Gilded Age (1865-1900)

Test Study Guide Questions Answered

African Americans

• After Reconstruction, black voting rights were limited by the poll tax, literacy tests, and grandfather clause.

• Jim Crow Laws were a series of laws passed in the South that forced separation of the races in public places (segregation). It described segregation.

• The Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson, ruled that “separate but equal” did not violate the 14th Amendment. It made segregation a fact of life in the nation.

African Americans

• Booker T. Washington felt that gradual integration was the best way for African Americans to become accepted. He thought that AA’s should accept some forms of segregation.

• Booker thought that technical education would lead to economic success

• Booker thought that economic success would lead to equality.

African Americans

• Booker T. Washington created a technical college called Tuskegee Institute to train AA’s in skills needed by white Americans.

• W.E.B. Du Bois did not think the same way as Booker did. Booker had been a slave and Du Bois had graduated from Harvard.

• He felt that immediate equality and all rights of the Constitution was what the AA’s needed and deserved.

African Americans

• At the Niagara Falls Convention, Du Bois demanded that the U.S. government enforce the Constitutional rights of AA’s

• Ida B. Wells was an African American journalist who wrote of the horrors of lynching.

• W.E.B. Du Bois created the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) to fight racism in court.

Westward Movement

• There is an area of the United States referred to as the Great American Desert. This is known as the Great Plains.

• In order to have people settle this area, the government in 1862, granted settlers 160 acres of land for only $10 if they lived and farmed there for 5 years. This was known as the Homestead Act.

Westward Movement

• After the Civil War, many African Americans and others headed west for this land.

• Many people started cattle farms on the open plains, open range, since their cattle could roam where they wanted to go to find food.

• This worked well for awhile, but a man named Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire and the days of the open range was over.

Westward Movement

• These cattle farmers wanted a way to get there cattle to market and they would travel great distances on cattle drives. These trails would later be used by settlers heading west. One of the best known was the Chisholm Trail.

• Gold had been discovered in California in 1849 and many people had settled there. With all of these people moving west and the need for beef back east and many other raw materials a better and faster form of transportation was needed.

Westward Movement

• The Transcontinental Railroad came about as a way of connecting both coasts and all the land in between.

• The Transcontinental Railroad was completed when the east met the west in Promontory Point, Utah. They drove a gold spike to commemorate the completion.

• Now people and goods would be able to move quickly from coast to coast.

Westward Movement

• One of the groups used to build the railroad was the Chinese. Many groups did not like foreigners (Nativist) and they thought the Chinese were taking many of their jobs.

• They decided that the Chinese should be kept out of the U.S. and they passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Native Americans

• With so many people headed west, the land that belonged to the Native Americans was quickly shrinking.

• At first the Indians were helpful to the settlers, but after they started taking more and more land they started to fight for survival of their way of life.

• The U.S. government sent the military in to “protect” the settlers and to force the Indians onto reservations.

Native Americans

• The U.S. government made many treaties with the Indians, but rarely kept their promises.

• They sent General George Custer to try and place the Sioux back on their reservation but he was defeated at the Little Big Horn.

• The government told the Indians they would protect their land and take care of them if they would stay on the reservation (land that belonged to the Native Americans)

Native Americans

• The government set up an Indian Board to oversee the reservation, but they were corrupt and led to more problems than they solved.

• When gold was found in the Black Hills of Dakota, sacred Indian land, people went onto this land for the gold and the government sided against the Indians.

Native Americans

• When the railroad was going through they needed to kill many buffalo in order to keep the trains safe. This hurt the Indians because they needed the buffalo to survive.

• The barbed wire had cut off the buffalo trails and now the train was killing buffalo so the Indians fought back

• In order to force the Indians to give up, the government decided to kill all of the buffalo.

Native Americans

• When the buffalo was first seen they were hunted for meat and furs. Now they were hunted just so the Indians would give up. The buffalo was hunted almost to extinction.

• The end of Indian resistance, the last “battle” of the Indian wars was in 1890, known as Wounded Knee.

• The Dawes Severalty Act was passed in order to assimilate the Indians into the white man’s world.

Indian Assimilation

• The Dawes Act would divide the Reservation land into 160 acres for each person on the reservation. This left land over which would go back to the government.

• It would also send the Native American children to schools where they would have their hair cut, wear “white man” clothes, and learn English and become Christian. This ended, for all intents and purposes, the Native American way of life.

Inventors and Inventions

• With the increase in industry and the growth of cities came the need for new, better, and faster ways of doing things.

• Many people of the time came up with inventions, but no one could compete with Thomas Edison.

• Edison improved on the light bulb which allowed factories to work all night which increased their profits and made it safer for the worker.

Inventors and Inventions

• Edison also invented the motion picture camera as well as phonograph and many other items which we are familiar with today.

• Although the light bulb increased safety for the worker, it did not make it safe to work in many factories.

• Being able to operate 24 hours a day, did make businesses profitable and that brought many people to cities looking for work.

Inventors and Inventions

• With the increase in cities came the need for buildings to expand upward. This brought about a need for a stronger material and the Bessemer Process was a way of changing iron into steel which was a stronger product.

• Another invention of this time period was the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell. Today, most of you can not go anywhere without this device created in 1876.

