APUSH Period 6
Immigrants sought both to "Americanize" and to maintain their unique identities; along with others, such as some African Americans and women, they were able to take advantage of new career opportunities even in the face of widespread social prejudices.
-1894- Immigration Restriction Committee called for reducing immigration by barring the iterate from entering the U.S. -Adoption of stringent new residency and literacy requirements for those wishing to become citizens -The new immigrants arrived imagining the U.S. as a land of freedom, where all persons enjoyed equality before the law, could worship as they pleased, enjoyed economic opportunity, and had been emancipated from the oppressive social hierarchies of their homelands -A desire to share in the "freedom and prosperity enjoyed by the people of the United States" -Freedom was largely an economic ambition- a desire to escape from "homeless poverty" and achieve a standard of living impossible at home -The majority initially planned to earn enough money to return home and purchase land -The new immigrants clustered in close-knit "ethnic" neighborhoods with their own shops, theaters, and community organizations, and often continued to speak their native tongues -Churches were pillars of these immigrant communities -Although most immigrants earned more than was possible in the impoverished regions from which they came, they endure low wages, long hours, and dangerous working conditions
Corruption in government — especially as it related to big business — energized the public to demand increased popular control and reform of local, state and national governments, ranging from minor changes to major overhauls of the capitalist system.
-Americans saw their nation as an island of political democracy in a world still dominated by undemocratic governments -The power of the new corporations, seemingly immune to democratic control, raised disturbing questions for the American understanding of political freedom as popular self-government -In the West, many lawmakers held stock or directorships in lumber companies and railroads that received public aid -Urban politics fell under the sway of corrupt political machines -At the national law, many lawmakers supported bills aiding companies in which they had invested money or from which they received stock or salaries -Crédit Mobilier -Enabled the participants to sign contracts with themselves, at an exorbitant profit, to build the new line -Whiskey Ring of the Grant administration -Parties were closely divided -American democracy in the Gilded Age seemed remarkably healthy -Massive party rallies and spellbinding political oratory -The nation's political structure proved ill equipped to deal with the problems created by the economy's rapid growth -Small government -Civil Service Act of 1883- created a merit system for federal employees, with appointment via competitive examinations rather than political influence. First step in establishing a professional civil service and remove officeholding from the hands of political machines -Interstate Commerce Commission (1887)- Ensured that the rates railroads charged farmers and merchants to transport their goods were "reasonable" and did not offer more favorable treatment to some shippers over others -Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)- banned all combinations and practices that restrained free trade
As cities grew substantially in both size and in number, some segments of American society enjoyed lives of extravagant "conspicuous consumption" while many others lived in relative poverty.
-Cities were also the birthplace of a mass-consumption society that added new meaning to American freedom -Nothing unusual in the idea that the promise of American life lay, in part, in the enjoyment by the masses of citizens of goods available in other countries only to the well-to-do -By 1910, Americans could purchase, among many other items, electric sewing machines, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and record players -Low wages, the unequal distribution of income, and the South's persistent poverty limited the consumer economy, which wouldn't fully come into its own until after WWII -The promise of mass consumption became the foundation for a new understanding of freedom as access to the cornucopia of goods made available by moderncapitalism -Leisure activities also took on the characteristics of mass consumption -Nickelodeons
Government agencies and conservationist organizations contended with corporate interests over the extension of public control over natural resources, including land and water.
-Conservation reflected the Progressive thrust toward efficiency and control- in this case, control of nature itself -In the view of Progressive conservationists, the West's scares resource- water- cried out for regulation -Governments at all levels moved to control the power of western rivers, building dams and irrigation projects to regularize their flow, prevent waste, and provide water for large-scale agriculture and urban development -With such projects came political conflict, as cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco battled with rural areas for access to water -Between 1908-1913, the city of Los Angeles constructed a major aqueduct over the vigorous objections of the valley's residents after secretly buying up large tracts of land in the Owens Valley east of the city -By the 1920s, so much water had been diverted into the city that the once thriving farming and ranching businesses of the Owens Valley could no longer operate
Cities dramatically reflected divided social conditions among classes, races, ethnicities and cultures, but presented economic opportunities as factories and new businesses proliferated.
