UNIT 7: RESHAPING THE NATION



UNIT 2: RESHAPING THE NATION

CHAPTER 4: THE WESTERN FRONTIER

THE MINING BOOMS

--After the California Gold Rush, many people began to search for gold in other parts of the West. Gold was found in Colorado, Nevada, and other parts of the West. Silver and other precious metals like copper were also mined too. Mining became big business in the late 1800s and many people became rich. Soon the West began to grow in population. This created boomtowns—towns that grew up almost overnight around mining sites. When towns were sometimes abandoned, the boomtowns turned into ghost towns. Many times the West was a dangerous place with lots of violence and not enough police or prisons. Cheating and stealing were common, since men were the majority. However, once women started moving west they founded schools and churches, working to make the communities safer and more orderly.

--An important reason why the mining booms were so prosperous was because of the railroads. Railroads made it possible for people to travel across the country faster and also to transport all of the goods produced in the West, such as the gold and precious metals mined there. The government offered subsidies—financial aid and land grants to help companies build tracks. Between 1865 and 1890 the miles of track in the U.S. grew from 35,000 to more than 190,000. By 1869 the U.S.’s first transcontinental railroad—connecting the Pacific and Atlantic coasts—was completed. It was built by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Companies. The two railroads met at Promontory Point in Utah. They were connected by a golden spike.

RANCHERS AND FARMERS

--In Texas, there were about 5 million longhorn cattle by 1865. In the East and North, the demand for cattle increased, also increasing the value of cattle. Cattle could now be loaded on trains for shipment North and East, thanks to the railroads. Cattle drives to cow towns—railroad towns for marketing and shipping cattle—turned into a yearly event. The sudden increase in the longhorns’ value set off what became known as the Long Drive—the herding of cattle 1,000 miles or more to meet the railroads. Some of the largest Long Drives led from central Texas to Kansas on the Chisholm Trail. The Goodnight-Loving Trail swung west through New Mexico Territory and then turned North. Cattle driving was very hard work. Cowhands rode in the saddle up to 15 hours every day with little pay. It was a lonely life as well.

--Eventually, the cattle boom came to an end because of ranching and cross-breeding of different cattle species in the northern plains. Now the West would attract many settlers who were farmers. The railroads made it easier for people in the east to travel west. Also, in 1862 Congress passed the Homestead Act, which gave 160 free acres of land to a settler who paid a filing fee and lived on the land for 5 years. Homesteading lured thousands of new settlers to the Great Plains.

--Life on the Plains was difficult and hard to adjust. The houses they had to build were called soddies, because they were made from sod—densely packed soil held together by grass roots. Some soddies lasted for years. The climate presented challenges. Generally there was little rainfall, which could also lead to droughts that can destroy crops. Plagues of insects can also destroy crops. Farmers developed a new farming technique because of the dry land. In dry farming farmers would plant seeds deep in the ground where there was some moisture. They used steel plows to penetrate the tough layer of sod. They also built windmills to pump water from deep in the ground and used barbed wire to protect their land. Many farmers became successful because of this.

--There were some African American farmers moving out to the West too. They were called The “Exodusters”. They were a large group of African-Americans (ex-slaves) who left the South after Reconstruction to move west to become farmers. They left the South because of discrimination and the Jim Crow laws. They moved to mostly Kansas and Oklahoma.

--The last part of the Plains to be settled was the Oklahoma Territory, which Congress had designated as “Indian Territory” in the 1830s. In 1889 the federal government opened Oklahoma to homesteaders. On the official opening day more than 10,000 people lined up on the edge of this land. The homesteaders began to charge across the border to stake their claims. The eager boomers, as the homesteaders were called, discovered to their dismay that some settlers had already slipped into Oklahoma. These so-called sooners had already claimed most of the best land. Within a few years, all of Oklahoma was opened to settlement. Not long after the Oklahoma land rush, the government announced in the 1890 census that the frontier no longer existed.