Inventions and Innovations

• Another type of invention was the manner in which work was accomplished. Henry Ford came up with the assembly-line manufacturing for his automobile.

• The Wright brothers invented the airplane • Limited Liability was an innovation which

helped corporations grow by making it safer for people to invest in company stock.

Captain’s of Industry

• Some men took advantage of this time period to increase their wealth develop industries.

• J.P. Morgan (finance-Banking)• John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil Company)• Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroads)• Andrew Carnegie (Steel)• Many farmers looked upon these men as

“Robber Barons” because of their wealth.

Industry• Although these men did make a lot of money and

most did not look kindly on the workers, there were some who gave of their wealth to help the less fortunate.

• Andrew Carnegie wrote a book called Wealth or The Gospel of Wealth which talked about philanthropy-giving away wealth to benefit others.

• Other businessmen went by the theory of Social Darwinism – the best businessmen will rise to the top and get rich.

Businesses

• The U.S. works on a Free Enterprise system which allows industries to decide for themselves how their business should be run.

• Laissez-Faire: Let alone is when government uses only a minimum amount of legislation to control businesses.

• Social Darwinism: Only the strong survive, is when the best business men get wealthier.

Businesses

• A Corporation is an organization owned by several people who sell stock – shares of ownership in the company to allow the company to grow.

• Limited liability – people only lose what they put into the company, made it more desirable for people to own stock.

• Some businesses tried to control all of the supply of a product, called a Monopoly.

Businesses

• Monopolies are not allowed by the government, so some businesses tried to get around this by using other types of monopolies.

• Vertical Integration – is a method where business would control all industries related to their primary business.

• You own everything that makes up your product, like a pizza – cheese, flour, delivery cars, etc…

Businesses

• Horizontal Integration – a method of combining several like companies into one.

• Coke and Pepsi into Pokepsi.

Business and Workers

• Some businesses created whole towns in order to have a steady supply of workers.

• These “Company Towns” did not treat their workers well, kept wages low, were not concerned about safety (many workers injured) and had children working in their factories.

• Because of poor conditions and safety issues, workers turned to unions to help them.

Unions and Workers

• Many Unions developed during this time period to help the workers.

• The Knights of Labor, headed by Terence Powderly, accepted all types of workers.

• The AFL, headed by Samuel Gompers, only accepted skilled workers.

• All unions, however, worked for the good of the laborer, working to lower hours, stop child labor, and increase safety.

Unions v Businesses

• Companies would try and fight Unions in order to keep making money as they always had.

• Business owners would use lockouts, blacklists, injunctions, Pinkertons, and yellow-dog contracts to stop the Unions. In large strikes the government would send in troops.

• The Unions would use boycotts, picketing closed shops, and strikes.

Immigrants

• When the “New World” was first settled and into the early part of the 19th century, most of the immigrants came from Western and Northern Europe. (Great Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, etc..)

• Later in the 1800s “new” immigrants started to arrive from Eastern and Southern Europe and Asia.

• This would include, Italians, Russian Jews, Poles, and Chinese

Immigrants and Political Machines

• Immigrants arriving from Europe would get their first sight of America from Ellis Island.

• Immigrants arriving from Asia would get their first sight of America from Angel Island.

• Many Immigrants would be met by members of the political machines – informal political groups designed to gain and keep power. The most famous of which was Tammany Hall, run by Boss Tweed.

Political Machines v Government

• The most famous boss of political machines was William “Boss” Tweed of New York.

• When the Immigrants came to America they would be met by members of the political machines and given help in return for votes.

• While the political machines were in power they would give jobs to people who helped them win votes and stay in power. This is known as patronage. It is just another form of jobs for votes or the spoils system.

Political Machines v Government

• In order to keep political machines from rewarding friends with political jobs they were not qualified for, the government passed the Pendleton Act – which required civil service exams to qualify for government jobs

• Another way the government helped Immigrants was through Americanization. This is where the new Immigrant would become knowledgeable about American culture.

Immigrants

• What was crucial to the Americanization of Immigrant children was the public schools system.

• Immigrant children would be able to learn the language and then help their families to understand the language and the American way of life.

• New Immigrants would usually live in ethnic neighborhoods when they arrived in the U.S.

Immigrants

• The living conditions were poor and dangerous.• Their were reformers, however, who tried to

help the Immigrants.• Jacob Riis wrote “How the Other Half Lives.”

which is about the horrors of city life.• Jane Addams started Hull House, which was a

Settlement House established in poor neighborhoods where middle-class people lived and helped the poor.

Immigrants

• With the living conditions being so bad for everyone in the cities, new movements to help the needed arose.

• The Social Gospel Movement – a movement built around the philosophy that people should help those who are less fortunate.

• It was built on the Christian principle of helping your fellow man. (YMCA, Salvation Army, and other Christian groups were started)

Gold v Silver

• In the 1896 election the issue was gold v silver money reform.

• William Jennings Bryan wanted the country to coin more silver money to get the country out of debt. He gave a “cross of gold” speech which was a euphemism for gold being a burden for the common man.

• William McKinley and others wanted to stay on the gold standard. When gold was found in Alaska and other places, the issue was decided.