-Different areas of cities that differed drastically -Richer neighborhoods -Poorer neighborhoods -White neighborhoods -Black neighborhoods -Ethnic neighborhoods -Various economic opportunities in factories and new businesses -Various range of jobs -Blacks and immigrants typically took on lower payer, more dangerous jobs
Cultural and intellectual arguments justified the success of those at the top of the socioeconomic structure as both appropriate and inevitable, even as some leaders argued that the wealthy had some obligation to help the less fortunate.
-Social Darwinism- natural selection occuring within society, explaining why some are rich while others are poor -Some believed in helping the poor improve while others did not agree with this view
A number of critics challenged the dominant corporate ethic in the United States and sometimes capitalism itself, offering alternate visions of the good society through utopianism and the Social Gospel.
-Emergence of socialism -Edward Bellamy- Looking Backward -Freedom= social condition, resting on inter-dependence, not autonomy -Hopes of retaining the material abundance made possible by industrial capitalism while eliminating inequality -Social Gospel -Writings of Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden -Insisted that freedom and spiritual self-development required an equalization of wealth and power and that unbridled competition mocked the Christian ideal of brotherhood -Originated as an effort to reform Protestant Churches by expanding their appeal in poor urban neighborhoods and making them more attentive to the era's social ills -Established missions and relief programs in urban areas that attempted to alleviate poverty, combat child labor, and encourage the construction of bette working-class housings -Worked with Knights of Labor -Within American Catholicism, a group of priests and bishops emerged who attempted to alter the church's traditional hostility to movements for social reform and its isolation from contemporary currents of social thought -Suggested the existence of widespread dissatisfaction with the "liberty of contract" understanding of freedom
Increased migrations from Asia and southern and eastern Europe, as well as African American migrations within and out of the South, accompanied the mass movement of people into the nation's cities and the rural and boomtown areas of the West.
-Immigrants -European -1980s witnessed a major shift in the sources of immigration to the US -3.5 million immigrants entered the US during the decade, seeking jobs in the industrial centers of the North and Midwest -Immigrants from Southern and eastern Europe, especially Italy and the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires -"New immigrants"- members of distinct "races", according to native-born Americans, whose lower level of civilization explained everything from their willingness to work for substandard wages and to their supposed inborn tendency toward criminal behavior -American cities, said an Ohio newspaper, were being overrun by foreigners who "have no true appreciation of the meaning of liberty" and therefore posed a danger to democratic government -Asian -Leaders of both political parties expressed vicious opinions regarding immigrants from China -1850-1870- nearly all Chinese immigrants were men, brought in by labor contractors to work in western gold fields, railroad construction, and factories -Early 1870s- entire families began to immigrate -1875- Congress excluded Chinese women from entering the country -Barred from becoming naturalized citizens -Ill treatment, especially on the West Coast -African American migrations -The New South= "a miserable landscape dotted only by a few rich enclaves that cast little or no light upon the poverty surrounding them" -Some blacks sought a way out of their status at the bottom of a stagnant economy through emigration from the South -1879 and 1880- an estimated 40,000-60,000 African Americans migrated to Kansas, seeking political equality, freedom from violence, access to education, and economic opportunity (Kansas Exodus) -Lacking the capital to take up farming, most black migrants ended up as unskilled laborers in towns and cities -The real expansion of job opportunities was occuring in northern cities but most northern employers refused to offer jobs to blacks in the expanding industrial economy, preferring to hire white migrants from rural areas and immigrants from Europe -The Great Migration -The combination of increased wartime production and a drastic falloff in immigration from Europe once war broke out opened thousands of industrial jobs to black laborers for the 1st time, inspiring a large-scale migration from South to North -Between 1910-1920- half a million blacks left the South -Left in pursuit of higher rages, opportunities to educate their children, escape from the threat of lynching, and the prospect of exercising the right to vote -Migrants experienced vast disappointments- severely restricted employment opportunities, exclusion from unions, rigid housing segregation, and outbreaks of violence that made it clear that no region of the country was safe from racial hostility -Mass movement into cities and the West -Decline of agricultural —> move into cities -More jobs so people flocked there -West still had the possibly of freedom for the poorer classes
Business interests battled conservationists as the latter sought to protect sections of unspoiled wilderness through the establishment of national parks and other conservationist and preservationist measures.
