The Gilded Age: Reconstruction

• Unit 5 covers The Gilded Age

Reconstruction

• Andrew Johnson became president after Lincoln's assassination
• Johnson was a Democrat and former slave holder
• Confederate states were required to hold constitutional conventions to get rid of secession and ratify the 13th Amendment

14th Amendment

• Black codes were laws in the Southern states that limited African Americans' rights
• The 14th Amendment created to cancel out the black codes and stop violence in the South
• The 14th Amendment was introduced along with the Civil Rights Act of 1866

Military Reconstruction

• The Military Reconstruction Act was passed and divided the South into military zones.

Johnson's Impeachment (1868)

• Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, preventing the firing of Congressional appointees without Congressional approval.
• Johnson fired the Secretary of War
• The House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson
• The Senate tried Johnson and found him 'not guilty' by one vote
• Johnson did not seek re-election

South’s Reaction

• Carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved South to take advantage of economic and political opportunities
• Scalawags were Southerners who supported Republican Reconstruction policies
• The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) started in 1866 by former Confederate soldiers in Tennessee
  • The KKK was created to terrorize African Americans and resist Republican policies
  • Federal acts were created to stop the KKK's activities and outlaw the Klan

15th Amendment

• All US citizens have the right to vote

Grant Administration (1869-1877)

• The Grant administration worked to stamp out the KKK and tried to improve relations with Native Americans
• Grant's 2nd term had numerous political scandals, some involving cabinet members
• The Panic of 1873 caused a severe economic downturn

Election of 1876

• Rutherford B. Hayes (R) vs Samuel Tilden (D)
• Neither candidate won a majority of electoral votes, so the decision went to a commission where Hayes was chosen as the winner
• Troops were removed from the South

U.S. after Reconstruction

• Many African Americans had to return to work on plantations where they worked for wages or became sharecroppers
• Many African Americans fell into debt because of the economic crisis
• The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged people to settle on the Great Plains through a legal method for acquiring property

Boomtowns

• Boomtowns were areas that grew rapidly in the West typically as a result of mining
• Boomtowns led to:
  • Rapid statehood for Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas
  • Growth of railroads throughout the West
  • Increased conflict over land and resources like mining, cattle, etc.

The Gilded Age

• The Gilded Age is a term coined by Mark Twain referring to post-Reconstruction America
• It was characterized by a second industrial revolution and rapid urbanization
• The U.S. became a worldwide economic powerhouse
• The years were 1877-1900s, but some historians debate the end of the time period as 1900 vs 1912

Industry after the Civil War

• Industry drastically expanded after the Civil War
• Millions transitioned from farms to working in factories and mines
• The U.S. had a large amount of natural resources including timber, coal, iron, and copper
• The expansion of transportation, including the Transcontinental Railroad and canals, accelerated growth
• There was interest in petroleum and consequent growth of the oil industry
• Population tripled because of the increase in immigrants, large families, and increased life span

Developments in Industry - Electricity

• Major figures include Thomas Edison, Nicola Tesla, and Alexander Graham Bell
• Inventions associated with electricity include the lightbulb, phonograph, generator, streetlights, electric trolleys, sewing machines, telegraph, and telephone
• Famous companies were Edison General Electric (now known as GE) and American Telephone and Telegraph Company (aka AT&T)

Railroads – Transcontinental Railroad

• There was Growth of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railways
• Railroads stimulated economies and spread resources
• There were 35,000 miles of track in 1865 vs 200,000 miles of track by 1897

Growth of Business - Industrialists

• Andrew Carnegie made steel
• John D. Rockefeller refined oil
• J.P. Morgan handled banking
• Cornelius Vanderbilt owned Railroads

Monopoly

• A monopoly is when a company takes control of an entire market

Holding company

• A holding company owns stock in other companies and is aka a ‘parent company’
  • For example, Johnson and Johnson, Procter and Gamble, Alphabet, and LVMH

