I) Growth of Industries
A) railroadsAmerica’s 1st big business
Promontory Point, Utah
1) Transcontinental Railroad (1869)
America’s 1st “trust” (form of monopoly)
B) Standard Oil: John D. Rockefeller
C) US Steel: Andrew Carnegie
D) Thomas Edison
light bulb
movie camera
phonograph
II) Pro-Business Government (laissez-faire)
“leave alone”
A) Morrill Act
created A&M Colleges
B) Interstate Commerce Act
regulate business that crosses state lines
C) Sherman Antitrust Act
designed to break up monopolies
III) Indian Wars (1492-1868 (then) 1876-1890)
A) Little Big Horn (1876)
Sioux Indians, led by Crazy Horse & Sitting Bull, wiped out Custer’s cavalry
B) Wounded Knee (1890)
last “battle” of the Indian Wars
C) Bureau of Indian Affairsgovernment management of the reservations
(areas of poor land set aside for the Indians)
1) Dawes Act of 1887 (assimilation)
IV) The West
A) Cattle Ranching (Big Business of the West)
Blacks who settled in Nebraska in 1874
B) Settlement
1) Exodusters
gave away free land to encourage settlement
2) Homestead Act & Timber Culture Act
3) barbed wire, McCormick reaper, & steel plow
C) Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Turner Thesis”said that the American frontier acted like a safety valve and people could pack up and move West to start over in times of trouble. It eased the pressure on society.
John Deere
D) dime novels & wild west shows
E) conservation
preserving the environment
Buffalo Bill Cody
V) The Gilded Agea term coined by Mark Twain in which America looked good on the outside (rich & prosperous), but underneath it had many social problems
A) Social Darwinismapplied Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, as written in his Origin of Species, to society in that those who were strong enough to do well would do so and all the others would fail— in other words, it’s the “survival of the fittest” in everyday life
B) conspicuous consumption
showing off one’s wealth
C) Political Corruption
1) Tweed Ring (Tammany Hall)controlled NY City politics
2) Grant Administration (1868-1876): Credit Mobilierrailroad bribery scandal
3) Assassination of James A. Garfieldby a man who wanted a government
job (led to the Pendleton Act)
4) Grover Clevelandonly President to serve two nonconsecutive terms
VI) “New” Immigrants
“New” = those who came to the US after the Civil War (“Old” = those who came before)“New” = Catholic & Jewish from S. & E. Europe (“Old” = Protestant from N. & W. Europe)
1) Ellis Islandfor immigrant processing
B) tenements
C) nativism
cramped housing for the poor in large cities
discrimination against those not born here
1) Chinese Exclusion Act & the Gentlemen’s Agreement
limited Asian immigration
D) sweatshopswhere people worked long hours for little pay
VII) Elections of 1896 & 1900: Williams Jennings Bryan (D) vs. William McKinley (R)
Gold Standard: the government could only print money that equaled the amount of gold they had.
A) Gold Standard vs. Silver Standard
With more silver available than gold, they could print more money & more people could have access to it. Supporters of this “bimetallism” included Midwest farmers who were part of the Grange Movement, Populist Party, & the former Greenback Party.
VIII) Spanish-American War (1898)
A) Imperialismtaking over someone else's country—imperialism is Social Darwinism in practice because the stronger country is taking over the weaker one
1) Open Door PolicyAmerica's answer to the Spheres of Influence in China where anyone could trade their instead of specific areas of foreign economic control
B) Yellow Journalism
1) William Randolph Hearst: “you provide the pictures, and I’ll provide the war”
sensationalizing a story to sell more papers
C) USS Maine
D) Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders: San Juan Hill (Cuba)
A) Social Gospel
IX) Reform
Christian ideals (opposite of Social Darwinism)
B) Settlement Houses: Hull House (Jane Addams)
where the poor learned to take care of themselves
C) Civil Service Act of 1883 (reformed government hiring practices)
because of the assassination of Garfield (Pendleton Act)
D) American Federation of Labor (1st large-scale union)
1) Samuel Gompers
2) collective bargainingnegotiations between a union & a business3) Pullman Strike
it’s a federal crime to interfere with the delivery of the mail
E) Muckrakers
1) Ida Tarbell (Standard Oil)
investigative journalists
2) Upton Sinclair (The Jungle)
exposed unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry
a) Pure Food & Drug Act
X) Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt: The Square Deal
A) “Big Stick” policies
progressives = those who want social change through government regulation
“speak softly & carry a big stick”
1) trust-busting
2) Dollar Diplomacy
breaking-up monopolies
(Sherman Antitrust Act)
using America’s wealth to influence foreign policy (Latin America)
3) Roosevelt Corollary
the United States would intervene in the affairs of Latin American countries as per the Monroe Doctrine
4) Panama Canal
US encouraged a Panamanian uprising to build canal—makes quicker passage between oceans
B) Election of 1912: Bull Moose
Progressive Party (third party)
XI) Presidency of Woodrow Wilson: New Freedom
A) Federal Reserve Act
the Federal Reserve is the government’s bank & handles America’s monetary policy
B) Progressive Amendments
1) 16th income tax
2) 17th direct election of Senators
3) 18th Prohibition
4) 19th women’s suffrage
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