Transcript Post Reconstruction: 1877 to 1890’s

Post Reconstruction: 1877 to
1890’s
Also Known As: Gilded Age or
Industrial Revolution
1877 to 1890’s
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Railroads
Reform and Education
Farming the Plains
Big Business/Corporations/Labor Unions
Industrialization and Inventions
Segregation
Immigration and Urbanization
Post Reconstruction Era
1877 to 1900
• In 1862 President Lincoln
signed the Pacific Railway
Act. This law called for the
building of a
transcontinental railroad by
the Union Pacific and the
Central Pacific railroad
companies.
• One of the most famous consolidators
was Cornelius Vanderbilt. By 1869 he
had merged three short New York rail
roads to form the New York Central. He
then extended his control over lines all the
way to Chicago.
• To make rail service more reliable,in 1883
the American Railway Association divided the
country into four time zones in regions where
the same time was kept.
Linking the Nation
Reform and Education
Death Rates
1900
Tuberculosis – 150,000 Deaths
Cardiovascular Problems –
348,000
Influenza and Pneumonia –
200,000
Gastritis and Colitis – 148,000
Malignant Tumor – 54,000
1997
Tuberculosis – 2,000 Deaths
Cardiovascular Problems –
350,000
Influenza and Pneumonia –
50,000
Gastritis and Colitis – 0
Malignant Tumor – 200,000
High School Graduation rates
• 1900
• 6.4% graduated
• 93.6% non graduates
• 1997
• 69% graduated
• 31% non graduates
Life Expectancy
·1900
·total 47.3years of age
·white male 46.6
·white female 48.7
·African male 32.5
·African female 33.3
·1997
·total 76.1 years of age
·white male 73.9
·white female 79.7
·African male 66.1
·African female 74.2
The Salvation Army
• Was the combination of
religious faith and
interests in reform.
• It organized the first
welfare in England by a
minister named William
Booth.
• It offered practical aid and
religious counseling to
the urban poor.
• It became known as the
Salvation Army in 1878.
The YMCA
• The YMCA also
began in England.
They tried to help
industrial workers and
the urban poor by by
organizing Bible
studies.
Jane Addams
• She established
settlement houses in poor
neighborhoods. Addams
opened the famous Hull
House in Chicago in
1889. In these
establishments, middleclass residents lived and
helped poor residents,
mostly immigrants.
The O'Keefe's were early settlers in a
region known today as the Great Plains.
Rainfall on the plains averages less than
20 in. per year. For centuries this open
country had been home to vast herds of
buffalo that graced on the prairie
grasses. Steven long who explored the
region on 1819 called it the “great
american desert” and concluded that it
was “almost wholly unfit for cultivation”
Homestead Act: Free Land
• In the late 1800, several factors undetermined
the believe that the plains was a “Great
American Desert”.
• The catchy slogan “Rain follows the Flow” coined
by an Nebraskan to sell the idea that cultivating
the Plains would increase rainfall, encouraged
settlers.
• In 1862, the government settlement in the Great
Plain region by passing the Homestead Act
which is a tract of public land available for
settlement.
• New technology helped large land holder
make quick profits. Mechanical reapers
speeded the harvest. Wheat could stand
drought better than some other crops.
Examples of corporations
The rise of big business
This selection discusses the development of
large corporations in the United States.
What is a corporation?
A corporation is an organization owned by
many people but treated by law as though
it were a single person.
The Role of Corporations
• Big business would not have been possible
without the corporation.
• Before the 1830’s there were few
corporations in the United States because
entrepreneurs had to convince the
legislatures to issue them charters.
• By the beginning of the 1830’s states began
passing general incorporation laws allowing
companies to become corporations and issue
stock without charters from the legislature.
Who was Andrew Carnegie?
He was a poor immigrant
who rose to become a leader
in business.
Carnegie became a railroad
supervisor.
Carnegie monopolized the
steel industry. Carnegie was
a philanthropist.
Who was John D. Rockefeller?
Rockefeller monopolized
the oil industry.
Rockefeller’s success was
due to the efficiency of
his company.
Definitions
• Deflation – a rise in the value of money.
• Trade Unions- Unions limited to people with
specific skills.
• Industrial Unions-An organization of common
laborers and craft workers in a particular
industry.
• Lockout- To break it.
• Marxism- The ideas of Karl Marx…Communism
and a classless society…
Why did employers hate labor
unions?
