Chapter 17 - 20 The American Promise
Discuss the factors that transformed family farms into "agribusiness".
- New technology and mechanics. - Steam powered machinery. - A single combine to the place of twenty men. - Farm lad can be increased due to faster production. - Railroads to transport goods faster. - Urban cities to have a big market.
Discuss the consequences of John Hay's Open Door policy in China.
They found it hard to resist the temptations of overseas empires leading to almost lots of wars.
Explain Frances Willard's use of the "cult of domesticity" to argue for woman suffrage.
In a shrewd political tactic, Willard capitalized on the cult of domesticity to move women into public life and gain power to ameliorate social problems.
Define finance capitalism and name America's preeminent finance capitalist.
Investment sponsored by banks and bankers. J.P. Morgan
Discuss how the U.S. Supreme Court supported the rise of corporate capitalism.
The Court used the Fourteenth Amendment to protect the corporations. They changed it to, "No state can deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law." and made corporations "people" Laissez-faire: let it alone. Conservative judges.
Explain the federal government's policy of "benign neglect" of the western territories.
The president appointed a governor, a secretary, and two to four judges, along with an attorney and a marshall. Handful of officials were in charge of large areas. Lots of conflict of interest and corruption.
Identify the inventions that most revolutionized Americans' lives in the Gilded Age.
The telephone and electricity.
Identify the theme(s) of Mark Twain and Charles Warner's The Gilded Age.
- Political hacks. - Washington lobbyists. - Wall street financiers. - Small town boosters. - And the "great putty hearted public" that tolerated the plunder. - Vulgarity - Crass materialism - And political corruption.
Describe how municipal governments improved city life.
-Free secondary school education for all who wished to attend -created the most extensive free public library system in the world (for those who couldn't go to school)
Identify the federal legislative attempts to curb the power of big business on behalf of the public interest.
-Regulate railroads (The Interstate Commerce Commission) -Outlaw pools/trusts to increase competition (Sherman Antitrust Act)
Explain how civil service reform helped break the power of the party "bosses" in the Gilded Age.
1) It prohibited federal jobholders from contributing to political campaigns, dried up major source of the party boss's revenue. 2) Created a merit system that required examinations for office. 3) Made it impossible for jobholders to be fired for political reasons
Enumerate the increase in child labor by 1900.
1750178 children ages ten to fifteen were employed, an increase of more than a million over 30 years. children in this age range constituted more than 18 percent of the industrial labor force.
Discuss the factors that stimulated a land rush in the trans - Mississippi West.
2 factors: 1. The Homestead Act of 1862 promised 160 acres of free land to anyone who settled on the land for 5 years. and 2. Transcontinental railroads opened up new areas and actively recruited settlers.
Describe the social geography of American cities in the Gilded Age.
A central business district surrounded by concentric rings of residences organized by ethnicity and income. Newcomers faced hostility, crowding, and poverty.
Describe the non-violent form of resistance employed by Native Americans on the Plains by the 1880s.
A new religion called the Ghost Dance, where it combined elements of Christianity and traditional Indian religion to form the Ghost Dance. They would dance for hours, this caused a fear of uprising for the whites.
Define "machine"
A political party organized at the grassroots level. Purpose was to win elections and reward its followers, often with jobs on the city's payroll
Define plutocracy and show how America had become a plutocracy in the Gilded Age.
A society ruled by the rich. The rich owned more than half of the real and personal property in the country.
Describe a typical mining town of the "Wild West".
A wide diversity of people lived in these towns. The promise of gold and silver brought many people here. Lawless outposts, filled with saloons and rough gambling dens. Populated almost exclusively by men.
Name the man who came to dominate the steel industry and describe how he did it.
Andrew Carnegie , by Always looking for a way to cut prices and by pioneering a business called vertical integration. He always kept an eye on his account books. And he used steel that was cheaper to make using pig iron.
Identify the invention that revolutionized cattle ranching and discuss how it changed cattle ranching.
Barbed Wire Fencing forced small-time ranchers who owned land but could not afford to buy barbed wire or sink wells to sell out for the best price they could get.
Name the pastime that united city-dwellers across class lines.
Baseball
Compare America's typical immigrant before 1880 to the typical immigrant after 1880.
Before: Northern and Western Europe (Germany, Irish, english, and Scandinavians making 85% of newcomers) After: Southern and Eastern Europe (Italians, hungarians, eastern european jews, turks, armenians, poles, russians, and other slavic people, making more than 80% of immigrants)
Define "nativism" and describe how it affected Chinese settlers in California.
Bias against immigrants and in favor of native born inhabitants The Chinese suffered brutal treatment at the hands of employers and other laborers; by 1870, over 63,000 Chinese immigrants lived in America, but they were denied access to citizenship.
Define "buffalo soldier".
Black soldiers who served in the west during the indian wars
Explain how Native American tribal life came to an end by the 1890s.
By 1890, western Indians were isolated on small, scattered reservations. Native Americans had struggled to retain their land in major battles, from the Santee Uprising in Minnesota in 1862 to the massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1890. The Euro-Americans controlled 97.5 percent of the land that was formerly occupied by Native Americans
Define "vaquero" and discuss the fate of the vaqueros by the 1880s
California's Mexican cowboys. when the coming of the railroads ended the long cattle drives and large feedlots began to replace the open range, the value of their skills declined. Many vaqueros ended up as migrant laborers, often on land their families had once owned.
