apush unit 6 1865-1898

Panics of 1873 and 1893

-Panic of 1873: a financial crisis that triggered a depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 until 1879, and even longer in some countries; started two decades of stagnation known as the "Long Depression" that weakened the country's economic leadership; triggered by post-war inflation, rampant speculative investments (overwhelmingly in railroads), a large trade deficit, ripples from economic dislocation in Europe resulting from the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), property losses in the Chicago (1871) and Boston (1872) fires -Panic of 1893: a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893; marked by the overbuilding and shaky financing of railroads, resulting in a series of bank failures

Gilded Age

1870s - 1890s; time period looked good on the outside, despite the corrupt politics & growing gap between the rich & poor

Gospel of Wealth

Carnegie argued that those with extraordinary wealth had a duty from God to invest their wealth back into society through generous acts of philanthropy, wasn't just a philosophy, he gave away something like $350 million to build libraries and concert halls and universities.

Jim Crow Laws

Laws designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites

cowboys/cattle drives

Ranchers used cowboys to move cattle east for money. Refrigerated car allowed cattle to be slaughtered and butchered.

transcontinental railroads

The Pacific Railroads acts in which the federal government granted huge swaths of land to railroad companies who would then build a transcontinental railroad. · In 1869 in Promontory Summit, Utah, a golden spike was driven into the meeting of two rails that stretched from the east coast to the west coast. · Over the next few decades four more transcontinental railroads were completed, almost all with the help of government land grants, and this created the occasion for easier migration westward.

Social Darwinism

The belief that only the fittest survive in human political and economic struggle, applied to companies in this age

horizontal integration

Type of monopoly where a company buys out all of its competition. Ex. Rockefeller

assimilationist movement

an attempt to put an end to distinct Indian cultures through education, vocational training, and Christianizing them.

two titles for very rich business owners

captains of industry vs. robber barrons

white-collar workers

category of workers employed in offices, sales, or professional positions, middle-class management

political machines

in urban centers, · which were basically groups of folks who knew how to secure votes for their parties · At the top of these political machines were bosses who doled out the orders, and if the members were faithful to the boss, they were rewarded with jobs.

Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883)

it replaced the patronage system with a competitive examination. If you wanted a federal job, you had to compete with other scores on this exam, and the highest got the job.

Henry Cabot Lodge

nativist Protestant minister who argued argued that white Anglo-Saxon Americans were committing, "race suicide" by allowing so many members of "inferior races" to intermingle with pure-blooded Americans

Battle of Wounded Knee (1890)

old man rose to perform ghost dance, US soldiers massacred 300 unarmed Native American in 1890. This ended the Indian Wars.

Commerce act of 1886

required railroad rates to be reasonable and just and established a federal agency to enforce said reasonableness and justice, namely the Interstate Commerce Commission

the Ghost Dance movement

resistance movement developed by an Indian prophet in the northwest named Wovoka, and it soon spread across the continent. Basically the idea was that if Indians participated in this ritualistic dance, then the ghosts of their ancestors would return and finally drive the white man from their lands

Henry George

was a politician and economist who thought it was foolish that so much wealth could be generated by a nation while the same time so many of its citizens lived in poverty. His solution was called the Single Tax on land and according to his estimates those elite folks who owned large tracts of land were gaining disproportionate amounts of wealth based on the increasing value of that land and therefore they simply needed to be taxed more to even the playing field between them and the working class

Vertical Integration

when a company acquires all of the complementary industries that support its business

significance of the closing of the frontier

· - Fredrick Jackson turner's influential essay, the Significance of the Frontier in American History 1893- he argued that the closing of the frontier was not so much a cause for celebration but rather concern, a closing of the opportunity of a fresh start moving west

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

· - in that year railroad companies cut wages to save money during a recession, so unionized railroad workers went on strike to protest, the strike spread to eleven states and shut down more than 60% of the nation's railroads. Eventually the strike grew so tense that violence broke out and in response President Hayes sent in federal troops to restore order, but once the dust settled over 100 people were dead

Jane Addams Hull House

· - she could see that the immigrants streaming into Chicago were suffering, and therefore she sought to do something about it. Her solution was the establishment of settlement houses, the most famous of which was the Hull House she opened in 1889. The purpose of these settlement houses were to help immigrants better assimilate to American society so they could find better economic and social opportunities. In these houses immigrants were taught English and their children were enrolled in early childhood education programs. Immigrants were taught democratic ideals and given opportunities to attend recreational outings,

