Transcript Gilded Age (1865

Gilded Age (1865-1900)
Test Study Guide Questions
Answered
African Americans
• After Reconstruction, black voting rights were
limited by the poll tax, literacy tests, and
grandfather clause.
• Jim Crow Laws were a series of laws passed in the
South that forced separation of the races in
public places (segregation). It described
segregation.
• The Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson, ruled
that “separate but equal” did not violate the 14th
Amendment. It made segregation a fact of life in
the nation.
African Americans
• Booker T. Washington felt that gradual
integration was the best way for African
Americans to become accepted. He thought
that AA’s should accept some forms of
segregation.
• Booker thought that technical education
would lead to economic success
• Booker thought that economic success would
lead to equality.
African Americans
• Booker T. Washington created a technical
college called Tuskegee Institute to train AA’s
in skills needed by white Americans.
• W.E.B. Du Bois did not think the same way as
Booker did. Booker had been a slave and
Du Bois had graduated from Harvard.
• He felt that immediate equality and all rights
of the Constitution was what the AA’s needed
and deserved.
African Americans
• At the Niagara Falls Convention, Du Bois
demanded that the U.S. government enforce
the Constitutional rights of AA’s
• Ida B. Wells was an African American
journalist who wrote of the horrors of
lynching.
• W.E.B. Du Bois created the NAACP (National
Association for the Advancement of Colored
People) to fight racism in court.
Westward Movement
• There is an area of the United States referred
to as the Great American Desert. This is
known as the Great Plains.
• In order to have people settle this area, the
government in 1862, granted settlers 160
acres of land for only $10 if they lived and
farmed there for 5 years. This was known as
the Homestead Act.
Westward Movement
• After the Civil War, many African Americans
and others headed west for this land.
• Many people started cattle farms on the open
plains, open range, since their cattle could
roam where they wanted to go to find food.
• This worked well for awhile, but a man named
Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire and the
days of the open range was over.
Westward Movement
• These cattle farmers wanted a way to get there
cattle to market and they would travel great
distances on cattle drives. These trails would
later be used by settlers heading west. One of
the best known was the Chisholm Trail.
• Gold had been discovered in California in 1849
and many people had settled there. With all of
these people moving west and the need for beef
back east and many other raw materials a better
and faster form of transportation was needed.
Westward Movement
• The Transcontinental Railroad came about as a
way of connecting both coasts and all the land
in between.
• The Transcontinental Railroad was completed
when the east met the west in Promontory
Point, Utah. They drove a gold spike to
commemorate the completion.
• Now people and goods would be able to move
quickly from coast to coast.
Westward Movement
• One of the groups used to build the railroad
was the Chinese. Many groups did not like
foreigners (Nativist) and they thought the
Chinese were taking many of their jobs.
• They decided that the Chinese should be kept
out of the U.S. and they passed the Chinese
Exclusion Act of 1882.
Native Americans
• With so many people headed west, the land that
belonged to the Native Americans was quickly
shrinking.
• At first the Indians were helpful to the settlers,
but after they started taking more and more land
they started to fight for survival of their way of
life.
• The U.S. government sent the military in to
“protect” the settlers and to force the Indians
onto reservations.
Native Americans
• The U.S. government made many treaties with
the Indians, but rarely kept their promises.
• They sent General George Custer to try and
place the Sioux back on their reservation but
he was defeated at the Little Big Horn.
• The government told the Indians they would
protect their land and take care of them if
they would stay on the reservation (land that
belonged to the Native Americans)
Native Americans
• The government set up an Indian Board to
oversee the reservation, but they were
corrupt and led to more problems than they
solved.
• When gold was found in the Black Hills of
Dakota, sacred Indian land, people went onto
this land for the gold and the government
sided against the Indians.
Native Americans
• When the railroad was going through they
needed to kill many buffalo in order to keep
the trains safe. This hurt the Indians because
they needed the buffalo to survive.
• The barbed wire had cut off the buffalo trails
and now the train was killing buffalo so the
Indians fought back
• In order to force the Indians to give up, the
government decided to kill all of the buffalo.
Native Americans
• When the buffalo was first seen they were
hunted for meat and furs. Now they were hunted
just so the Indians would give up. The buffalo
was hunted almost to extinction.
• The end of Indian resistance, the last “battle” of
the Indian wars was in 1890, known as Wounded
Knee.
• The Dawes Severalty Act was passed in order to
assimilate the Indians into the white man’s world.
Indian Assimilation
• The Dawes Act would divide the Reservation land
into 160 acres for each person on the reservation.
This left land over which would go back to the
government.
• It would also send the Native American children
to schools where they would have their hair cut,
wear “white man” clothes, and learn English and
become Christian. This ended, for all intents and
purposes, the Native American way of life.
Inventors and Inventions
• With the increase in industry and the growth
of cities came the need for new, better, and
faster ways of doing things.
• Many people of the time came up with
inventions, but no one could compete with
Thomas Edison.
• Edison improved on the light bulb which
allowed factories to work all night which
increased their profits and made it safer for
the worker.
Inventors and Inventions
• Edison also invented the motion picture
camera as well as phonograph and many
other items which we are familiar with today.
• Although the light bulb increased safety for
the worker, it did not make it safe to work in
many factories.
• Being able to operate 24 hours a day, did
make businesses profitable and that brought
many people to cities looking for work.
Inventors and Inventions
• With the increase in cities came the need for
buildings to expand upward. This brought
about a need for a stronger material and the
Bessemer Process was a way of changing iron
into steel which was a stronger product.
