What Made it Possible?

• Pacific Railway Act

– Passed July 1, 1862 – Created Union Pacific to build road from the East and meet the Central Pacific – Provided companies 5 alternating plots of land on each side of the road for each mile along the route – Allowed $16,000 for each mile of flat land, $32,000 for hills, and $48,000 for mountain terrain – Revised in 1864 to allow companies more land and privileges

The Game Plan

• Central Pacific Railroad

– Begin in Sacramento, CA – Broke ground January 1863

• Union Pacific Railroad

– Begin in Omaha, NE – Broke ground in late 1863 but no tracks laid until 1865

• Route along the 42

nd

Parallel • Meeting place: Promontory Summit, UT

Significance of the Railroad

• Biggest and best engineering project of its time • Made the country smaller • Helped spur interest in Homestead Act • Improved communication • The beginning of the end for Native Americans • Led to other transcontinental railroads and shorter branches

Morrill Land-Grant Act

• 1862 • Gave millions of acres of land to the states.

– Land speculators Money was to be used to create colleges and universities. Justin S. Morrill (1810-1898)

Homestead Act

• Passed by Lincoln in 1862 • 160 acres – 21 years old or head of house – House at least 12 x 14 ft – 6 months – Farm 5 years

Soddie

– home made from sod

Discussion question:

What did the Morrill Land-Grant Act have in common with the Homestead Act?

Who were the homesteaders?

• Immigrants • Freedmen – Exodusters – Benjamin “Pap” Singleton

Boomers

• Settlers who ran in land races to claim land

Sooners

• Settlers who illegally claimed land by sneaking past the government officials

• In the mid 1880’s, following a series of droughts, people starting returning east again.

– 18,000 in 1891 alone

Women’s Suffrage

• Wyoming 1869 – Would not accept statehood unless Union allowed women to vote 1893 – Colorado 1896 – Idaho Why would these states have granted women the right to vote before it was nationally recognized by the 19 th Amendment?

Dawes Act

• Divided reservation land into individual plots – Each Native American family received a 160 acre plot • Granted U.S. citizenship and subject to local laws “You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men! But how dare I cut off my mother’s hair?” - Smohalla

Discussion question!

What was the difference between the Native Americans and settlers in their views about land ownership?

Indian Removal

• Pressure increased on Native American territory • Indian Removal Act of 1830 • Forced relocation to Oklahoma Territory • Trail of Tears A map showing the major tribes and the routes by which the government relocated them

Buffalo

• 25 million in 1840 • By 1889, around 1,100.

Factors:

Easy to hunt Buffalo fur was popular in the East.

Buffalo hide was tough, and the leather was used in machinery. Hopes it would force the Native Americans into farming

Native Americans

BIA – Bureau of Indian Affairs managed delivery of critical supplies to the reservations Disagreements and frustrations resulted in anger, some groups sought revenge.

Army life

• $13/mo • Leftover Civil War uniforms • Rotten food • 1/3 deserted

Sand Creek Massacre

• 1864 • Colorado Territory • Cheyenne and Arapaho Native Americans • Colonel John Chivington took 700 men to the camped Cheyenne and Arapaho – Chief Black Kettle tried to raise a white flag of surrender, but the army slaughtered between 150-500 people. The camp largely held women and children.

From Lt. Joseph Cramer to Maj. Edward Wynkoop, Dec. 19, 1864:

"This is the first opportunity I have had of writing you since the great Indian Massacre, and for a start, I will acknowledge I am ashamed to own I was in it...It is no use for me to tell you how the fight was managed, only I think the Officer in command should be hung...After the fight there was a sight I hope I may never see again...Bucks, woman and children, were scalped, fingers cut off to get the rings on them...little children shot, while begging for their lives...I told the Col. I thought it was murder to jump them friendly Indians. He says in reply; Damn any man or men who are in sympathy with them."

Battle of Little Bighorn

• 1876 • Also known as “Custer’s Last Stand” • Sioux from Dakota, Wyoming and Montana Territories Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse 2,000 Native American warriors to Custer’s little more than 200 soldiers in an hour.

