unit 6
Gospel of Wealth
"Wealth", more commonly known as "The Gospel of Wealth", is an article written by Andrew Carnegie in June of 1889 that describes the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich.
Tammany Hall
, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It was the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in controlling New York City and New York State politics and helping immigrants, most notably the Irish, rise up in American politics from the 1790s to the 1960s. It typically controlled Democratic Party nominations and political patronage in Manhattan from the mayoral victory of Fernando Wood in 1854 and used its patronage resources to build a loyal, well-rewarded core of district and precinct leaders; after 1850 the great majority were Irish Catholics.
Andrew Carnegie
. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and is often identified as one of the richest people American industrialist who amassed a fortune in the steel industry
Tenements
A tenement is a multi-occupancy building of any sort. However in the United States it has come to mean a run-down apartment building, a slum.In parts of England, especially Devon and Cornwall, it refers to an outshot, or additional projecting part at the back of a terraced house, normally with its own roof.
Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890
The Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1-7) is a landmark federal statute in the history of United States antitrust law (or "competition law") passed by Congress in 1890 under the presidency of Benjamin Harrison.
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community.
Social Gospel
Christian faith practiced as a call not just to personal conversion but to social reform.
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt, also known informally as "Commodore Vanderbilt", was an American business magnate and philanthropist who built his wealth in railroads and shipping.
Civil Rights Cases of 1883
In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had prohibited racial discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public places, was unconstitutional.
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
It was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration.
Jay Gould
Jason "Jay" Gould was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has been portrayed as one of the ruthless robber barons of the Gilded Age, whose success at business made him one of the richest men of his era
Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence V. Powderly.
Laissez-faire capitalism
Laissez-faire is an economic system in which transactions between private parties are free from government intervention such as regulation, privileges, tariffs, and subsidies
Samuel Gompers & Eugene Debs
Led by Eugene V. Debs the Socialist Party of America split off of the American Federation of Labor. Between 1900 and 1920, Debs ran for US President five times. At its peak, the Socialist Party won 6% of the popular vote with Debs in the presidential election of 1912.
Munn v. Illinois
Munn v. Illinois. The Fourteenth Amendment does not prevent the State of Illinois from regulating charges for use of a business's grain elevators. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1876) was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the power of government to regulate private industries.The Fourteenth Amendment does not prevent the State of Illinois from regulating charges for use of a business's grain elevators. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1876) was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the power of government to regulate private industries.
Railroads and time zones
Operators of the new railroad lines needed a new time plan that would offer a uniform train schedule for departures and arrivals. Four standard time zones for the continental United States were introduced on November 18, 1883.
Frederick Jackson Turner & Turner Thesis
The Frontier Thesis or Turner Thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that American democracy was formed by the American frontier. He stressed the process—the moving frontier line—and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process.
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was a national federation of labor unions in the United States founded in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association.
"Indian wars" (Little Big Horn)
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought on June 25, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, pitted federal troops led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (1839-76) against a band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Tensions between the two groups had been rising since the discovery of gold on Native American lands. When a number of tribes missed a federal deadline to move to reservations, the U.S. Army, including Custer and his 7th Calvary, was dispatched to confront them. Custer was unaware of the number of Indians fighting under the command of Sitting Bull (c.1831-90) at Little Bighorn, and his forces were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed in what became known as Custer's Last Stand.
Bessemer Process
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace.
Credit Mobilier
The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1867, which came to public attention in 1872, involved the Union Pacific Rail Road and the Crédit Mobilier of America construction company in the building of the eastern portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad
Dawes Act of 1887
The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887), adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians.
Transcontinental railroad
The First Transcontinental Railroad (also called the Great Transcontinental Railroad, known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a 1,912-mile (3,077 km) continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay.The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants.
National Grange Movement
The Grange Movement, 1875. The Patrons of Husbandry, or the Grange, was founded in 1867 to advance methods of agriculture, as well as to promote the social and economic needs of farmers in the United States.