Trusts

• Trusts are a business agreement that allows one party to manage the assets (business, property, etc) of another party

Free Enterprise

• Entrepreneurs are people who took financial risks in organizing, investing, and running businesses
• Laissez-faire is an economic philosophy that advocated for less government involvement in the economy
  • Laissez-faire relied on the idea of ‘supply and demand’ and supported lower taxes
• Debate over how the U.S. grew:
  • Theory 1: A lack of tariffs between states and less regulations than Europe led to the rapid rise of the US
  • Theory 2: Higher tariffs imposed by the government protected American manufacturers
  • The government sold large tracts of land in the West, encouraging development

Resistance to Growing Business

• Marxism is a socio-economic theory that believes capitalism is unfair to the working class, which represents the majority of the population
• Unions formed like the American Federation of Labor and Industrial Workers of the World
  • Strikes occurred
    • Great Railroad Strike (1877) - Companies announced they were cutting wages in response to economic recession
      • ~80,000 workers walked off the job, which impacted 2/3 of the railway industry
      • Governors called out the militias, and there were violent riots in major cities like Chicago, New York, and Pittsburgh

Strikes

• Haymarket Riots (1886)
• Chicago police violence put down a picket line
• Chicagoans gathered to protest the violence, someone threw a bomb, and others opened fire
• 170 injured, 10 killed
• Homestead Strike (1892)
• Carnegie Steel locked out workers threatening to strike and hired lower-wage replacements
• Resulted in multiple violent conflicts
• Pullman Strike (1894)
• The company cut wages without lowering living costs
• Railroads were heavily affected, disrupting mail services
• A federal court issued an injunction to end the strike

Impact of Industry - Effects

• Improved health and lower food costs
• Increased presence of women in the work force
• Increased immigration to the United States
  • Ellis Island was where the majority of immigrants from Europe passed through
  • People were escaping political and religious oppression, poverty, and lack of opportunity
  • Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred Chinese immigration for 10 years and was not repealed until 1943
  • Immigration Act of 1882 taxed immigrants and allowed immigration officials to turn away people who had a criminal record or were disabled

Impact of Industry - Effects

• Manufacturing developments led to better quality and less expensive shoes and clothing
• There were violent conflicts between laborers, police, and businesses
• Rapid urbanization
• First skyscrapers were built
• Elevated trains. cable cars, and subways were constructed
• Increased crime, disease, and pollution (mostly impacted the lower class)
• Growth of the middle class
• Overcrowded and unsanitary apartments called tenements were created

Impact of Industry - Effects

• New Ideas Emerged:
• Individualism - a belief that a person's background does not dictate what they can accomplish
• Social Darwinism - ‘survival of the fittest', based on Charles Darwin's work, highly criticized - belief that humans have developed through competition and will continue to do so
• Philanthropy - providing money to support humanitarian causes such as Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth
• Reform movements emerged such as the Salvation Army and YMCA which created settlement houses to provide community services to support the urban poor
• Education increased drastically by number of public

Impact of Industry - Effects

• Popular culture emerged with newspapers, saloons, amusement parks, theaters, baseball, tennis, golf, basketball, etc
• Realism was represented in literature, such as Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth
• Increased segregation
• Mississippi Plan - a conscious and organized effort by Mississippi lawmakers to disenfranchise African Americans in the South by instituting things like poll taxes (required to vote) and reading tests
• The US Supreme Court overturned the Civil Rights Act in 1883

Impact of Industry - Effects

• Jim Crow laws were passed by southern states that strictly enforced segregation
• From 1890 to 1899, the U.S. averaged 188 racial lynchings each year, 82 percent in the South causing mob rule and widespread violence
• Plessy v Ferguson (1896) was a Supreme Court case that upheld segregation legally and was infamous due to the notion of ‘separate but equal’
• There was mass migration out of the South to escape racism and poverty
• Activists worked against segregation, such as Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington, Mary Church Terrell, and W.E.B. Du Bois