-In the 1890s, Congress authorized the president to withdraw "forest reservers" from economic development, a restriction on economic freedom in the name of a greater social good -Roosevelt made conservation a concerted federal policy -Roosevelt moved to preserve parts of the natural environment from economic exploitation -Ordered that millions of acres be set aside as wildlife preserves and encouraged Congress to create new national parks -Conversation was a typical Progressive reform in some ways -Aim was less to end the economic utilization of natural resources than to develop responsible, scientific plans for their use -Conservation reflected the Progressive thrust toward efficiency and control- in this case, control of nature itself
The competition for land in the West among white settlers, Indians, and Mexican Americans led to an increase in violent conflict.
-In the West, white settlers, Indians, and Mexican Americans fought over the possession of the best lands -Indians had been previously removed from their tribal lands to the west which caused them to be angered -Whites thought they were superior and that they ought to have better land -As a result, conflict occurred
The growth of corporate power in agriculture and economic instability in the farming sector inspired activists to create the People's (Populist) Party, which called for political reform and a stronger governmental role in the American economic system.
-In the early 1980s, the Farmer's Alliance evolved into the People's Party (or Populists), the era's greatest political insurgency -It sought to speak for all the "producing classes" -Achieved some of its greatest successes in states like Colorado and Idaho, where it won the support of miners and industrial workers -Major base= cotton and wheat belts of the South and West -The Populists embarked on a remarkable effort of community organization and education -Published pamphlets and had traveling speakers -Texas Populist, "Cyclone" Davis -The last great political expression of the 19th century vision of America as a commonwealth of small producers whose freedom rested on the ownership of productive property and respect for the dignity of labor -Hardly a backward-looking movement -Embraced the modern technologies that made large-scale cooperative enterprise possible- the railroad, the telegraph, and the national market- while looking to the federal government to regulate them in the public interest -Promoted agricultural education and believed farmers should adopt modern scientific methods of cultivation -Federal government should help farmers operate in a businesslike manner to promote the public good
Following the Civil War, government subsidies for transportation and communication systems opened new markets in North America, while technological innovations and redesigned financial and management structures such as monopolies sought to maximize the exploitation of natural resources and a growing labor force.
-Increase of trade and commerce -Increase in production (so there was more goods to trade with other countries) -Growing labor force in the U.S. as farming decreased due to falling crop prices so more people were looking for jobs in industry and the business world (including women and children) -Labor disputes occurred
Increasingly prominent racist and nativist theories, along with Supreme Court decisions such as Plessy v. Ferguson, were used to justify violence as well as local and national policies of discrimination and segregation.
-Nativists became extremely prejudiczist towards Indians, blacks, and immigrants -1890s- Widespread imposition of segregation in the South -In the 1880s- southern race relations remained unsettled -1883- in the Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court invalidated the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had outlawed racial discrimination by hotels, theaters, railroads, and other public facilities -14th Amendment- the Court insisted that it prohibited unequal treatment by state authorities, not private businesses -1896- Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court gave its approval to state laws requiring separate facilities for blacks and whites "separate yet equal"
Despite the industrialization of some segments of the southern economy, a change promoted by southern leaders who called for a "New South," agrarian sharecropping and tenant farming systems continued to dominate the region.