NATIVE AMERICAN STRUGGLES

--With the big expansion of the West, Plains Indians (Native Americans living in the Western Plains) were being removed by the whites. Plains Indians tribes included the Apache, Comanche, Arapaho, Pawnee, Crow, Cheyenne, and Sioux. They used to have millions of buffalo to supply their needs like clothing, weapons, and most importantly, food. Unfortunately, the whites killed over 9 million buffalo in just 3 years. This was devastating to the Plains Indians, since buffalo was their main source of food. To make things worse, the government now wanted to relocate the Plains Indians into many reservations so that whites moving west can settle those lands. One was already established, called Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. Another reservation was in the Dakota Territory, made for the Sioux. However, many tribes were resistant to being relocated. This caused conflict.

--One instance was a group of Cheyenne Indians who refused to relocate. An American militia came to forcefully relocate them and even though the Cheyenne tried to surrender, over 100 men, women, and children were killed. This was known as Sand Creek Massacre.

--A famous battle was called the Battle of Little Bighorn, or Custer’s Last Stand. General Custer led his troops into the Dakota Territory where the Sioux were relocated. He wanted to go there to see if rumors he heard about gold in that region were true. The Sioux didn’t let him pass and the battle broke out. Custer and his men were outnumbered, about 250 to 3,000. Every soldier including Custer died. The Sioux were being led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

--There were a few battles where the Indians won, including Little Bighorn. However, there were more massacres too, like Sand Creek. Some Sioux Indians were gathered at a creek called Wounded Knee, where U.S. soldiers came to collect weapons. Someone fired a shot and fighting broke out. Using rifles, soldiers killed over 300 Sioux. It became known as the Massacre at Wounded Knee.

--In 1887, Congress passed a law called the Dawes Severalty Act. This replaced the reservation system with an allotment system. Each family was granted a 160-acre farmstead. The goal of this law was to encourage individuality so that tribes can be broken up. The US government was hoping to assimilate Native Americans into the white culture, permanently destroying the tribal system. They were forbidden from wearing traditional dress and speaking their native language.

FARMERS IN PROTEST

--Starting in the 1860’s farming expanded into the West, cultivating more land and producing more crops. However, the supply of crops grew so fast that it drove prices down. Farmers were now making less profit, and they still had to pay high prices for railroads to ship their crops east. And they also still had to pay high prices for seeds, equipment, and other manufactured goods. Farmers began to organize in an effort to solve their problems. Within a short time, they had created a mass political movement.

--The first farmers’ organization was called the National Grange. They offered farmers education, support, and encouraged economic self-sufficiency. It also tried to cut farmers’ costs by getting state legislatures to limit railroad shipping rates. However, by the 1870’s the Grange had declined. The Farmers’ Alliances rose up, and they were networks of organizations all over the U.S. It had more than 5 million members and eventually became active in political campaigns.

--When people were elected into Congress who were part of the Farmers’ Alliances, they began to work to make it a national political party. In 1892 they formed the People’s Party, a.k.a. the Populist Party. Its goals were rooted in populism, or appeal to the common people. They believed that the government, not private companies, should own the railroads and telegraph lines, and that the country should have unlimited production of silver coins to help with farmers’ debts. Even though the party died out in a few years, many Populist ideas were adopted into legislation and helped to improve the economy by the late 1890s.

CHAPTER 5: THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRY

RAILROADS LEAD THE WAY

--The first transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869, was soon followed by others. The railroad system grew rapidly. By 1900, 193,000 miles of track had been laid. Many works songs such as “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” were popular among those who labored to build these miles of track.

--The expansion of the railroad system was accompanied by consolidation—the practice of combining separate companies—in the industry. Many big railroad companies earned enough money to buy out smaller companies, and because of this, a few powerful individuals known as railroad barons controlled the nation’s rail traffic. Some of these rich and powerful railroad barons were Henry Flagler, Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, and Leland Stanford. They grew large and powerful because they began to buy out other companies to make their company bigger.

