Study Session: Old West to
Progressives
• OLD WEST
– Transcontinental Railroad
• First completed in 1869, 5 total, Irish & Chinese workers
• Consequences for the Great Plains=key role in the near
extinction of the buffalo-huge blow to Native culture
– Nomadic way of life threatened
– Disease
– RR transforms economy of the entire region
• Railroad brings settlers, miners, farmers & cattlemen
• Range-fed cattle replace the buffalo herds
Impact on Native Americans
• Century of Dishonor 1881- Helen Hunt Jackson
• Dawes Act of 1887
– Goals: Inspired by CoD, attempt to reform govt. Native
American policy & assimilate Natives
– Consequences=natives lost 50% of 156 million acres,
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 partially reversed
individualistic approach to Dawes Act
– Ghost Dance= sacred ritual expressing vision that
buffalo would return & white civilization would vanish
– Resulted in Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 out of
fear that an uprising would occur
Fading Frontier
• Watershed Report
– 1890 census reported that there was no longer a
“frontier line”
– Basically said frontier was closed
– Frederick Jackson Turner writes “Significance of the
Frontier in American History” where he argued that
cheap, unsettled land had played a key role in making
American society more democratic- the American
spirit of democracy, nationalism, individualism, but no
hereditary landed aristocracy as a result
Your view of Frontier v. APUSH writer
view
• Where you think Custer, buffalo, gun fights
and cattle drives when you imagine the Old
West, the APUSH writers focus on other
things.
• APUSH Test Tip= High probability you will have
questions on Helen Hunt Jackson’s Century of
Dishonor and Frederick Jackson Turner’s
Frontier Thesis
Industrial America
• Consolidation of Big Business
– Vertical integration=company controls both
production and distribution of its product
– Horizontal integration=occurs when one company
gains control over other companies that produce the
same product
– Consequences of consolidation=corporations build
large organized factories where machines & unskilled
workers perform labor
– Corporations accumulate vast sums of investment
capital & railroads help develop markets for their
goods
Labor 1865-1900
• Key trends:
– Immigrants, women and children expand labor
force
– Machines replace skilled artisans
– Large corporations dominate American economy
– National markets & international markets for
goods
– Rags to riches- American Dream- Horatio Alger
Knights of Labor
Industrial Workers
of the World
American
Federation of
Labor
Terence Powderly
“Mother Jones”,
Elizabeth Flynn, Bill
Haywood
Samuel Gompers of
Cigar Makers Union
Open membership
“Injury to one is
injury to all”-One
Big Union
Skilled workers in
craft unions
Skilled & Unskilled
All even African
Americans
Goal: Cooperative
society were
laborers own the
industries where
they work
Goal: unite all
laborers including
African Americans
who were excluded
from craft unions
Goal: higher wages,
shorter hours,
better working
conditions
Haymarket Square
riot blamed on
Knights
Endorsed violent
tactics
Anti violence
APUSH TEST TIP
• Very important to understand similarities and
differences between the 3 unions. All
dedicated to organizing workers, but varying
views on violence, skilled vs. unskilled, etc.
Labor strikes
• Homestead strike 1892
• Pullman strike 1894
– Pullman Palace Car Company cut wages while
maintaining rents and prices in a company town
where 12,000 workers lived- strike resulted
– Pullman strike halted a substantial portion of
American railroad commerce
– Cleveland ordered federal troops to Chicago to
“protect the mail” but really to crush the strike
Immigration
• Old Immigrants- prior to 1880 most come from Britain and W.
Europe
• New Immigrants- in 1880s start coming from S. & E. Europe (Italy,
Russia, Poland, A-H)
• Settled in large cities but very few in the South
• Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
– First law to exclude a group due to ethnicity
– Prohibits immigration of Chinese to America
– Working-class felt threatened by Chinese workers
– Strong support in California
Nativism= had opposed Irish & Germans in the past.