Identify the naval scholar who argued the need for a "new" Navy.
Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan.
List the components of the Populists' plan/platform to help farmers.
Demanded economic democracy. Able to store non-perishable crops until prices rose and to receive commodity credit from the federal government to obtain needed supplies. (Subtreasury) Currency reform. Land reform.
Locate the facility known to immigrants as the "gateway" to the United States.
Ellis Island. The Statue Of Liberty.
Explain the goal(s) of the Populist (People's) Party.
Ensure greater economic equality in industrial America. The regulation of business. The need for banking and currency reform. Guaranteeing democracy.
Identify the problems and issues facing farmers.
Farmers faced foreclosure. Crops prices fell while consumer prices soared.
Name the founder of the Socialist Party.
Frances Willard
Show how religion and ethnicity played a significant role in Gilded Age politics.
Gender began to influence politics more strongly throughout the nineteenth century, proving cross-racial alliances rested on the belief that universal political rights could be extended to blacks in the public sphere without eliminating racial barriers in the private sphere.
Identify the labor action that demonstrated the pivotal power of the state in the nation's labor wars.
Governor Waite's intervention. The Cripple Creek Miner's Strike Populist in power made a difference.
Name the largest corporate landowners in the West.
Henry Miller & Charles Lux
List the characteristics of the "New South".
IT remained agricultural cheap labor and abundant natural resources TOBBACO DOMINATION iron and steel industry
Define the "cult of domesticity".
Ideal of middle class, white womanhood that dominated. The idea of women to stay in there homes.
Explain how social Darwinism was used to glorify great wealth and curb social reform.
It kept the wealthy and powerful in business and let the weaker die out to advance the progress of humanity. And if the rich tried to help the poor it would just slow down evolution. Justified the neglect of the poor.
Name the man who came to dominate the oil industry and describe how he did it.
John D. Rockefeller , by having secret rebates to drive out his competitors, railroads needed his business so bad that they gave him some of their profits, and made the trust where people held stocks in other refineries, giving him a monopoly on the oil-refining business.
List the major labor unions and their leaders.
Knights of labor- Uriah Stephens American Federation of Labor- Samuel Gompers
Explain how the "injunction" was used to break the Pullman strike.
Made the boycott a crime, and they prohibited Debs from speaking in public.
Locate the last Indian Territory to be opened to white settlers.
OKLAHOMA INDIAN TERRITORY
Describe President Grant's "peace policy" and its impact on Native Americans.
President Grant set up reservations as a way to separate and control Indians, but also because it opened up land to white settlers. The U.S. army herded Indians onto reservations, but the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs was badly managed and corrupt and the Indians relocated to the reservations that suffered from poverty and starvation.
Name the nation's first big business and identify the man who pioneered it.
Railroads Jay Gould
Discuss Ida Wells' campaign against racism in the New South.
She launched an anti lynching movement. She explained how the black were punished and killed for things that white have done but are let go and things blacks do better than whites. A founding member of NAACP
Define "social Darwinism".
Societal progress came about as a result of relentless competition in which the strong survived and the weak died out.
Identify the most prominent issue of the presidential election of 1896, championed by the Populists.
The Depression
Discuss how the federal government aided the development of the railroads.
The Republican Party, firmly entrenched in Washington in the wake of the Civil War, worked closely with business interests, subsidizing the transcontinental railroad system with land grants of a staggering 100 million acres of public land and $64 million in tax incentives and direct aid.
Describe the new American "empire" that resulted from the Treaty of Paris in 1898.
The U.S. got Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
Define political party "boss"
The colorful big-city boss, saw to the building of the city and provided needed social services for the new residents
Identify the inventor and the invention that precipitated a "communication revolution" in the mid-nineteenth century.
The inventor was Samuel F.B. Morris and he invented the Telegraph.
Identify the 1890 event that signaled the end of Indian resistance in the West.
The massacre at Wounded Knee
Explain how the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 helped to promote the growth of unions.
They learned that they could make a difference if they worked together leading to more people joining unions to try and overthrow the employer.
Identify the problems and issues facing industrial laborers.
They organized and fought for better working conditions, higher wages, shorter hours, and greater worker control in the face of increased mechanization. Couldn't unionize easily.
Explain why the U.S. entered into war with Spain in 1898.
To free Cuba from Spain.
Discuss the intent and the consequences of the Dawes Act of 1887.
Was to give Indians a certain amount of private property land they could own themselves and limit the amount of miles they were spread out and that they covered. It effectively reduced the Indian land from 138 million acres to 48 million acres.
Compare the working patterns/opportunities of white and African American women.
White married women, even among the working class, rarely worked for wages outside the home. Black women married or unmarried worked for wages in much greater numbers than white women.
Explain the rise of the "managerial" class of workers by 1900.
With mechanization taking over there needed to be more people filling up in the office or store jobs to keep jobs and to keep the business's running properly.
Discuss the consequences of the Homestead Steel strike.
Workers went back to work to find their wages slashed, their workday lengthened, and 500 jobs eliminated.
Identify the factors that prompted America's overseas expansion by the 1890s.
depression
Explain a monopoly.
is where a single power controls production in an industry.
Explain an oligopoly
is where several companies control production.
