US History, Guilded Age- Indian Wars
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- Who named the guilded age and why was it named this?
- Mark Twain, and b/c it was golden on the outside but cheap on the inside.
- What did Lincoln call the post civil war era?
- "the rebirth of freedom"
- What defined the Guilded age?
- segregation, discrimination, poverty, corruption, and a large divide btwn the rich and the poor.
- Grant Administration Scandals
- Gold Scandal, Boss Tweed, Credit Mobilier, Whiskey Ring, and Belknap.
- Gold Scandal
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*Jim Fisk and Jay Gold
*Scheme to take over the gold market
* Treasury forced to sell reseves
* Results: sold the gold reserves at a high price to counteract the cornering of hte gold market.
* Congress determined that Grant did nothing wrong. - Boss Tweed
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*in New York crime ring
* committed bribery, graft (forcing ppl to pay), and fraud elections.
* Made about 200 million
*SAMUEL TILDEN put boss tween away - Credit Mobilier
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*Union Pacific oil co.
* formed their own construction co. called the Credit Mobilier construction co.
* Paid themselves 50,000 per mile instead of 30,000 per mile
* Congress payed key members stocks
* PREZ Grant- "let no guilty man escape" - Whiskey Ring
- Stole millions of dollars in excise taxes
- Belknap Scandal
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*Belknap= Seceretary of War
* Sold junk supplies to indians
* Impeached by house
* Grant allows him to resign. - Election of 1882
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*HORACE GREENLEY (dem) vs Grant (rep)
* Dems didnt trust greenley's beliefs (was a reporter)
* landslide victory for Grant - Depression of 1873
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* Too many loans unpayed
* Businesses bankrupt
* Inflation- paper currency worth little - Politics in Grants 2nd term
- Both parties agreed on issues, but not the role of the government regulation economic and moral affairs.
- Hayes Administration
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*Promised to wipe out corruption
* Class Warfare
* Railroad strikes
- workers feel they are underpayed so they go on strike and tear up railroad tracks, paralyzing the country
-Hayes sent military and they workers went back to work.
* Ethnic Clashes- Chinese Exclusion Act
- Dennis Kearny and the Kearnyites - Garfield/Arthur administration
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Garfield assassinated
* Charles Guiteau a Stalwart killed him because he thought Arthur the VP would give him a job.
* Outcome: Giuteau was hung, and two positive acts:
1) Pendleton Act- got rid of spoils system and forbid campaign contributions from federal employees
2) Civil Service commission- jobs filled based on aptitude, according to rules of commision - Mudslinging election of 1884
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Blaine vs Cleveland
1) Blaines supporters (Republican) say that Cleveland has illegit son and is making financial payments. slogan= "ma, ma, where's my pa?"
2) Clevelands suporters(dems and ex repubs (MUGWUMPS))- accuse Blaine of being part of corruption with RR co's and mulligan letters. slogan= "burn, burn, burn this letter"
*Results: RRR (Rum romanticism and rebellion)- insulted irish voters
* this cost blaine the election. - Cleveland Administration
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1) 2 ex confederates appointed to cabinet, making the gap between the north and the south narrower. (should a democrat, however, be trusted?)
2) Tarriffs raised- went against Democrats; no more surpluses for the common man - Fetterman Massacre
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*WYOMING AND MONTANA
*Gold discovered
* Settlers rush in and are attacked by indians
* Fetterman and his US soldiers sent in to protect settlers
* They were set up by the Sioux indians and cheif Crazy Horse (Sioux got soldiers to believe that they were getting raided, and when 81 soldiers went to stop the riad, they got ambushed and killed) - Battle of little Bighorn
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Sioux Indians under SITTING BULL
attack miners in search of gold in the black hills of SOUTH DAKOTA
-soldiers led by General George Custer (264 men) all killed)
* results: last victory for the indians - Century of Dishonor
- Book written in 1881 by Helen Hunt Jackson about he unfairnesses to the indians
- Battle of Wounded Knee
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* US army kills 190 unarmed indian men women and children doing the Ghost dance
* Sitting Bull also killed
* Results: End of Indian war - Government attempts to control Indians
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1) Containment Act of 1868- Moved Indians onto plantations, and Government provides food, clothing, shelter and seeds.
2) Dawes act- Tried to americanize the Indians
was a failure - Factors that led to industialization:
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1) Natural Resources (ex- coal, oil, lumber, iron)
2) New Inventions- Telephone (Graham Bell), Light bulb + electric power Station in NYC (Edison), etc
3) Plentiful Unskilled Labor - 5 ways to set up a business
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1) Proprietorship
2) Partnership
3) Corporation
4) Monopoly
5) Trust - Proprietorship
- ONE person runs a business
- Partnership
- two or more people are partners and put equal amount of money into a business
- Corporation
- Group of 3 or more people who get together and buy stocks
- Monopoly
- One company controls and entire industry...illegal today.
