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APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Mr. Evans
I. Immigration:
A. The Immigrant:
- Immigrants trek began with walking. 1880 few immigrant peasants were from rural villages not close to a seaport or
a railroad.
- Walking put strict limits on the amount of baggage they could carry – far less than the steamships allowed per passenger.
- Immigrants came from Italy, Poland, Greece, Russia, Lithuania, etc…
- by 1890 half of all immigrants came form Eastern of Southern Europe.
- Steamship competition had driven prices low to $10 to $20 in steerage (the lowest class).
- On departure day you would be subjected to a rude bath and fumigation for lice on the docks and more than casual
examination by company doctors for contagious diseases (especially tuberculosis), insanity, feeblemindedness, and trachoma
(inflammation of eye that leads to blindness – common in Italy and Greece.)
- U.S. immigration would refuse entry to anyone who suffered from these diseases and the company that had brought them
over was required to take them back.
- Immigrant ships held as many as a 1000 people in steerage.
- No Cabins only large compartments formed by bulkheads in the hull.
- Travel took from 8 days to 2 weeks to arrive in New York.
- Harbor wait to be seen by U.S. Immigration could take up to 2 weeks.
B. Ellis Island:
- 1892 U.S. Immigration Service opened a facility designed specifically for the “processing” of newcomers on Ellis Island,
(a land fill site) in New York Harbor that had served as a arsenal.
- The facility was designed to control the stream of immigrants into controlled lines through corridors and
examination rooms to be inspected by physicians, nurses, and officials.
- Ellis Island could handle 8 to 15 thousand immigrants a day while thousands waited.
- Doctors: Chalked F placed on clothing meant facial rash – separated to be examined more closely.
Chalked H place on clothing meant suspected of Heart Disease.
Chalked L placed on clothing meant Limp and examination for rickets – Children were made to do a little dance to
avoid this disease.
Chalked Circle around a Cross meant feeblemindedness and immediate return to the ship.
- Thousands of families were faced with the awful decision, which had to be made within moments to return to Europe with
a denied entry relative or push on.
- Trick Question: “Do you have a job waiting for you?”
- The Contract Labor Law of 1885 forbade the making of pre-arrival agreements to work.
- 80 percent of those who entered Ellis Island were given passes and ferried the Battery or Manhattan.
- Every large ethnic group in America eventually founded Aid societies to provide new comers service to prevent them from
being swindled within hours of their arrival in the land of opportunity.
C. Statue of Liberty:
- Proper name is Liberty Enlightening the World.
- 1884 France gave the copper monument to the United States as a symbol of friendship and of the liberty that citizens enjoy
under a free form of government.
- Right Arm holds torch extended into the air.
- Left Arm holds a tablet bearing the date of the Declaration of Independence.
- At the feet is a broken shackle, symbolizing the overthrow of tyranny.
- “Give me our tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
D. New World Ghettos:
1. Jacob Riis – Danish immigrant Reporter and Photographer reported a map of New York “colored to designate
nationalities, would show more stripes than the skin of a zebra and more colors than the rainbow.”
- Riis published How the Other Half Lives describing the ghastly details of miseries of New York and other American cities:
over crowding, filth, disease, crime, immorality, and death against which the urban poor fought every day.
- Noted that immigrants lived neighborhoods separated into ethnic groups within a city.
- “Little Italy” / Italians – “Lower East Side” / “Jewville” / Jews – “Polack Town / Polish
- immigrants found solace in familiar language, customs, and foods.
- Ghetto served as a buffer from the hostilities of old stock Americans and frequently, the hostility of other ethnic groups with
whom it inhabitants competed for the lowest level jobs.
- Greenwich Village NY – Italian community people from Calabria controlled housing on some streets where immigrants from
Sicily on others.
- Jewish Neighborhoods – Galicia Jews (Polish) look and separated for Jews from Russia.
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- Rumanian Jews set up their own communities.
- Germans divided on the basis of Religion – Lutheran or Catholic.
- The ethnic ghetto served as an impediment to assimilation by permitting immigrants to cling to old ways and not come to
terms with the culture and customs of their adopted country.
2. Settlement House Movement:
- Began in England and came to America in 1886 with the opening of University Settlement House in New York City.
- Americans quickly abandoned the strong religious overtones of the English realizing it would be counterproductive and
divisive and counterproductive to promote Protestantism to their largely Catholic and Jewish Neighborhoods.
- Women would play a substantial role – particularly college educated women.
- 6 settlement Houses in 1891 to 400 by 1911.
- Jane Adams – Established the first American Settlement Houses, Hull House – in Chicago’s West Side.
- searched for solutions to the social problems fostered by urban industrialization.
- First Social Workers.
- 1907 Hull House had expanded into 13 buildings hosting a variety of activities.
- public baths, coffee shop, restaurant sold take out food to working women to tired to cook, a nursery and kindergarten
provided care for neighborhood children.
- classes, lectures, exhibits, musical instruction, and college extension courses.
- gymnasium, theater, manual training workshop, labor museum, first public playground in Chicago.
- Hull House attracted reformers from around the country.
- first to investigate the problems of the city with scientific precision.
- launched campaigns to improve housing, end child labor, fund playgrounds, mediate between labor and management, and
lobby for protective legislation.
- Political Activism – impossible to deal with urban problems without becoming involved politically.
- Part of the Progressive movement.
E. Asian Immigration:
1. China:
- China with a population of 430 million was suffering from severe unemployment, poverty, and famine.
- 1849 Gold rush drew some to California. By the time they arrived the gold was exhausted.
- worked in the jobs whites distained: cooks, laundryman, farm worker, domestic servant.
- 1860 35 thousand Chinese young men hoping to return to China after they had made their fortunes.
- 1860 only 1800 Chinese females many working as prostitutes.
- thriving Chinatowns in every west coast city – San Francisco, Sacramento, and most mining camps.
- Race and Culture kept Chinese separate.
“We are accustomed to an orderly society, but it seems as if the Americans are not bound by rules of conduct. It is best, if
possible to avoid any contact with them.” Chinese Immigration Leader
- Taiping Rebellion cost 20 million lives and thousands fled to Western America.
- 1860s The Central Pacific transcontinental railroad recruited Chinese laborers.
- 1864 3,000 to 6,000 a year Railroad Construction by 1868 12,000 to 20,000 a year.
- 1877 Chinese made up 18 percent of California’s population.
2. Angel Island: 1910 California opened Angel Island to deal with Asian migration.
3. Nativism:
- As long as there was plenty of work hostility toward Chinese was restrained.
- 1873 the country lapsed into a depression.
- Denis Kearney a San Francisco teamster began speaking to white working people at open air rallies in the sandlot (empty
lots), blaming their joblessness on the willingness of the Chinese to work of less than an Americans living wage.
- the Anti-Chinese movement inspired politicians to choke off Asian immigration.
- 1882 Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusionary Act – which forbade Chinese immigration.
- Many WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) Americans looked at the miniature Poland, China, and Greece, etc.. as
subversive to American culture.
II. Urbanization:
A. Population:
1. Cities 1880 1900
New York 1,773,000 3,437,000
Philadelphia 847,000 1,294,000
Chicago 503,000 1,699,000
2. US Population 1860 1880 1900
Population in Millions 32 50 76
Urban population 20 28 40
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B. Urban Environment:
1. Immigrants:
- The United States in 1840 had only 131 cities by 1900 over 1700
- Most immigrants had little money upon arrival or the education to obtain higher paying jobs so they remained in the growing
cities working long hours for little pay in rapidly expanding factories.
- Most immigrants found the move to have improved their standard of living.
- Rural American also began moving because cities offered better paying jobs besides the bright lights, running water, modern
plumbing, museums, libraries, and theaters.
2. Technology - Skyscraper Cities Develop:
“A town that crawled now stands erect, And we whose backs were bent above the (open) hearths know how it got its
spine.” Unknown Ironworker
- skyscraper, mighty bridges, paved streets, parks, public libraries, subways and sewers made for a rush to embrace new
technology making American cities the most modern in the world.
a. The Brooklyn Bridge May 1883:
- Proclaimed “one of the wonders of the world”
- Worlds longest suspension bridge soared over the east river in a single mile long span connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan.
b. The Elevator:
- Leonardo da Vinci had plans for a elevator in his drawings.
- elevators were in use in factories, mines and warehouses.
- 1860 Grave Otis patented the “Safety Hoister” and the elevator become safe enough for humans.
- ingenious mechanism consisting of two metal pieces fastened to the elevator platform. If the rope or cable supporting the
elevator was to break, the metal pieces would spring out and stop the downward motion.
- The elevator was a major factor in the urban real estate making it possible to build into the air.
c. Skyscrapers:
- with the invention of the elevator in the 1850s cast-iron allowed for the creation of 10 story buildings with the Pulitzer
Building climbing to 349 feet being the tallest in the world.
- with the advent of structural steel any thing was possible.
- Chicago gave rise to the skyscraper – rising out of the Great Fire of 1871 offered a generation of architects and engineers
the chance to experiment with new technologies.