-New systems of labor emerged in the different regions of the South -Task system= rice kingdom of South Carolina and Georgia -Supervised wage labor= sugar plantations of Southern Louisiana -Sharecropping= the Cotton Belt and Tobacco Belt of Virginia and North Carolina -Sharecropping initially arose as a compromise between blacks' desire for land and planters' demand for labor discipline. Each black family rented part of a plantation, with the crop divided between worker and owner at the end of the year. However, it became more and more oppressive -Trapped both black and poor white families in the system
Post-Civil War migration to the American West, encouraged by economic opportunities and government policies, caused the federal government to violate treaties with American Indian nations in order to expand the amount of land available to settlers.
-Persistent warfare occurred between the more established tribes and newcomers, including Indians removed from the East, who sought access to their hunting grounds -Most migrants on the Oregon and California Trails before the Civil War encountered little hostility from Indians, often trading with them for food & supplies -As settlers encroached on Indian lands, bloody conflict between the army and Plains tribes began in the 1850s and continued for decades -1869- President Grant announced a new "peace policy" in the West but warfare soon continued -Civil war generals set out to destroy the foundations of the Indian economy- villages, horses, and especially the buffalo -1871- Congress eliminated the treaty system that dated back to the revolutionary era, by which the federal government negotiated agreements with Indians as if they were independent nations -Dawes Act- broke up the land of nearly all tribes into small parcels to be distributed to Indian families, with the remainder auctioned off to white purchasers
Farmers adapted to the new realities of mechanized agriculture and dependence on the evolving railroad system by creating local and regional organizations that sought to resist corporate control of agricultural markets.
-Roosevelt called for the strengthening of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) as the Supreme Court had limited it to collecting economic statistics -1906- Congress passed the Hepburn Act giving the ICC the power to examine railroads' business records and to set reasonable rates, a significant step in the development of federal intervention in the corporate economy -Actions to protect their rights and businesses
In a urban atmosphere where the access to power was unequally distributed, political machines provided social services in exchange for political support, settlement houses helped immigrants adapt to the new language and customs, and women's clubs and self-help groups targeted intellectual development and social and political reform.
-Social Services -Helped struggling Americans -Used in politics to increase voting for the particular candidate -Settlement Houses -Despite being barred from voting and holding public offices in most states, women nonetheless became central to the political history of the Progressive era -They challenged the barriers that excluded them from formal political participation and developed a democratic, grassroots vision of Progressive government -They placed on the political agenda new understandings of female freedom -The immediate catalyst= a growing awareness among women reformers of the plight of poor immigrant communities and the emergence of the condition of women and child laborers as a major focus of public concern -Jane Addams- resented the prevailing expectation that a woman's life should be governed by what she called the "family claim"- the obligation to devote herself to parents, husband, and children -1889- Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, a "settlement house" devoted to improving the lives of the immigrant poor -Settlement-house workers moved into poor neighborhoods -By 1910, more than 400 settlement houses had been established throughout the country -Women's Clubs -Gave women more power -Propelled feminism and the women's suffrage movement
Labor and management battled for control over wages and working conditions, with workers organizing local and national unions and/or directly confronting corporate power.
-The Labor movement demanded laws establishing 8 hours as a legal day's work -In progressive America, complaints of a loss of freedom came not only from the most poorly paid workers but from better-off employees as well -"scientific management"- Frederick W. Taylor's a program that sought to streamline production and boost profits by systemically controlling costs and work practices -The role of workers was to obey the detailed instructions of supervisors -American Federation of Labor -Samuel Gompers- "Men and women cannot live during working hours under autocratic conditions, and instantly become sons and daughters of freedom as they step outside the shop gates" -Great increase of white-collared workers undermined the experience of personal autonomy -Placed the ideas of "industrial freedom" and "industrial democracy" at the center of political discussions during the Progressive era -Many Progressives believed that the key to increasing industrial freedom lay in empowering workers to participate in economic decision making via strong unions -Louis D. Brandeis maintained that unions embodied an essential principle of freedom- the right of people to govern themselves -Workers deserved a voice not only in establishing wages and working conditions but also in making such managerial decisions as the relocation of factories, layoffs, and the distribution of profits
Business leaders consolidated corporations into trusts and holding companies and defended their resulting status and privilege through theories such as Social Darwinism.