Employers generally
regarded unions as
illegitimate
conspiracies that
interfered with their
property rights.
Terrible Working Conditions
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Child Labor
No minimum wages
No health insurance
No workman’s compensation
Work hours (6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.)
No vacations
What was / is the AFL and
Samuel Gompers?
AFL, American Federation
of Labor, is an
organization organized by
over 20 of the nation’s
trade unions.
Samuel was the AFL’s first
leader
He fought for higher wages
and better working
conditions
Monopoly $$$$
• Total control of a type of
industry by one person or
one company.
• Many Americans feared
monopolies because they
believed that the
company with a
monopoly could charge
whatever it wanted for it’s
products…and usually
did.
ADVERTISING
• Corporations competed for customers by
using advertising tactics.
• The most common way in the 1880’s was
the use of Catalogs.
• People placed their mail orders and
anxiously waited for their “stuff”.
ADEVERTISING BACK THEN
• What is Gilded?
• Who was Horatio Alger?
• What is Social Darwinism?
• What is philanthropy?
• Who were the philanthropists?
“All that glitters is not gold.” When
something is gilded it is covered in gold
on the outside but made of cheap material
inside. Corruption, poverty, crime, and
great disparities between the rich and the
poor was a big issue in America. While
other countries thought America was just
some wonderful land, they had no idea
what was really going on!
Horatio Alger was a minister from
Massachusetts. He left the clergy and
moved to New York where he wrote
more than 100 novels. He inspired
people by his novels which concluded
that no matter how many obstacles they
faced, success was possible. “Rags to
Riches”
Social Darwinism strongly reinforced the
idea of individualism. Herbert Spencer
took Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution
(plants and people evolve over time) and
argued that people evolved over time, as in
the case of survival of the fittest. This
meant that the richest people that made it
in life deserved it… and if a person was
poor…tough luck! Hard work equals
prosperity…
Philanthropy is providing money to support
humanitarian or social goals. They believed
that those who profited from society
owed it something in return. This
philosophy held that wealthy Americans
bore the responsibility of engaging in
philanthropy – using their great fortunes
to further social progress.
“A LARGE
WORKFORCE”
• The human resources available to American
industry were as important as natural resources in
enabling the nation to industrialize rapidly.
• Population growth stemmed from two causes-large
families and a flood of immigrants.
• Between 1870 and 1910, roughly 20 million
immigrants arrived in the United States.
“FREE ENTERPRISE”
• Another important factor that enabled the
United States to industrialize rapidly was
the free enterprise system. In the late
1800s, many Americans embraced the
idea of laissez-faire, literally “let do,” a
French phrase meaning “let people do as
they choose.”
“Edison and Electricity”
• Edison first achieved international
fame 1877with the invention of the
phonograph.
• In 1882 the Edison Electric
Illuminating Company launched a
new industry and began the
transformation of American
society when it began to supply
electric power to customers in New
York City.
Immigration and Urbanization
• 1880: immigrants from Russia, Poland, Italy,
Ireland, etc…
• They came looking for jobs & a better life.
• They settled in big cities such as New York and
Chicago.
• They lived in tenements: slum high rise
apartment buildings filled with roaches and rats
• Nativists: U.S. citizens that hated immigrants
• Mother Jones was "the most
dangerous woman in America".
• By 1890 Jones had become an
organizer for the United Mine
Workers.
WHAT IS SEGREGATION?
• Segregation was the separation of
races, class or group.
Disfranchising African
Americans
 The fifteenth amendment prohibited states
from denying citizens the right to vote based
on race or color.
 It did not prohibit the government from
requiring that citizens be literate or own
property in order to vote.
 Most Africans were poor and illiterate so it
prevented most Africans from voting.
 The first step Mississippi took was requiring
that all citizens registering to vote pay a poll
tax of two dollars.
Legalized Segregation
• In 1883 the Supreme Court legalized segregation by overturning
the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The Fourteenth Amendment
provided that “No State” could deny citizens . Private
organizations and businesses, such as hotels, theaters, and
railroads were free to practice segregation.
Who was Booker T.
Washington?
He was an influential educator who
proposed that African Americans
concentrate on achieving economic
goals by education rather then legal or
political ones.
Who was W.E.B. DuBois?
A leader of a new
generation of African
Americans activists born
after the Civil War. Du
Bois pointed out in his
1903 book “The Souls of
Black Folk” that white
Southerners continued to
strip African Americans of
there civil rights.