The New South
1877-1900
Economic Growth
 Henry Grady’s vision of a “New
South”
 Cotton plantations and slavery
dominated the Old South’s
economy.
 Few cities, little manufacturing
 Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta
Constitution, called for a “New
South”
 Thriving cities
 Factories
 Business opportunities
 Southern leaders strived to fulfill
Grady’s vision by creating a more
diversified economy
Economic Growth
 The beginning of a new
industrial base
 New South enthusiasts
began by promoting the
textile industry.
 Investors recognized
that the South’s ready
supply of cheap labor,
low taxes, and proximity
to cotton fields created
ideal conditions for
building a profitable
textile industry.
 Mills soon flourished in
small towns
across the Piedmont
region
of North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia.
Economic Growth
The beginning of a new
industrial base
Tobacco
 Region’s second most important
cash crop
 James Buchanan Duke built the
first automated cigarette-making
machine in 1885
 Within 20 years, Duke’s American
Tobacco Company produced 80%
of the country’s cigarettes
Iron ore mines
 South’s third industrial success
story
 Iron ore near Birmingham led the
city to become an industrial
center and “Pittsburgh of the
South”
Economic Growth
 The limits of development
 Despite progress, the South
remained reliant on cotton
 Depleted the soil
 Used inefficient sharecropping
system
 Depended on unreliable cotton
prices
 South remained
overwhelmingly agricultural.
 In 1900, two-thirds of all
Southern men still earned
their living in farming.
 Average income in the South
was only 40 percent of that in
the North.
The Disenfranchisement of Black
Voters
 “Redeemers”
 White Southern
Democrats
 Redeemed the South
from Republican rule
 Cut taxed and reduced
state spending =
reversed gains made in
public education during
Republican rule
 Committed to economic
development, white
supremacy and
disenfranchising African
American voters
The Disfranchisement of Black Voters
 Redeemer governments used
literacy tests and poll taxes to
evade the 15th amendment.
 Literacy tests required voters to
read and explain the Constitution
in a way that satisfied voting
registration officials.
 White registrars rarely passed
black voters.
 Poll taxes accumulated from one
election to the next
 Number of black voters
plummeted. For example, in
1896, 130,000 blacks were
registered to vote in Louisiana.
Just four years later the number
plunged to just 5,320.
Number of Southern Black Legislators,
1868-1900 and 1960-1992
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
 What happened?
 1890 Separate Car Law in Louisiana
 “equal by separate accommodations for the white
and colored races”
 On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, a young dark-skinned
Creole who was one-eighth black, took a first class
seat in a train car reserved for whites. Conductor
asked Plessy to move. He refused and was arrested
 Judge John H. Ferguson of New Orleans ruled against
Plessy’s plea
 Citizens’ Committee appealed the case to the United
States Supreme Court.
 The Supreme Court handed down its decision on May
18, 1896. The Court ruled against Plessy by a 7 to 1
vote. The Court’s decision upheld segregation by
approving “separate but equal” railroad facilities for
African Americans.
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
 What factors contributed to the Supreme Court’s decision?
 Following the Civil War, Southern states enacted Black Codes to
limit the legal and social rights of African Americans. These
codes played an important role in prompting Congress to pass
the Fourteenth Amendment to protect the civil rights of African
Americans.
 The Civil Rights Act of 1875 guaranteed blacks “full and equal
enjoyment” of public facilities. However, the Supreme Court
began handing down a series of decisions that limited federal
protection of African Americans and opened the door to racial
segregation. For example, the 1883 Civil Rights Cases ruled
that the Fourteenth Amendment only applies to state actions
and could not be used to regulate the behavior of private
individuals or private organizations. This set a legal precedent
that would be used in Plessy v. Ferguson.
 The Supreme Court does not reach
decisions in a political and social
vacuum. By the 1890s, more and
more white Southerners rejected the
idea of racial equality. The crash of
1893 and the ensuing economic
depression further sharpened racial
tensions. The Court’s decision in
Plessy v. Ferguson reflected the ongoing
trend toward enacting Jim Crow
segregation laws.
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
 Why should you remember Plessy v. Ferguson?
 Allowed Jim Crow segregation laws across the South
 Segregated schools, restaurants, bathrooms, water
fountains, etc. became legal
 Plessy v. Ferguson
approved a pattern of
court-supported
segregation that lasted
about 60 years.
Segregated schools used
separate facilities that
were rarely equal.
Lynching in the South
 Jim Crow laws, poll taxes and literacy tests were all forms of
legalized discrimination
 Public lynchings were used to terrorize blacks, enforce
segregation and discourage voting
1882 to 1968
Lynching in the South
 Resisting the wave of lynching required
great courage. Ida B. Wells, an
elementary school teacher and journalist,
was galvanized to take action when a
white mob in Memphis lynched three of
her friends. Wells believed that the
victims “crime” was successfully
competing with a white-owned grocery
store. Outraged by crime, Wells began a
lifelong crusade against lynching. She
attempted to educate the public by
publishing articles, writing books, and
organizing black women’s clubs. After a
particularly horrifying lynching of a black
postmaster in South Carolina, Wells spent
five weeks in Washington, D.C. in a futile
effort to persuade the federal government
to intervene.
Key Quote – Booker T. Washington’s
“Separate as the Fingers” Speech
 The setting
 Booker T. Washington was a former slave who
attended the Hampton Institute, a school in
Virginia that stressed industrial education.
Washington later founded a similar school, the
Tuskegee Institute, in Alabama.
 Leading spokesman for industrial education.
He believed that blacks were poor because
they had few skills. With a practical
vocational education black people would be
able to improve their lives by learning useful
trades.
 In 1895, the organizers of an international
exhibition in Atlanta invited Washington to
speak to a predominately white audience at
the opening ceremonies of their exposition.