- Architects “carried out of modern business life, simplicity, breadth, dignity.” “form follows function”.
- A fitting symbol of modern America, the skyscraper expressed and exalted the domination of corporate power.
d. Public Parks:
- Credit for America’s public park goes to one man landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead.
- designed parks in cities from Atlanta, Brooklyn, and Harford to Detroit, Chicago, and Louisville.
- laid out the grounds for the U.S Capital and planned the entire city of Riverside, Illinois.
- Boston Park system a seven mile ring Olmsted called the city’s emerald necklace.
- New York’s Central Park: directed the planting of more than five million trees, shrubs, and vines to trans form the eight
hundred acres between 59th and 110th streets into an oasis for urban dwellers.
“We want a ground to which people may easily go after their day’s work is done … where they may stroll for an hour,
seeing, hearing, and feeling nothing of the bustle ad jar of the streets.”
e. Mass Transit:
- 1890 Horse Car: railway car pulled by a horse – move 70 percent of urban traffic.
- 1873 Cable Cars – 20 cities including San Francisco - cars pulled along tracks by underground cables.
- 1887 Frank J. Sprague developed the Electric Trolley Car. Richmond Va. First electric trolley line.
- Chicago responded to traffic on the streets by building the first elevated railroad – L line still today.
- Boston and New York built the first subway systems.
Urban Development
1867 New York built the first elevated railroad.
1870 New York and Boston incorporated museums of fine art.
1873 San Francisco built first cable car.
1878 New Haven, Connecticut, opened the first telephone exchange – by 1900 85 cities had exchanges.
1879 Cleveland and San Francisco were the first cities to install electric street lights.
1881 Andrew Carnegie donated a library to Pittsburgh, the first of many Carnegie Libraries.
1883 The Brooklyn Bridge was completed.
1884 Chicago built a ten story building, the first skyscraper.
1887 Richmond, Virginia, built the first electric trolley car line. By 1894, 850 lines were in operation.
1892 Telephone connection was completed between New York and Chicago.
1897 Boston opened the first subway.
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C. Evils of City Life:
a. Death rate:
- National death rate was 20 per 1,000 annually.
- New York City it was 25 - In the Slums it was 38.
- Children under the age of 5 136 per 1,000.
- Chicago had the highest mortality rate -1900 it was 200 – 1 in 5 children would die within a year of birth.
- Today in comparison infant mortality is less than 20 and total mortality rate is less than 9 per 1,000.
b. Crowded Living Conditions:
- Philadelphia and Baltimore – the poor crowded into two and three story brick “row houses” that ran for two hundred yards
before cross street broke the block.
- Boston and Chicago – housing was old wooden structures that had been comfortable home for one family; know crowded by
several families plus boarders.
- New York the worst due to the narrow confines of Manhattan Island former single family residence were carved into
tenements that housed a hundred or more people.
- 1866 NY Board of Health found four hundred thousand people living in overcrowded tenements with no windows, and
twenty thousand living in cellars below the water table. At high tide their homes filled with water.
- Jacob Riis estimated that 330,000 people lived in a square mile of slum; 986.4 people per acre.
- Architect James E. Ware made the situation worse by designing a new kind of building to house New York poor. The
“dumbbell” tenement named for its shape provided 24 to 32 apartments, all with ventilation on a standard NY building lot.
- When two dumbbells were built side by side the windows of two thirds of the living units opened on an airshaft, sometimes
only two feet wide, that was soon filled with garbage creating a health threat worse than airlessness.
- 1894 there were thirty nine thousand dumbbells in New York City.
c. Sanitation:
- Crowding led to outbreaks of smallpox, cholera, measles, typhus, scarlet fever, and diphtheria.
- Quarantining patients was out of the question in slums.
- Less dangerous diseases like chicken pox, mumps, whooping cough, croup, and various influenzas were killers.
- The common cold was the first step to pneumonia.
- free roaming scavengers, chicken, dogs, hogs, and wild birds quite handily cleaned up garbage in small town, and back yard
latrines were adequate to disposing of human waste, neither worked when more than a hundred people lived in a building
and shared a single privy.
- sanitation departments just couldn’t keep up.
- Horses deposited tons of manure in the city streets daily.
- On especially hot day horses keeled over dead – sometimes total topped 1,000. – owner dumped caucus in river.
d. Water:
- In the poorest tenements piped water was available only in shared sinks in the hallway, which were filthy.
- Safe water had been so heavily dosed with chemicals that it was barely palatable.
- The wealthy bought bottled “spring water” that had been trucked into the cities.
- Tenement apartments did not have bathrooms – children washed by romping in the water of open fire hydrants or by taking
a swim in polluted waterways.
- Adults went to public bath houses where there was hot, clean water at a reasonable price.
e. Vice and Crime:
- Slums were breeding grounds for vice and crime.
- 1890 New York had fourteen thousand homeless people most of them children “street Arabs”.
- thievery, pocket picking, purse snatching, and for the bolder violent robbery to much to resist.
- As of 1850 strong arm gangs named after their neighborhoods were bribing police – Five points gang, Mulberry bend, Hell’s
Kitchen, Poverty Gap, the Whyo Gang.
- Gangs mostly preyed on those who lived in the slums.
- Homicide rates declined in British and German cities as they grew in America it increased during the 1880s.
- Prison population rose by 50 percent, the streets grew ever more dangerous.
- More sophisticated gang come 1900 moved into vice running illegal gambling operations, opium dens, and brothels.
- Prostitution flourished at every level in society where sex was repressed and their was a plentiful supply of impoverished
women and girls who had not other way to survive.
D. Class Separations 1800s:
a. High Society: Established fashionable districts within the hearts of cities.
- Construction of feudal Castles, French Chateau, Tuscan Villas, or a Persian Pavilion.
b. Middle Class: Doctors, Lawyers, engineers, managers, social workers, architects and teachers.
- moved away from central city to “streetcar suburbs”.
- Salaries were twice that of the average factory worker - $1,100 a year.
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c. The Working Class:
- Tenements: Dark and crowded multi family apartments – 3 out of 4 New Yorkers live hear.
- Industrial workers annual income of $445.
- Families earned additional by sending their children off to work or rented space in their room.
E. Big City Government:
a. The Boss:
- the physical growth of cities public services and the creation of entirely new facilities: streets, subways, elevated trains,
bridges, docks, parks, sewers, and public utilities – meant their was work to be done and money to be had.
- The professional politician -- the colorful big city boss – became a phenomenon of 19th and 20th century cities.
- The boss often corrupt and often criminal over saw the city and provided needed social services of the residents.
b. Tammany Hall:
- The most infamous of all city bosses was William Marcy Tweed of New York.
- Tweed ran a Democratic political machine (party organized at the grassroots levels).
- The party existed to win election and reward its followers with jobs on the city’s payroll.
- Lowest level - District Captains – in return for votes they provided services for their constituents from a scuttle of coal in
winter, to housing for an evicted family.
- At the Top – Ward Bosses – who distributed lucrative franchises for subways and street cars.
- formed a shadow government more powerful than the elected officials.
- through the use of bribery and graft, Tweed held the Democratic Party together and ran NY City.
- New York City Courthouse – Budget $250 thousand cost to tax payers $14 million.
- The excess of Tweed’s ring with bribery, kickbacks, and greasing of palms led to a clamor for reform.
- Cartoonist Thomas Nast pilloried Tweed in the pages of Harper’s Weekly.
- Easily understood cartoon’s even if you could not read you understood did boss tweed more harm than hundred of outraged
editorials.
- Tweed fled to Europe in 1871 to avoid prosecution, Italy sent him back due to the cartoons he was recognized
- Tweed was convicted and died in jail.
III. The Gilded Age:
- Term coined by Mark Twain meaning cheap attractive coating but if you were to scratch the surface you would find it wasn’t
as good as it seemed.
1. Philosophies:
a. The Idea of Individualism:
- Than no matter how humble their origins, they could rise in society and go as far as their talents and commitment would
take them.
b. Horatio Alger and “Ragged Dick”:
- Horatio Alger wrote more than 130 “rags to riches” boys’ novels, selling more than 20 million copies between1867-1899 –
combined with a battalion of imitators accounted for millions more.
- Simple themes – plots centered on the purpose of life is to get money – the most popular is “Ragged Dick” – a poor lad who
honest hardworking, loyal to his employer, and clean living.
- prototype for “Tattered Tom”, “Lucky Luke Larken” and dozens of others.
- Curiously the hero does not get rich slowly through hard work. In the last chapter “Ragged Dick” is presented with what
amounts to a visitation of grace, a divine gift that rewards his virtues.
- The daughter of rich industrialism falls off the Staten Island Ferry; or she stumbles into the path of a run away brewery
wagon drawn by panicked horses; or she slips into the Niagara River just above the falls.
- Because “Ragged Dick” acts quickly, rescuing her, the heroic lad is rewarded with a job, marriage to the daughter, and
eventually the grateful father’s fortune.
- The novels also touched the American evangelical belief in divine grace. God gave Ragged Dick his money as a reward
for his virtues.
