 Farmers generally supported the Populist Party
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For over a decade, farmers were suffering from crop failures and falling prices
Many farmers were in debt due to a drought that affected the Midwest in the 1880s
These disasters, combined with resentment against railroads, led farmers to
organize
The Populist Party wanted government ownership of the railroads, the direct
election of Senators, banking reform, and free and unlimited coinage of silver
Upton Sinclair
 Muckraker or writer exposing problems in society
 Wrote The Jungle
 Exposed the unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry
 In 1906, the publication of The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair, led Congress to
establish a system for meat inspection
 His writings led to government regulation of the food industry
USS Maine and Yellow Journalism
 Yellow Journalism was a style of newspaper reporting that emphasized
sensationalism over facts
 In Yellow Journalism, newspapers tried to shock or outrage readers with
information that was not always completely factual
 Newspapers exaggerated the news
 When the USS Maine, a battleship, sank in Havana harbor, yellow journalists
blamed Spain – even before the facts had been examined – thereby encouraging
Americans to want to go to war with Spain
 The explosion of the USS Maine and the practice of yellow journalism played a
significant role in the public’s support for the Spanish-American War
Yellow Journalism and the Spanish-American War
 Yellow journalism contributed to the start of the Spanish-American War (1898) by
inciting public outrage over conditions in Cuba
 Cuba was a colony of Spain
 Americans read in American newspapers about the cruelty of the Spaniards in their
colony of Cuba
 These newspaper stories outraged Americans
 Of course, some of the “facts” in the newspapers were exaggerated to ensure that
Americans would be outraged and thus, yellow journalism was one cause of the
Spanish-American War
Neutrality in World War I
 The United States tried to avoid involvement in World War I by following a policy
of neutrality
 Neutrality is refusing to take sides in a conflict or have alliances
 The United States followed a policy of neutrality from its earliest days
 In his Farewell Address, George Washington encouraged a policy of neutrality
 He believed that a new nation could not be embroiled in Europe’s problems
The Open Door Policy
 The Open Door Policy was a U.S. policy that promoted equal opportunity for
international trade and commerce in China
 Important ports and parts of China had been controlled by Europeans – spheres of
influence – during the Age of Imperialism
 The United States did not have a sphere of influence in China and therefore wanted
to make sure that Americans could trade directly with China
 An Open Door Policy means that all foreigners can trade
 A primary reason for the establishment of the Open Door policy (1899) was to
protect United States trade in the Far East [Far East is an ethnocentric term; it
refers to China, Korea, and Japan]
The Great Migration
 Many African Americans migrated from the South to the North during and
following World War I
 The main reason for increased migration of African Americans out of the rural
South during and following World War I was the opportunity for factory jobs in the
North
 Another reason was to escape Jim Crow segregation in the South
 Another reason was to escape sharecropping
 In the North, more freedoms and opportunities existed
The Federal Reserve System
 To improve distribution of money and guarantee an adequate money supply,
President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to establish the Federal Reserve System
 The Federal Reserve System is the nation’s central banking system
 The Federal Reserve System – often called “The Fed” – is a bank for other banks
and a bank for the federal government
 It was created to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable
monetary and financial system
 A mother bank makes sure that the nation’s banking practices are fair and safe – it
was formed to protect its member banks from suffering the consequences of bank
runs (which occur when a bank’s customers try to withdraw their money all at once
because they’re afraid the bank is, or might become, insolvent and unable to pay off
their customers)
Schenck v. United States
 Supreme Court Case involving an action taken during World War I
 About freedom of speech during wartime
 Court ruled that during wartime, freedoms can be restricted or limited
 The clear-and-present danger doctrine established in Schenck v. United States (1919)
permits the government to limit speech that threatens the security of the nation
 In reviewing the conviction of a man charged with distributing antiwar flyers to
draftees of World War I, the Court asserted that, in certain contexts, words can
create a “clear and present danger” that Congress may constitutionally prohibit
Temperance Movement
 Anti-alcohol movement
 The primary goal of the Temperance Movement was the ratification of a
constitutional amendment authorizing Prohibition
 Prohibition referred to the banning of alcohol or making alcohol illegal
 Temperance activists believed that alcohol caused many problems in society
 Temperance activists believed that by outlawing alcohol, families and society would
improve
Henry Ford’s Assembly Line
 Henry Ford’s use of the assembly line in the production of automobiles led directly
to a decrease in the cost of automobiles
 An assembly line is a faster and more efficient way of manufacturing a good
 Henry Ford was the first to pioneer the assembly line in automobile production
 By making cars faster, more cars were produced
 Increased production leads to a decrease in price
Robber Baron