Railroad strike of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 started on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in response to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) cutting wages of workers for the third time in a year. Striking workers would not allow any of the trains, mainly freight trains, to roll until this third wage cut was revoked.
Homestead Act
The Homestead Acts were several United States federal laws that gave an applicant ownership of land, typically called a "homestead," at no cost. In all, more than 270 million acres of public land, or nearly 10% of the total area of the U.S., was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders; most of the homesteads were west of the Mississippi River.
Interstate Commerce Act of 1886
The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 is a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates.
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in that year. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures.
Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States on May 11, 1894, and a turning point for US labor law. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. The conflict began in Pullman, Chicago, on May 11 when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages.
US Steel
The United States Steel Corporation, more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an American integrated steel producer headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe.
. Old immigrants vs. new immigrants
The United States is a nation of immigrants. Every American is either an immigrant or has ancestors who were immigrants. ... One of the greatest periods of immigration occurred during the 1800s to the 1920s, when two waves of immigrants came to American shores from Europe. Even the Native Americans are immigrants, their ancestors having traveled to North America over the Bering Strait more than 50,000 years ago. One of the greatest periods of immigration occurred during the 1800s to the 1920s, when two waves of immigrants came to American shores from Europe.
Women & children factory workers
Working conditions during the Industrial Revolution were beyond harsh. This was especially true for women and children. The Industrial Revolution is a term that refers to the profound advances in production, manufacturing, and other fields of engineering that took place between the late 18th century and mid-19th century. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and then spread to the United States and other parts of the world. Central to the Industrial Revolution were advances in iron and textile development, modern machinery, steam technology, and railroading. However, the Industrial Revolution was more than a revolution in industry and manufacturing; it had profound effects on society as a whole. Let's dig deeper and see how this trend impacted the lives of women and children.
John D. Rockefeller
an American oil industry business magnate, industrialist, and philanthropist. He is widely considered the wealthiest American of all time, and the richest person in modern history.
Settlement Houses
an institution in an inner-city area providing educational, recreational, and other social services to the community.
Salvation Army
an international religious and charitable group organized on military lines and founded in 1865 by William Booth for evangelizing and social betterment (as of the poor)
Coxey's Army/March on Washington
as a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time. Officially named the Army of the Commonwealth in Christ, its nickname came from its leader and was more enduring. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington, and the expression "Enough food to feed Coxey's Army" originates from this march.
Interstate Commerce Commission
as a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including interstate bus lines and telephone companies. Congress expanded ICC authority to regulate other modes of commerce beginning in 1906. The agency was abolished in 1995, and its remaining functions were transferred to the Surface Transportation Board.
William Randolph Hearst
as an American businessman, politician, and newspaper publisher who built the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company Hearst Communications and whose flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father. Moving to New York City, he acquired The New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that sold papers by giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, graphics, sex, and innuendo. Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly thirty papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, and ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909 and for Governor of New York in 1906. Politically he espoused the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class
Election of 1880
as the 24th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1880. The voter turnout rate was one of the highest in the nation's history. Incumbent President Rutherford B. Hayes did not seek re-election, keeping a promise made during the 1876 campaign. After the longest convention in the party's history, the divided Republicans chose another Ohioan, Representative James A. Garfield, as their standard-bearer. The Democratic Party chose General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania as their nominee. The dominance of the two major parties began to fray as an upstart left-wing party, the Greenback Party, nominated another Civil War general for president, Iowa Congressman James B. Weaver. In a campaign fought mainly over issues of Civil War loyalties, tariffs, and Chinese immigration, Garfield and Hancock each took just over 48 percent of the popular vote. Weaver and two other minor candidates, Neal Dow and John W. Phelps, together made up the remaining percentage. The election of 1880 was the sixth consecutive presidential election won by the Republicans, the second longest winning streak in American history after the Democratic-Republican Party during the period 1800-1824.
Haymarket Riot
as the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday, May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square[2] in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day and in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded.