- No matter how many obstacles one faced success was possible.
c. Social Darwinism:
- first proposed by English philosopher Herbert Spencer.
- applied Charles Darwin’s theory of the evolution and natural selection to human society.
- Darwin argued in his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection that plant and animal life had
evolved over the years by a process he called natural selection.
- Spencer argued that human society had evolved through competition and natural selection – “survival of the fittest”.
d. Church
- Darwin’s conclusion frightened and outraged many devout Christians as well as some leading scientist.
- They rejected the theory of evolution because it contradicted that of Bible’s account of creation.
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e. Carnegies Gospel of Wealth:
- philosophy that held that wealthy Americans had the responsibility of engaging in philanthropy.
f. Realism:
- A movement in art and literature to show people realistically instead of idealizing them as romantic artist ha done.
- Thomas Eakins painted subjects in realistic detail – young men swam, surgeon operated, scientist experimented.
- Samuel Clemens - “Mark Twain” – of Missouri wrote:
- 1884 Adventure of Huckleberry Finn – Huck and escaped friend Jim (a slave) float down the Mississippi and through their
innocent eyes the reader receives a perceiving view of America Pre-Civil War.
2. Popular Culture:
a. The Saloon:
- functioning as community centers saloon’s played a major role in the life of male workers in the 1800s.
- saloons functioned as political centers.
- offered free toilets, water for horses, and free newspapers.
- “free lunch” salty food made patrons thirsty and eager to drink more.
b. Amusement Parks:
- Coney Island – two mile stretch of sand close to Manhattan by trolley or steamship.
- 1870-1880s attracted visitors to its beaches, dance pavilions, and penny arcades – all connected by a famous board walk.
- 1890 Coney Island was transformed into the site of the larges and most elaborate amusement park in the country.
- 1897 promoter George Tilyou built Steeple Chase Park advertising “10 hours of fun for 10 cents”.
- 1900 as many as a half a million people went to Coney Island on a weekend.
f. Spectator Sports:
- Boxing - the first spectator sport.
- Baseball - 1870s became the National Past Time.
“for men, baseball became a national pastime in the 1870s – then, as now, one force in urban life that was capable of
uniting a city across class lines.”
- 1869 Cincinnati launched the first professional team the Red Stockings.
- Teams quickly spread across the country – many towns identified by their team.
“the very symbol, the outward and visible expression, of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing,
booming nineteenth century.”
- 1903 First world series between Boston Red Sox and the Pittsburg Pirates.
- Football – at first played by the upper elite private schools but quickly spread to public universities.
- As work became less strenuous people looked to more leisure activities like lawn tennis, golf, and croquet.
- 1891 James Naismith – athletic director for a college in Springfield, Massachusetts invented the game of basketball.
G. Vaudeville and Ragtime:
- Vaudeville adapted from French theater put show on with a hodgepodge of animal acts, acrobats, gymnast, and dancers.
- Ragtime – fast paced music that grew out of honky-tonk saloon pianist and banjo players using patterns of African
American music.
- Scott Joplin – “the King of Ragtime” African American composer “Maple Leaf Rag” in 1899.
IV. Reform:
A. Social Criticism:
1. Henry George on Progress and Poverty:
“The present century has been marked by a prodigious increase in wealth producing power.”
- poverty should have been a thing of the past.
- “gulf between the employed and the employer is growing wider; social contrast are becoming sharper”
- conclusion flawed industrialism did make some wealthy but improved the standard of living for most.
2. Lester Frank Ward – Dynamic Sociology; Reform Darwinism:
- reached a different conclusion than Darwin.
- human beings were different in nature because they had the ability to think ahead and make plans to produce the future
outcomes they desired.
3. Naturalism:
- Criticism of industrial society in literature
- Social Darwinist - argued that people could control their lives and make choices to improve their situations.
- Naturalist challenged this arguing that people failed in life just because they were caught up in circumstances they could
not control.
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4. Christian Faith:
- 1878 The Salvation Army – organized by an English Minister William Booth - adopting a military style – offering practical
aid and religious counseling to the urban poor.
- YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association – Began in England trying to help industrial workers by
organizing Bible Studies, prayer meetings, citizenship training, and group activism.
V. Politics of Reform:
A. Mugwumps, Half-Breeds, and Stalwarts:
1. Republican Party Divisions:
a. Mugwumps:
- Liberal Republicans who had left the Republican due to their contempt for Grant. Found Flirtation with Democrats
humiliating.
- Conservative Republicans gladly took them back (VOTES)
- but jibed at them at the Liberals self proclaimed righteousness by dubbing them Mugwumps.
- Mugwumps – Algonkian Indian work meaning “great men” or “big chiefs”.
- Mugwumps were a fringe of the G.O.P – mostly middle and upper middle class of high social standing in the North East.
- Helped keep corruption in check by their vigilance and quickness to moralize.
b. Half-Breeds:
- Led by James G. Blaine of Maine – had the ability to never forgot a name.
- believed in Radical Reconstruction: “waved the bloody shirt” equal to any Grant man.
- he coveted patronage as avidly as and Tammany Democrat.
- Ambition was enormous urged the party to stamp out corruption and then to reject the man who silently shrugged it off. –
This brought him into conflict with Grant.
c. Stalwarts:
- Stalwart Roscoe Conkling of New York was Grant’s chief henchman.
- “I do no know how to belong to a party a little” meaning that a politician should support the president, as the leader of his
party, regardless of what mistake he might have made.
- designer of Senatorial courtesy, by which Republican Senators or Congressman submitted lists of worthy party members
and the jobs they wanted to President Grant who then appointed them to office.
- A party was a machine to Conkling – called reformers who preached against it “man milliners” casting aspersions on their
masculinity.
- Blain and Conkling hated each other.
d. Scandals:
- The Credit Mobilier and other scandals do in Grant.
2. Election of 1876:
- At both nominating conventions cries for reform were in the air – both parties chose men who had reputations for honesty.
a. Democrats chose Samuel J. Tilden of New York
- credited for having crushed the Tweed Ring – Truth had worked closely with Boss Tweed until Thomas Nast and other
Republicans exposed the larceny in New York.
b. Republican chose Rutherford B. Hayes – model of Midwestern propriety.
- Wife was a staunch leader in the temperance movement “Lemonade Lucy”.
- When she was first lady of Ohio no alcohol was served at official functions.
- Hayes was amiable and obliging, no one ever had to force dubious money on him – hence honest.
- Once the disputed election was settled Hayes moved into the Whitehouse and pleased no one:
- Stalwarts – disappointment of his abandonment of Southern Black Vote.
- Half Breeds – believed the Hayes did not provide them with as much patronage as they deserved.
- No question of ever renominating Hayes to a second term.
3. Garfield the Dark Horse:
- Long before Hayes had retired James G. Blaine announced he would seek the Republican nomination.
- Blaine was to powerful for any normal Stalwart Candidate Roscoe Conkling persuaded Grant who just returned from a
around the world tour to run against him.
- Neither Blain or Grant was able after 34 ballots to get the Republican Conventions Nomination.
- Several “favorite son” candidates who openly hoped a dead lock the front runners so the convention would turn to them
stalemated it.
- The Convention instead of turning to a “favorite son” who most blamed for the problem turned to James A. Garfield of
Ohio whose name wasn’t even in nomination.
- On the thirty sixth ballot Garfield became the Republican candidate nominee for President. .
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- Garfield was a Half Breed – A Blaine Supporter – but played on Concling’s vanity by traveling to New York to seek the
boss’s blessing and promise him a share of the patronage.
- Garfield unified the party.
- Democrats failed to win: 1868 Seymour – Antiwar
1872 Greeley – Republican Maverick
1876 Tilden – Reformer
- Democrats decided to try their luck with a Civil War veteran General Winfield Scott Hancock.
- Garfield received on 10 thousand more votes than Hancock. 48.3 percent of votes.
- 1876 – 1896 no candidate will win more than 50 percent of the votes.
4. Assassination of Garfield:
- The burden of distributing the federal patronage comprised the few months that he was active as president.
- July 2, 1881 Charles Guiteau – a ne’er-do-well preacher and bill collector who had worked for the Stalwarts but had not
been rewarded with a government job
- As Garfield was waiting on the platform for train about to depart the train station for a holiday Guiteau walked up and shot
him twice in the small of the back.
- Garfield lived for eleven weeks in extreme pain the second president to be murdered died on September 19.
- Guiteau allegedly yelled “I am a Stawart! Arthur is president!” – Meaning the new president was a long time Conkling ally,
Chester A. Arthur.
- Arthur proved to be uncorrupt president who signed the first law to limit a party’s use of government jobs for political
purpose.
B. Civil Service Reform:
1. The Pendleton Act of 1833:
- established the Civil Service Commission – a three man bureau that was empowered to draw up and administer
examinations that applicants for some low level government job were required to pass before they were hired.
- Once in the job the employee could not be fired just because the political party to which they belonged lost.
- The act also empowered the president to add job classifications to the civil service list.