 An insulting term for a monopolist
 In the late 1800s, the term robber baron was used to describe some owners of big
businesses primarily because they eliminated competition using ruthless methods
 A robber baron used unfair practices to eliminate competition and dominate a
market
 A monopolist is a single seller dominating a market
 A robber baron was a monopolist who dominated the market through unfair
practices
Why the United States Did Not Join the League of Nations
 The League of Nations was an international peacekeeping organization formed after
the First World War
 Although President Woodrow Wilson favored the Treaty of Versailles and the
United States’ participation in the League of Nations, the Senate rejected the treaty
 Senators feared that by participating in an international peacekeeping organization,
the United States would be drawn into another European conflict
 Thus, the U.S. did not join the League of Nations
 The Senate’s opposition to United States membership in the League of Nations was
based mainly on the fear of being drawn into future wars
The American Federation of Labor (AFL)
 An early and still existing union
 Organization of workers that promotes higher wages and better working conditions
 Early leader was Samuel Gompers
 Organized only skilled workers
 One reason the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was successful was that this
organization focused on the needs of skilled workers
Rapid Industrial Growth and Urbanization
 Industrial growth means more factories and more factory jobs
 Urbanization is movement to cities
 When industrial growth occurs, more people move to cities
 In cities are located factories and jobs and thus, people move to cities in order to
find employment in factories
 As such, in the late 1800s, rapid industrial development resulted in an increase in
the rate of urbanization
Tariff
 A tariff is a tax on imported or foreign goods
 A tariff raises the prices of foreign goods
 A tariff encourages the consumption of domestic goods or goods made in the
country as domestic goods have lower prices compared to foreign goods
 A high protective tariff passed by Congress is intended to affect the United States
economy by encouraging American manufacturing
 Tariffs encourage Americans to buy American goods
Sherman Antitrust Act
 In passing the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), Congress intended to prevent large
corporations from eliminating their competition
 Antitrust laws are anti-monopoly laws
 A monopoly eliminates competition thereby creating a market with a single seller
 A single seller dominating a market leads to higher prices for consumers
 Antitrust laws allow the government to regulate business practices and ensure that
harmful monopolies are not created
Eight Hours for Work
 Organizers of labor unions often used the slogan: “Eight hours for work, eight
hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!”
 This slogan addressed the long hours workers often worked
 Factory workers could work fourteen to sixteen hours a day
 To create better working conditions, organizers of labor unions advocated an eighthour work day
 “We want to feel the sunshine, and we want to smell the flowers, We are sure that
God has will’d it, and we mean to have eight hours.”
Social Darwinism
 The idea that society advances when its fittest members are allowed to assert
themselves with the least hindrance
 Social Darwinism was a popular belief among the upper classes and monopolists
 It stated that the rich and powerful were rich and powerful because they were
genetically destined to rise to the top in society
 It was the belief that the poor were poor because they were not the fittest members
of society

This belief stated that the strong dominate the weak because it is as nature intended
– the survival of the fittest
The U.S. Government and the Railroads
 To aid the construction of the railroads, the U.S. government gave free land or land
grants to railroad companies
 Building a railroad is expensive and profits are not immediately earned; therefore to
encourage construction, government land grants were incentives or rewards to
private railroad companies – incentives to build
 In the period from 1865 to 1900, the United States Government aided the
development of the West by granting land to railroad companies
 A transcontinental railroad was important for Americans in that it encouraged
westward expansion and increased trade
 By giving free land to private railroad companies, railroads were built that
benefitted Americans
Laissez-faire Capitalism
 The government does not intervene in the market
 Literally means: “Let them [businesses] do as they please”
 A totally free market
 In laissez-faire capitalism, prices and wages are determined by the marketplace
 If many consumers demand a product, the price of the product will be higher than if
demand for a product is low
The Solid South
 The label “Solid South” was applied to the former Confederate States after
Reconstruction because they consistently supported the Democratic Party
 It is important to remember that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican and that the
Civil War started when South Carolina seceded from the Union after the election of
Lincoln
 White Southerners feared that the Republican Party would abolish slavery
 Even after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery with the Thirteenth
Amendment, white Southerners harbored anger towards the Republican Party
 White Southerners voted consistently for the Democratic Party because it blamed
the Republicans for the Civil War and Reconstruction
The Fugitive Slave Act
 Part of the Compromise of 1850
 The Fugitive Slave Act required Northerners to return runaway slaves to their
masters in the South
