“The Gilded Age”
1865 – 1900
1890, 11 million of the nation's 12 million
families earned less than $1200 per year.
Of this group, the average annual income
was $380, well below the poverty line.
Gilded Age: Term coined by Mark Twain to describe the
post-Reconstruction era which was characterized a façade of
prosperity.
gild·ed [gil-did] –adjective
1.covered or highlighted with gold or something of a golden
color.
2.having a pleasing or showy appearance that conceals something
of little worth.
CH.7 “ISSUES OF THE GILDED AGE”
SECTION 1 “SEGREGATION & SOCIAL TENSIONS”
Preview Assignment:
Listed below are several events that we have
already studied. All occurred in the so-called
Gilded Age (1865-1900). Each event glittered
(had a very positive aspect) but the glitter hid
some tarnished aspect in American history. Read
the glittered statement and describe the
tarnished aspect associated with it.
1. General Lee surrenders the Confederate hopes at Appomattox
Court House leading America into a rebuilding and reuniting
phase
2. With new technologies and inventions industry increases and
expands our economy, while giving work to millions of people.
3. Many immigrants flee to the United States escaping persecution,
famine, and disease.
4. The Great American Frontier passes, and this great nation now
includes all the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
SEGREGATION & SOCIAL
TENSIONS
(DOCUMENTS OF OUR NATION)
• Frederick Douglass,
page 842
• Booker T. Washington,
page 848
• MARTIN LUTHER KING,
Jr. page 852
• Lyndon Johnson page
854
• Abigail Adams page 838
• Sojourner Truth page
843
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
page 843
• Betty Friedan page 853
CHAPTER 7 SEC.1
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON - ATLANTA EXPOSITION IN 1895
Page 848
Paragraph 1:
It is important to not expect everything all at once.
Paragraph 2:
Don’t run away from the problem, it won’t make it better.
Plant yourself and begin to make it better where you
stand.
Paragraph 3:
Begin your work in honest and modest areas and build
from there. You can you’re your way up the ladder of
Capitalism. You’re either a part of the problem (continued
griping and complaining) or part of the solution (you can
work to make it better).
Ch.7 Sec.1 Segregation and Social Tensions (pages 184-191)
Students are to be placed in two groups.
Group 1: Your objective is to go through Chapter 7 Sec.1 and report on anything
that is “old” news (information that has already been covered this year).
Group 2: Your objective is to go through Chapter 7 Sec.1 and report on anything
that is “new” news (information that has not been covered to date).
Ch.7 Sec.1 Segregation and Social Tensions
• “OLD” ISSUES
• “NEW” ISSUES
 Jim Crow Laws
 Voting rights for African Americans
 Grandfather clause & Poll tax &
Literacy Tests
 Segregation
 Plessy v. Ferguson
 Knights of Labor
 Booker T. Washington
 Immigrants and racial prejudice
 Chinese Exclusion Act
 Land taken away
 Barbed wire
 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
On the eve of WW2, only 3% of African Americans could
vote
W.E.B. Du Bois attacks Washington ideas
Ida B. Wells cruscades against lynching's
Saun Song Bo - Chinese turned to courts to protect their
rights - Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Sante Fe Ring- Association of prominent whites got the
Federal government to grant the group control of
millions of acres of land in New Mexico
New Mexico didn’t have representatives in DC (not a
state yet)
Las Gorras Blancas- targeted the property of large ranch
owners by cutting holes in barbed wire fences and
burning houses
Group of Hispanics in Tucson AZ. Formed the Alianza
Hispano Americans in 1894 to protect the culture.
Frances Willard led the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union - Fought to ban sell of liquor - Fought for social
causes (Public health and welfare reform) - Fought for a
Constitutional Amendment
Susan B Anthony & Elizabeth Cady Stanton - Formed
National Woman Suffrage Association
By 1906, 4 Western States granted woman’s voting
(Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho)
Jim Crow Laws
• Kept whites and blacks segregated
• Took away voting rights (disenfranchising)
• 1876- Rutherford B. Hayes removed troops
from the South
– State and Local Issue
Limited Voting Rights
• 15th Amendment
• Restrictive measures
– Poll tax
• $1-$2 to vote
• Can’t pay
disqualified
– Literacy tests
• Denied education
disqualified
– Grandfather clauses
• Can only vote if ancestors had voted prior to 1866
• Didn’t vote
disqualified
“We have done our level
best. We have scratched our
heads to find out how we
could eliminate the last one
of them [black voters]. We
stuffed ballot boxes. We shot
them.”