“I am the last Indian.” Chief Sitting Bull Chief Crazy Horse

Lt Colonel George Armstrong Custer 1839-1876

Ghost Dance

Purification ceremony in which people joined hands and whirled in a circle

Sioux Indians hunting buffalo 1835 Art by George Catlin Sioux war council

Massacre of Wounded Knee

• 1890 - Sioux • Ghost Dance • Chief Sitting Bull – When he hesitated being arrested, he was shot by the army officers. His followers, 120 men and 230 women & children surrendered and were rounded up. As they were being disarmed, someone fired a shot. More than 200 Sioux were killed.

Soldiers pose with three of the four Hotchkiss Guns used against the Lakota at Wounded Knee. The caption on the photograph reads: Famous Battery "K" of the 1st Artillery These brave men and the Hotchkiss guns that Big Foot's Indians thought were toys, Together with the fighting 7th what's Left of Gen. Custer's boys, Sent 200 Indians to that Heaven which the ghost dancer enjoys.

This checked the Indian noise, And Gen. Miles with staff Returned to Illinois.

Photo by Grabill, Deadwood, South Dakota.

Assimilation

• Process by which the people of one culture merge into and become part of another culture.

Cowboys and the Gold rush

GOLD!

• Not just in California • Colorado, Nevada – Placer mining • Shallow, anybody could do it Huge corporations moved in after to get the larger, underground ore deposits

Barricks Ruby Hill Mine outside Eureka, NV

Major mining strikes

Discussion

• What creates the mining boom that started with the California Gold Rush?

• Bonanza farms – Farms controlled by large businesses that are managed by professionals and produce massive amounts of cash crops • Dry farming – Planting crops that don’t require very much water

Technology in Farming 1860-1900

• Mechanized reaper • Barbed wire • Dry farming • Steel plow • Harrow • Steel windmill • Hybridization • Improved communication • Grain drill

Cattle boom

• Cattle barons were wealthy ranchers, owning more than 100,000 cattle.

Why would cattle be developing as such a huge industry?

Buffalo

• 25 million in 1840 • By 1889, around 1,100.

Factors:

Easy to hunt Buffalo fur was popular in the East.

Buffalo hide was tough, and the leather was used in machinery. Hopes it would force the Native Americans into farming

Chisolm Trail The Long Drive

Factors that ended the cattle boom

• Over-expansion • Prices dropped • Cold winters • Droughts • Diseases – cattle fever

Frederick Jackson Turner Turner Thesis Emphasized individual effort, but down played federal involvement, Native American life, and contributions of women and other ethnic groups.

Wild West is romanticized

• Stereotypes of western heroes – Wyatt Earp – Calamity Jane – Wild Bill Hickok William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody wild west shows became incredibly popular and helped shape the image of the West.

The Rise and Fall of the Populist Party 1867-1896

Farmers’ Problems:

• Lower prices for crops • Farmers had no cash . . .went further into debt. . . foreclosed on mortgages • Railroads charged outrageous prices to ship crops (no regulation!)

Lending practices

• Inflation – The money you pay back is less than what you originally borrowed • Deflation – The money you pay back is more than what you borrowed

Example:

If you borrowed $100 in 1880, you could buy 80 acres of land. What can you buy today for $100? This is inflation. Your money today is “worth less” than it was then.

Money Supply

• Money supply is the amount of money in the national economy.

– If the government increases the money supply, the value of the dollar drops • Called Inflation • After the Civil War, the money supply shrank – Deflation

Originally the US is on a bimetallic standard of using gold or silver coins • Gold bugs – Conservative, big lenders • Gold standard – Money put in circulation was backed by gold. Less money out • Silverites – Western miners and farmers, called for unlimited silver dollars, hoping for better prices for selling goods.