 As a result of the Fugitive Slave Act, no runaway slave was safe in the North
 In the 1850s, runaway slaves went to Canada because the Fugitive Slave Act kept
them at risk in the United States
 The Underground Railroad ended in Canada to ensure that no runaway slave would
be returned to his master
Jim Crow Laws
 Jim Crow laws were segregation laws in the South after the Reconstruction Era
 Although important strides were made, Reconstruction failed to provide lasting
guarantees of the civil rights of the freedmen due to the passage of Jim Crow
laws in the 19th century
 Reconstruction – or the period after the Civil War when the South was
restructured to allow for the changes created by the 13th [abolition of slavery],
14th [equal rights of citizens], and 15th [right to vote for all male citizens]
amendments – produced some changes in the South but after military
Reconstruction ended, some earlier unjust ways were restored in the South
 Jim Crow or segregation laws discriminated against African Americans
 Separate public facilities denied African Americans of their equal rights
Booker T. Washington
 Born into slavery, Booker T. Washington rose in American society and advocated
ways in which to improve the lives of African Americans after the Civil War
 He wrote an autobiography titled “Up from Slavery”
 He was the founder of the Tuskegee Institute to provide vocational training for
African Americans
 He believed that the most immediate means for African Americans to achieve
equality was to expand their opportunities for vocational education
 Through job training and skilled employment, African Americans would earn
wealth and through wealth, respect and equality would come
Abraham Lincoln’s Argument against Secession
 Abraham Lincoln believed that the government was a union of people and not of
states
 The Preamble to the Constitution states, “We the People…”
 Lincoln believed that states could not secede or withdraw from the Union
 The Union was a union of the people not the states
 Therefore, secession could not occur simply because a state claimed the right to
withdraw from the union
Literacy Test
 Used in the South to prevent African Americans from voting
 Literacy tests were unfair and unduly hard
 “[The registrar] brought a big old book out there, and he gave me the sixteenth
section of the constitution of Mississippi, . . . I could copy it like it was in the book,
but after I got through copying it, he told me to give a reasonable interpretation and
tell the meaning of the section I had copied. Well, I flunked out.”
 A literacy test was particularly unfair because generally only African American
males were required to take the test [whites were exempt and women could not vote
until the Nineteenth Amendment]
 Former slaves were often illiterate because of discrimination and economic hardship
which prevented education
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
 Supreme Court case
 The Jim Crow laws, upheld by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896),
provided for separate public facilities based on race
 In the ruling, the Court stated that separate facilities were constitutional as long as
the facilities were equal
 “Separate but equal”
 Of course, the facilities were not equal and this unjust decision was not overturned
until Brown v. the Board of Education in the 1950s
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
 To impeach is to charge a federal official with a crime
 President Andrew Johnson was impeached but not found guilty
 His crime really wasn’t crime rather he did not agree with the Radical Republicans
in Congress and their plans for Reconstruction
 Johnson, like Lincoln, favored a lenient plan for Reconstruction; Radical
Republicans wanted to punish Confederates for the Civil War and restructure the
American South with full equality for African Americans
 The underlying reason for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson was a
power struggle with Congress over Reconstruction
Sharecropping
 Sharecropping is a system where a farmer is a tenant on another man’s land
 The sharecropping essentially rents the land to farm and pays the high rent in crops
grown
 Sharecroppers were often in debt as the rents were too high and had to borrow
money from the owners to stay on the land and feed their families
 Sharecropping came into existence after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery
with the 13th Amendment
 The effect of the system of sharecropping on the South after the Civil War was that
it kept formerly enslaved persons economically dependent
The Extension of Slavery
 The extension of slavery led to conflict between slave states and free states
 Fearing that the admission of a new state as a slave state or a free state could affect
the balance of power in Congress thereby giving either slave states or free states
more power in Congress, the extension of slavery led to compromises to prevent fullscale conflict between the free states and the slave states
 Headlines like “Compromise Enables Maine and Missouri To Enter Union” (1820),
“California Admitted to Union as Free State” (1850), and “Kansas-Nebraska Act
Sets Up Popular Sovereignty” (1854) reflect the compromises that occurred as a
result of the extension of slavery in the United States
 The Missouri Compromise tried to keep the balance between free and slave states
 The Compromise of 1850 allowed California to enter as a free state but led to the
enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act

In the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the citizens of the new state voted to determine if the
state would be slave or free; this was popular sovereignty or letting the people
decide
Slavery in the South
 Before the Civil War, slavery expanded in the South rather than in the North