-The idea of the natural superiority of some groups to others, which before the Civil War had been invoked to justify slavery in an otherwise free society, now reemerged in the vocabulary of modern science to explain the success and failure of individuals and social classes -1859- Charles Darwin published On The Origin of Species, which expounded the theory of evolution whereby plant and animal species best suited to their environment took the place of those less able to adapt -Language borrowed from Darwin or developed by his followers, such as "natural selection", "the struggle for existence", and "the survival of the fittest", entered public discussion of social problems in the Gilded Age -According to social Darwinism, evolution was a natural a process in human society as in nature, and government must not interfere. -Social Darwinists believed that the giant industrial corporation had emerged because it was better adapted to its environment than earlier forms of enterprise -Even the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s didn't shake the widespread view that the poor were essentially responsible for their own fate -Deserving poor vs. undeserving poor -Failure to advance in society was widely thought to indicate a lack of character, and absence of self-reliance and determination in the face of adversity -Workers should practice personal economy, keep out of debt, and educate their children in the principles of the marketplace, not look to the government for aid -William Graham Sumner- freedom= "the security given to each man" that he can acquire, enjoy, and dispose of property "exclusively as he choose" -1883- Sumner published What Social Classes Owe to Each Other -Sumner believed government only existed to protect "the property of men and the honor of women", not to upset social arrangements decreed by nature
The U.S. government generally responded to American Indian resistance with military force, eventually dispersing tribes onto small reservations and hoping to end American Indian tribal identities through assimilation.
-The incorporation of the West into the national economy spelled the doom of the Plains and their world -New Indian groups migrated to the Great Plains to take advantage of the horse, coalescing into the great tribes of the 19th century- the Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Kiowa, and Sioux -The Indian idea of freedom centered on preserving their cultural and political autonomy and control of ancestral lands, conflicted with the interests and values of most white Americans -1877- troops commanded by former Freedmen's Bureau commissioner O.O. Howard pursued the Nez Percé Indians on a 1,700-mile chase across the Far West -After 4 months, Howard forced them to surrender and they were removed to Oklahoma -These events delayed only temporarily the onward march of while soldiers, settlers, and prospectors -Bureau of Indian Affairs established boarding schools where Indian children, removed from the "negative" influences of their parents and tribes, were dressed in non-Indian clothes, given new names, and educated in white ways -Many treaties and laws in the 19th century offered Indians the right to citizenship if they left the tribal setting and assimilated into American society -1924= all Indians became American citizens
The industrial workforce expanded through migration across national borders and internal migration, leading to a more diverse workforce, lower wages, and an increase in child labor.
-The policies of railroad companies produced a growing chorus of protest, especially in the West -Farmers and local merchants complained of excessively high freight rates, discrimination in favor of large producers and shippers, and high fees charged by railroad-controlled grain warehouse -Critics of the railroad formed the Patrons of Husbandry, aka the Grange, which moved to establish cooperatives for storing and marketing farm output in the hope of forcing the carriers "to take our produce at a fair price" -Founded in 1867 -Claimed more than 700,000 members by the mid-1870s -Succeeded in having commissions established to investigate- and, in some cases, regulate- railroad practices in several states -Different peoples working, lower wages as crop prices fell, had to have children work in order for families to financially survive
Businesses and foreign policymakers increasingly looked outside U.S. borders in an effort to gain greater influence and control over markets and natural resources in the Pacific, Asia and Latin America.
