HIST 1302 Chapter 16 Inquizitive
As the United States matured into an industrial economy, Americans struggled to make sense of a new social order that included "better classes," "respectable classes," and "dangerous classes." Identify the statements that describe the nation's social problems during the Gilded Age.
There was a growing permanent factory population living on the edge of poverty alongside a growing class of millionaires, which posed a sharp challenge to traditional definitions of freedom. Throughout the United States, state and local governments set up investigative committees to inquire into the relations between labor and capital in the face of increasing unrest.
Between the end of the Civil War and the early twentieth century, the United States experienced stagnant economic growth and the loss of international markets.
False The United States enjoyed an explosive level of economic growth as the nation benefited from abundant natural resources, a growing supply of labor, an expanding market for manufactured goods, and the availability of capital for investment. In addition, the federal government actively promoted industrial and agricultural development. It enacted high tariffs that protected America from foreign competition, granted land for railroad companies to encourage construction, and used the army to remove Indians from western lands desired by farmers and mining companies.
Between 1860 and 1880, the number of railroad track miles tripled in the United States and tripled again by 1920. By the 1890s, five transcontinental lines transported products from coast to coast.
True As a result of this transformation, the railroads reorganized time itself. In 1883, the major companies divided the nation into the four time zones still in use today.
The Gilded Age marketplace proved to be chaotic as businesses in all industries engaged in ruthless competition. In response to this chaos, many businesses created trusts—legal devices whereby the affairs of several companies were managed by a single director.
True Trusts were efforts to coordinate the economic activities of several independent companies. They generally proved to be short-lived and fell apart as individual firms in the trust continued their intense pursuit of profits at the expense of the trust agreements.
During this period of time, how did the workers' ideas of freedom differ from those held by the owners and managers of the industry, and how did the courts construe freedom?
Laborers looked to the government to protect their rights and ensure fair working conditions. The courts overturned numerous laws that controlled aspects of economic activity. Owners did not want the government to regulate business or interfere in the economy.
In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave a celebrated lecture, "The Insignificance of the Frontier in American History," in which he argued the West had acted as a destabilizing and chaotic force in American history.
False Turner argued that the West defined many of the qualities we value as Americans: individual freedom, political democracy, and economic mobility. He argued the frontier had acted as a safety valve, drawing off those dissatisfied with their situation and allowing for them to change their circumstances.
Identify the statements that describe the relationship between Native Americans and white America.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs established boarding schools where Indian children were sent to become "more American." In 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 foreign nations.
The "overwhelming labor question" replaced slavery as the hot-button topic in the late nineteenth century. Identify the events and actions that illustrate the "overwhelming labor question."
Troops fired on striking workers in Pittsburgh, killing twenty people. the Great Railroad Strike The federal government built National Guard armories in major cities to ensure troops would be on hand if strikes got out of control.
Identify the statements that describe the political scene in the United States during the Gilded Age.
Americans during the Gilded Age saw the country as an island of democracy in a world dominated by undemocratic governments. Powerful new corporations raised disturbing questions about the American understanding of political freedom and self-government.
The conquest of the American West was a unique phenomenon in global history, whereby settlers moved boldly into the interior of regions of a great continent with a temperate climate, bringing their families, crops, and livestock, and establishing mining and other industries.
Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Africa all experienced some form of the white settler experience. India and most of Africa were the only places the indigenous populations were able to resist and turn back colonial expansion.
Identify the statements that describe the economic changes that occurred between 1870 and 1920.
Between 1870 and 1920, the percentage of people employed in industry grew significantly. The GNP per capita between 1870 and 1920 more than doubled. Between 1870 and 1920, the percentage of people employed in agriculture decreased significantly.
Andrew Carnegie was an industrial giant of the Gilded Age. Identify the statements that describe Carnegie.
Carnegie distributed much of his wealth to various philanthropies. He leveraged vertical integration to create the largest and most technologically advanced steel factories in the world.
Identify the statements that describe the Haymarket Affair.
Eight men were charged with carrying out the bombing. Four strikers were killed by police on May 3, 1886, when they clashed with strikebreakers.