- S. Carolina senator Ben
Tillman
Some White Opposition to Laws
“If there must be Jim Crow cars [railroad], there should be
Jim Crow waiting saloons. And if there were Jim Crow
saloons, then there would have to be Jim Crow jury boxes
and a Jim Crow Bible for colored witnesses. The whole
idea is absurd.”
- Prominent Charleston newspaper writer
What was segregated?
•
•
•
•
•
Railroad cars & waiting stations
Jury boxes
Cemeteries
Restaurants
EVERYTHING!!!!!!
Plessy v. Ferguson
• 1896
• Constitutionality of Jim Crow laws
upheld
• “Separate but equal”
• Was this really the case?
“Separate but equal”
• Not really equal
– Example: 1915: S. Carolina spent
$14/white student but less than
$3/black student
African Americans Fight Back
• Established:
– Black newspapers
– Women’s clubs
– Fraternal organizations
– Political organizations
Can you name one of the most familiar
organizations?
Booker T. Washington
• Don’t focus on overturning Jim Crow laws
• Accommodate to segregation
– “pull themselves up from their own bootstraps”
by building up their economic resources and
establishing reputations as hardworking and
honest citizens
“The wisest among my race
understand that the agitation of
questions of social quality is the
extremest folly, and that
progress in the enjoyment of all
the privileges that will come to
us must be the result of severe
and constant struggle rather
than artificial forcing…It is
important and right that all
privileges of the law be ours,
but it is vastly more important
that we be prepared for the
exercises of these privileges.”
W.E.B. Du Bois
• Criticized Washington’s
willingness to
accommodate southern
whites
• Blacks should demand full
and immediate equality
and not limit themselves
to vocational education
William Edward Burghardt
Ida B. Wells
• Free Speech – Condemned
the mistreatment of blacks
• Editorials, pamphlets
• Helped organize women’s
clubs
Chinese Immigrants
• 1879 – California barred cities from employing
people of Chinese ancestry
• “Oriental” school
• Chinese Exclusion Act
• Yick Wo v. Hopkins
– Chinese descent, born in the U.S. couldn’t be
stripped of their citizenship
– Chinese Exclusion Act still upheld
“That statue represents Liberty holding a torch which lights
the passage of those of all nations who come into this
country, but are the Chinese allowed to come? As for the
Chinese who are here, are they allowed to enjoy liberty as
men of all other nationalities enjoy it?”
- Saum Song Bo
Mexican Americans Struggle
• 1848- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
– Guaranteed the property rights of Mexicans living
in the Southwest prior to the war
• 4 out of 5 lost their land
• U.S. courts forced Mexican Americans to show
that they really owned the land
• Americans used political connections
Mexican Americans Struggle
• Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California
• Las Gorras Blancas – targeted property of
large ranch owners: cut holes in barbed wire
and burned houses
• 1894 – Alianza Hispano-Americana – protect
culture, interests, and legal rights
• Fighting for right to vote, own
property, receive an education
• National Woman Suffrage
Association – 1869
– Susan B. Anthony
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• 1906 – four western states
granted women the right to vote
– Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Idaho
Women
Women
• 1900 – 1/3 of college
students were women
• Women’s Christian
Temperance Union (WCTU)
led by Frances Willard
– Ban the sale of liquor
Section 2
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
CHALLENGES
Questions Being Raised
• Inaction and political corruption
• Could a ‘democracy’ succeed in a time
dominated by large and powerful industrial
corporations and men of great wealth?
MAIN IDEAS – 3 NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF
SOCIETY DURING THE GILDED AGE
1. Weak Leadership on a federal level:
“Know Nothing Presidents”
2. Political corruption on the local level:
“Political Machines”
3. Plight of the Farmers
Assignment: Complete the “Gilded Age Presidents”
questions using pages 193-196 & 813 – 815
The presidents of the “Gilded Age” are often referred to
as the “know nothing” or “do nothing” presidents.
Why?
Name (3) interesting findings after viewing
the 18th-25th presidents of the United States using the
pages listed above.
