Gilded Age

United States History "The Gilded Age" Unit Portrait of America: Heilbroner, "The Master of Steel: Andrew Carnegie" McCullough, "The Brooklyn Bridge: A Monument to American Ingenuity and Daring" "Gilded Age" - Key Terms Transcontinental Railroads Union Pacific & Central Pacific Land Grants Power - natural monopolies: Vanderbilt Industrial stimulation Corruption: stock watering, rebates, pools Regulation - Wabash case? 0 Interstate Commerce Act (1887) Captains of Industry (Robber Barons) Carnegie - steel (Bessemer process) - integration" Rockefeller - oil - "horizontal integration"

Morgan - banking - "interlocking directorates" - buys out Carnegie for $400 mil. , US Steel "The American Beauty Rose can only be grown by sacrificing the early buds that grow up around it" Standard Oil - by 1877 controlled 95% of oil refineries Gospel of Wealth - Justification? Natural selection - Social Darwinism Regulation - Sherman Anti-Trust Law (1890) - forbade combinations in restraint of trade South lags behind - kept there by systems like "Pittsburgh Plus" Unions Workers hurt by "ironclad" and "yellow-dog" contracts, company towns National Labor Union (1886) Knights of Labor (1877) - for economic and social reform

Haymarket Square, 1886 American Federation of Labor (1886) - only skilled workers - led by Samuel Gompers - for better wages, hours, and conditions - used walkout and boycott Life in the Cities 10 million immigrants between 1860-1890 New Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe - faced challenges to assimilate and yet preserve culture and tradition "American fever" - land of opportunity, "streets paved in gold"? Patronage - trading Jobs and services for votes for a political "boss" Settlement House (e. g. Hull House by Jane Adams) to help immigrants Nativism Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) Question of leadership for blacks Booker T.

Washington vs. W. E. B. DuBois The Great West and Farming Problems for Indians: Broken treaties, railroad, diseases, alcohol, killing of the buffalo (from 1 5 mil to less than 1,000 by 1885) Dawes Severalty Act (1887) - forced assimilation Carlisle Indian School Mining in the West - gold and silver attract settlers (Pikes Peak, Comstock Lode) The Long Drive - Texas cowboys driving cattle to "cow towns" to put cattle on railcars Homestead Act - 160 acres - promises and realities Dry farming - needed to confront the challenging climate Wheat flourished in the West 890 census declares the frontier "closed" - significance? Turner''s Thesis) Cash Crops - due to technological advancements, e. g. the combine Vulnerability - unprotected, competitive world markets vs. TARIFF protected manufactured goods 1870s lack of currency forced crop price down - hard on DEBTORS (farmers have mortgages) Droughts - starting in summer of 1887 Farmer response: Political - Grange (1867), Greenback Labor Party, Farmers'' Alliance Populists (The People''s Party) - platform issues... pantc of 1893 Coxey''s Army (1894)- unemployment relief through public works program Pullman Strike (1894) - led by Debs Election of 1896...