- Ironically because the presidency changed party every four years between 1880-1896 each incumbent desired to protect his
own appointees in their jobs – a violation of the spirit of civil service reform – by the end of the century led to a fairly
comprehensive civil service system.
- This would successfully end the Spoil System of government patronage.
C. Political Parties:
1. Republicans: “Party of Morality”
- Party that had preserved the Union.
- Established pensions for Civil War veterans.
- Supported by big business and farmers on Great Plain.
- Party of Reform – Abolition, Temperance, etc…
2. Democrats: “Party of Personal Liberty”
- Dominated the South – whites anti Republican following the Civil War and Reconstruction.
- Support in Big Cities – Catholics and Immigrants.
D. Election of 1884:
1. Democrats: New York Governor Grover Cleveland.
- Cleveland was an opponent of Tammany Hall.
- Mugwumps (reform republicans) deserted the party claiming Cleveland was the more honest man.
2. Republicans: James G. Blaine.
- Blaine planned to make up the loss of the Mugwumps with the Irish Catholic vote because he had many Catholic relatives.
Catholics normally voted Democrat.
3. Election:
- It was revealed that Grover Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child.
- Democrats responded that even though Cleveland had been indiscrete in youth he was exemplary record in public office.
- Days before the election Blain dined very lavishly with a group of Millionaires in Delmonico’s a regal restaurant in NY City
- This was not a good Idea when wanting the votes of the poor man.
- Further Blaine ignored a statement by a Presbyterian minister Samuel Burchard who denounced the Democrats as the party
of “rum Romanism, and rebellion” – meaning saloon, The Roman Catholic Church, and southern secession.
- When the New Papers reported the account Blaine rushed to condemn this kind of Bigotry but the damage was done the
Catholic vote went to the Democrat Cleveland – Thus New York went Democrat – and the Election went Democrat.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 9
E. President Grover Cleveland:
1. Attempt to Regulate Business:
- Small business and farmers felt railroads were gouging small customers.
- Railroad had high fixed costs and low operating cost Americans felt they were getting cheated.
- Railroads further offered rebates (partial refunds) to large corporations such as Standard Oil – lower rates because of
volume of goods they shipped.
- Both parties believed that government should not interfere with corporations’ property rights, which courts had held the
same as those of individuals.
2. Walbash v. Illinois, 1886:
- The Supreme Court ruled that states have no authority to regulate railroad rates for interstate commerce.
- The Commerce Clause Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 3 of the Constitution allowed states to enforce indirect but not direct burdens on
interstate commerce.
- State Railroad rates were ruled direct burdens and therefore could not be enforced by states.
- Precedent established rate regulation of interstate commerce as an exclusive federal power.
3. The Interstate Commerce Commission:
- Rural politicians and urban reformers condemned the Court as the tool of the railway barons.
- 1888 Congress enacted the Interstate Commerce Act – creating an independent regulatory commission, the Interstate
Commerce Commission.
a. railroads were to publish their rates and were not to discriminate against small shippers by giving rebates (under the table
kick-backs) to larger ones.
b. railroads were not to charge higher rates for shorter hauls.
- The commission had little effect due to it had to take its decisions to the same courts that had favored the railroad.
- Within a few years railroaders and lawyers friendly to them held a majority of the seats on the I.C.C.
- The principle effect of the landmark law was to silence the anti-railroad movement by creating the illusion of government
control.
4. Tariffs:
- Democrats: thought that tariffs should be cut because these taxes had the effect of raising prices on manufactured goods.
- 1880s large American manufacturing companies were fully capable of competing internationally.
- Further large tariffs made it difficult for farmers to export their surplus.
- Tariffs ranged from a low 40 percent to a high 47 percent.
- 1887 President Cleveland proposed lowering tariffs – Democratic House passed the bill - Republican Senate didn’t.
- tariff reduction would play a major part in the 1888 election.
5. Election of 1888:
- Republicans ran Benjamin Harrison as their presidential candidate.
- received large contributions from industrialist who benefited from tariffs.
- Democrats – President Cleveland campaigned against unnecessarily high tariffs rate.
- Harrison lost the popular vote but won the electoral college.
- 1888 election gave the Republicans control of both houses of Congress.
6. The McKinley Tariff:
- Representative William McKinley of Ohio pushed through a compromise tariff bill cut rates on items like raw sugar, and
raised rates on others like textiles that people stopped buying the foreign goods.
- Tariffs rose to an all time high of 50 percent.
- Tariff lowered federal revenue (less foreign goods coming into the country to be taxed) and transformed the nations surplus
into a deficit.
- 1890s the deficit was furthered by the republican controlled Congress by passing a new pension law increasing payments
to veterans and the number of veterans eligible to receive them.
- Securing future votes for the Republican Party.
7. The Sherman Antitrust Act:
- Republicans responded to pressure to do something about the power of Trust – large combinations of companies that
dominate a certain market.
- 1890 Senator John Sherman of Ohio introduced the Sherman Antitrust Act – which declared illegal any “combination in the
form of trust…or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States.”
- Courts were responsible for enforcement and the courts saw nothing in this vaguely worded legislation that required them to
make big companies change the way they do business.
8. United States v. E. C. Knight Co. (1895):
- Also known as the Sugar Trust Case:
- This was among the first cases to reveal the weaknesses of the Sherman Antitrust Act in the hands of pro-business Supreme
Court.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 10
- 1895, American Sugar Refining Company purchased four other Sugar producers, including the E. C. Knight Co., and thus
took control of more than 98 percent of the sugar refining in the United States.
- In an effort to limit monopolies the government brought suit against all five companies for violation of the Sherman
Antitrust Act – which outlawed trusts and other business combinations in restraint of trade.
- The Court dismissed the suit, however, arguing that the law applied only to commerce and not to manufacturing, defining
the latter as a local concern and not part of interstate commerce that the government could regulate.
VI. Populism:
- The movement to increase farmers’ political power and to work for legislation in their interest:
- Farm prices had dropped after the Civil War due to new technologies.
- Farmers were producing more crops and greater supply was lowering prices.
- Tariffs increased the cost of manufactured goods that farmers needed and made it harder to sell their goods overseas.
- Farmers felt victimized by banks where they obtained loans and railroads that set shipping rates.
A. Money Supply:
1. Greenbacks:
- To finance the Union war effort the U.S. Treasury had greatly expanded the money supply by issuing 450 million in
greenbacks – paper money that could not be exchanged for gold of silver coins.
2. Inflation:
- The rapid increase of supply of money without increase in goods for sale caused inflation – decline in the value of money.
- Paper money lost value and prices soared.
- After the Civil war the U.S. had three types of currency: Greenbacks, Gold and Silver Coins, and Bank Notes, such as
government bonds.
- What should be the basis of the nation’s medium of exchange?
a. should it continue to be gold with every piece of paper backed by gold in a vault and redeemable in the precious metal.
b. should the money supply be regulated by the government in such a way as to determine the level of income of workers, and
particularly farmers.
- Bankers were suspicious of Greenbacks paper money that was not backed up by Gold.
- To stop inflation the Treasury who agreed with the Bankers stopped printing greenbacks and began paying off its bonds.
- The Greenbacks were destroyed and not replaced with new money.
- 1873 Congress chose to stop making Silver into Coins. Farmers would call this “The Crime of 73”.
3. Deflation:
- These decision meant that the U.S. did not have a large enough money supply to meet the needs of a growing county’s
economy.
- 1865 $30 in circulation for each American – 1895 it had sunk to about $23
- This caused deflation – or an increase in the value of money and a decrease in the general level of prices.
- Prices dipped; so did wages.
- It took less to buy a sack of flour or a side of bacon than it had when the greenbacks had flowed in profusion.
- The farmer who grew the wheat and raised the hogs received les for his troubles.
- Farmers who were debtors because they had borrowed heavily to increase their acreage and to purchase machinery when
the greenbacks were abundant and the prices therefore were high.
- With the retiring of the greenbacks farmers found themselves obligated to repay these loans in money that was more
valuable and more difficult to get.
- 1860 $1,000 mortgage taken out on a farm represented twelve hundred bushels of grain.
- 1889 $1,000 mortgage taken out on a farm represented twenty three hundred bushels of grain.
B. Farmers Organize:
1. Jefferson’s independent Yeoman:
- The greatest obstacle that farmers faced in defending their interests was their tardiness in organizing to fight their battles
collectively.
- The American farmer had always stood on their own two feet, beholden to no one.
- In owning his own land he was lord of the fief.
- Evidence all around them from corporations to labor, from temperance movement to women suffrage movement that they
lived in an organizing age – farmers would have to change.
2. The Grange:
- 1867 Oliver H. Kelley after touring the rural South for the U.S. Dep. of Agriculture to report on the conditions of farmers
and realizing how isolated farmers were from each other formed the first National Farm Organization, The Patrons of
Husbandry, better known as the Grange.
- 1873 the nation fell into a severe recession, and farm income fell.
- Farmers looking for help joined the Grange in large numbers – 1874 around 1.5 million members.
