Begins with “Waving the Bloody Begins with “Waving the Bloody Shirt,” Credit Mobilier and the Shirt,” Credit Mobilier and the

Compromise of 1877Compromise of 1877

What does it mean to “wave the bloody shirt?”

Reviving the images and gory memories of the Civil War to get elected

Credit Mobilier

Politicians receive RR kickbacks when a fake construction company is exposed

Election of 1876Election of 1876When irregular election returns are

tabulated, the Dems and Reps make a deal

Begins with “Waving the Bloody Begins with “Waving the Bloody Shirt,” Credit Mobilier and the Shirt,” Credit Mobilier and the

Compromise of 1877Compromise of 1877Hayes (Northern Republican) wins and

the last remaining Union troops are pulled out of the South (ending Reconstruction)

Blacks are left to fend for themselves

Remember the “redeemers” from the last chapter? Is the New South going to be any different from the Old South? (there have only been 6 black US Senators in our history)

Racial and Ethnic ClashesRacial and Ethnic ClashesBlack codes become Jim Crow laws legalizing

segregation, literacy tests, poll taxes & grandfather clauses

Former slaves become sharecroppers and find their conditions unchanged

Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) upholds segregation with its “separate but equal” doctrine

Chinese resentment leads to the Exclusion Act barring further immigration from China

Remember that streak of “nativism” we’ve talked about?

1. A Two-1. A Two-Party Party

Stalemate Stalemate with Well-with Well-Defined Defined Voting Voting BlocsBlocs

Characteristics of Gilded Characteristics of Gilded Age PoliticsAge Politics

Who was a Democrat? Who was a Republican

White southerners(preservation ofwhite supremacy)

Catholics

Recent immigrants(esp. Jews)

Urban working poor (pro-labor)

Most farmers

Northern whites(pro-business)

African Americans

Northern Protestants

Most of the middleclass

Rural, small-town

2. Intense 2. Intense Voter Loyalty Voter Loyalty

to theto theTwo MajorTwo Major

Political PartiesPolitical Parties

3. A Laissez Faire (“hands 3. A Laissez Faire (“hands off”) Federal Governmentoff”) Federal Government

From 1870-1900 Government did very little domestically.

Main duties of the federal government:

Deliver the mail.

Maintain a national military.

Collect taxes & tariffs.

Conduct a foreign policy.

Exception administer the annual Civil War veterans’ pension.

“I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.” - Boss Tweed

4. The Presidency as a 4. The Presidency as a Symbolic OfficeSymbolic Office

Party bosses ruled like “Boss” Tweed in NYC.

Presidents should avoid offending anyfactions within their own party.

The President just doled out federal jobs.

1865 53,000 people

1890 166,000 people

5. 5. Rule by Party Bosses at the Rule by Party Bosses at the State and Local Level State and Local Level (“all politics is local”)(“all politics is local”)

Cities were growing fast!

City government wasdisorganized with fewreliable services (police, fire, welfare)

Immigrants wanted protection and help

Trade favors/jobs for votes = patronage (Bribes, kickbacks, graft)

1881: Garfield Assassinated!1881: Garfield Assassinated!1881: Garfield Assassinated!1881: Garfield Assassinated!

Charles Guiteau

Pendleton Act (1883)Pendleton Act (1883)Civil Service Act

The “Magna Carta” of civil service reform.

1883 14,000 out of 117,000 federal govt. jobs became civil service exam positions.

1900 100,000 out of 200,000 civil service federal govt. jobs

1884 Presidential Election1884 Presidential Election1884 Presidential Election1884 Presidential Election

Cleveland’s First TermCleveland’s First Term1st Dem. elected president since 1856.

A public office is a public trust!

His laissez faire presidency:

Opposed bills to assist the poor aswell as the rich.

Vetoed over 200 special pension billsfor Civil War veterans!

Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people

The Tariff IssueThe Tariff Issue During the Civil War, there were no

Democrats (Southerners) to block higher tariffs

After the Civil War, Congress raisedtariffs to protect new US industries.

Big business wanted to continue this;consumers did not.

1885 tariffs earned the US $100,000,000 in surplus!

Tariffs became a major issue in the 1888presidential election.

Disposing the SurplusDisposing the SurplusDisposing the SurplusDisposing the Surplus

1888 Presidential Election1888 Presidential Election1888 Presidential Election1888 Presidential Election

• What characteristics, previously discussed, does this map illustrate?

Changing Public OpinionChanging Public Opinion Americans wanted the federal government to deal

with growing social and economic problems and to curb the power of the trusts:

Interstate Commerce Act – 1887

Created the first true regulatory agency

Shipping rates had to be reasonable, just and published

Secret rebates and price discrimination were outlawed

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)(1890)

The first federal antitrust law

Authorized federal action against any "combination in the form of trusts or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade."

PopulismPopulism Political movement that tried to help out the nation’s

struggling farmers

“What you farmers need to do is raise less corn and more Hell!” – Populist organizer Mary Lease

Why Were the Farmers in Why Were the Farmers in Trouble?Trouble?

Mechanizationmore machines = more debtmore production = lower prices

New farm landmore land (on credit) = more debt

Crop specializationreliance on cash crops

Natural disasters flood, insects, drought

Corporate greed (especially the RR)

What options did farmers What options did farmers really have? really have?

Demands of the Farmers Demands of the Farmers Regulate the railroad companies

Make cash more available (back the dollar with silver and gold, so dollar will be worth less) = bimetallism

Low tariffs because high protective tariffs did not “protect” the farmers

Politically, a single term for President and Vice-President and the popular election of Senators

To get industrial workers to support them: 8-hour workday; restrict immigration

Representing the Representing the

Farmers Farmers 1867: The Patrons

of Husbandry (The Grange) tried toform cooperatives

A farmers’ “union” founded by Oliver Kelley

1892: Birth of the Populist, or People’s Party tapping into discontent with the “powers that be” among the folks

The Omaha PlatformThe Omaha Platform1. We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and

gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1.