– Free silver - unlimited silver coining

The bimetallism ratio 16:1 • 16 oz. of silver is equal to 1 oz of gold • This has fluctuated over the years, but the standard remains between 14:1 and16:1

Farmers’ Demands:

• Regulate the railroad companies! (stop them from charging such high rates) • Make cash more available (back the dollar with silver, not gold, so dollar will be worth less) • Political demands: single term for President and Vice-President; secret ballot; popular election of Senators • To get industrial workers to support them: 8 hour workday; restrict immigration

Different Groups Representing Farmers’ Interests

• 1867: The Patrons of Husbandry (The Grange) • 1880s: Farmers’ Alliance and Colored Farmers’ National Alliance • 1892: Birth of the Populist, or People’s Party

• 1878 • Bland-Allison Act – Favored silverites, increased money supply – Vetoed by Pres. Hayes, but Congress overrode the veto and passed it.

• Limited results. Treasury department refused to buy anymore silver to be able to circulate more.

• 1890 • Sherman Silver Purchase Act – Increased the amount of silver the govt was required to purchase • People turned in their notes for gold, depleting gold reserves.

Repealed by Pres. Cleveland in 1893

Mary Elizabeth Lease 1850-1933 Popular speaker for women’s suffrage, prohibition, and Populists, she told Kansas farmers to

“raise a little less corn, and more hell.”

James B. Weaver (1833 – 1912) Populist Party candidate, election of 1892

The Populist Platform • Free silver • Graduated income tax • Public ownership of railroads, telegraphs and telephones • Restricted immigration • 8 hour workday • Women suffrage • Secret ballot • Direct election of senators

Mary Elizabeth Lease (1850 – 1933) “Queen Mary” or “Mary Yellin” Populist political activist • “Money rules. . . The parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us!” • “We have advanced scientifically, ethically and otherwise, but in finance we have followed the barbaric methods of our ancestors and the teachings of college-bred idiots who tell us that gold is the only desirable coin.”

In Reality • Populists were not folk heroes • The were coming up with new ideas to return America to its agrarian past (negative reform) • Populism represented a class movement that was based on racism, anti-Semitism and sectionalism, but not nationalism • They turned to the city only for labor support

1892 Presidential Election: Populist Candidate won over a million votes!

1896 Election

• Populists decide to improve their chances by supporting a Democratic candidate: William Jennings Bryan, who agreed to support the Silver-backed dollar.

Democrats-1890s

 Southerners  Wealthy farmers  Low tariff (want other countries to buy their crops)

Republicans-1890s

 Northerners  Wealthy business men (connected to the railroad)  Southern African Americans (poor farmers)  High tariff (do nÕt to compete with other countrie sÕ

1896 Presidential Election: Bryan loses but carries most of the South and West

L. Frank Baum (1856 – 1919) author of

The Wizard of OZ

The Wizard of Oz as Political Allegory

The characters and who they represent

Dorothy represents the American people

The Scarecrow represents the western farmers (Populists)

The Tin Woodsman represents the eastern workers, victims of mechanization

The Cowardly Lion represents William Jennings Bryan (1860 – 1925): Bryan, a Democrat, ran for the presidency in 1896 and lost to William McKinley; thus Bryan had a load roar, but no power.

The Wicked Witch of the East

Represents the eastern banking interests

=

The Wizard of Oz or

William McKinley (1843 – 1901) 25 th President of the United States (1897 – 1901) Marcus A. Hanna (1837 – 1904)

Oz The abbreviation for an ounce of gold or silver

The Yellow Brick Road and Silver (not ruby!)Slippers

The Panic Ends

• Congress passed a high protective tariff and the Gold Standard Act in 1897 • Recovery began before passage of either act • External factors: • Increase in European demand on wheat: European wheat crop was reduced by 1/3 for 1897. . . U.S. exported more wheat; farmers were assuaged • European money flowing into U.S. stopped the drain on gold, and new discoveries of gold in ’96 helped ease the gold problem

• Europe recovered from the depression before the U.S. • European industries could not keep up with product demand • U.S. began to export goods – this meant more work for U.S. industries and workers • By 1900 prosperity was back