- The Grange responded to the crisis in three ways.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 11
a. pressure state legislature to regulate railroads and warehouses rates which they felt were to high and dependent on
railroad schedules.
b. many joined the National Independent Party or Greenback Party – wanted government to print greenbacks to increase
the money supply.
c. form co-operatives that would pooled farmers crops and held them off the market in order to force higher prices and even
negotiated lower rates with railroads.
3. The CO-OP Movement:
- In consumer co-operatives farmers banded together to purchase essential machinery in lots – cheaper.
- Money pools – associations like the credit union sprouted all over the Midwest.
- through these organizations farmers hoped to eliminate their dependence on hated banks.
- money pools suffered from mismanagement and embezzlement.
4. The Grange Fails:
- none of the policies of the Grangers improved farmers economic condition.
- Several western states passed “Granger Laws” setting maximum rates and prohibiting railroads for charging more for short
hauls than for long ones.
- railroads responded by cutting services and refusing to lay new track until the laws were repealed.
- Wabash v. Illinois 1886 resolved the dispute by limiting the states ability to regulate the railroads.
- Americans were suspicious of paper money so the Greenback Party received little support.
- Granger Co-operatives also failed because they were to small to have any real effect on prices and because Eastern
businessmen and railroads considered them similar to unions – an illegitimate conspiracies in restraint of trade and thus
refused to do business with them.
- By 1870 the Grange was loosing members to other farmer Alliances.
C. The Farmers’ Alliance:
1. Alliances:
- 1889 there were three large associations of farmers:
a. The National Farmer Alliance: made up of Western farmers.
b. The Southern Farmer Alliance: made up of Southern White farmers, tenants, and sharecroppers.
c. The Colored Farmers Alliance: made up of Southern Black farmers.
- 1890 delegates met in Oscala, Florida to draw up a list of grievances.
2. The Peoples Party:
- Blacks and Midwesterners had to break with the Republican Party.
- Southern Whites had to break with the Democratic Party.
- February 1892 delegates met in Omaha, Nebraska and organized the Peoples’ Party or better known from Latin word for
“people – populus” - The Populist Party.
- Populist – believed they were engaged in a sacred cause – they would capture American government.
- Farmers from North and South had overcome the sectional chasm that had separated them.
3. The Omaha Platform:
- Populist chose former Union General James B. Weaver for President and former Confederate General James G. Field for
Vice President.
- Platform:
a. Called for the prohibition of land ownership by aliens – meant to deal with over production and being anti-immigrant to
win support with labor unions.
b. U.S. Senators were to no longer be chosen by state legislature (because they were controlled by corporate lobbyist)
instead they would be chosen in popular elections.
c. endorsed the adoption of the “Australian Ballot” – In many especially Southern States a voter’s choice was a matter of
public record; Populist believed this led to intimidation by employers and landlords.
d. Introduced the concepts of Initiative, Recall, and Referendum:
- Initiative – allows voter through petition, to put measures on the ballot independent of actions by the legislatures and thus
free of manipulations by powerful lobbies.
- Recall – allows voter through petition to force a public official to stand for election before his or her term is up. Meant to
discourage politicians form backing down on campaign promises.
- Referendum – allowed voters to vote directly on laws rather than indirectly through their representatives; it is the means by
which Initiative measures and recall petitions can be decided.
e. The most controversial of part was the call for abolition of national banks and for government ownership of railroads and
the telegraph.
- The “Socialist” part of the populist program were actually designed to protect the property of the common man and his
opportunities to improve himself.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 12
f. called for a graduated income tax – 1892 federal income tax was 2 percent for all – the populist wanted the wealthy to pay
a high percentage than the average farmer or wageworker paid.
g. demanded an increase in the money supply to $50 per capita – this inflation was to be accomplished through the free and
unlimited coinage of silver valued at the old ratio with gold of sixteen to one.
4. Election of 1892:
- Though the Populist adopted many positions popular with labor including the eight hour work day, restricting immigration,
and denouncing strikebreaking – still most urban workers preferred to remain within the Democratic Party.
- Democrats retained support in Northern cities by nominating the popular New Yorker former President Grover Cleveland
who was seeking to return to the White House after his close defeat in the Election 1888.
- Cleveland won with 277 electoral votes – Republican Harrison 145 electoral votes and the Populist James Weaver had won
five states and spit another with 22 electoral votes.
5. The Panic of 1893:
a. The Cause:
- March 1893 the Philadelphia and Reading Railroads declared bankruptcy.
- Many railroads had expanded to rapidly in the period before the panic and now found it difficult to repay their bank loans.
- The Wall Street Stock Market crashed and many banks closed their doors.
- 1894 the economy was deep in a depression – over 500,000 workers went on strike and between 2 to 3 million more were
unemployed approximately 15 to 20 percent of the workforce.
b. Goldbugs and Silverites:
- 1893 American and Europeans who owned U.S. Treasury Bonds began cashing in their bonds for gold.
- This caused gold to drain out of the U.S. Treasury and left the federal governments gold reserve at a dangerously low level.
- Cleveland believed that gold should be the basis of the American economy:
- he couldn’t do anything about people cashing in their bonds for gold.
- but he could stop the exchange of silver for gold.
- June 1893 Cleveland summoned congress into sessions to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.
- The Sherman Silver Purchase Act:
-1890 had been pushed through congress by an alliance of Congressmen and Senators from western farming and mining states.
- the act required the Sec. of the Treasury to buy what amounted to the entire output of the nations silver mines.
- Cleveland’s actions split the Democratic Party in two:
a. The Goldbugs – believed American currency should be based on Gold.
b. The Silverites – believed coining silver in unlimited quantities would solve the nations economics.
D. The Election of 1896:
1. The Republican Party:
- Controlled by a forceful coal and iron magnate from Ohio Marcus Alonzo Hanna.
- Hanna had a candidate for the Republican Convention – for six years had been cornering Republican businessman and
politicians, assuring them that his close friend, former congressman and governor was right for the presidency.
- William McKinley was well known as a scholarly expert on the tariff – but he was not the sort of man whose presence
impressed itself on a gathering.
- McKinley was Midwestern Middleclass respectability – and was easy to overlook.
- Republicans and Democrats assumed that McKinley was Hanna’s puppet.
2. The Democratic Party:
- The Democrats had co-opted and absorbed the Populist – by adopting one plank of their platform and scuttling the rest –
winning the Populist endorsement of their candidate.
- The Populist Party was finished as an independent political force.
- The Democrats chose William Jennings Bryan – a fiery advocate of the free coinage of silver.
- as an orator he was electrically precise in his phrasing and timing.
- At the Convention Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech enlisted God in the cause of free silver and identified the gold standard
with the crucifiers of Christ. His oration synthesized everything that country people loved.
First and Last lines from William Jennings Bryans address The Cross of Gold Speech to the Democratic Convention: “I will be presumptuous, indeed to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizens in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty – the cause of humanity…..
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.”
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 13
- It was a forgone conclusion that the Democrats would endorse free silver – Bryan’s speech did not influence that decisions
but it arouse support in the delegates for his rhetoric and showmanship that, although a minor candidate he easily won the
party’s nomination.
- Bryant was a religious fundamentalist who tended to see disagreement in terms of good versus evil and political causes as
crusades.
3. The Campaign:
a. Democrats:
- Bryan traveled thousands of miles making some 600 speeches in 14 weeks.
- Catholics immigrants and other city dwellers cared little for the silver issue.
- Bryant’s speeches reminded them of rural Protestant preachers who were sometimes anti-Catholic.
b. Republicans:
- McKinley stayed at home in Canton, Ohio and conducted what news paper called “The Front Porch Campaign” by
meeting various delegates that came to see him.
- Republican launched an intensive campaign for McKinley across the Midwest and Northeast.
- Republicans blamed the Democrat’s and Cleveland for the depression and promised worker that McKinley would provide a
“full diner pail”. – this meant more than the silver issue.
- McKinley’s reputation as a moderate on labor issues and tolerance toward different ethnic groups helped improve the
Republican Party’s image with urban workers and immigrants.
- McKinley won a decisive victory by winning 52 percent of the populace vote and a winning margin of 95 electoral votes.
McKinley 271 – Bryan 176 electoral votes.
- Bryan and the Democrats had won the South and most of the West but few of the states delivered very large populations =
electoral votes.
- The Democrats by embracing populism and its rural base lost the urban northern industrial area were votes majority of votes
were concentrated.
VII. The Rise of Racial Segregation:
A. The South:
- White landlord and, Black Sharecroppers
- African Americans in the rural South after Reconstruction were sharecroppers, landless farmers who had to hand over the
land lord a large portion of their crops to pay the rent, seed, tools, and other supplies.
- 1879 “an Exodus” (like the Hebrews) takes places across the South as African Americans hoping to escape the bondage of
poverty (slavery) migrated to Kansas and became known as Exodusters.
B. Disfranchising African Americans:
1. Voting Restrictions: Literacy – Property Test:
- Fifteenth Amendment – prohibited states from denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of “race, color, or previous
condition of servitude.” – Gave African Americans males the right to vote.
- it did not bar state legislatures form requiring citizens be literate or own property in order to vote.
