Transcript James L. Roark Michael P. Johnson Patricia Cline Cohen

The American Promise
A History of the United States
CHAPTER 18
Business and Politics in the Gilded Age,
1865-1900
All of Lecture 18 on Friday, January 25th
Railroads: America’s First Big Business
• Expanding on a Nationwide Scale—Military
conquest of America’s inland empire and the
dispossession of Native Americans paved the way
for an elaborate new railroad system; by 1900, the
United States boasted over 193,000 miles of
railroad track, more than all of Europe and Russia
combined; privately owned but publicly financed by
enormous land grants; epitomized the nexus of
business and politics in the Gilded Age.
The Communication Revolution
• The telegraph, developed by Samuel
F. B. Morse
• How did the telegraph transform
business?
Andrew Carnegie
• 1. Andrew Carnegie and Carnegie Steel—
– Rise of Carnegie
– Gave away more than $300 million before he died,
most notably to public libraries
• 2. Cutthroat Practices—
– The productivity Carnegie encouraged came at a
great price; pitted managers against each other;
workers achieved the output Carnegie demanded by
enduring long hours, low wages, and dangerous
working condition; only rival was the titan of the oil
industry, John D. Rockefeller.
John D. Rockefeller
•
1. Rockefeller’s Tactics—John D. Rockefeller founded the Standard
Oil Company in 1870; while he was the largest refiner in Cleveland,
Rockefeller demanded secret rebates from the railroads in
exchange for his steady business; enabled him to undercut his
competitors.
•
2. Tarbell’s Exposé—Journalist Ida B. Tarbell exposed Rockefeller’s
unsavory business practices in a series of articles that appeared in
McClure’s magazine from 1902 to 1905; contributed to the
American people’s unfavorable opinion of Rockefeller as the symbol
of heartless monopoly.
The Telephone and Electricity
1. Alexander Graham Bell—A Scottish immigrant;
invented a way to transmit voice over wire—the
telephone; soon Americans were communicating
locally and across the country with long-distance
telephone service.
• 2. Thomas Alva Edison—Embodied the old-fashioned
virtues of Yankee ingenuity and rugged individualism
that Americans most admired; pioneered the use of
electricity as an energy source; electricity became a
part of American urban life by the late nineteenth
century.
J. P. Morgan
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1. The “Money Trust”—John Pierpont Morgan loathed competition
and sought to eliminate it by substituting consolidation and
central control; dominated American banking and exerted an
influence so powerful that his critics charged he controlled a vast
“money trust.”
2. Reorganizing the Railroads—Morgan acted as a power broker in
the reorganization of the railroads and the creation of industrial
giants such as General Electric and U.S. Steel
3. Challenging Carnegie—In 1898, Morgan turned to the steel
industry, directly challenging Andrew Carnegie; supervised
mergers of several smaller companies that expanded to compete
with Carnegie; purchased Carnegie Steel for $480 million.
4. A New Corporate World—The acquisition signaled the passing of
one age and the coming of another: Carnegie represented the old
entrepreneurial order, Morgan the new corporate world; in 1901,
Morgan pulled Carnegie’s competitors into a huge new
corporation, United States Steel, the largest corporation in the
world.
Sectionalism and the New South
• 1. The Solid South?—Voters in the old
Confederate South remained loyal Democrats.
Voted for Democratic candidates in every
presidential election for the next seventy years
• 2. The New South—How was the South’s
economy affected by the war? After the war,
what was the North experiencing ? Where did
many Southerners go and why?
• 3. South still dominated what industry?
Gender, Race, and Politics
• 1. Limited Access to the Public Sphere—blacks
continued to face discrimination, especially in the
New South
• 2. Ida B. Wells and the Anti-lynching Movement
Women’s Activism
• 1. The National Woman Suffrage
Association
• 2. Women found ways to act politically
• 3. Temperance movement
• 4. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in
1874.
• 5. The Limits of Women’s Politics
Corruption and Party Strife
• The Election of 1880—Hayes managed to
alienate all factions in his party and
decided not to seek reelection in 1880;
the Republicans nominated a dark-horse
candidate, James A. Garfield, and a
Stalwart, Chester A. Arthur, to be his
running mate; Garfield won.
Garfield’s Assassination and Civil Service
Reform
1. Garfield’s Brief Presidency—Garfield, like Hayes, faced the
difficult task of remaining independent while pacifying the
party bosses and placating the reformers; after less than
four months in office, Garfield was assassinated by Charles
Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker who claimed to be
motivated by political partisanship.
• 2. Calls for Reform—Assassination led the press to condemn
Republican factionalism; attacks on the spoils system
increased; the public soon joined the chorus demanding
reform, which came with the passage of the Pendleton Civil
Service Act in 1883; brought some fourteen thousand jobs
under a merit system that required examinations for office
and made it impossible to remove jobholders for political
reasons.
Reform and Scandal: The Campaign of
1884
• 1. Blaine versus Cleveland—James G. Blaine
assumed leadership of the Republican Party
after Garfield’s assassination and captured the
presidential nomination in 1884; the
Democrats’ candidate, Grover Cleveland, the
reform governor of New York. Cleveland won
the election, and the Democrats won back the
White House after twenty-five years of
Republican rule.
The Tariff and the Politics of Protection
•
1. Debating the Tariff—In the 1880s, the tariff became a potent
political issue; the high tariff generated a huge surplus that sat in the
U.S. Treasury’s vaults, depriving the nation of money that might
otherwise have been invested to create jobs and roads;
•
2. A New Republican Coalition—Republican Party seized on the tariff
issue to forge a new national coalition; the tactic worked, and
Republican Benjamin Harrison was elected president in 1888.
•
3. Changing Views on the Tariff—Back in power, the Republicans
passed the highest tariff in the nation’s history in 1890; but the
strategy backfired; Americans had elected Harrison to preserve
protection but not to enact a higher tariff; angry voters swept
Republicans out of Congress in the election of 1890, and in 1892,
Harrison lost to Grover Cleveland, whose call for tariff revision had
lost him the election in 1888.
Railroads, Trusts, and the Federal Government
Federal Regulation—Americans increasingly agreed on the need for
federal regulation of the railroads and federal legislation against the
trusts
The Interstate Commerce Commission—The Supreme Court proved
hostile to state efforts to regulate the railroads; prompted Congress
to pass the Interstate Commerce Act (1887), which created the
nation’s first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce
Commission (ICC).
The Sherman Antitrust Act—Concern over the growing power of the
trusts led Congress to pass the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890;
outlawed pools and trusts but the Supreme Court gutted this act,
severely restricting its scope.
Panic and Depression
The Panic of 1893—In 1893, President Cleveland had
scarcely begun his second term in office when the nation fell
into a deep economic depression; it appeared that the U.S.
Treasury might not be able to meet its obligations and fall
into bankruptcy.
Morgan’s Plan—J. P. Morgan suggested a plan whereby a
group of bankers would purchase $65 million in U.S.
government bonds, paying in gold; Cleveland accepted.
Continued Hardship—The press claimed incorrectly that both
the president and Morgan reaped tremendous financial
benefits from this transaction; Cleveland’s action managed to
salvage the gold standard; did not save the country from
hardship as the depression continued.