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

· . In 1890 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the National American Woman Suffrage Association or NAWSA which worked tirelessly to secure the franchise for women

assassination of James Garfield

· After winning the election, he sat in his office hearing from thousands of men seeking jobs, and as it turns out one of the guys he decided to pass on got cranky about the snub and went ahead and assasinated Garfield at a train station a few months later

industrial capitalism

· America undergoing a massive change in the way it produced goods to be sold like back in the old days artisans and skilled laborers crafted items by hand to be sold on a small scale but during this period factories sprang forth from the ground and within these factories tens of thousands of unskilled laborers worked machines day in and day out mass producing goods to be sold on a national and international scale

effects of mechanization of agriculture

· First it meant that farmers could plant and harvest a buttload more crops than they could previously, ex. The production of wheat and corn roughly doubled between 1870 and 1900 · The second effect was the increasing obsolescence of small farmers - because smaller farmers couldn't compete in markets with giant industrial farmers, primarily because they couldn't afford the pretty new machines, their farms folded one after another, in many cases being bought out by the bigger farmers · Now this surging glut of crops in market, the law of supply and demand tells us that prices will decrease. That's what happened · The prices per bushel of corn or wheat or whatever steeply declined, further putting pressure on small farmers who couldn't live by selling their crops at such low prices · During this period farming in American underwent a drastic change to the detriment of small farmers and to the benefit of large-scale mechanized farmers

tenements

· Immigrants and other members of the working class crowded into hastily built tenements which were poorly constructed and poorly ventilated. And in addition to the depressing condition of such living spaces, the residents' close proximity to one another assured frequent outbreaks of diseases like cholera, typhus, and tuberculosis.

Andrew Carnegie Steel industry

· In the steel industry, the name is Andrew Carnegie, a shrewd businessman who grew his company to the point where it dominated the steel industry, except Carnegie instead grew his interests through vertical integration, For example, Carnegie bought up over time companies that handled all parts of steel production from mining to processing companies to distribution companies. Again, that means complete domination of the industry with little room for competition.

National Grange Movement

· It was organized in 1868 as a collective aimed at bringing isolated farmers together for socialization and education, but as with everything in America, the Grange got political quickly. · As a collective body, the Grange Movement pushed many midwestern states to pass laws regulating railroad rates for carrying freight and made abusive corporate practices that were hurting farmers illegal. Taken together these laws became known as the Granger Laws

American Protective Association

· Nativists formed groups like the American Protective Association which was a powerful organization against Catholics. Because the millions of Irish immigrants who were coming to America were Catholic in large measure, and so the APA was resisting Catholicism.

John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil

· Oil industry- John D. Rockefeller, owner of Standard Oil, as the company grew he made many shrewd business moves that forced his competitors to sell their companies to him, thus eliminating the competition. By the late 1880s Standard Oil controlled almost 90% of the oil industry.

Exoduster Movement

· One of the most significant migrations during this period was known as the Exoduster Movement which was a migration of Southern black people into the west. The end of reconstruction in the South meant that the black population was left to fend for themselves without federal protection of their rights. And as terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan grew and Jim crow laws segregated southern society an disenfranchised black folks wholesale, they began to seek accommodation elsewhere. And so starting in the late 1870s, something like 40k black southerners abandoned the south and migrated to Kansas mainly, but also Oklahoma and Colorado. · several organizations were created to assist them in this movement including the Colored Relief Board and the Kansas Freedmen's Aid society · The Exodusters who were most successful upon arrival were the ones who settled in the urban centers of Kansas and got work as domestic servants or trade workers. However, many of the Exodusters attempted to carve out homesteads in what little was left in Kansas after railroad speculators had gobbled up the best farmland to build railways · As a result, the vast majority of black homesteaders were still in destitution a year after they had moved from the South.

leisure activities

· Period when Coney Island was built in new York, was largest amusement park in the US at time of opening · Many similar parks were being built around the country. Additionally, PT Barnum's circuses gained wide popularity during this time as well as many new spectator sports like baseball and American football