because geographic conditions in the South encouraged the development of large
plantations
 The South had fertile land and a long growing season
 Crops like tobacco and cotton grew in the South
 Large farms or plantations developed in the South due to favorable geographic
conditions
 Plantations depended on slave labor
President Lincoln’s Fair and Generous Peace
 Abraham Lincoln’s goal for Reconstruction – the period after the Civil War – was a
fair and generous peace
 He wanted to heal the nation’s wounds from the Civil War and reunite the nation
quickly
 In his inaugural speech, he said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right…”
 With malice towards none means with no hatred
 He wanted to forgive and quickly restore the Union – the Radical Republicans had a
different vision for Reconstruction
The Census
 Every ten years, the population of each state is recorded in the census
 Population is recorded to determine the number of representatives each state will
receive in the House of Representatives and also determines the number of electors
each state will receive in the electoral college as this is determined by the number of
each state’s representatives in the House and two senators
 Thus, population data from the census of 2000 was used to determine the number of
electoral college votes from each state
 The census is very important; it recognizes that a state’s population may increase or
decrease over a period of time
 Thus, the number of electoral college votes and representatives in the House of
Representatives that a state has may change every ten years
The Great Plains
 The Great Plains are flat lands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky
Mountains
 The Great Plains was added to the United States as a result of the Louisiana
Purchase
 The Great Plains are good for farming and herding
 The Great Plains has been called the “breadbasket” of the nation

Grain crops like wheat and corn are grown in the Great Plains
Judicial Review
 Established in the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison
 It is the power of the Supreme Court to determine if a law is constitutional or
unconstitutional
 Thus, the Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution
 The Supreme Court has the power to determine what the founding fathers meant
when they wrote the Constitution
 This power of judicial review has strengthened the power of the federal government
as only the Supreme Court can declare a law unconstitutional
Federalism
 The American system of government
 Governmental power in the United States is divided between the Federal
government and the state governments
 Federalism is best defined as a principle of government that divides power between
the central government and state governments
 The Federal government has certain powers like the power the declare war or coin
money
 The state governments have other powers like issuing driver licenses or High School
diplomas yet both the Federal and state governments can levy taxes
The Great Compromise
 When the Constitution was being discussed and written, there was a debate between
the big states and the small states
 States with lots of people wanted more representatives in Congress but small states
feared that they would have no voice in the Federal government if representation
was based on population
 So, a compromise was reached known as the Great Compromise or the Connecticut
Compromise
 The Great Compromise reached at the Constitutional Convention resulted in the
creation of a bicameral legislature
 A bicameral legislature means that Congress has two houses or parts: the House of
Representatives based on each state’s population [thus, more people in the state,
more representatives for that state in the House] yet an equal number of
representatives for each state in the Senate [two senators per state]
The “New Immigrants”
 From Southern and Eastern Europe
 Arrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s
 Primarily to work in factories in cities
 Generally did not speak English and might be Catholics or Jews – culturally
different from “Old Immigrants” who were English-speakers and mostly Protestant,
excluding the Irish who were Catholics

Faced discrimination by nativists or people with anti-immigrant attitudes
Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire of 1911
 The tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire of 1911 drew national
attention to the need to protect the safety of workers
 In this terrible fire, many female garment workers died as the doors to the factory
were locked shut – keeping the women in the factory even when a fire erupted
 Many women died from the fire or from jumping to their deaths
 The tragedy shed light on the poor working conditions in factories and the
mistreatment of workers
 As a result of the fire, new government regulation occurred that improved working
conditions in many factories throughout the nation
John D. Rockefeller
 Monopolist
 Accused of being a robber baron or a monopolist who used unfair business practices
to create a monopoly
 Written about by Ida Tarbell in her muckraking book, The History of the Standard
Oil Company
 Believed in Social Darwinism or that the fittest are the wealthiest and most
successful
 Once said, “The American beauty rose can be produced in all its splendor only by
sacrificing the early buds that grow up around it.” - or that the great business only
exists by sacrificing its inferior competitors
Government Regulation of Monopolies
 The Sherman Antitrust Act
 To prevent monopolistic activities
 To ensure fairness in the market and competition
 Competition is good for consumers – lower prices of products and better quality
products
 The Sherman Antitrust Act was the first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic
business practices