Mail-order companies (Sears-Roebuck)
colloquially known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in 1892 and 1906. Formerly based at the Sears Tower in Chicago and currently headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, the operation began as a mail ordering catalog company and began opening retail locations in 1925. The first location was in Evansville, Indiana
McKinley Tariff of 1890
commonly called the McKinley Tariff, was an act of the United States Congress framed by Representative William McKinley that became law on October 1, 1890. The tariff raised the average duty on imports to almost fifty percent, an act designed to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.[1] Protectionism, a tactic supported by Republicans, was fiercely debated by politicians and condemned by Democrats. The McKinley Tariff was replaced with the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act in 1894, which promptly lowered tariff rates
Ida B. Wells
da Bell Wells-Barnett, more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, feminist, Georgist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement.
. Growth of spectator sports (boxing, baseball)
here was a massive explosion of interest in American Sports in the 1920s. For many Americans the 1920's was a period of prosperity and social change. There was more time, and opportunity, for leisure in the industrialized towns and cities and organized sports developed. Massive sports stadiums were built such as the Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden. Rural Americans were also able to enjoy live sporting events that were broadcast across the nation via the radio. Newspapers and magazines added to the popularity of sports and there was newsreel coverage of sports at the movies. Mass advertising during popular sporting events promoted a vast range of new products in the consumer society of America.
Ellis Island
in Upper New York Bay, was the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to the U.S. as the United States' busiest immigrant inspection station for over 60 years[8] from 1892 until 1954. Ellis Island was opened January 1, 1892. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965 and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990. It was long considered part of New York, but a 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found that most of the island is in New Jersey.[9] The south side of the island, home to the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is closed to the general public and the object of restoration efforts spearheaded by Save Ellis Island.
Pendleton Act of 1881
is a United States federal law, enacted in 1883, which established that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation.The act provided selection of government employees by competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation. It also made it illegal to fire or demote government officials for political reasons and prohibited soliciting campaign donations on Federal government property. To enforce the merit system and the judicial system, the law also created the United States Civil Service Commission.This board would be in charge of determining the rules and regulations of the act. The Act also allowed for the president, by executive order to decide which positions could be subject to the act and which would not. A crucial result was the shift of the parties to reliance on funding from business, since they could no longer depend on patronage hopefuls.
Mark Twain & the Gilded Age
is a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner first published in 1873. It satirizes greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America in the era now referred to as the Gilded Age. Although not one of Twain's best-known works, it has appeared in more than one hundred editions since its original publication. Twain and Warner originally had planned to issue the novel with illustrations by Thomas Nast. The book is remarkable for two reasons--it is the only novel Twain wrote with a collaborator, and its title very quickly became synonymous with graft, materialism, and corruption in public life.
Political machines
is a political group in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses (usually campaign workers), who receive rewards for their efforts. The machine's power is based on the ability of the workers to get out the vote for their candidates on election day. Although these elements are common to most political parties and organizations, they are essential to political machines, which rely on hierarchy and rewards for political power, often enforced by a strong party whip structure. Machines sometimes have a political boss, often rely on patronage, the spoils system, "behind-the-scenes" control, and longstanding political ties within the structure of a representative democracy. Machines typically are organized on a permanent basis instead of a single election or event. The term may have a pejorative sense referring to corrupt political machines
Tuskegee Institute
is a private, historically black university (HBCU) located in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It was established by Booker T. Washington. The campus is designated as the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site by the National Park Service and is the only one in the U.S. to have this designation. The university was home to scientist George Washington Carver and to World War II's Tuskegee Airmen.
"New South"
is a slogan in the history of the American South, after 1877. Reformers use it to call for a modernization of society and attitudes, to integrate more fully with the United States, and reject the economy and traditions of the Old South and the slavery-based plantation system of the antebellum period. The term was coined by its leading spokesman and Atlanta editor Henry W. Grady.