--Technology also helped the advancement of railroads. Such things as better braking systems, refrigerated cars, and sleeping cars for luxury travel made them more efficient and safer. Additionally, these railroads helped Americans get across to populate the West a lot faster. They also affected how Americans think about time. As train travel became more common, people began measuring distances by how many hours the trip would take rather than by the number of miles traveled. The spread of the railroad system led to a national system of time with four time zones.

--The railroads helped stimulate the economy and paved the way for American industry to expand into the West. Many raw materials and manufactured goods were traveling on railroads. The railroads also helped other industries to thrive such as iron, steel, lumber, and coal. The railroads opened the entire U.S. to settlement and economic growth and united the different regions of the country into a single network. This was made possible by the government. To encourage the buying of American goods, Congress enacted protective tariffs, or taxes that would make imported goods cost more. The government also encouraged laissez-faire policies, which allowed businesses to operate under minimal government regulation. Such policies, along with a strong legal system that enforced private property rights, provided the predictability and security that businesses and industries needed to encourage investment and growth.

INVENTIONS

--There were many important inventions in the 19th century that enabled Americans to communicate faster and better than ever. The first was the telegraph invented by Samuel F.B. Morse in 1844. Using telegraph lines people could communicate their messages across the country. This had been the fastest mode of communication by the 1860s. The next revolutionary device was the telephone, invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell. Over time, this machine because the most popular way to communicate and linked the country together. It revolutionized communication even more than the telegraph.

--Thomas Edison invented many practical machines such as the phonograph, motion picture projector, telephone transmitter, storage battery, and the dictating machine. However, the most important was the light bulb in 1879. He also designed power plants that could produce electric power and distribute it to light bulbs. Lewis Howard Latimer, an African-American engineer, developed an improved filament for the light bulb and George Westinghouse built transformers to carry electricity more cheaply over long distances.

--Henry Ford was working on automobiles in the 1890s. In 1908, Henry Ford introduced his Ford Model-T automobile to the American public. The average American could now afford to buy cars and drive long distances. It revolutionized travel. Ford also pioneered a new, less expensive way to manufacture cars—the assembly line. On the assembly line, each worker performed an assigned task again and again at a certain stage in the production of the automobile. This enables faster manufacturing and is called mass production.

--Inventors experimented with engine-powered aircraft in the 1800s, but the age of air travel did not begin until 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville and Wilbur Wright, brothers and bicycle mechanics, built a wood-and-canvas plane with a 12-horsepower engine. On the morning of December 17, Orville Wright took off in their plane and flew a distance of 120 feet.

AN AGE OF BIG BUSINESS

--The first major corporation—a company that sells shares, or stock, of its business to the public—in this country was the railroad industry. The next (and still a big industry today) was the oil business. People had discovered that you can turn petroleum into oil that was valuable as a fuel. Oil was found in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. The “oil rush” began in after the civil war and people began to find oil to strike rich. John D. Rockefeller made his fortune from oil. In 1870 he organized the Standard Oil Company and set out to dominate the oil industry. He acquired most of the oil refineries in many cities of Ohio. Standard Oil grew into wealth and power, becoming the most famous corporate empire of the day. Rockefeller increased his control of the oil industry in 1882 by forming a trust, a group of companies managed by the same board of directors. First he acquired stock in many different oil companies. Then the shareholders of these companies traded their stock for Standard Oil stock, which paid higher dividends. This gave Standard Oil’s board of directors ownership of the other companies’ stock and the right to manage those companies. Rockefeller had created a monopoly—total control by a single producer—of the oil industry.