Oppose new immigrants who are Catholic & Jewish, different
languages & cultures, feel they don’t understand political traditions,
feel they are threatening jobs
Industrial Order- Supporters & Reformers
• Social Darwinism- fittest survive in nature & society
• Wealthy business & industrial leaders use Social Darwinism to
justify their success
• Social Darwinists believe industrial & urban problems are part of
natural evolutionary process that humans cannot control
• Gospel of Wealth= Andrew Carnegie
– Expressed the belief that as guardians of society’s wealth rich have a
duty to serve society
– Carnegie donates more than $350 million to libraries, schools, peace
initiatives and the arts
Social Gospel was a reform movement based on the belief that
Christians have a responsibility to confront social problemsChristian ministers were among the leaders of the Social Gospel
movement
Populism & Progressives
• Angry frustrated farmers a.k.a agrarian discontent
–
–
–
–
RR high rates exploiting the farmer
Big business high taxes exploiting farmer
Gold standard hurting farmer
Corporations charging way too much for farmer
equipment & fertilizer
• Populist Party forms to unite farmers & improve famer
conditions
– Supported» Silver standard at 16 to 1 to increase money supply
» Use Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 to regulate RR & stop
discrimination against small customers
» Support candidacy of William Jennings Bryan in 1896
Reasons Populist Party fails
• Western and Southern farmers did not agree on
political strategies
• Racism prevents poor white and black farmers from
working together
• Increases in urban population led to higher prices for
agricultural products
• Discovery of gold in the Yukon eased farmer access to
credit
• Democratic party was too similar to Populist and took
ideas
• WJB lost in 1896 & Populists faded off
Progressives
• Key Points:
– Middle class reformers concerned with urban &
consumer issues
– Govt should tackle social problems
– Govt should regulate industry & improve labor
conditions
– Rejected Social Darwinism, arguing cooperation is
best way to improve society
Progressives Key Goals
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Direct election of senators
Women’s suffrage
Recall & referendum
City- manager type form of govt for greater
professionalism
Nonpartisan local govt to weaken political
machines
APUSH TEST TIP
Child labor laws
Remember what Progressives
fought for & what they did
Antitrust legislation
not fight for. DID NOT fight
Pure Food and Drug Act
for civil rights
Progressive Amendments
• 16th= gave Congress power to lay and collect
taxes
• 17th=senators to be elected by popular vote
• 18th=outlaws sale and manufacture of liquor
• 19th=women granted right to vote
Muckrakers
• Keys: investigative reporters who promoted social
and political reform by exposing corruption &
urban problems
• Criticized political bosses & robber barons
• Mass circulation of newspapers & magazines
reach the public
• Leading muckrakers=
– Upton Sinclair: The Jungle- leads to Meat Inspection
Act & Pure Food & Drug Act
– Jacob Riis: How the Other Half Lives
– Ida Tarbell: History of Standard Oil
APUSH TEST TIP: Writers feel most know Tarbell and Sinclair but not so much
Riis, so a number of questions on Riis
Progressive Presidents
• Teddy Roosevelt
– Conservation of natural resources
– Unsanitary conditions in meatpacking industry
– Went after monopolies in RR industry
– Went after food & drug safety
– Square Deal: Three C’s ???
– Bull Moose Party to run again in 1912
Progressive President
• Woodrow Wilson
– All out assault on high taxes, banking trouble &
trusts
– Federal Reserve Act of 1913
• Created system of district banks coordinated by a
central board
• Made currency & credit more elastic
APUSH TEST TIP: Teddy, Taft and Wilson all supported
Progressive reform but the exam does not give them equal
treatment. Most attention given to Teddy, omit Taft to a
degree and limit questions to Wilson’s Federal Reserve.
However…many questions on Wilson’s foreign policy stuff
Reformers and Suffragettes 1865-1920
• Jane Addams=Hull House (settlement house)
in Chicago
• Suffrage- greater sense of equality on frontier
so Western states to allow women the vote
before 1920- WY first in 1869
• Women’s Christian Temperance Union
– Carry Nation best known & outspoken leader
– Moral responsibility to improve society by working
for prohibition
Women & Progressive Reform
• Dorothea Dix- worked for better conditions for
mentally ill
• Ida B. Wells-Barnett- African American civil
rights advocate especially opposed to lynching
• Women also involved in progressive
movements against:
– Child labor
– Limiting hours for women and children
Women at work
• Late 19th & early 20th majority of female
workers employed outside home were young
and single
• Domestic servants
• Garment workers
• Teachers
• Cigar makers
• Least likely to be doctors or lawyers
Black Americans & Progressive Era
• W.E.B. DuBois-most influential advocate of full
political, economic and social equality for Black
Americans- founded NAACP 1909. Advocated
development of the talented 10th- more educated
& directly involved in change. Goal integration
not separation
• Booker T. Washington- advocated gradualism and
separation- Atlanta Compromise speech
• KKK active in progress period & has a resurgence
due in part to D.W. Griffith’s film, Birth of a
Nation which portrayed KKK activities as heroic