Politics of the Gilded Age

• The Pendleton Act (1883) required some government jobs to have difficult exams and encouraged a merit-based system
• Populism was a political movement that favored government control of the railways and other industries to protect the public
• Deflation after the Civil War hurt farmers and they thought they were being taken advantage of by the larger corporations
• Farmers organized for protection
• Farmers’ Alliances held social activities for farmers and their families
• Cooperation was emphasized in a difficult economy for farmers

Relations with Native Americans - Indian Wars

• The U.S. government had signed treaties with various tribes granting them reservation lands, but these treaties were regularly violated by homesteaders and immigrants in the West
• The government tried to move the tribes, which resulted in lots of bloody conflict
  • At the Sand Creek Massacre, Colorado militia scalped and killed over 165 Native women and children while the men of the tribe were out hunting
  • In the Great Sioux War, General Custer tried to push the Sioux out of their land, but they slaughtered Custer’s forces before the US Army responded ruthlessly ending the war
  • In the Ghost Dance Movement, Native Americans thought they could resurrect their dead to help them fight, and they were slaughtered at the Wounded Knee Massacre

Rise of Imperial America

• Growth of imperialism
• White Mans Burden by Rudyard Kipling justified and advocated for American imperialism
• Yellow journalism fabricated news stories to sway public interest
• The Spanish-American War was fought over Cuba, who won and was mostly independent
  • Restrictions from the Platt Amendment on Cuban independence allowed the U.S. to use Cuban ports and land
  • America received Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines

Impact of Industry - Growth of Imperialism

• Expansion into the Pacific
• Commodore Perry opened trade and political relations with Japan via the Treaty of Kanagawa
• Annexation of Hawaii
• American planters such as Stanley Dole sought to reduce the power of the Hawaiian monarch and believed that annexation would economically benefit them
• Cleveland resisted annexation and wanted Hawaii to maintain independence
• McKinley admitted Hawaii in 1898

Impact of Industry - Growth of Imperialism

• Boxer Rebellion - a rebellion in China against foreign influence
• The U.S. resisted partitioning China to have continued open access to the markets via the ‘Open Door Policy’
• The U.S. supported Panama’s bid for independence in Columbia, in exchange, they built the Panama Canal and controlled it for decades
• The Roosevelt Corollary was a speech made by Roosevelt asserting that the U.S. would handle the affairs of the Americas without Europe
• The Mexican Revolution was a revolt against dictator Francisco Madera
• Mexicans were unhappy with U.S. involvement, which damaged U.S.-Mexico relations

Rise of Progressivism

• Progressivism was a collection of social and political movements that reacted against laissez-faire economics
• Muckrakers were journalists who sought to expose corruption and scandal and also advocated for reform
• Political reforms:
• Initiative, which allowed citizens to introduce legislation
• Referendum, which allowed citizens to vote on a given issue
• Recall, a special election that allowed citizens to remove someone from office
• The 17th Amendment, in which Senators were directly elected by the people

Rise of Progressivism

• Social reforms, such as the women's suffrage movement, which had members like Susan B. Anthony and the National Woman’s Party who organized extensive non-violent protesting, resulting in the 19th Amendment
• Child labor laws included minimum wage and age laws, maximum hours they could work, and compulsory education laws
• Health and safety codes
  • Mostly a result of the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed over 150 people
  • This included zoning, work hours, and standards for light, room size, sanitation, fire escapes, etc

Rise of Progressivism

• Prohibition was widely supported
• Many progressives blamed alcohol for society’s issues, which led to the extension of the temperance movement and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union which was major advocate for prohibition
• The 18th Amendment banned the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol in the U.S.

Rise of Progressivism – Roosevelt Busts Trusts

• Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)thought that monopolies were not in the best interest of the people and sought to take them down
• The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was an act of Congress that stated no one can restrict commerce and competition in the market
• Roosevelt sued monopolies stating that they violated this order
• Shift in relationship between the federal government and big business, the government was no longer using its position to protect them