Transcript Post-Civil War America

Post-Civil War America
•Closing of the frontier
•End of the “Indian problem”
•Problems for farmers
•Rise of industry
•Labor movement
Closing the
frontier
• Transcontinental Rail was huge! One
of the great engineering feats of
American history
• Whenever a discovery was made (like
CA in ‘49 or the Comstock Lode in ‘59)
Mining towns like Virginia City in
Nevada would pop up…these are the
“Wild West” towns you imagine.
• Immigrants and other native -born
wanting land
All this contributed to the closing of the
frontier
The expansion of rail opened the west
• Now you can farm the
Great Plains!
– The big lure was
cattle…which could be
shipped to Chicago for a
nice price- refrig car
(Stock Cars)
(Refrigerator
Cars)
Live Cattle
Dressed Beef
1882
366,487
2,633
1883
392,095
16,365
1884
328,220
34,956
1885
337,820
53,344
1886
280,184
69,769
Year
Homesteaders
• To fuel development…the gov’t offered free
land, (homestead act of 1862 live footage)
• railroad companies offered land
– Building a railroad was kind of like building a
walmart today
• This all led to speculators buying up land and
rapid speculation about development
The frontier “closed” by 1890 census
• Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis
• He wrote about the impact of the frontier in American
history and how it shaped the American character.
– Broke down class distinctions, promoted independence
• every American generation returned "to primitive
conditions on a continually advancing frontier line”
• “the promotion of individualistic democracy was the most important
effect of the frontier. Individuals, forced to rely on their own wits and
strength, he believed, were simply too scornful of rank to be amenable to
the exercise of centralized political power”
As more and more people head west,
who gets the shaft?
• Tensions and issues with Native Americans
escalated and required reconciliation
• Miners and Railroad companies pressured
natives to relinquish lands and the military for
support/protection
The Native “Wars”
• Great Plains Natives (Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, Comanche) were
nomadic.
– The introduction of the horse by the Spanish changed them
• Originally, the policy was just to move the natives west of the
Mississippi (Oklahoma means “red-man’s land”)
– 1834 federal government designated the entire Great Plains as an
enormous reservation
• That all changed as more and more people went west
– More treaties signed, which assigned lands to Natives and promised
whites would stay off
• Massacre at Sand Creek in 1864 in CO- 200 Cheyenne
Natives fought against
encroachment
• Treaties were signed and broken by
both sides
• 1868-big one with the Sioux
(leader was Sitting Bull)
– Gold was discovered in Black Hills and in
came the miners!
– Custer made is stand at Little Bighorn in 1877
– Ghost Dance movement (1890) resulted in…
– “Battle” of Wounded Knee
• Buffalo herds had disappeared
• This natives had “lost”
To go over native relations…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Treat them as sovereign nations
Move them west
Put them on reservations and make treaties
“civilize” them-Dawes Act (1887)-total failure
Grant them citizenship (1924)
Indian Reorganization Act (1934)
Sovereignty in the 70’s.
Life on the homesteads was tough
• Sodbusters and barbed wire (1874)
• Most people failed due to the harsh
conditions (severe winter, plagues of
grasshoppers, etc.) and to infertile land
• Where are they going to go now? What are
their options?
Being a farmer meant that you had to
be a businessman
• Raised cash crops for national and local markets
• Required large investments in machinery
– Farmers had to take out loans to keep up with bigger farms
• As tech improved, and markets expanded, prices fell
– In order to keep up, they had to increase production
• Farmers became increasingly susceptible to things out of their
control…like shipping costs, market prices, taxes, and the
weather
• Railroad companies exploited the farmers…high rates on short
trips, rebates, etc.
• Hippocampus
Farmers organized into the National
Grange Movement
–
–
–
–
Established grange movement and worked to keep their costs low
Regulate rates charged by rail and elevators
Munn v Illinois…states can regulate businesses of a public nature
Farmers worked to get states to regulate, but rail found loopholes and would
charge more on their interstate rates
• Wabash v Illinois 1886 said that states could not regulate interstate trade
– So, Congress responded with the Interstate Commerce Act 1887
• required rates to be reasonable and just
• Also setup the ICC…which ultimately helped rail more (stabilized rates and competition)
Is it the role of government to regulate the economy?
• What is the I.R. doing to our vision of the role of the government?
Discontent was on the rise in the
1880’s for the farmers
• Farmers’ alliances spread throughout rural America
• National Alliance met in Ocala FL 1890…exerting
political power
– Drafted a platform…(Ocala Platform)
•
•
•
•
Direct election of senators
Graduated income tax
Lower tariff rates
Advocated inflation!
Rise of Industry
• “2nd Industrial Revolution”
• Railroads…first big corporations in America
– Created national (and international) markets,
which fostered mass production
• Time? 1883
– United nation-May 10, 1869
– Competition and consolidation brought these
companies into hands of a few
Big Industries
1. Rail (Vanderbilt,
Gould, Morgan)
2. Steel (Carnegie
and Bessemer
process)
3. Oil (Rockefeller)
Key concepts
• Vertical and Horizontal integration
• Trusts and Anti-trusts (Sherman Act in 1890)
– Law didn’t do much
• Laissez Faire Capitalism… “invisible hand”
– Let the markets be free! …but we like tariffs and subsidies.