2. Poll Tax:
- 1890 Mississippi required a citizens registering to vote to pay a poll tax of $2.00 a sum beyond most African Americans
ability to pay.
- Louisiana: 1890 number of African Americans registered to vote was 130,000 – 1900 5,300.
- Alabama: 1890 number of African Americans registered to vote was 181,000 – 1900 3,700.
3. Grandfather Clause:
- meant to give poor whites a break and allow them to vote.
- allowed any man to vote if he had an ancestor on the voting roles in 1867 – made almost all formally enslaved Louisiana
citizens ineligible to vote.
C. Legalizing Segregation:
1. Jim Crow Laws: Meant to separate public facilities.
- “Jim Crow” – from a character in a popular minstrel show song.
- railroads precipitated segregation in the South where before it had rarely existed.
- Blacks were segregated on train coaches, waiting rooms, bathrooms and dining facilities.
- The courts in Mississippi even had a separate Black Bible for Blacks to swear on.
- Civil Rights Act of 1875 – law prohibited keeping people out of public places on the basis of race, and it also prohibited
racial discrimination in selecting jurors- was overturned by the Supreme Court.
- Fourteenth Amendment – only provided that “no state” could deny citizens equal protection under the law. Private
organizations and businesses, such as hotels, theater, and railroads, were free to practice segregation.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 14
2. Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896:
1. 1890 Louisiana passed a law ordering railroads I the state to “provide separate accommodations for the white and colored
races.”
2. Violation of the law carried a fine of $25 dollars or 20 days in jail.
3. Railway personnel were responsible for assigning seats according to race.
4. On June 7, 1892 Homer A. Plessy who was one-eighth African American, decided to test the law’s validity by sitting in the
white section of a train going from New Orleans to Covington Louisiana.
5. When the conductor ordered Plessy to give up his seat, he refused. He was arrested and imprisoned in a New Orleans jail.
Found guilty of the above law.
6. Plessy appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court – which found the law valid.
7. Plessy then appealed to the United States Supreme Court – claiming his conviction and the Louisiana railroad law were
unconstitutional because they violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Constitutional Issue
The Fourteenth Amendment banded the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without “due process of law.” Yet laws were passed in the Southern states that required segregated schools, theaters, parks, buses, and railroad trains. - Challenged the constitutionality of Jim Crow Practices – denying the “equal protection of the law” to any person.
Supreme Court’s Ruling – Justice Harry Brown
1. “A legal distinction between white and colored races… has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the
two races.” Thirteenth Amendment
2. Fourteenth Amendment aimed to strictly “to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law,”
but that it “could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based on color, or to enforce social, as
distinguished form political, equality…” Laws requiring segregation “do not necessarily imply the inferiority
of either race to the other….”
3. Was the Louisiana law reasonable? Segregation laws “have been generally, if not universally, recognized as
within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police powers.” In such matters, as
legislature is free to take into account “established usages, customs, and traditions of the people,” as well as
“the preservation of public peace and good order.”
4. “Social prejudice may be overcome by legislation”? “If the civil and political rights of both races be equal,
one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the
Constitution of the U.S. cannot put them on the same plane.
5. The court, in effect, enunciated a doctrine that came to be called the separate but equal principle. If African
Americans saw this as “a badge of inferiority,” it was solely “because the colored race choose to put that
construction upon it.”
Question:
1. Explain how the Supreme Court justified the practice of segregating railroad passengers in Louisiana by race.
2. What is the meaning of the separate but equal principle?
3. Why do you think Plessy based his appeal in part on the 13th Amendment?
4. What do you think the effect of the Plessy decision on the nation, especially on the Southern states.
- The ruling was the legal basis for discrimination for more than 50 years.
- Established the principal of Separate but Equal was Constitutional.
D. Mob Violence – Lynching:
- 1700’s originated with Charles Lynch a planter in Virginia who took the law into his own hands with his neighbors to punish
Tories (British sympathizers) and others who plundered their property.
- Before 1890 most lynching victims were white – since most lynching have occurred in the South and the victims have
usually been Black.
- Intimidation and lynching were justified by white southerners as necessary to “keep the Negro in his place”.
“To die from the bite of frost is far more glorious than at the hands of a mob”
New Paper Defender – Chicago’s largest African American Paper
- 1899 Lynching were so routine, that a mob in Palmetto, Georgia announced in advance that a man would be burned alive so
that thousands could flock aboard special excursion trains in time to see the show.
- Progressive Reforms made little difference on lynching – during the first five years of the twentieth century lynching reached
it peak with a lynching almost every other day.
- About 4,730 lynchings occurred between 1882 and 1951 = 1,293 whites – 3,437 Blacks.
- Peak year 1892 – 230 victims - Last recorded racial Lynching took place on the Eastern Shore of Virginia 1973.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 15
E. African American Response:
1. The Great Migration:
- Result was that Black moved to urban cities – No Lynching ever occurred in New England.
- 1890’s Blacks moved north settling for the most part in growing cities – New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago
- By 1910 Blacks who were once only welcome in the urban north in personal service occupations found work in steel mills,
ship yards, munitions plants, railroad yards, and mines.
- Blacks who joined the Migration (10 percent of the South’s Blacks) were not just moving north they were fleeing the South.
2. Ida B. Wells:
- Young African American Woman who launched a fiery crusade against lynching.
- Pointed out that often greed not just racial prejudice was behind these lynchings.
3. Booker T. Washington
- Born a slave in 1856
- Studied at the Hampton institute in 1872
- Founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
- Taught students to prepare for profitable, productive work.
- African Americans should concentrate on achieving economic goals rather than legal or political ones.
- 1895 Washington summed up his views in a speech before a mostly white audience at the Cotton States and International
Exposition in Atlanta. The Speech became known as The Atlanta Compromise:
“To bear upon the everyday practical things of life, upon something which they will be permitted to do in the
community in which they reside”.
- Believed that African Americans could win white acceptance in succeeding in those occupations that white needed filled..
“The wisest amongst my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly, and that the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing… It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house.”
4. W.E.B. Du Bois:
- lead the next generation of African Americans.
- Born free in Massachusetts.
- Graduated from Tennessee’s Fisk University – went on to become the first African American to earn a PH.D. from
Harvard in 1895.
- Argued that the brightest African Americans should come to the forefront and lead.
- Urged blacks to earn an higher liberal education.
- Take pride in both their African and American heritage.
VIII. American Imperialism:
A. Imperialism – is where stronger nations attempt to create empires by dominating weaker nations economically,
politically, and militarily – (Expansionism).
- American focus after the Civil war was on reconstruction of the South, building up the nation’s industries, and settling West.
- 1880s more Americans focused on making America a world power.
1. Desire for new Markets:
- late 1800s European Industrialized countries had placed such high tariffs on each other to protect their industries from
competition that they had to seek new markets to sell their produced goods.
- Europeans having their infrastructure built began investing in industries in Asia and Africa.
- Protectorates – to protect their interest European Countries allowed local leaders to stay in control and protected them from
rebellions and invasion – in exchange for this protection the local ruler usually had to accept advise from the Europeans on
how to govern their country.
- With the West being settled many Americans concluded that the country had to develop new overseas markets to keep the
economy strong.
- Social Darwinist believed that nations competed with each other only the strongest would ultimately survive.
2. Anglo Saxonism: fit into Manifest Destiny:
- Historian John Fiske argued that English speaking nations had superior character, ideas, and systems of government, and
were destined to dominate the world.
- American Minister Josiah Strong –linked Anglo-Saxonism to Christian missionary ideas.
“the Anglo Saxon is divinely commissioned to be, in a peculiar sense, his brother’s keeper.” Josiah Strong
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 16
B. Arguments for Imperialism:
- Examples of Imperialism:
a. Dutch – Indonesia – Japan d. British – the World – India
b. Japan – seizes Korea e. Chinese seize Island of Taiwan
c. Russia plans for Northern China f. Germany and Italy – Africa and Asia (late comers)
1. Against Imperialism: War for Independence – Philosophical – domination of another people principle.
- U.S. vastness – plenty of work still left to be done at home.
2. For Imperialism: New Markets for American goods, creates new jobs in U.S., allows for growth of American wealth.
- spreads American ideology of Democracy and capitalism.
- Young politician Theodore Roosevelt – “the U.S. needs to seize as many colonies before they are all taken up” –
“America is becoming flabby toughen up!”
C . Expansion in the Pacific:
1. China: 1844 U.S. signed a trade treaty with the Chinese Empire.
2. Japan:
- US hoped to open trade with Japan.
- Japan rulers believed that excessive contact with the West would destroy their culture and only allowed the Chinese and
Dutch to trade with their nation.
- 1852 after several petitions from congress President Franklin Pierce ordered Commodore Mathew C. Perry to take a naval
squadron to Japan to negotiate a trade treaty.
- July 8, 1853 Perry entered Yedo Bay – Tokyo Bay with four American Warships and threatened to bomb Japan if they didn’t
abandon their policy of isolationism and buy American goods.