Ulysses S. Grant
James Garfield
Grover Cleveland
William McKinley
Rutherford B. Hayes
Chester Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
During the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881), the Republican Party was split into
two factions:
The Stalwarts, the conservative faction, saw themselves as "stalwart" in opposition to Hayes'
efforts to reconcile with the South. They opposed all forms of civil service reform, preferring to
keep in place the existing patronage system. Among their numbers were many Radical
Republicans, Union war veterans and most of the Republican political bosses. The Stalwarts also
backed the protective tariff and sought a third term for U.S. Grant in 1880. Roscoe Conkling of
New York was the most prominent Stalwart leader.
The Half-Breeds, a term of disparagement favored by the Stalwarts, was applied to the
moderately liberal faction of the Republican Party. In the minds of the Stalwarts, the term "HalfBreed" was meant to suggest that they were only half Republican. The Half-Breeds backed
Hayes' lenient treatment of the South and supported civil service reform. James G. Blaine of
Maine was the leader of this group, but failed to win the party nomination in 1876 and 1880.
The Republican convention of 1880 was deeply divided between Stalwarts and Half-Breeds, but
after 36 ballots the convention settled on a "dark horse" compromise candidate, James A.
Garfield. Although not closely affiliated with the Half-Breeds, Garfield supported policies of reform
that they advocated.
The assassination of Garfield in 1881 by Charles Guiteau, a crazed Stalwart who declared, "I am
a Stalwart of the Stalwarts and Arthur will be President," promptly ended usage of the terms
"Stalwart" and "Half-Breed.“
SOURCE: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h722.html
Political Machines:
Assignment: Complete “The Workings of a
Political Machine” handout to gain a better
understanding of this concept
Political Machine:
Well organized political parties that dominated local and
state governments in the late 1800’s through use of the
“Graft” (acquisition of money or political power through
illegal or dishonest methods)
•View Sunshine & Shadow (PBS via youtube)
PBS, New York - 3 Sunshine And Shadow (3/8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoZLMlEhHlk&feature=related
Cartoon Analysis:
Within your group, analyze (3) three of Thomas
Nast’s most famous political cartoons.
Let’s read the handout to gain some background
knowledge on Thomas Nast and your assignment.
Cartoon Analysis: Boss Tweed & Tammany Hall
Boss Tweed Escaped From Prison
December 4, 1875
Tweed unsuccessfully attempted to bribe Nast to leave him alone,
but on November 19, 1873, Tweed was tried and convicted on
charges of forgery and larceny. He was released in January 1875,
but was immediately rearrested. The state sued him for $6 million,
and he was held in a debtor's jail until he could come up with half
that amount for bail. In the debtor's prison, he was allowed daily
trips, accompanied by the jailer, to see his family. On one of these
trips, in December 1875, he escaped and fled to Spain. He was a
fugitive there for a year, working as a commoner on a Spanish ship
until he was recognized by his likeness to a Nast cartoon and
captured. He died in a debtor's prison on April 12, 1878.
Assignment: Use page 195 of your textbook
1. Identify Civil Service & The Pendleton Civil Service Act
2.Which president was mostly responsible for trying to
end the corruption of the Gilded Age?
3.What key event helped institute the push for civil
service reform?
Pendleton Act (January 16, 1883) – act passed by Congress during the
administration of Chester A. Arthur establishing a Civil Service Commission, which
required competitive examinations for some federal jobs. It was the first
comprehensive national merit system. The Pendleton Act helped dismantle part of
the spoils system.
Section 3 “Farmers &
Populism”
The Plight of the Farmer
The American farmer struggled to come to grips with a
multitude of problems that made life difficult and prosperity
anything but certain. While the industrial economy made
America look much like the land of opportunity, rural America
looked much different than the industrialized East. The
farmers were smart enough to recognize that they would need
to look to our democratic form of government for solutions to
these problems. What they needed, more than anything else,
was to organize large numbers of their own together in order
to put more emphasis on their plight. But first, we need to
see exactly what problems faced the farmers, and how these
problems made life difficult in the late 1800’s.
The Plight of the Farmer:
Therefore, let us examine the Economic Issues
Challenging the Nation (pg.196)
Read: “Making Sense of Inflation & Deflation”
&
“How Much did Things Cost?”
Problem # 1: Falling Prices of Farm Products
The prices of most farm goods (wheat, corn, cotton)
fell drastically. It did not help that farmers produced
more crops to compensate thus the supply exceeded
the demand. As a result, the price of the good fell.