Horizontal integration
is the process of a company increasing production of goods or services at the same part of the supply chain. A company may do this via internal expansion, acquisition or merger. The process can lead to monopoly if a company captures the vast majority of the market for that product or service.
Social Darwinism
is used to refer to various ways of thinking and theories that emerged in the second half of the 19th century and tried to apply the evolutionary concept of natural selection to human society. The term itself emerged in the 1880s, and it gained widespread currency when used after 1944 by opponents of these ways of thinking. The majority of those who have been categorized as social Darwinists did not identify themselves by such a label
Jane Addams
known as the "mother" of social work, was a pioneer American settlement activist/reformer, social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in women's suffrage and world peace. She co-founded, with Ellen Gates Starr, an early settlement house in the United States, Chicago's Hull House that would later become known as one of the most famous settlement houses in America. In an era when presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent reformers of the Progressive Era.
Vertical integration
the combination in one company of two or more stages of production normally operated by separate companies.
Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890
was a United States federal law enacted on July 14, 1890. The measure did not authorize the free and unlimited coinage of silver that the Free Silver supporters wanted; however, it increased the amount of silver the government was required to purchase on a recurrent monthly basis to 4.5 million ounces. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act had been passed in response to the growing complaints of farmers' and miners' interests. Farmers had immense debts that could not be paid off due to deflation caused by overproduction, and they urged the government to pass the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in order to boost the economy and cause inflation, allowing them to pay their debts with cheaper dollars Mining companies, meanwhile, had extracted vast quantities of silver from western mines; the resulting oversupply drove down the price of their product, often to below the point at which the silver could be profitably extracted. They hoped to enlist the government to increase the demand for silver. Originally, the bill was simply known as the Silver Purchase Act of 1890. Only after the bill was signed into law, did it become the "Sherman Silver Purchase Act." Senator John Sherman, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee was not the author of the bill, but once both houses of Congress had passed the Act and the Act had been sent to a Senate/House conference committee to iron out differences between the Senate and House versions of the Act, Senator John Sherman was instrumental in getting the conference committee to reach agreement on a final draft of the Act Nonetheless, once agreement on the final version was reached in the conference committee, Sherman found that he disagreed with many sections of the act.So tepid was Sherman's support that when he was asked his opinion of the act by President Benjamin Harrison, Sherman ventured only that the bill was "safe" and would cause no harm if the President signed it
Plessy v. Ferguson
was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896. It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal".This legitimized the state laws re-establishing racial segregation that were passed in the American South in the late 19th century after the end of the Reconstruction Era. The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1, with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the lone dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan.
Civil service reform
was a major issue in the late 19th century at the national level, and in the early 20th century at the state level. Proponents denounced the distribution of government offices—the "spoils"—by the winners of elections to their supporters as corrupt and inefficient. They demanded nonpartisan scientific methods and credential be used to select civil servants. The five important civil service reforms were the two Tenure of Office Acts of 1820 and 1867, Pendleton Act of 1883, the Hatch Acts (1939 and 1940) and the CSRA of 1978.
Joseph Pulitzer
was a newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of yellow journalism (a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news) to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s. He became a leading national figure in the Democratic Party and was elected congressman from New York. He crusaded against big business and corruption, and helped keep the Statue of Liberty in New York. In the 1890s the fierce competition between his World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal caused both to use yellow journalism for wider appeal; it opened the way to mass-circulation newspapers that depended on advertising revenue and appealed to readers with multiple forms of news, entertainment and advertising.
Second Industrial Revolution
was a phase of rapid industrialization in the final third of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The First Industrial Revolution, which ended in the early to mid 1800s, was punctuated by a slowdown in macroinventions
Frank Lloyd Wright
was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was best exemplified by Fallingwater (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture".[1] His creative period spanned more than 70 years. Wright was the pioneer of what came to be called the Prairie School movement of architecture and he also developed the concept of the Usonian home in Broadacre City, his unique vision for urban planning in the United States. In addition to his houses, Wright designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums and other structures. He often designed interior elements for these buildings as well, including furniture and stained glass. Wright wrote 20 books and many articles and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe. Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest American architect of all time".