--In the 1850s the Bessemer process had been invented to purify iron into steel. Steel became a huge business in the late 1800s. It was used in railroad tracks, bridges, and many other products because it’s strong, lightweight, and long-lasting. In the 1870s large steel mills emerged in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, close to sources of iron ore. The leading figure in the early years of the American steel industry was Andrew Carnegie. After investing in steel he opened up his own plant in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By 1890 he dominated the steel industry. His company became powerful through acquiring companies that provided the equipment and services he needed. When Carnegie combined all his holdings into the Carnegie Steel Company in 1900, he was producing 1/3 of the nation’s steel. In 1901 Carnegie sold his steel company to banker J.P. Morgan for $450 million. Morgan combined the Carnegie company with other businesses to form the United States Steel Corporation, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation.

--Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and other industrial millionaires of the time grew interested in philanthropy—the use of money to benefit the community. The philanthropists founded schools, universities, and other civic institutions across the U.S. However, these business people became rich through combining, or merging, companies and/or buying them out. This concentrated economic power in a few giant corporations and a few powerful individuals. By 1900 1/3 of all American manufacturing was controlled by just 1% of the country’s corporations. The big rise in monopolies scared Americans because they argued that monopolies ruined small businesses and threw great numbers of people out of work. Eventually, public pressure forced the federal government to prohibit monopolies with the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890. However, the act wasn’t really enforced and made little difference. The people who see Rockefeller and Carnegie as using their corporations to benefit society and the economy call them Captains of Industry. Those who oppose Rockefeller and Carnegie because they claim that monopolies hurt the economy and damage the country call them Robber Barons.

INDUSTRIAL WORKERS

--Industrial growth in the 1800s created new jobs and raised the standard of living for many American workers. However, working conditions were very poor. Factories and mines were noisy, unhealthy, and unsafe. Accidents were common. Steel workers suffered burns from spills of hot steel. Coal miners died in cave-ins and from the effects of gas and coal dust. Garment workers toiled in crowded urban factories called sweatshops, where they ruined their eyesight by sewing for hours in poor light. Many women worked in factories in the late 1800s, but they generally received about half of what men earned for the same work because no laws regulated workers’ salaries. Industries also hired children because they paid them less than adults. Many people tried to convince their state legislatures to pass child labor laws. Many states did, but it was not enforced and many companies still hired children and abused of their labor.

--Many laborers, especially those who worked in mines, were forced to live in isolated communities near their workplaces. The housing in these communities, known as company towns, was owned by the business and rented out to employees. The employer also controlled the “company store”, where workers were forced to buy goods that were expensive. As a result many of these workers were poor because of the high cost of living.

--Dissatisfied workers organized into groups—labor unions—to demand better pay and working conditions from their employers. In 1869 garment cutters in Philadelphia founded the Knights of Labor. The Knights of Labor became a national labor organization in the 1880s. Unlike most unions, the Knights recruited minorities including women, African Americans, immigrants, and unskilled laborers. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed in 1886 and represented skilled workers in various crafts. They pressed for higher wages, shorter hours, better working conditions, and the right to bargain collectively with employers. In collective bargaining, unions represent workers in bargaining with management for things like higher wages and better working conditions. One form of collective bargaining was the strike, in which workers agreed to cease work until their demands were met.

--Economic depressions led companies to fire workers and lower wages. Unions responded with large strikes that sometimes sparked violence. There was a Railroad Strike of 1877, where riots broke out because workers’ wages were lowered. The Haymarket Riot of 1886 turned violent when strikers were killed; police had to be called to suppress the riot. The workers had been striking to achieve an 8-hour work day. In the Homestead Strike of 1892, workers were striking because of reduced wages. The company hired more workers to replace the ones who were striking and also hired armed guards. Fights broke out, causing deaths. In the Pullman Strike, wages were cut without a decrease in the cost of living in the Pullman company town. Almost 300,000 railroad workers went on strike, but then the President ordered the strike to end.