2. We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily increased…

3. We demand a graduated income tax.

4. We demand that all State and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government, economically and honestly administered.

5. Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people.

6. The telegraph and telephone should be owned and operated by the government in the interest of the people.

The Omaha PlatformThe Omaha Platform7. The land should not be monopolized for speculative

purposes. All land now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only

8. We demand a free ballot and a fair count in all elections, and the adoption by the States of the unperverted Australian or secret ballot system

9. The initiative and referendum…

10.A one-term limit for the President and Vice-President

11.The election of Senators of the United States by a direct vote of the people

12.We oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corporation for any purpose

The Drumbeat of Discontent The Drumbeat of Discontent An epidemic of strikes in 1892 raised the

prospects of an industrial workers and farmer alliance with the Populists

Homestead Strike

At A. Carnegie’s Pittsburghsteel mill angry workers attacked Pinkerton guards

10 people were killed, 60 wounded

Industrial workers/unions were seen as violent revolutionaries and Populists were unable to unite Southern farmers (blacks and whites, together?)

1896: The Democrats take their issues

1892 Presidential Election1892 Presidential Election1892 Presidential Election1892 Presidential Election

CHAPTER 24: Industry Comes of Age

1. __Politically, economically and socially, there have been few “projects” as all encompassing and integral to the development of the United States than the expansion of the railroads. 

2. __Like all get-rich-quick schemes, the building of railroads had its drawbacks.

3. __Alexander Hamilton would have been pleased to see what railroads did to the United States.

4. __Technological inventions ruined the agrarian village lifestyle of the pre-industrial era.

5. __Life improved for most people between 1800 - 1900.

6. __The role of the federal government began to change during this time period and (since we’ve already mentioned Alexander Hamilton) Thomas Jefferson would not have been pleased about legislation coming out of Washington, D.C.

7. __Instead of competing, the railroad tycoons found strength in numbers by cooperating.

The Railroad The Railroad Built with government subsidies and land

grants

Frontier villages could become flourishing cities

1869: the first Transcontinental Railroad is completed (by 1893 there were 5)

Steel was vital providing standard rails and the airbrake made travel safer

Trains were no longer considered “wheeled torture chambers”

Railroads were Revolutionary Railroads were Revolutionary Physical unification of the country

The nation’s first “big business”

20% of American investment dollars

More employees than any other business

Raw materials to factories / Products to consumers

Agricultural products from the West to population centers in the East

Railroad operators had to keep a common schedule so time zones were introduced

The maker of millionaires

Railroad Abuses were Common Railroad Abuses were Common Stock watering to inflate the RR’s value

Bribes to judges and politicians

They had more control over the lives of the people than most political leaders

Pooling to share profits

Small farmers usually paid higher rates than the large, industrial customers

Wabash v. Illinois ruled it was the federal government’s job to regulate interstate commerce (1886)

The I.C.C. set the precedent that the government was bound to protect the public interest (1887)

Mechanization and Innovation Mechanization and Innovation Investment + abundant natural resources (along

with the means to transport them) + the sheer size of the American market + cheap, plentiful, unskilled labor + innovators and inventors (like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell) = success

By 1894 the United States was the world leader in manufacturing

Trusts (business combinations) make millions while reducing competition

Vertical integration (not a monopoly) Carnegie Steel

Horizontal integration (monopoly) Standard Oil

Interlocking directorates

The Two Rockefellers: A “Robber Baron”?...

The Two Rockefellers:…or A “Captain of Industry”?

John D. Rockefeller:

"The American Beauty rose can be produced in all its splendor only by sacrificing the early

buds that grow up around it."

The Gospel of WealthThe Gospel of Wealth Herbert Spencer and other philosophers

were often labeled Social Darwinists

Individuals “won” their station in life on the basis of competition and their natural talents

This could also be applied to entire nations (like the U.S. later) dominating “lesser peoples”

Self-justification of the wealthy = contempt for the poor

Some Gilded Age capitalists did believe they had a duty to give back to the society that gave them their $

“He who dies rich, dies disgraced” – A. Carnegie

……And in the South?And in the South?James B. Duke revitalizes the tobacco

industry with machine-rolled cigarettes

Resistance to Southern industrialization

Northern manufactured goods were given preferential treatment by the railroads

The RR favored Southern raw materials

“Pittsburgh Pricing” to keep southern steel from heading north

Keeping labor cheap kept southerners in poverty

The Impact of the Industrial The Impact of the Industrial RevolutionRevolution

“Jeffersonian ideals were withering…”

Rural American migrants and European immigrants headed to factories

Clerical work and a new “ideal” woman (“Gibson Girl”)

Growing gap between rich and poor

Dependent workers

Clamor for international trade

The Worsening Condition of Labor The Worsening Condition of Labor Low cost workers were easily replaced

Frederick Taylor published the Principles of Scientific Management in 1909 encouraging managers to view workers as interchangeable parts

Machines and unskilled workers replaced skilled craftspeople

Working conditions were less than ideal

Small, crowded rooms

Specialization made workers tired, bored, and more likely to be injured.

Stale air and unsafe workplaces

Long hours and low wages with no job security

Labor UnionsLabor UnionsKnights of Labor

• 1st national labor union (1870s)

• Included both skilled and unskilled workers

• Terence V. Powderly became leader in 1879 and ended secrecy of organization.

American Federation of Labor

• Organized individual unions under one

• Skilled workers only

• Used collective bargaining (all workers acted collectively to negotiate with management

• Samuel Gompers was their most signficant leader