Problem # 2: High Grain Elevators Prices
Once crops are harvested, they had to be stored
somewhere until they were ready to be
transported on railroads. These storage places
are called grain elevators, and farmers had to pay
rent for use of this space.
Problem # 3: High Railroad Freight Rates
Railroads were the only means to transport for
the vast majority of agricultural goods.
Railroads knew this, so they charged farmers
high rates for shipping their crops. Farmers
were “captured” by the railroads
Problem # 4: Borrowing from the bank
Farmers borrowed money from the bank, to
start up farms and for supplies and materials.
The payments for these loans were usually
fixed on a monthly basis, thus as farmers saw
their crop prices falling, their loan payments
stayed the same. So farmers felt they “owed
their soul” to the bank.
Assignment: Name & describe the (3) three
organizations formed by the farmers to deal with
the problems we discussed.
Use pages 197 – 201 in your textbook
Farmer’s OrganizatiOns
The Grange - organization formed by Oliver H. Kelly
Educational opportunities
Initial ideas to regulate railroad rates and grain elevator costs
Farmer’s Alliance - formed cooperatives (work together with other
farmers/share machinery, tools, and resources)
Populist Party - the People’s Party formed in 1891
Stressed “FREE SILVER” …AND… (next slide)
Main Goals of the Populist Party
• The Free Coinage of Silver – biggest goal of the Populists Government should add silver to the monetary supply in-turn
creating “INFLATION” = ↑ $ Supply
• Graduated income tax (which Amendment?)
• Federal loan program for farmers
• Election of U.S. Senators by popular vote (which Amendment?)
• The Eight Hour Work Day
• Restriction on immigration
• Government Control of Railroads – Government should
establish a fair price *(Munn v. Illinois & Wabash v. Illinois)
The farmers knew they were too small in numbers to actually
elect a president. Making the 8-Hour Work Day a goal would
attract industrial workers to the party.
THE GOLD STANDARD
VERSUS
THE SILVER STANDARD
THE OLD AMERICAN MONEY SYSTEM
Under the old system of money in the United
States the paper money issued by the
government had to be backed by gold.
This meant that there had to be a certain
quantity of gold in the bank to back up every
dollar in circulation.
The system was called the Gold Standard
DOLLARS EQUAL GOLD
=
Shift from an Inflated Economy
to
Deflated Economy
During the Civil War, the U.S. government issued
greenbacks to increase the amount of money,
however, greenbacks were retired following the
war leading to a $ issue
The American economy faced DEFLATION due
to a low amount or lesser amount of $ in
circulation
THE BIG BATTLE
VS
THE FIGHT OVER SILVER AND GOLD
The main fight over the Silver versus the
Gold standard was fought between:
BANKS: They wanted the stick with the gold
standard and keep prices low so they would
make more money.
FARMERS: They wanted to use more silver to
back the money. This would raise prices, and
they would find it easier to make money and
pay back the banks.
The Election of 1896
William Jennings Bryan
William McKinley
William Jennings Bryan
Democratic Party Nominee
who supported Populist goal
of “Free Silver”
Great Speaker – 1st
candidate to travel the
country speaking in many
cities
•Failure in politics (defeated
in 3 presidential elections)
Most famous speech
“Cross of Gold”
Bryan’s Cross of Gold Speech
You will not crucify mankind on
a cross of gold, and I will fight
for the common folk!
Listen to end of William Jennings
Bryan’s Cross of Gold Speech
Site:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/s
peeches/williamjenningsbryan1896
dnc.htm
William McKinley
Republican Party Nominee
who supported big business,
the banks, and the
“Gold Standard”
Ran a front porch
campaign; allowed Bryan to
talk himself out
Read “The Property of the People”
An Army of Unemployed Marches on the Capitol
1. Who was Jacob Coxey?
2. What did Coxey’s Army demand?
L. Frank Baum, author of
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , written in 1900, was a
supporter of the Populist and supported presidential
candidate William Jennings Bryan
The “Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was written as an
allegory (represents real situations in
symbolic terms) to the so-called Gilded
Age/Populism. Every main character can be
traced to either a particular person or group of
people. Even the word “Oz” may have been used
as symbolism
Political Cartoons of the Time
1894
1896
1899
1894