CHAPTER 6: TOWARD AN URBAN AMERICA

THE NEW IMMIGRANTS

--Towards the end of the 19th century, America received a lot more immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. These immigrants were either Catholic or Jew and spoke little to no English. Because of this, it was hard for them to blend with Americans and they felt like outsiders, so they had clustered together in urban neighborhoods made up of people of the same nationality. Despite this fact, many immigrants still came to America to start a new life full of opportunities they wouldn’t have in their native countries. The journey to America was a hard one. They had to often travel to a seaport first to board a ship. They also had to travel for hundreds of miles on foot or on horseback and through foreign countries to get to the port cities. Immigrants usually could afford only the cheapest tickets on ships, and they traveled in steerage, cramped, noisy quarters on the lower decks. Most European immigrants landed at New York City. They had to register at government reception centers. First it was on Manhattan Island, then after 1892 it was Ellis Island in New York Harbor. The immigrants had to go through entrance examinations where they were asked their name, occupation, and other series of questions. They also had to undergo health examinations and they could be refused entrance if they were found to be too sick.

--Once here, the immigrants had to find work. Some had relatives already here who helped find work, but most had to find jobs by themselves. Many industrial companies hired unskilled immigrants for menial jobs where they worked for many hours, often receiving less pay than American citizens. Many immigrants worked in sweatshops in the garment industry. It was hard to adjust to American life because many immigrants wanted to keep their own culture but also assimilate into the American culture at the same time. Many children began to learn English but still speak their native language at home. Immigrants settled together in urban communities to re-create their homeland. They established businesses, churches and synagogues, published newspapers, and organized social clubs.

--Many Americans reacted negatively to the mass amount of immigrants coming in. Many argued that they are taking away jobs and drive down everyone’s wages by accepting lower pay. Some Americans argued that the new immigrants—with their foreign languages, unfamiliar religions, and distinctive customs—did not fit into American society. People found it easy to blame immigrants for increasing crime, unemployment, and other problems in American society. The Nativist movement was an anti-immigrant movement where Americans tried to ban immigration. Few strict laws were passed, with exception of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited the Chinese from entering the U.S. Another law was the “gentleman’s agreement”. In 1908 the government and Japan made a deal in where Japan agreed to limit the number of immigrants to the U.S., while the Americans pledged fair treatment for Japanese Americans already in the U.S.

--Because of so many immigrants coming into the country, the government implemented quotas, a limit on the number of people allowed to enter the country.

MOVING TO THE CITY

-- By the late 1800s America was changing from a rural to an urban nation. Many people moved to cities because of the rise in industrialization, technology, and transportation. People left farmlands because new machinery enabled crops to be grown with less laborers. America’s expanding railroad network fed the growth of the cities. Railroads helped people move to the cities and transported the raw materials for industry. Cities were exciting places that offered jobs, stores, and entertainment.

--But there was also substandard housing and desperate poverty. The gap between the rich and the poor was staggering. Many lower class people and immigrants lived in tenements in the city located in the slums. Tenements were apartment buildings shared by many families that were in poor, horrible conditions and run-down. The cities also had a growing middle class. The middle class included the families of professional people such as doctors, lawyers, and ministers. An increasing number of managers and salaried office clerks also became part of the middle class. They often enjoyed a comfortable life living in the suburbs, residential areas that sprung up outside of city centers as a result of improvements in transportation. At the top of the economic and social ladder stood the very rich. The wealthy lived very different lives from most Americans. They built enormous mansions in the city and huge estates in the country. In these mansions, the rich lived lives of extreme luxury, throwing enormous parties and dinners. Mark Twain published a novel in 1873 called The Gilded Age. The name—which refers to something covered with a thin layer of gold—became associated with America of the late 1800s. The Gilded Age suggested both the extravagant wealth of the time and the terrible poverty that lay underneath.

