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The United States from 1877 to 1914
Themes: 1877-1898
• An overwhelmingly rural
society
• A largely absent Federal
government
• Rise of corporate capitalism
• Savage boom and bust cycles
• Utopian social movements,
constantly thwarted by:



Political and social
fragmentation
Enormous ethnic
complexity/cultural isolation,
and racism
The economic instability of the
period
• After the election of 1896,
utopianism replaced by
progressivism
The United States from 1877 to 1914
What does “freedom” mean now?
Newly free family
in Richmond,
Virginia, circa
1865
• For African
Americans:
Access to land
 Access to the vote
 Access to education

• For white
Southerners:
Freedom from the
Federal government
 “States rights”

The United States from 1877 to 1914
Lincoln’s 10 percent plan
• General amnesty to white
southerners who pledged
an oath of loyalty to the
government and to the
elimination of slavery
• When 10 percent took the
oath in a given state, they
could set up a state
government
The United States from 1877 to 1914
Andrew Johnson plan
• Loyalty oath
• Governor invokes
constitutional
convention
• State becomes
repatriated if it
abolishes slavery,
revokes secession, and
repudiates its
confederate war debts
The United States from 1877 to 1914
Civil Rights Act
of 1866
14th Amendment,
ratified 1868
• Declared blacks citizens
of the United States
• Gave the Federal
government power to
intervene in southern
state affairs
• Gave Freedmen’s Bureau
the power to open
special courts to nullify
the black codes
• First constitutional
definition of citizenship
• Gave individuals “equal
protection of the laws”
• Reduction of
representatives to any
state that denied men the
suffrage
The United States from 1877 to 1914
Radical Reconstruction
• South transformed into five
military districts
• Military commanders could
register all qualified male
voters who had not
participated in the rebellion.
• State constitutional
conventions had to include
black suffrage
• State legislatures had to
approve the 14th amendment.
The United States from 1877 to 1914
The 15th Amendment, 1869
• Forbade states to deny suffrage on basis of
“race, color, or previous condition and
servitude”
• Made this a requirement for last states
applying for repatriation: Mississippi,
Virginia and Texas
• All southern states had to pass 15th
amendment to return to the Union
The United States from 1877 to 1914
Andrew Johnson escapes conviction of the
articles of impeachment, 1868
The United States from 1877 to 1914
The Freedman’s
Bureau
Federal employment agency,
banking system, legal advocacy
agency, medical service, and,
for a little while, a land agency
for African Americans
The United States from 1877 to 1914
The Credit Mobiler Scandal,
1867-1872
Union Pacific railroad board
of directors hires and pays
itself to build the Union Pacific
railroad at exorbitant prices
Pays off members of
Congress to keep quiet
President Ulysses S.
Grant
The United States from 1877 to 1914
Colfax massacre, 1873
• 40 African-American
farmers murdered in
Louisiana
• Federal government
indicts 98 men of violating
the 14th amendment
• Supreme Court overthows
convictions in Cruikshank
vs. United States
Removing the dead after
the Colfax massacre
The United States from 1877 to 1914
The Stolen
Election of 1876
“Rutherfraud” B. Hayes
Hayes’ corrupt
bargain:
• South will
support him if
he withdraws
Federal
troops.
The United States from 1877 to 1914
Electoral crisis of 1876 and 1877
Four contested states
•
•
•
•
•
Oregon
Louisiana
South Carolina
Florida
19 electoral votes in
dispute
•
•
•
•
One electoral
commission
Five U.S. Senators
Five House
Representatives
Five Supreme Court
Justices
(7 Democrats; 7
Republicans; 1
independent)
The United States from 1877 to 1914
1890 - a class divided society
• Wealthiest 1 percent of families in 1890
owned 51 percent of all real estate,
personal property, and $$$$.
• The 44 percent least wealthy owned 1.2
percent of all property.
• Wealthy and better off own about 86
percent of all wealth
The United States from 1877 to 1914
Two visions of America
• Identity of interest:
• Basic harmony exists
between capital and
labor
• The free market
benefits all
• Laws helping poor
damned as “class
legislation . . . “
• Conflict of interest:
• U.S. society
essentially out of joint
• U.S. on the way to
developing an
aristocracy
• Government needed
to take active steps to
prevent this . . .
The United States from 1877 to 1914
The
Knights of
Labor
•emphasized
alternatives to the
wage system
•created diverse
assemblies of
workers not based
on their craft
The United States from 1877 to 1914
The Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882
• Congressional
response to the
Workingmen’s
Party of
California
• Prohibited most Chinese
from immigrating to the
United States
• Exceptions: wives of men
already in the U.S.;
teachers, students, and
merchants
• Chinese-American
population halved by
1920
The United States from 1877 to 1914
Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886)
• Yick Wo was denied a
permit to operate a
laundry in San Francisco
(while white operators
received permits).
• U.S. Supreme Court
declared that the
application of a statute as
well as the statute itself
must not be
discriminatory
Yick Wo Elementary School, SF
• Declared City of San Francisco in violation of the
14th amendment
• Case later cited in Texas v. Hernandez (1954)