- result Japan abandoned Isolationism and began to industrialize and establish their own Asian empire.
3. McKinley and Economic Statistics:
- President William McKinley - ran his 1896 campaign from his “front porch”- slogan was for “Peace and Quiet”.
- Exports: 1870 = 320 million 1890 = 857 million
- 1897 – the U.S. is the single most important industrial nation in the world.
- Question – is McKinley the right man to handle the transition into the next century? Events, Issues?
4. Annexing Hawaii: The First Colony:
- Until 1890s American missionary families in the Hawaiian islands had grown rich exporting sugar to the United States –
they had won the confidence and support of the Hawaiian King Kalakaua.
- The McKinley Tariff introduced a 2 cent per pound tax (tariff) – this encouraged enough mainland farmers to produce can
or sugar beets that Hawaiian exports declined sharply.
- The American Oligarchy concluded that it must join the islands to the United States and benefit from the tariff.
- Before the plan could get started in 1891 King KalaKaua died and was succeeded by his anti-American sister Queen
Liliuokalani. - weigh 200 pounds with the will power to match.
- The theme of her reign would be “Hawaii for Hawaiians”.
- Initiated a number of reforms that were aimed at dismantling the whites’ control of the economy and the legislature.
- The white oligarchy alarmed act quickly with the help from the American Ambassador – declaring that American lives and
property were in danger and landed marines from the U.S.S. Boston who quickly took control of the peaceful islands.
- Imperialist in the Senate quickly passed an annexation of Hawaii Act. – before they could get it through the House March 4,
1893 president Cleveland was inaugurated.
- Cleveland quickly withdrew the proposal of annexation.
- Cleveland sent James H. Blount to Hawaii to find out how the people felt about annexation.
- Blount reported that non white Hawaiians wanted not to be part of the U.S. and wanted “Queen Lil” restored.
- Cleveland ordered the marines to return to their ships and Base at Pearl Harbor.
- The Hawaiian whites had gone to far to allow “Queen Lil” restored they seized control and declared Hawaii a Republic.
- White Hawaiians cultivated Republican Senators until McKinley became president.
- July 6, 1898 Congress annexed the seven main islands and the fourteen hundred minor ones that made up the mid-Pacific
nation of Hawaii, shortly thereafter Guam, Wake, and Baker islands were added as coaling stations for the navy.
- With the immigration of more whites, Chinese, and Japanese – Native Hawaiians quickly became like the Native Americans
foreigners on their own homeland.
D. Trade and Diplomacy in Latin America:
1. American Goals:
- Wanted to decrease Latin American consumption of European goods while increasing consumption of American
manufactured goods.
- Wanted Europeans to understand the America was the dominant power in the region.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 17
2. Pan-American Conference:
- Secretary of State James G. Blaire invited the Latin American countries to a conference in Washington D.C. to discuss how
way in which the American nations could work together to support peace and to increase trade.
- Became known as Pan-Americanism.
- Today the Pan-American Conference is the Organization of American States (OAS)
E. Fears for America without Frontiers:
1. The Influence of Sea Power by Alfred Thayler Mahan:
- The influence of sea power upon history – argues that great nations were always seafaring nations that had powerful navies.
- America had allowed its own fleets to fall into decay.
- Congress responded by building a large steam powered fleet.
- Fleet would need coaling stations throughout the world.
- U.S. seized: Midway in 1867; Hawaii in 1875
2. Frederic Jackson Turner:
- 1889 Congress opened Oklahoma to white settlement. This was the last large territory that had been reserved for the sole
use of Indians – was occupied by whites literally over night.
- The frontier no longer existed.
- 1893 at a meeting of the American Historical Association proposed that the frontier had been the key to vitality of American
Democracy, social stability, and prosperity.
- Was the U.S. doomed for stagnation and social upheaval? Solution was to establish new frontiers abroad – American
corporations pumped millions of dollars into China and Latin America.
IX. Spanish American War:
A. Cuba:
- Cuba was a colony of Spain.
- Wilson Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 cut off Cuban Sugar from American markets, causing a severe economic crisis in Cuba.
- 1895 Cuban exiles in America smuggle guns into Cuba and won support.
- Small guerrilla warfare – Day Spanish troops where in control – at night guerrillas.
B. “Yellow Press”
- William Randolph Hearst’s – New York Journal.
- Joseph Pulitzer – New York World
- Circulation war between the two to see who could sell the most news papers.
- They decided to use the Cuban rebellion to sell papers.
- First gimmick was “Yellow Kid” first Comic Strip.
- Spanish atrocities did exist. Spanish Commander in Cuba was Valeriano Weyler nickname the “Butcher”
- Weyler established the first concentration camps in history.
- To combat the guerrillas he up rooted whole villages into camps, anyone out side of camp was shot on sight - thousands of
Cubans died of malnutrition, disease, and abuse.
- Hearst and Pulitzer turned innocuous incidents into horror stories and invented Atrocities.
- Pulitzer said to his reporter “You furnish the pictures I’ll furnish the war”.
- Yellow Journalism – sensationalist reporting in which writers often exaggerated or even made up stories to attract readers.
C. The War:
1. President McKinley:
- McKinley realized that American businesses owned 50 million in railroads, mines, and sugar in Cuba.
- The U.S. feared the revolutionaries more than Spain.
- 1898 Spain responded to U.S. pressure and withdrew Weyler and proposed autonomy for Cuba, as long as they remained in
the Spanish empire - McKinley administration was satisfied.
2. Two events that caused the war:
a. Feb. 9, 1898 Hearst’s New York Journal published a letter that had been written by the Spanish ambassador in Washington,
Enrique Dupuy de Lome. In it Dupy told a a friend that McKinley was “weak, a bidder for the admiration of the crowd”.
b. Feb. 15, 1898 U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana harbor with a loss of 260 sailors.
- Yellow Press declared that the Spanish had destroyed the Maine? Slogan - “Remember the Maine”
- Naval inquiry concluded that a mine had destroyed the Maine.
- April 9, 1898 to avoid war Spanish government gave in on every account.
- Jingoism – extreme nationalism marked by aggressive foreign policy – took hold of the Republican Party.
- McKinley fearing that to not go to war would cost him the upcoming election – April 11, McKinley asked Congress for a
declaration of war with Spain.
- U.S. Army only consisted of 28,000 soldiers in the west supervising Indians.
- The Navy was New and very strong.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 18
3. The Events of the War:
a. The Philippines:
- May 1, 1898 Undersecretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt issued orders for Commander George Dewey to Manila Bay
to surprise attack the Spanish garrison.
- The Spanish fleet was destroyed and finished off on July 3.
- Dewey had no ground troops so he had to rely on Filipino revolutionaries like Emilio Aguinaldo to expelled the Spanish.
- August newly arrived American troops took the capital liberating the Filipino people.
- American troops refused to allow Aguinaldo’s forces into the capital or to recognize his rebel government.
b. Cuba: July
- The Spanish Army 200 thousand out numbered the Americans.
- American Commanders General Nelson A. Miles and General William R. Shafter.
- Americans with 17 thousand attacked Santiago battle of El Caney and San Juan Hill.
- Spanish had 19 thousand stationed in Santiago. Hero Theodore Roosevelt resigned from the Navy to accept a Colonelcy in
a volunteer cavalry unit called the “Rough Riders”.
- The Horse never arrived in Cuba – the horses never left Tampa, Florida.
4. Treaty of Paris of 1898:
- Secretary of State John Hay called the Spanish American War “A splendid little war” because less than 400 Americans
died from combat – 2500 Americans died altogether, most from dysentery, malaria, typhoid, and food poising.
- Dec. 10, 1898 the U.S. and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, 1898:
a. Cuba became an independent country.
b. Puerto and Guam became part of the U.S.
c. U.S. paid $20 million to Spain for the Philippines.
D. Imperialism Debate:
- America had instantly become an Imperialist nation over night.
- The Teller Amendment passed by Congress to declare war state that Cuba the sugar Island would not be taken over or
become an American property.
- Puerto Rico and the Philippines were the discussion.
- William Jennings Bryan – and a substantial part of the Democratic Party
1. Anti-imperialist League:
- Andrew Carnegie – the cost of operating an empire far outweighed the economic benefits it provided.
- Samuel Gompers AFL – worried competition from cheap Filipino labor would drive down the American wage.
- Jane Adams, Samuel Clemens Samuel – American Principles:
“We insist, that the subjugation of any people is ‘criminal aggression’ and open disloyalty to the distinctive principles of
our government. We hold, with Abraham Lincoln, that no man is good enough to govern another man without that
man’s consent.”
2. Pro-imperialist:
- Most Republicans
“God has not been preparing the English speaking and Teutonic peoples of the world for a thousand years for nothing but
vain idle self contemplation and self admiration.” “No he has mad us the master organizers of the world to establish a
system where chaos reigns”. Albert J. Beveridge – Senator from Indiana.
3. William McKinley:
a. “We cold not give them back to Spain – that would be cowardly and dishonorable;
b. that we could not turn them over to France or Germany… that would be bad for business and discreditable;
c. that we could not leave them to themselves – they were unfit for self government..
d. and that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and
Christianize them”
4. Filipino’s View:
- Emilio Aguinaldo called the annexation of his homeland a “violent and aggressive seizure”.