• Another invention of this time period was the
telephone by Alexander Graham Bell. Today,
most of you can not go anywhere without this
device created in 1876.
Inventions and Innovations
• Another type of invention was the manner in
which work was accomplished. Henry Ford
came up with the assembly-line
manufacturing for his automobile.
• The Wright brothers invented the airplane
• Limited Liability was an innovation which
helped corporations grow by making it safer
for people to invest in company stock.
Captain’s of Industry
• Some men took advantage of this time period
to increase their wealth develop industries.
• J.P. Morgan (finance-Banking)
• John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil Company)
• Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroads)
• Andrew Carnegie (Steel)
• Many farmers looked upon these men as
“Robber Barons” because of their wealth.
Industry
• Although these men did make a lot of money
and most did not look kindly on the workers,
there were some who gave of their wealth to
help the less fortunate.
• Andrew Carnegie wrote a book called Wealth
or The Gospel of Wealth which talked about
philanthropy-giving away wealth to benefit
others.
• Other businessmen went by the theory of
Social Darwinism – the best businessmen will
rise to the top and get rich.
Businesses
• The U.S. works on a Free Enterprise system
which allows industries to decide for
themselves how their business should be run.
• Laissez-Faire: Let alone is when government
uses only a minimum amount of legislation to
control businesses.
• Social Darwinism: Only the strong survive, is
when the best business men get wealthier.
Businesses
• A Corporation is an organization owned by
several people who sell stock – shares of
ownership in the company to allow the
company to grow.
• Limited liability – people only lose what they
put into the company, made it more desirable
for people to own stock.
• Some businesses tried to control all of the
supply of a product, called a Monopoly.
Businesses
• Monopolies are not allowed by the
government, so some businesses tried to get
around this by using other types of
monopolies.
• Vertical Integration – is a method where
business would control all industries related to
their primary business.
• You own everything that makes up your
product, like a pizza – cheese, flour, delivery
cars, etc…
Businesses
• Horizontal Integration – a method of
combining several like companies into one.
• Coke and Pepsi into Pokepsi.
Business and Workers
• Some businesses created whole towns in
order to have a steady supply of workers.
• These “Company Towns” did not treat their
workers well, kept wages low, were not
concerned about safety (many workers
injured) and had children working in their
factories.
• Because of poor conditions and safety issues,
workers turned to unions to help them.
Unions and Workers
• Many Unions developed during this time
period to help the workers.
• The Knights of Labor, headed by Terence
Powderly, accepted all types of workers.
• The AFL, headed by Samuel Gompers, only
accepted skilled workers.
• All unions, however, worked for the good of
the laborer, working to lower hours, stop child
labor, and increase safety.
Unions v Businesses
• Companies would try and fight Unions in
order to keep making money as they always
had.
• Business owners would use lockouts,
blacklists, injunctions, Pinkertons, and yellowdog contracts to stop the Unions. In large
strikes the government would send in troops.
• The Unions would use boycotts, picketing
closed shops, and strikes.
Immigrants
• When the “New World” was first settled and into
the early part of the 19th century, most of the
immigrants came from Western and Northern
Europe. (Great Britain, France, Germany, Ireland,
etc..)
• Later in the 1800s “new” immigrants started to
arrive from Eastern and Southern Europe and
Asia.
• This would include, Italians, Russian Jews, Poles,
and Chinese
Immigrants and Political Machines
• Immigrants arriving from Europe would get
their first sight of America from Ellis Island.
• Immigrants arriving from Asia would get their
first sight of America from Angel Island.
• Many Immigrants would be met by members
of the political machines – informal political
groups designed to gain and keep power. The
most famous of which was Tammany Hall, run
by Boss Tweed.
Political Machines v Government
• The most famous boss of political machines
was William “Boss” Tweed of New York.
• When the Immigrants came to America they
would be met by members of the political
machines and given help in return for votes.
• While the political machines were in power
they would give jobs to people who helped
them win votes and stay in power. This is
known as patronage. It is just another form of
jobs for votes or the spoils system.
Political Machines v Government
• In order to keep political machines from
rewarding friends with political jobs they were
not qualified for, the government passed the
Pendleton Act – which required civil service
exams to qualify for government jobs
• Another way the government helped
Immigrants was through Americanization.
This is where the new Immigrant would
become knowledgeable about American
culture.
Immigrants
• What was crucial to the Americanization of
Immigrant children was the public schools
system.
• Immigrant children would be able to learn the
language and then help their families to
understand the language and the American
way of life.
• New Immigrants would usually live in ethnic
neighborhoods when they arrived in the U.S.
Immigrants
• The living conditions were poor and
dangerous.
• Their were reformers, however, who tried to
help the Immigrants.
• Jacob Riis wrote “How the Other Half Lives.”
which is about the horrors of city life.
• Jane Addams started Hull House, which was a
Settlement House established in poor
neighborhoods where middle-class people
lived and helped the poor.
Immigrants
• With the living conditions being so bad for
everyone in the cities, new movements to help
the needed arose.
• The Social Gospel Movement – a movement built
around the philosophy that people should help
those who are less fortunate.
• It was built on the Christian principle of helping
your fellow man. (YMCA, Salvation Army, and
other Christian groups were started)
Gold v Silver
• In the 1896 election the issue was gold v silver
money reform.
• William Jennings Bryan wanted the country to
coin more silver money to get the country out of
debt. He gave a “cross of gold” speech which was
a euphemism for gold being a burden for the
common man.
• William McKinley and others wanted to stay on
the gold standard. When gold was found in
Alaska and other places, the issue was decided.