Populist party

· Populism means having to do with the people, and the Populist party sought to work for the people and correct the gross concentration of economic power held by elite banks and trusts. They published their beliefs in the Omaha platform which was replete with political and economic reforms. · On the political front, they advocated for the direct election of senators and the use of initiatives and referendums which allowed the people to propose and vote on legislation. · On the economic side, they argued unlimited coinage of silver, a graduated income tax (which means the more you made, the more you were taxed), and an 8 hour work day

Tammany Hall NYC and Boss Tweed

· Probably the most famous of these was political machines was Tammany Hall in NYC which was run by the infamous Boss Tweed. They are corrupt. Tammany Hall actually organized the needs of businesses, immigrants and the poor, so that everyone in the community flourished. · They didn't do these things for justice, they did it because their actions effectively put the communities they helped in debt to them and therefore the community owed the machine votes. It was a power game. · Tweed and his cronies stole millions of dollars from taxpayers through themes of deceit and fraud. Even so, despite the corruption, there was a kind of mutually beneficial relationship between the machines and their patrons.

Pullman strike near Chicago

· Pullman Company manufactured sleeping cars for trains, and when the Panic of 1893 hit, George Pullman decided the best way to save money was to cut the wages of his workers. The union workers came to bargain with him, he went ahead and fired all of them, so the rest of workers went on strike, and another union leader Eugene V. Debs directed the members of his union not to work on any trains that had Pullman cars in them. · Now of course, owners of railroads and owners of train cars are very closely tied together, and the railroad owners not surprisingly were on Pullman's side in this fight. They cooked up a scheme to fix the problem. They hooked up pullman cars to trains carrying federal mail and that meant if the workers interfered with the trains, they had to answer to the gov't. · Eugene Debs and other leaders were eventually jailed for hindering rail traffic of federally authorized trains, and the strike was essentially broken after that.

Booker T. Washington

· a controversial figure in the fight for equality because his view was that black people did not need to fight for their equality on a political level. Instead, he argued that black people needed to become self-sufficient economically and that would lead to power in the voting booth. As a former enslaved laborer, he had done this for himself and went to great lengths to help others do it as well. However, since the political and economic dice were loaded against black people in the South, Washington's vision was deemed impractical by many.

Eugene v. Debs

· a head of a significant union joined with a few others and started the socialist party of America in 1901. He ran for president on this party's ticket but they didn't do so well and basically petered out after

railroad innovations

· access to a quick and easy means of transporting goods created the occasion for a truly national market for sales. And if goods are easy to transport over long distances, it has the effect of opening up mass production and mass consumption. And it did. After the Civil War the miles of railroads built increased five-fold, gov't gave land grants and money to railraod companies

American Federation of Labor

· an association of craft workers led by the indomitable Samuel Gompers. By 1901 the AFL boasted a million members, and their goals were much the same as the Knights of Labor: higher wages, safer working conditions. Even though they began their work in this period, much of the fruit of their labor won't occur until the next period

socialism

· ancient enemy of capitalism this ideology gained some traction during this time, easy to understand why people gravitated toward this ideology- socialism says all the means of production in a society should be owned and regulated by the community and benefit everyone more or less equally · Looking at the state of society in late 19th century, its understandable why some people thought capitalism had failed. Socialism picked up some steam during this period but it never really grabbed hold of American citizens like it did to Europeans

Dawes Act of 1887

· by enacting this law, the federal gov't officially abandoned the US reservation system and divided reservation lands into 160 acre plots to be farmed by the Indians. · In a display of magnanimity, the Dawes Act allowed Indians to become American citizens on the condition that they settled on that land and assimilated to American culture

Oklahoma Territory

· designated as Indian Territory and many Indians in the east were relocated there due to the Indian Removal Act in the 1830s. and one of the reasons the Ok territory was designated for Indians was because in the 1830s nobody could imagine American wanting to settle all the way over there., bad farming land

Ida B. Wells

· editor of a black newspaper based in the South and in it she fiercely editorialized against lynching and Jim Crow laws. And for her effort, she received many death threats, and her presses were destroyed by a mob. However, she fled to the North where she continued her crusade.