- General Arthur MacArthur (father of future Douglas MacArthur) used many of the same tactics the Spanish had used in
Cuba against the Filipino guerillas.
- The first U.S. Civilian Governor of the Philippines was William Howard Taft.
- Public school system was established and new health care policies virtually eliminated severe disease such as cholera and
smallpox – hostility subsided.
- March 1901 American troops captured Aguinaldo. – who within a month called on all guerillas to surrender.
- Mid 1930 Filipino’s had their own congress and president.
- 1946 the U.S. granted independence to the Philippines.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 19
5. Foraker Act: Puerto Rico:
- Passed by Congress in 1900 made Puerto Rico an unincorporated territory.
- 1917 Puerto Ricans became U.S. citizens
- 1947 The Island elected its own Governor.
- Debate to this day – Become a State? Or Become an independent country?
6. Platt Amendment: Cuba:
- McKinley allowed Cubans independence with conditions:
a. Could not make any treaty with another nation that would weaken its independence or allow another foreign power to
gain territory in Cuba.
b. Cuba had to allow the U.S. to buy or lease naval stations in Cuba.
c. Cuba’s debt had to be kept low to prevent foreign countries from landing troops to enforce payment.
d. The U.S. would have the right to intervene to protect Cuban independence and keep order.
- Repealed in 1934 – effectively made Cuba a U.S. protectorate.
X. Theodore Roosevelt:
A. Election of 1900:
1. Debate on Imperialism:
- Democrats: Commodore George Dewey:
- reluctant at first feeling he was not qualified for the office.
- Later, changed his mind, explaining that “since studying the subject, I am convinced that the office of the president is not
such a very difficult one to fill.”
- As a result, Dewey lost the support of virtually everyone and Bryan was nominated once again.
- Democrats turned to William Jennings Bryan
- attempted to make the election a debate about imperialism –fiasco.
- most American were happy with the overseas possessions or just didn’t care.
- Republicans: President William McKinley
- McKinley just side stepped the issue and pointed to the prosperity of the country.
- campaign slogan “Four more years of the Full Dinner Pail”
- McKinley won by an even greater margin than previous even picking up Bryan’s home state of Nebraska.
- Inauguration Day Theodore Roosevelt became McKinley’s Vice President.
2. Theodore Roosevelt:
- After Cuba had become the new Governor of New York.
- Roosevelt had refused to take orders from the New York Party Boss Thomas C. Platt and even attacked the Platt machine.
- Platt got the Vice Presidential nomination for Roosevelt believing he was ending Roosevelt’s career.
- Vice Presidency was a post that was usually assigned to hacks who could help carry swing states in an election.
- Vice Presidency was described by Woodrow Wilson’s Vice President Thomas Marshall … to being lost at sea; one was
never heard from again.
- Mark Hana had reservations about Roosevelt – Asked McKinley what would happen to the country, if something happened
to you? McKinley was the old age of 60 at the time.
3. McKinley’s Assassination:
- September 6, 1901 McKinley paid a ceremonial visit to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.
- Greeting a long line of guests, he found himself faced by a man who extended a bandaged hand.
- The gauze swathed a large bore pistol.
- Leon Czolgosz – an anarchist who “didn’t believe one man should have so much service and another man have none” – shot
the McKinley several times in the chest and abdomen.
- Eight Days later McKinley died.
- “Now Look” commented Mark Hana shook his head at the funeral, “that damned cowboy is president”.
B. Theodore Roosevelt: (Teddy) Age 43:
- Occupations: Historian, politician, cowboy, buffalo hunter, crime fighter, reformer, and cavalryman.
- Identified by TR.
- Sickly child who endured a host of ailments from poor eyesight to asthma.
- Believed in overcoming frailties through competition and conflict to keep one healthy.
- Arguments for disposition of Native Americans “the man who puts the soil to use must of right dispose the man who does
not, or the world will come to a standstill”.
- Lost both his wife to childbirth and mother on the same day.
- Imperialist. – accepted the idea of Anglo-Saxonism.
- District Attorney of New York, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Colonel and organizer of the “Rough Riders”, New York
Governor, and McKinley’s Vice President.
- After refusing to shoot a baby bear – toy company produce the “Teddy Bear” after TR.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 20
C. Open Door Policy:
1. Foreign Policy:
- Europe – insisted that the U.S. be accepted as an equal – active imperial power.
- Latin America – (Monroe Doctrine) Arrogant – told Latin America and Europeans that he whole Western Hemisphere was
an American sphere of influence.
- Asia – continued a policy that had been designed during the McKinley administration by John Hay who continued to serve
as Secretary of State called the “Open Door Policy”.
2. Open Door Policy:
- China – the largest country in the world, had been left behind by modernization.
- Nominal Emperor – powerful local chieftains ruled whole provinces as personal estates.
- Japan and most imperialistic countries of Europe had carved out sphere of influence (Africa and Asia) in which their own
troops maintained order and their own laws governed their residents and citizens behavior.
- Britain was opposed to further colonization more experienced with the problems and expense of direct imperial rule – Britain
believed it could dominate the market of an independent China on the basis of it industry and its merchant marine.
- British interest accorded with American policy – particularly because the U.S. has no clear sphere of influence.
- 1899 – 1900 John Hay circulated a series of memoranda called the “Open Door” notes that pledged the imperial powers not
to seize any Chinese territory.
3. Boxer Rebellion:
- Empress Dowager encouraged a rebellion against international domination of China.
- The Rebellion anti-foreign, anti-imperialist society took the name “righteous harmonious fist” – “Boxer”
- 900 foreigners were besieged in the British legation in Peking.
- An international army of American, British, French, German, Austrian, Russian, Japanese, and Italian troops defeated the
poorly armed rebels and wreaked havoc on the surrounding countryside.
4. Noble Peace Prize:
- In 1905 Roosevelt applied his policy of equilibrium in China by working through diplomatic channels to end a war between
Russian and Japan.
- To the surprise of Europeans Japan had handily defeated Russia and threatened to seize complete control of Manchuria and
other parts of Northern China.
- Through a mixture of threats and cajolery, Roosevelt convinced both sides to meet in Portsmouth, New Hampshire to work
out a treaty and maintain the a balance of power and continued Chinese Independence.
- For his efforts TR was awarded the Noble Peace Prize.
- Over the next several years tensions between the U.S. and Japan worsened as the two vied for greater influence.
- A series of agreements kept each in check.
- 1907 Roosevelt sent The Great White Fleet – 16 Battleships of the New U.S. Navy (painted white for peace) around the
world showing off the nations military might and ability to enforce it.
D. Roosevelt Corollary:
- The Big Stick Policy: - “Speak softly and Carry a big stick; you will go far”
- Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine – simply and extension to a previous idea.
- Denied that the U.S. was interested in acquiring any more territories.
“We only want that neighboring countries are stable, orderly, and prosperous”.
- In order to protect the independence of American states the U.S would if necessary, exercise “An international Police
Power” in the western hemisphere.
- 1904 Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) went belly up financially.
- Several European countries threatened to intervene (invade).
- While European countries had to stay out the U.S. was free to intervene South of the boarder.
- U.S. Marines landed in the Dominican Republic and took control of the collection of customs – seeing to it that European
creditors were paid off.
- From 1904 to 1930s the U.S. intervened in a number of Latin American Countries:
- Cuba, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.
- These action pleased European investors but created a reservoir of ill will among Latin Americans who felt bullied by the
great “Anglo” power to the north.
E. The Panama Canal:
- The need for a quick route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
- 1850 the U.S. and Great Britain had signed a treaty agreeing that neither would build a canal without the others consent
and participation.
- 1901 the U.S. and Great Britain signed a treaty the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty which gave the United States the exclusive right
to build and control a canal through Central America.
- Panama was a providence of Columbia.
APUSH Unit 9, 10 and 11 Page 21
- U.S. bought the rights for a twenty five year concession to build a canal across Panama from the failed French company of
Ferdinand de Lesseps, who was defeated by Yellow Fever.
- Columbia was waiting for the 25 years lease to expire so they could raise the price.
- Roosevelt saw this as robbery, and organized the Panamanian “revolution” against Columbia.
- Nov. 1903 Revolt took place – with U.S. war ships off the coast to help if needed.
- U.S. became Panama’s protector, in return received a ten mile wide track of land across Panama in order to build the canal.
- 1914 six months ahead of schedule and $23 million under cost the canal was finished.
- 1921 after Roosevelt’s death Congress paid Columbia $25 million in guilt payment for taking Panama.
F. William Howard Taft:
- Succeeded TR in the White House.
- Distinguished Lawyer from Ohio.
- TR’s Secretary of War.
- goal was to maintain an open door to Asia and secure stability in Latin America.
- “Dollar Diplomacy” – Substituted dollars for bullets, increased American investment in other countries.
- The diplomacy did not always work as well as expected and at times lost the U.S. money.
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