--The rapid growth of the cities produced serious problems. Among these were overcrowding, public health dangers, and crime. The terrible overcrowding in tenement districts created sanitation and health problems. Garbage and horse manure accumulated in city streets, and the sewers could not handle the flow of human waste. Filth created a breeding ground for disease. Diseases were spreading rapidly and in an effort to control disease, some cities began to screen children in school for diseases and also open up public health clinics for those who could not pay for medical care. There was also a lot of poverty in cities which led to crime. Gangs roaming the poor neighborhoods committed serious crimes. Many people tried to change the cities to prevent these problems. Eventually cities began to establish housing codes to prevent the worst abuses in tenement housing. Religious groups also began to help out the poor. The Salvation Army, started in the U.S. in 1879, set up soup kitchens to feed the hungry and opened shelters for homeless people. Others helped out the poor in orphanages, prisons, and hospitals.

--Urban growth led to important, new developments. In the late 1800s, cities saw the introduction of a new type of building, new kinds of public transportation, and public parks. Because of limited space in the city, architects began to design upwards instead of outwards. They used irons frames to support the buildings and eventually began to build many floors in one building—the skyscraper.

More transportation evolved too. In 1872 San Francisco began construction of cable-car lines. A large underground cable powered by a motor at one end of the rail line moved passengers along. In 1888 Richmond, Virginia, pioneered the use of the trolley car, a motorized train that was powered by electricity supplied through overhead cables. In 1897 Boston opened the nation’s first subway, or underground railway. Many bridges were built too in order to connect towns and cities that were divided by rivers or big lakes. One example is the Brooklyn Bridge, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, which is still in use today.

A CHANGING CULTURE

--Towards the end of the 1800s, Americans began to place more value in education, believing that for the nation to progress, the people needed more schooling. By the beginning of the 1900s most states had laws that required children to be in school. More secondary schools were being built and as a result, there was a big increase in school enrollment. Since many boys still were required to stay home to help their families, the majority of high school students were girls. Colleges and universities also changed and expanded. An 1862 law called the Morrill Act gave the states large amounts of federal land that could be sold to raise money for education. The states used these funds to start dozens of schools called land-grant colleges. Many women were able to go to college at this time because women’s colleges were opening up and many land-grant colleges were admitting women. By 1910 almost 40% of all American college students were women. Some new colleges provided higher education for African Americans and Native Americans. College enrollment increased in the late 1800s for African Americans.

--As education grew, so did the interest for reading. The public library system expanded greatly during this time. Technological advances in printing, paper making, and communications made it possible to publish a daily paper for a large number of readers. Newspapers, magazines, novels, and paperback books all increased in circulation as people read for entertainment. Many novels were also being written at this time. Many writers had the approach to literature in realism; they were describing the real lives of people of the time. Mark Twain was an author who was a realist.

--Industrialization and urbanization led to the rise of many products and services that became available. This led to a culture of conspicuous consumerism, in which people wanted and bought the many new products on the market. To make these products more available, department stores were made. Department stores placed advertisements in newspapers and magazines to attract customers. This all led to mass advertising, which we still have today.

--Americans also listened to music for entertainment, such as jazz and ragtime music. Jazz was created by African American musicians in New Orleans. It combined elements of work songs, gospel music, spirituals, and African rhythms. Related to jazz was ragtime music, with more complex rhythms.

--For leisure, many Americans enjoyed sports. After the Civil War, baseball, football, basketball, and boxing gained popularity. Leagues of sports teams were organized in the late 1800s leading to professional sports. Attending these spectator sports and rooting for the home team or a local star became a favorite pastime. Large cities had many theatres. Plays performed ranged from serious dramas by Shakespeare to vaudeville shows, variety shows with dancing, singing, comedy, and magic acts. The circus also attracted large audiences. The last major form of entertainment was a new technology, films and “moving pictures”. Thomas Edison had invented moving pictures in the 1880s. The “movies” soon became enormously popular. Some theatres, called nickelodeons, charged 5 cents to see short films. The nickelodeons were the beginning of today’s multimillion-dollar film industry, one of the most influential forms of mass communication in history.

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