The Gilded Age 1869-1896

1. Democrats

   Annotations:

   • -less strict morals -gov't shouldn't impose moral standard -South, industrial North, immigrants, political machines
2. Republicans

   Annotations:

   • -strict moral codes -gov't regulates economic and moral affairs -Midwest, rural Northeast, freedmen -1870s and 1880s deadlocked by division
   1. "Stalwarts"

      Annotations:

      • patronage
   2. "Half-Breeds"

      Annotations:

      • civil-service reforms
3. Presidential Elections

   Annotations:

   • Grant through Cleveland forgettable presidents. They didn't do much
   1. 1868
      1. U.S. Grant

         Annotations:

         • Republican
      2. Horatio Seymour
   2. 1872
      1. U.S. Grant

         Annotations:

         • Republican
         1. Civil Rights Act of 1875

            Annotations:

            • Equal accommodations in public places and juries. Civil Rights Cases 1883--much declared unconstitutional:      government can't discriminate,  but individuals can
      2. Horace Greeley

         Annotations:

         • Liberal Republican Party    -purify government and end military Reconstruction
   3. 1876
      1. Rutherford B. Hayes

         Annotations:

         • Republican
      2. Samuel J. Tilden

         Annotations:

         • Democrat
      3. Compromise of 1877

         Annotations:

         • -Republican speaker counts disputed votes (Hayes wins) -Hayes withdraws all federal troops from South
         1. End of Reconstruction
         2. Electoral Count Act 1877

            Annotations:

            • Commission set up to count votes
   4. 1880
      1. James A. Garfield

         Annotations:

         • Republican assassinated 1881 by Charles J. Guiteau
         1. Chester A. Arthur
            1. Pendleton Act 1883

               Annotations:

               • stopped patronage started politicians' dependence on big business
      2. Winfield Scott Hancock
   5. 1884
      1. James G. Blaine
      2. Grover Cleveland

         Annotations:

         • Democrat
   6. 1888
      1. Benjamin Harrison

         Annotations:

         • Republican
      2. Grover Cleveland
   7. 1892
      1. Grover Cleveland
      2. Populist Party

         Annotations:

         • -inflation through free unlimited coinage of silver -graduated income tax -gov't ownership of railroads, telegraph, telephone lines -direct election of Senators -one-term President -citizens shape legislation more directly -shorter workday -immigrant restriction
         • violent, failed strikes helped them get support -like Homestead Strike racist and anti-black by 1896
4. Post-Reconstruction South

   Annotations:

   • record high lynchings in 1890s
   1. sharecropping

      Annotations:

      • Freed blacks forced into perpetual debt, often to former masters, through sharecropping and tenant farming
   2. Jim Crow Laws

      Annotations:

      • legal codes of segregation -literacy tests -voter registration for blacks -poll tax
   3. Plessy v Ferguson

      Annotations:

      • "separate but equal"

1. Jay Gould
2. Tweed Ring
3. Credit Mobilier

   Annotations:

   • Union Pacific Railroad forms Credit Mobilier to get gov't contracts at inflated rates. Gave stock to congressmen and VP to keep it going
4. Whiskey Ring
5. Panic of 1873
   1. 1875 Resumption Act

      Annotations:

      • government withdraw more greenbacks and redeem paper currency in gold at face value starting 1879. Passed by Republican Congress
      1. deflationary

         Annotations:

         • -worsened impact of depression -restored gov't's credit rating -brought greenbacks up to face value -Democratic House in 1874
      2. Gold vs. Silver

         Annotations:

         • debtors wanted silver and inflation creditors wanted deflation greenbacks depreciated
6. Tariffs

   Annotations:

   • -high during war=huge surplus -major issue in 1888 election -industrialists opposed lower tariff
7. depression 1893~1897

   Annotations:

   • worst economic downturn of 1800s
   1. causes

      Annotations:

      • -overbuilding, overspeculation -labor disorders -agricultural depression free-silver agitation
   2. results

      Annotations:

      • -businesses collapse -homeless, unemployed -no gov't intervention -gold reserves drop--> J.P Morgan lends gold 1895

1. Railroad Strike of 1877

   Annotations:

   • federal troops called in -exposed weakness of labor movement -gov't helps big business
2. Unions
   1. American Federation of Labor

      Annotations:

      • 1886 - Samuel Gompers -closed shop labor -walkouts and boycotts -skilled craftsmen oonly
   2. Knights of Labor

      Annotations:

      • 1869
   3. National labor Union

      Annotations:

      • 1866 - lasted for 6 years
3. women in the workforce

   Annotations:

   • social reform urban reform social work

1. Irish vs. Chinese

   Annotations:

   • California: Chinese=cheap labor.  Willing to take menial jobs
2. After 1880
   1. Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

      Annotations:

      • Prohibited immigration from China until 1943
   2. United States v Wong Kim Ark

      Annotations:

      • 1898 citizenship to all people born on US soil guaranteed by 14th Amendment -protected many immigrant groups
   3. New Immigrants

      Annotations:

      • from south and east Europe 1880s, but esp. early 1900s -illiterate and poor
      1. Reactions
         1. nativism

            Annotations:

            • -Old Immigrants opposed New Immigrants -labor unions opposed to wage-depressing strikebreakers -associated with socialism, communism, anarchism -different -we hate immigrants, basically
            1. restrictive laws

               Annotations:

               • -1882 - paupers, criminals, convicts, Chinese -1885 - foreign workers under contract -insance, polgamists, prostitutes, alcoholics, anarchists, diseased -1917 - literacy test
         2. Hull House

            Annotations:

            • Jane Addams -settlement house to help immigrants in Chicago    -English, counseling, child-care, cultural activities

Annotations:

• -federal land grants -Union and Central Pacific got federal loans too --bound nation --> east and west connected -stimulated mining, agriculture, immigration West -transport raw materials to factories to consumers -ecological impact -1883 standard time zones

1. Union Pacific
   1. 1869
2. Central Pacific
3. Northern Pacific - 1883
4. Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe - 1884
5. Southern Pacific - 1884
6. Great Northern - 1893
7. Cornelius Vanderbilt

   Annotations:

   • organized railroads
8. pools

   Annotations:

   • divide businesses and share the profits
   1. Interstate Commerce Act - 1887

      Annotations:

      • first large-scale attempt to regulate business in interest of society -prohibits rebates and pools -publish rates openly -Interstate Commerce Commission enforces -avoid ruinous rate wars --> stabilize
9. importance of railroads and technology

   Annotations:

   • -connected US physically -spurred economic growth -concept of time -industry spread -jobs for women -increased wage dependence -factories depersonalized

1. Andrew Carnegie

   Annotations:

   • steel
   1. vertical integration

      Annotations:

      • control every phase of production
   2. "Gospel of Wealth"
2. John D. Rockefeller

   Annotations:

   • Standard Oil Company
   1. horizontal integration

      Annotations:

      • monopolize one phase of production
3. trusts

   Annotations:

   • board of directors control companies' stocks
   1. Sherman Antitrust Act

      Annotations:

      • 1890 trusts illegal restrained trade unions -->ineffective due to many loopholes
4. J. P. Morgan
   1. interlocking directorates

      Annotations:

      • executives from one company serve on Board of directors of another. eliminated banking competition

1. causes of city growth

   Annotations:

   • -skyscraper -commuters -industrial jobs -city life appealing    -electricity, indoor plumbing, phones, engineering marvels    -department stores
2. effects

   Annotations:

   • -more jobs, esp. for women -consumerism -widening class divisions -unsanitary -crime -slums -fire -suburbs

1. Booker T. Washington

   Annotations:

   • education important Tuskegee Institute avoided social equality in favor of education and economic independence
2. W. E. B. Dubois

   Annotations:

   • complete immediate equality NAACP 1909 "talented tenth"

Annotations:

• less opinion, more scandal

1. Yellow journalism

   Annotations:

   • Joseph Pulitzer vs. William Randoph Hearst

1. Art
2. Books
3. Sports

1. public

   Annotations:

   • tax-supported public schooling more popular -more grade schools and high schools -Kindergarten
2. cities

   Annotations:

   • usually better education
3. rural/south

   Annotations:

   • old one-room school houses not as good South lagged behind
4. adults

   Annotations:

   • national public lectures "normal" (teacher-training) schools
5. Colleges and Universities
   1. Land Grant colleges
      1. Morill Act of 1862

         Annotations:

         • public lands for schools
      2. Hatch Act of 1887

         Annotations:

         • federal funds to est. agricultural experiment stations
   2. private philanthropy
   3. Antebellum Colleges

      Annotations:

      • -knowledge and morality -religious instruction -moral philosophy -natural theology
   4. University Reformers

      Annotations:

      • -science over religion -separate "facts" from "values" -abandoned moral instruction
      1. technical schools

         Annotations:

         • industrialization demanded practical courses and specialized vocational training