REVIEW 7: 1877 TO 1900

I. THE POST-RECONSTRUCTION SOUTH

A. Solid South: Democratic Party dominated southern politics

B. African-Americans: Jim Crow laws passed (beginning 1881) to take
voting rights away from blacks - literacy tests, poll taxes,
"grandfather clause," and to establish racial separation of public
facilities; lynchings increased; Booker T. Washington (Tuskegee,
self-improvement, Atlanta Compromise, accommodation); W.E.B. DuBois
(talented tenth, 1905 Niagara Movement, NAACP)

C. Agriculture: White ownership of most land with blacks and poor
whites becoming tenant farmers and sharecroppers; development of
crop-lien system (farmer mortgaged future crop to pay for goods
purchased on credit - indebtedness grew from year to year)

D. Industry: Textile factories, tobacco processing, iron, railroads

E. Plessy v Ferguson (1896): Established policy of separate but equal
in public accommodations (Cummings v. Board of Education 1899 applied
this principle to schools)

II. THE FRONTIER MOVES WESTWARD: See Atlas

A. Legislation

1. Homestead Act (1862): Settlers could purchase 160 acres if
they promised to occupy and improve the land for five years

2. Morrill Land Grant Act (1862): Federal land used to finance
land grant colleges

3. Timber and Stone Act (1878): Authorized sale of barren land
at $2.50 an acre.

B. Mining Towns: California 1849, Colorado 1859

C. Ranchers: long drives, "cow towns," open range, cowboys, blizzard
1886-87, barbed wire fences erected by farmers caused range wars

D. Farmers: Great Migration to Plains (1870-1890), soddies, problems,
mail order, dry farming, Newlands Reclamation Act 1902 used sale of
western federal lands to finance irrigation

E. Native Americans: Lifestyle of the Plains Indians destroyed by the
decimation of the buffalo herds; 1850's reservation policy;
relocation to Oklahoma and the Dakotas; Bureau of Indian Affairs;
Indian resistance 1850's to 1880's; Battle of Little Big Horn 1876;
Nez Perce, Chief Joseph 1877; Wounded Knee 1890; Dawes Severalty
Act 1887 - purpose to accomplish the assimilation of the Indians

F. Railroads: May 10, 1869, Promontory Point, Utah; Union Pacific
meets the Central Pacific; time zones established

G. Conservation: John Muir, Yosemite National Park 1890, national
forest reserves 1891

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H. Frederick Jackson Turner: historian whose paper, The Significance
of the Frontier, argued that the frontier shaped the American
character and the closing of the frontier in 1890 marked the end of
an era.

III. GROWTH OF INDUSTRY: Inventions and innovations by Thomas Edison,
Henry Ford, George Westinghouse, Granville Woods, du Ponts, Bell, Howe,
Swift; Frederick W. Taylor, "Father of Scientific Management"

IV. GROWTH OF BIG BUSINESS

A. New Organization: Corporations, limited liability, horizontal
integration, vertical integration; pools; trusts; holding companies

B. Tycoons: Andrew Carnegie (steel), John D. Rockefeller (Standard
Oil), J.P. Morgan (U.S. Steel), Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroads)

V. SOCIAL DOCTRINES

A. Social Darwinism: Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner,
"survival of the fittest"

B. Gospel of Wealth: Andrew Carnegie, responsibility of wealthy to
use their money to advance programs for the betterment of society

C. Horatio Alger Stories: popular novels which preached that hard
work and perseverance with a little luck, will bring success & riches

D. Critics: Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879), "unearned
increment" tax; Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (1888), cooperation
replaces competition, "nationalism," nationalist clubs

VI. LABOR MOVEMENTS

A. Knights of Labor (1869): open to skilled and unskilled workers;
supported 8-hour day, equal pay for equal work, better wages,
abolition of child labor, safety and health laws, a graduated income
tax, government ownership of railroads and utilities; 1879 Terence
Powderly; 700,000 in 1886; 100,000 in 1890; disbanded

B. American Federation of Labor (1881): Samuel Gompers, consisted of
many separate craft unions; advocated collective bargaining but also
supported use of strikes

C. Industrial Workers of the World (1905): "Wobblies"; Bill
Haywood; unskilled industrial workers; advocated militant agitation

D. Strikes
1. Railroad Strike of 1877: Federal troops were called in and
the strike was broken (President Hayes)

2. Haymarket Riot (1886): Chicago; followed nationwide strike
for an 8-hour day which had been sponsored by the AFL and local
units of the Knights of Labor; bomb exploded and 7 policemen
died; eight anarchists convicted of murder; public response was
against the unions

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3. Homestead Strike (1892): Pennsylvania; Carnegie Steel
Company; National Guard sent in; strikers broke after four
months

4. Pullman Strike (1894): Illinois; Led by Eugene V. Debs and
the American Railway Union; President Cleveland sent 2000
troops to restore order; injunction issued to halt the strike;
union leaders including Debs jailed; INJUNCTION BECAME A
POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST UNIONS AFTER THIS

VII. URBAN DEVELOPMENT: 1920 census showed more Americans lived in cities
than in rural areas; urban politics controlled by political machines and
bosses; graft and corruption was rampant as exemplified by the New York
City Tammany Hall organization; huge waves of immigration from southern
and eastern Europe sparked nativist opposition

VIII. GILDED AGE POLITICS

A. The Party System: Both major parties tended to be pro-business and
pro-sound currency; popular vote evenly divided; high voter turnout;
politics was a popular pastime; Republican Party - Stalwarts, Half-
Breeds, Mugwumps

B. Presidents: Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, B. Harrison,
Cleveland, McKinley (see Presidents Handout)

C. Legislation: Bland-Allison Act (1878), Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
Pendleton Act (1883), Interstate Commerce Act (1887), Sherman
Antitrust Act (1890), McKinley Tariff Act (1890), Sherman Silver
Purchase Act (1890), Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act (1894), Dingley
Tariff (1897), Gold Standard Act (1900)

D. Crises in the 1890's: 1) emergence of the Populist Party;
2) Panic of 1893 (agricultural depression, decline of U.S. gold
reserve, unsound railroad financing resulted in bank failures,
business failures, strikes, unemployment, violence); 3) Coxey's Army
(1894) demanded public works programs (arrested); 4) silver issue
(silver restored as legal tender in the 1870's, farmers in the 1890's
wanted an inflation of the currency to ease debt payment, farmers
urged free and unlimited coinage of silver, but 1890 Sherman Silver
Purchase Act did not allow for the coinage of silver purchased from
mine owners)