- Trust
- Two or more companies join together and control an entire industry
- John Rockefeller
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Put all his money into the Petroleum industry, "standard oil"
* Gains a monopoly by putting other companies out of business with his low prices for oil.
* Takes over other companies
* Finally, Rockefeller controlled 90% of the oil industry in the US
* - Rockefeller's shrewd business deals
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1) rebate- a discount on freight charges (25-50%)
- by giving certain RR's all of his shipping, he got back a 25-50% rebate.
2) Railroads in return told Rockefeller the destination of his competitor's shipments. - Rockefeller used horizontal or vertical integration?
- Vertical
- Andrew Carnegie
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Built his business by buying everything to make steel
put all his eggs in one basket.
Steel was supreme, and he became the leader in steel production. - Things Carnegie owned
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1) Iron mines for iron ore
2) Steel mills- to turn iron into steel
3) Railroads- to ship the steel
4) Oil- to run mills and factories - Carnegie used horizontal or vertical integration?
- Horizontal
- F. J. P. Morgan
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Banker who bought Carnegie Steel and other Steel Co's for 400 million...and became one company- U.S. STEEL
**WAS A TRUST*** - Social Darwinism=
- The nature of competition exists in all of us
- Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth
- Take wealth and benefit others
- Government Regulations to control Trusts and Monopolies
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1) Anti Sherman Trust Act-
* Made them illegal, but there were loopholes
2) Interstate Commerce Act-
* Railroad charges must be just
* FORBIDS: higher rates for shorter hauls, and must publish financial reports. - Why was there tough competition to complete the first Tanscontinental railraod?
- b/c the more miles built, the more government money and land grants.
- 2 companies building the first transcontinental RR
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1) Union Pacific: West to East
* Irish "paddies"
2)Central Pacific: East to west
* Chinese Immigrants
* Big 4- Led by Leland Stanford. - Promontory Point, Utah
- Golden Spike, driven in by Leland Stanford
- Examples of Cow Towns
- Wichitow, Carson City, Abilene
- Long cattle drives:
- usually once a year, could be an up to 1,000 mile trek
- Chisolm Trail
- San Antonio, TX >> Abilene,KS
- Homestead Act:
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Gave land to people to move out and farm the land to encourage ppl to go west
*Problems: cruel hoax. Not enough rain, and conditions were poor. - New Farming inventions that helped homesteaders
- Barbed wire, steel plows, windmills, and reapers for harvest
- Boom towns and Ghost towns
- Towns popped up quickly, but as soon as the gold/ silver was gone the towns were deserted ans became ghost towns.
- Wild West
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*Adds to american folklore
* Vigilance Commitees- to keep crime at bay. they were police, courts, and executioners.
* Vaudeville- variety shows
* Barnum and Bailey Circus traveled from Boom town to Boom town.
* Westerns- Characterized in hollywood years later.
- Jesse James, "wild" Bill hancock, Billy the Kid, and Annie Oakley. - Unhealthy conditions for workers in the Industrial Growth period/ labor unions
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Miners- coal dust
High injury rate
Child Labor- excessive
Business Cycles- layoffs and low wages - Problems- Employers
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1) Blacklists
2) Lockouts
3) No collective Bargaining
4) Government and military - Blacklists
- Workers fined or lose jobs for participating in Union activities
- Lockouts
- Employers shut factories down
- No collective bargaining
- no negotiation of wages or hours
- Government and Military + labor unions
- is putting strikes down
- Knights of Labor
- a secret society of unskilled workers that included all workers in one big union
- Leader of the knights of labor
- Terence Powederly
- Slogan- knights of labor
- "an injury to one is the concern of all"
- Haymarket Square Riot
- Disorder broke out, bomb went off and kiled 12 people
- American Federation of Labor
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LEd by Samuel GOMPERS
* federation of skilled workers
* Union growth, effective leadreship - Eugene Debbs
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Leader of american railway union
became powerful enough to force the Great Northern Railway to restore wage cuts to workers - Pullman strike
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Pullman car co laid off 2/3 of workers but no reduction in dividends paid to stockholders
* workers protest and are FIRED
* the following day, 10,000 pullman workers walk off
* American Railway Union joins the cause
* Action:
- Boycott all pullman cars
- Mid west railways are paralyzed
- Debbs orders the conduct to be law abiding. - Results of the pullman strikes
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Clevelan intervenes- Military guards mail trains
rioting breaks out
Court injunction- stop strike!
- Debbs refuses and is put in jail
- The strike and the American Reailway Union eventually fall - Basic Gains of the Pullman Strike
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a) wages slowly increased
b) Shortened work days
c) Improved conditions and safety
d) congress passes legislation for a national day of labor