-Until the 1890s, American expansion had taken place on the North American continent -Ever since the Monroe Doctrine, many Americans had considered the Western Hemisphere an American sphere of influence -Most Americans who looked overseas were interested in expanded trade, not territorial possessions -By 1980, companies like Singer Sewing Machines and Standard Oil Company aggressively marketed their products abroad -Spanish-American War of 1898 -Resulted in the Americans acquiring the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Cuba -1899- Open Door policy- John Hay, demanded that European powers that had recently divided China into commercial spheres of influence grant equal access to American exports. Referred to the free movement of goods and money, not people -Philippine War -Made the Philippines an American colony -Just as they expanded the powers of the federal government in domestic affairs, the Progressive presidents weren't reluctant to project American power outside the country's borders -Between 1901-1929, U.S. Marines landed in the Caribbean more than 20 times -Panama Canal -Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine- held that the US had the right to exercise "an international police power" -Dollar Diplomacy- Taft, emphasized economic investment and loans from American banks rather than direct military intervention as the best way to spread American influence
Challenging their prescribed "place," women and African American activists articulated alternative visions of political, social, and economic equality.
-Women -Changes in the women's movement reflected the same combination of expanding activities and narrowing boundaries -The 1890s launched what would later be called the "women's era"- 3 decades during which women, although still denied the vote, enjoyed larger opportunities than in the past for economic independence and played a greater and greater role in public life -Nearly every state had adopted laws giving married women control over their own wages and property and the right to sign separate contracts and make separate wills -Nearly 5 million women worked for wages in 1900 -A generation of college educated women was beginning to take its place in better paying clerical and professional positions -Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) -1874 -Became the era's largest female organization, with a membership by 1890 of 150,000 -Moved from demanding the prohibition of alcohol to a comprehensive program of economic and political reform, including the right to vote -Frances Willard insisted that women must abandon the idea that "weakness" and dependence were their nature and join assertively in movements to change to society -At the same time, the center of gravity of feminism shifted toward an outlook more in keeping with prevailing racial and ethic norms -Argue for women's equality in employment, education, and politics -A new generation of suffrage leaders suggested that educational and other voting qualifications didn't conflict with the movement's aims, so long as they applied equally to men and women -National American Woman Suffrage Association (1890 to reunite the rival suffrage organizations formed after the Civil War) -Extending the vote to native-born white women would help to counteract the growing power of the "ignorant foreign vote: in the north and the dangerous potential for a 2nd Reconstruction in the South -African-Americans -By far the largest non-white group, African Americans, were excluded from nearly every Progressive definition of freedom -After their disenfranchisement in the South, few could participate in American democracy -Black workers had little access to "industrial freedom" as they were barred from joining most unions and from skilled employment -Predominantly domestic and agricultural workers, black workers remained unaffected by the era's laws regulating the hours and conditions of female labor -Nor could blacks participate fully in the emerging consumer economy, either as employees in the new department stores or as purchasers of the consumer goods now flooding the marketplace -Progressive intellectuals, social scientists, labor reformers, and suffrage advocates displayed a remarkable indifference to the black condition -Black leaders struggled to find a strategy to rekindle the national commitment to equality that had flickered brightly during the Reconstruction -W.E.B. Du Bois -Unifying theme of his career- his effort to reconcile the contradiction between what he called "American freedom for white and the continuing subjection of Negroes" -Believed that educated blacks must use their education and training to challenge inequality -In some ways, he was a typical Progressive who believed that investigation, exposure, and education would lead to solutions for social problems but also understood the necessity of political action -1905- He gathered a group of black leaders at Niagara Falls and organized the Niagara movement, which sought to reinvigorate the abolitionist movement -Declaration of Principles adopted at Niagara Falls called for restoring to blacks the right to vote, an end to racial segregation, and complete equality in economic and educational opportunity -4 years later, he joined with a group of mostly white reformers shocked by a lynching in Springfield, Illinois to create the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) -Bailey v. Alabama (1911) -The Supreme Court overturned southern "peonage laws" that made it a crime for sharecroppers to break their labor contracts