• Railroads built with LOTS of help from government
• In comes Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer)
• “Gospel of Wealth” for Rock and Carn
• Speculation and financial panics (1/decade)
Inventions were also big!
•
•
•
•
•
Field’s transatlantic cable
Bell
Edison
Westinghouse
Kodak, gillette, etc.
– More consumer based products invented
– Increased marketing
• Sears and Montgomery Ward
Impact of Industrialization
• Birth of “Ostentatious”
– Top 10% owned 90% of nation’s wealth (today about 75%)
• Horatio Alger
– Notion of a self-made man
• Labor Discontent
Labor Movement
• Had its roots in the 1830’s but gained steam
post civil war
– Workers had become “de-skilled” and were, thus,
interchangeable
– Working environments were dangerous
– Labor was abundant…therefore value was low
– Business owners had all the power
• Utilized lockouts, scabs, blacklists, injunctions, yellowdog contracts, militia
• Fostered anti-union sentiment as being anti-American
Labor Discontent
• Molly Maguires-1874-75
– Penn coalfields, group working to improve conditions,
resorted to intimidation and violence
– Were antagonized by “Pinkertons” and found guilty-10
hanged…negative perception of labor movement
• Great Railroad Strike 1877
– During economic depression, rail companies cut wages
– Started in B&O, became national in scale
– People died with violence
Attempt to go National
• These unions advocated for
•
•
•
•
•
8 hour workday
Monetary reform
Abolition of child labor
Abolition of trusts and monopolies
Mechanics lein laws
• National Labor Union -1866…faded by 1877
• Knights of Labor …advocated arbitration not strikes (equality too)
– advocated reform measures
– Grew in popularity until Haymarket (May 4 1886)-Anarchists?
– Skilled and unskilled…“all who produce”
• American Federation of Labor (1886)
– Samuel Gompers…advocated higher wages and walkouts
• He wanted a skilled-labor union…unskilled watered their power down
• IWW …socialism emerges under Debs (1905)
– Industrial union…not just craftsman union
Significant Labor Events
•
•
•
•
Molly Maguires -1874-75
Great Railroad Strike- 1877
Haymarket- 1886
Homestead Strike (Carnegie Steel)-1892
– Bloody battles-mercenary police and gov’t protection
• Pullman Strike 1894 (pay cut w/o rent cut)
– Pres. Cleveland sends out military to put down strikers
• “interfered with delivery of mail”
• Courts used an injunction to put down strike…alliance b/t gov and biz
• Debs was the labor leader-sent to jail for violating injunction
Growth of Socialism
• Eugene Debs and the IWW (Wobblies)
• Groups became more political in nature and
wanted to absorb socialist ideas.
– Debs went to prison
– He became a regular candidate for Pres
• Earned 900000 votes in 1912
– States started electing socialist congressmen
• Socialist mayors, etc.
The politics of the post-civil war
period were plagued by the
patronage question
• A president was even
killed over it! Garfield
• How
• Government
•
•
•
•
•
Allowed
Corruption
Has
Complexed
Many
Key political issues
• Patronage and civil service reform (Pendelton
act)
• Tariff issue
• Money
• Immigration
• Farm problems
Civil Service Reform: Campaign Contributions
Selected portions of the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act and current Illinois law
Section 11. That no...employee of any department, branch
or bureau of the executive, judicial, or military or naval
service of the United States, shall, directly or indirectly,
solicit or receive, or be in any manner concerned in
soliciting or receiving, any assessment, subscription, or
contribution for any political purpose whatever, from any
officer, clerk, or employee of the United States, or any
department, branch, or bureau thereof, or from any person
receiving any salary or compensation from moneys derived
from the Treasury of the United States. Section 13. No
officer or employee of the United States menitioned in this
act shall discharge, or promote, or degrade, or in manner
change the official rank or compensation of any other
officer or employee, or promise or threaten so to do, for
giving or withholding or neglecting to make any
contribution of money or other valuable thing for any
political purpose.
Section 15. That any person who shall be guilty of violating
any provision of the four foregoing sections [Covers
sections 11 and 13] shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be punished
by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by
imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or by
such fine and imprisonment both, in the discretion of the
court.
320/2. Prohibited political activity § 2. Prohibited political
activity. Any employee subject to this Act may be discharged
in accordance with the discharge procedures controlling his
position for participation during regular working hours in any
of the following acts:
(b) Soliciting money from any person for any political
purpose.
(c) Selling of distributing tickets for political meetings.
(g) Making contributions of money in behalf of any candidate
for office or of any public or political issue.
Populists
•
•
•
•
•
Restrict immigration and 8 hour workday
Nationalize rail and telegraph
Reclaim land
Farmers wanting inflation and regulation
1892 and 1896 elections
– 1896…William Jennings Bryan and a watershed
election
“If they say bimetallism is good, but that we cannot have it until other nations
help us, we reply, that instead of having a gold standard because England
has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism
because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open field
and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the
uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the
world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and
the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard
by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this
crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”