Most of the farms on the Great Plains were bonanza farms that covered thousands of acres and employed large numbers of agricultural wage workers.
False While there were a few bonanza farms, most of the farms west of the Mississippi were still small, family farms. Even these farms had become more commercially oriented as they were connected to the wider world and its markets by the railroads.
Identify the statements that describe American westward expansion.
In the twentieth century, the American West became the focus of many federally funded public works projects. Western states used land donated by the federal government to establish public universities.
Identify the statements that describe "robber barons."
John D. Rockefeller was considered by many to be the worst of the robber barons. Ironically, many of the "robber barons" rose from modest backgrounds and seemed examples of how creative genius and business sense enabled Americans to seize success.
Identify the statements that describe liberal reformers during the Gilded Age.
Some liberal reformers urged a return to property qualifications for voting. Liberal reformers feared that as lower classes looked to use government to further their own interests, democracy was becoming a threat to individual liberty and the rights to property.
Identify the statements that describe working conditions and policies during the Gilded Age in America.
"The miner's freedom" consisted of work rules that left skilled miners free of managerial supervision on the job. Many industrial workers labored with no pensions, compensation for injuries, or protections against unemployment.
In Gilded Age America, dissatisfaction with the new social order extended beyond the working class and into the middle class. Some of the most popular works of literature in the era concerned the crumbling social order or the means of fixing it. Match the authors to their literary contributions.
Looking Backward - Edward Bellamy Progress and Poverty - Henry George The Cooperative Commonwealth - Laurence Gronlund
Every Republican candidate for president from 1868 to 1900 except for James G. Blaine had fought in the Confederate army in the Civil War.
False Every Republican candidate for president from 1868 to 1900 except for James G. Blaine had fought in the Union army in the Civil War. In fact, in 1880 all four candidates, Republican James A. Garfield, Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock, Prohibitionist Neal Dow, and James B. Weaver of the Greenback-Labor Party, had been Union generals during the war.
Identify the statements that describe the Knights of Labor.
The Knights of Labor included women in its membership.
Identify the events and conditions that led to the second industrial revolution that took place between the Civil War and the early twentieth century.
There was money available for investment. The federal government enacted tariffs that protected American industry from foreign competition. The country had a growing supply of labor and an expanding market for manufactured goods.
Despite promises in promotional pamphlets, farming on the Great Plains was not an easy task. Identify the statements that describe farming on the Great Plains.
Wheat and corn were primary crops grown on the Great Plains for the national and international markets. The population on the Great Plains jumped from 300,000 in 1860 to over five million in 1900. This population was very diverse as well, with settlers coming from across the United States, Europe, and the world.
Identify the statements that describe examples of Christian moral reform and its successful attempts to stamp out sin.
Women's Christian Temperance Union Mann Act of 1910 Gambling, prostitution, polygamy, and birth control were all targets of the legislation attempts to control or eliminate by Evangelical Christians in the Gilded Age.
Match each term to the correct description.
*horizontal expansions* - practice of buying out competing firms in an industry to monopolize an industry *vertical integration* - the process of controlling all aspects of business from procuring raw materials, to manufacturing, transporting, and distributing the final product *robber barons* - business leaders who wielded power without any accountability in an unregulated marketplace
"I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. . . . Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the . . . broken promises. . . .If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers." What are Chief Joseph's complaints about the treatment of his people?
Despite his view that all men are brothers, the white men do not treat Indians as equals. The white men do not keep their word to his men.
In 1879, the United States went off the gold standard to help debt-ridden farmers.
False In 1879 the United States returned to the gold standard by which currency was exchangeable with gold at a fixed rate. This limited inflation, which did not help debt-ridden farmers who needed more money in circulation. For example: if a farmer borrowed $100 at face value, with inflation, the purchasing power (actual value) declined. The face value of $100 was still on the bill, but it purchased the equivalent of $80 a few years later. This meant that farmers could pay back those loans at face-value and not actual purchasing power. The gold standard benefited big banks and eastern industrialists as they controlled the value of the currency. Farmers faced higher prices for manufactured goods as the value of their crops plummeted.