Although the organizers worries that “public
sentiment was not prepared for such an
advanced step,” they decided that inviting a
black speaker would demonstrate racial
progress in the New South.
Key Quote – Booker T. Washington’s
“Separate as the Fingers” Speech
 Importance
 Washington’s soothing message that African Americans and whites could
lead socially separate lives while working together for economic progress
pleased his listeners. He encouraged blacks to accept segregation, seek
economic opportunities, and avoid political agitation. Washington urged
Southern employers to hire loyal black workers .
 Proponents of the New South praised Washington’s
message of accommodation and self-help.
 Younger, educated blacks led by W.E.B. Du Bois
strongly criticized Washington’s commitment to
gradual progress. Du Bois
advocated an alternate program of “ceaseless
agitation” to challenge Jim Crow segregation and
demand full economic, social, and political equality.
instead
The West
1865-1900
Key Facts About the West
 The transcontinental railroads
 Railroad workers and company
officials celebrated the
completion of the first
transcontinental railroad on May
10, 1869 at Promontory Point,
Utah.
 Irish and Chinese workers
played an important role in
building railroads
 The transcontinental railroads
enabled diverse groups of
miners, cattlemen, and farmers
to settle in the West.
 Enabled hunters to nearly
exterminate the herds of buffalo
that roamed the Great Plains.
 dealt a catastrophic blow to the
culture of the Plains Indians.
Key Facts About the West
 The miners’ frontier
 Discoveries of gold and
silver sparked a frenetic
rush of prospectors to
mines scattered across
the Rocky and Sierra
Mountains.
 Mining camps included a
diverse group of white,
black, American Indian,
Mexican, and Chinese
miners.
Key Facts About the West
 The cowboys’ frontier
 During the twenty years
after the Civil War, cowboys
herded cattle on long drives
from Texas to “cow towns”
in Kansas.
 During the peak years of
the 1870s, as many as
40,000 cowboys roamed
the Great Plains.
Key Facts About the West
 The farmer’s frontier
 Great Plains agriculture posed new
challenges for farmers eager to take
advantage of the Homestead Act.
 Blizzards, fires, and swarms of
locusts swept across the arid and
treeless prairies.
 In the late 1870s about 25,000 black
pioneers called exodusters left the
South to start new lives in Kansas.
By 1890, over 500,000 blacks lived
west of the Mississippi River.
The Defeat and Transformation of
the Plains Indians
 Threats to Native American culture
 About 250,000 Native Americans lived
on the Great Plains in the early 1860s.
They relied upon the buffalo herds for
food, clothing, and shelter.
 The construction of the
transcontinental railroads, the
slaughter of the buffalo, the spread of
epidemic diseases, and the destructive
effects of constant warfare all caused a
decline in Native American population.
The Defeat and Transformation of
the Plains Indians
 A Century of Dishonor
 Helen Hunt Jackson was an
outspoken and prolific writer who
championed the cause of Native
Americans. Jackson published A
Century of Dishonor in 1881. Her
book documented the misdeeds of
corrupt Indian agents, untruthful
government officials, and landhungry settlers who encroached onto
tribal reservations.
 Like many other well-meaning
reformers, Jackson supported
policies designed to bring Native
Americans into the mainstream of
American life.
 Played a key role in mobilizing public
support for the Dawes Act.
The Defeat and Transformation of
the Plains Indians
 The Dawes Act, 1887
 The Dawes Act divided tribal lands into
individual homesteads of 160-acres,
which were then distributed to the head
of each Indian family.
 The Dawes Act tried to “civilize” Native
Americans by turning them into selfsupporting farmers. The policy failed to
work.
 Prior to the Dawes Act, Indian tribes
controlled 150 million acres of land. By
the time the Indian Reorganization Act
was passed in 1934, the Plains Indians
lost almost two-thirds of their land.
The Defeat and
Transformation of the
Plains Indians
 The Ghost Dance and the Wounded Knee
Massacre, 1890
 Inspired by visions of a Paiute
prophet named Wovoka, many desperate
Native Americans performed a ritual Ghost
Dance they believed would hasten the return of
the buffalo and the departure of white settlers.
 Suspicious government agents wanted to suppress
performances of the Ghost Dance. Fearing that
the Indians intended to go on the warpath, the
army dispatched troops to reservations in the Pine
Ridge area of present-day South Dakota.
 Tensions mounted when the army assumed that
300 Sioux wearing Ghost Dance shirts were
preparing to revolt. When a Sioux fired a single
shot at the troops, the soldiers returned fire with
repeating rifles. About 300 Indians including 200
women and children died in what came to be
known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Chief
Sitting Bull
Turner’s Frontier Thesis
 After studying the 1890 population count, the
Superintendent of the U.S. Census issued a statement
declaring that the western frontier had closed. The
finding surprised and intrigued Frederick Jackson Turner,
a young professor of history at the University of
Wisconsin. He concluded that the close of the frontier
symbolized the end of a great historic movement.
 In a paper entitled, “The Significance of the Frontier in
American History,” Turner wrote that the frontier
experience profoundly shaped the American character.
For three centuries land-hungry settlers had been forced
by trial and error to create a new way of life. According
to Turner, the frontier promoted democracy and
encouraged individualism. It produced a unique
combination of traits that included resilience,
restlessness, and self-reliance, together with an
optimistic faith in democratic institutions. The western
frontier also promoted opportunity by providing an open
society where rigid class lines did not block social
mobility.
 It is important to note that Turner did not state that the
frontier was the sole force shaping the American
character. He acknowledged the importance of religious
freedom, sectionalism, and industrialization. However, he
continued to insist that the frontier experience left an
indelible (lasting) impression on the American character.