Henry Grady & the "New South"

· editor of the newspaper called the Atlanta Constitution. He coined the phrase "New South" and laid out his vision in a dizzying array of editorials. Grady could see that one of the reasons the South suffered in the war was because the North was far more advanced industrially, so he envisioned a future for the south based on economic diversity, industrial growth, and laissez-faire capitalism. Basically, the South needed to be North-ified a little.

mechanization of agriculture

· farming was becoming a task done more and more with machines than the human body. Machines like the mechanical reaper and the combine harvester quickly replaced human sweat and animal muscle as the primary means of planting and harvesting crops

Henry Turner

· founded the International Migration Society in 1894 which facilitated the migration of black Americans to Africa, specifically Liberia. Several thousand black Americans made this trip, but in the end it wasn't a sustainable venture since Liberian inhabitants often lacked economic opportunity and suffered pretty significantly from African diseases.

Alexander Graham Bell

· further contributed to these same effects with the invention of the telephone. Within a year of its development, Bell founded the Bell Telephone Company and by the end of 1880, there were something like 50,000 telephones in use in America

Bessemer Process

· in the 1850s an Englishman Henry Bessemer patented a process for making steel of much stronger quality, and that process was called the Bessemer process · Essentially this process came down to blasting air through molten iron and get much higher quality steel · This new method of steel production enabled manufacturers to produce a far greater quantity and great quality of steel than had ever been done before

telegraph

· invented by Samuel Morse in 1844, but it was during this period that telegraph wires multiplied significantly. In this way communication could travel long distances at the speed of electricity · Not only did it connect various regions of the US, but most notable during this period was the laying of a trans-Atlantic cable connecting America to Europe · This actually had the effect of creating an international market for basic goods like coal, oil, steel, and grain

labor unions opposed immigration

· labor unions feared this huge influx of immigrants precisely because they were desperate for work and would therefore agree to be hired for meager wages. Union leaders in particular worried that immigrants would undermine their ability to negotiate with manufacturers, because if the union decided to strike, then the manufacturers could just fire all the unionized workers and replace them with underpaid immigrants

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

· law banned any further Chinese immigration to the US, all of it. Represents the only law in US history to target a specific nationality to be excluded from immigration.

republicans

· northern, more industrial party, who could count on votes from blacks, middle class businessmen, and protestants

Indian Appropriation Act of 1871

· officially ended federal recognition of the sovereignty of Indian nations, and nullified all previous treaties made with them · This led to another war with the Sioux and a war with the Comanches, but despite this resistance, it was a losing battle. The constant pressure of the settlers and the US army combined with the virtual extinction of buffalo herds from the plains forced the Indian to capitulate the demands of the American gov't

Haymarket Square Riot, 1886

· the Knights of Labor gathered in Haymarket Square in Chicago to celebrate the May Day labor movement. They protested peacefully for an 8 hour workday. However, at one point a bomb exploded, and it later was discovered the bomber was probably an anarchist completely unaffiliated with the Knights. · But unfortunately for them, the American public largely associated this bombing with themselves and the sentiment regarding labor unions shifted: all of the sudden they were seen as violent and radical. All of the sudden, their membership began declining rapidly

Sioux wars beginning 1886

· the Sioux spanked an entire US army division handily. The effect of this, however, was the federal government making more treaties with the Indians and trying to restrict them to smaller and smaller reservations

Gold standard

· the federal government would only print the amount of paper currency that could be backed by the value of gold in their vaults. And the reason they wanted this was because on the gold standard, currency held its value against inflation, which means the rising of prices.

Women's Christian Temperance Union and Anti-Saloon League

· they crusaded for total abstinence from alcohol and apparently it was a popular message because they had 500k members on their roles by 1898

Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896

· this case came from Louisiana which has a law that required separate railcars for black and white passengers. In 1892 a man named Homer Plessy was tasked with challenging this law. Plessy was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black, which meant, under Louisiana law, that he was black. So he challenged this law by riding in a whites-only passenger car, and when he was asked to leave, he refused and was arrested. When the case reached the supreme court, the ruling went like this: racial segregation was in fact constitutional just as long as the separate facilities are equal in kind and quality. This is where we get the phrase "separate but equal".

Homestead act of 1862

· this law granted potential migrants 160 acres of free land out west on the condition that they would farm it and settle it

Knights of Labor

· went public in 1881, truly national union which opened its membership to anyone who wanted to join, including black laborers and women as well. Now the main goals of this union was the destruction of trusts and monopolies as long as the abolition of child labor- kids as young as 10 or younger in some cases were members of the industrial workforce

democrats

· were mainly Southernors, though not exclusively, they championed states rights and racial segregation, counted on votes from big city political machines and growing population of immigrants