Joseph Glidden
was an American businessman. He was the inventor of the modern barbed wire. Barbed wire was the first wire technology capable of restraining cattle. Wire fences were cheaper and easier to erect than their alternatives.
Scott Joplin
was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions and was dubbed the "King of Ragtime".[2] During his brief career, he wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first, and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.[3] Joplin was born into a musical family of railway laborers in Northeast Texas, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. Joplin grew up in Texarkana, where he formed a vocal quartet, and taught mandolin and guitar. During the late 1880s he left his job as a laborer with the railroad, and traveled around the American South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893, which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.
JP Morgan
was an American financier and banker who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation in the United States of America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Standard Oil
was an American oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refinery in the world of its time.
Populist Party and William Jennings Bryan
was an American orator and politician from Nebraska. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, standing three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States. He also served in the United States House of Representatives and as the United States Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. Because of his faith in the wisdom of the common people, he was often called "The Great Commoner". Born and raised in Illinois, Bryan moved to Nebraska in the 1880s. He won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1890 elections, serving two terms before his defeat in the 1894 Senate elections. At the 1896 Democratic National Convention, Bryan delivered his "Cross of Gold speech" which attacked the gold standard and the eastern moneyed interests. In a repudiation of incumbent President Grover Cleveland and his conservative Bourbon Democrats, the Democratic convention nominated Bryan for president, making Bryan the youngest major party presidential nominee in U.S. history. He was 36 years old at the time, one year older than the minimum age limit of 35. A supporter of bimetallism, Bryan was also nominated by the Populist Party and the Silver Republican Party. In the intensely fought 1896 presidential election, Republican nominee William McKinley emerged triumphant. With over 500 speeches in 1896, Bryan invented the national stumping tour in an era when other presidential candidates stayed home.
Helen Hunt Jackson
was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the United States government. She described the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona (1884) dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican-American War and attracted considerable attention to her cause.
WEB DuBois
was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Du Bois rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta compromise, an agreement crafted by Booker T. Washington which provided that Southern blacks would work and submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic educational and economic opportunities. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the Talented Tenth and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership.
Farmers' Alliances
was an organized agrarian economic movement among American farmers that developed and flourished in 1875. The movement included several parallel but independent political organizations — the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union among the white farmers of the South, the National Farmers' Alliance among the white and black farmers of the Midwest and High Plains, where the Granger movement had been strong, and the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union, consisting of the African American farmers of the South.
"Cross of Gold" speech & bimetallism
was delivered by William Jennings Bryan, a former United States Representative from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896. In the address, Bryan supported bimetallism or "free silver", which he believed would bring the nation prosperity. He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold".[1] Bryan's address helped catapult him to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination; it is considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history. For twenty years, Americans had been bitterly divided over the nation's monetary standard. The gold standard, which the United States had effectively been on since 1873, limited the money supply but eased trade with other nations, such as the United Kingdom, whose currency was also based on gold. Many Americans, however, believed that bimetallism (making both gold and silver legal tender) was necessary for the nation's economic health. The financial Panic of 1893 intensified the debates, and when Democratic President Grover Cleveland continued to support the gold standard against the will of much of his party, activists became determined to take over the Democratic Party organization and nominate a silver-supporting candidate in 1896.
Jim Crow laws
were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. Enacted by white Democratic-dominated state legislatures in the late 19th century after the Reconstruction period, these laws continued to be enforced until 1965. They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America, starting in 1896 with a "separate but equal" status for African Americans in railroad cars. Public education had essentially been segregated since its establishment in most of the South after the Civil War. This principle was extended to public facilities and transportation, including segregated cars on interstate trains and, later, buses. Facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to those which were then available to white Americans; sometimes they did not exist at all. This body of law institutionalized a number of economic, educational, and social disadvantages.
