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Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age 1869-1896
Chapter 23
Even as post-Civil War America expanded and industrialized, political life in the
Gilded Age was marked by ineptitude, stalemate, and corruption. Despite their similarity
at the national level, the two parties competed fiercely for office and spoils, while doling
out “pork-barrel” benefits to veterans and other special interest groups.
The serious issues of monetary and agrarian reform, labor, race, and economic
fairness were largely swept under the rug by the political system, until revolting farmers
and a major economic depression beginning in 1893 created a growing sense of crisis and
demands for radical change.
After the soaring ideals and tremendous sacrifices of the Civil War, the post-Civil War
era was generally one of disillusionment. Politicians from the White House to the
courthouse were often surrounded by corruption and scandal, while the actual problems
afflicting industrializing America festered beneath the surface.
The popular war hero Grant was a poor politician and his administration was rife
with corruption. Despite occasional futile reform movements, politics in the Gilded Age
was monopolized by the two patronage-fattened parties, which competed vigorously for
spoils while essentially agreeing on most national policies. Cultural differences, different
constituencies, and deeply felt local issues fueled intense party competition and
unprecedented voter participation. Periodic complaints by “Mugwump” reformers and
“soft-money” advocates failed to make much of a dent on politics.
The deadlock contested 1876 election led to the sectional Compromise of 1877,
which put an end to Reconstruction. An oppressive system of tenant farming and racial
supremacy and segregation was thereafter fastened to the South, enforced by sometimes
lethal violence. Racial prejudice against Chinese immigrants was also linked with labor
unrest in the 1870s and 1880s.
Garfield’s assassination by a disappointed office seeker spurred the beginnings of
civil-service reform, which made politics more dependent on big business. Cleveland,
the first Democratic President since the Civil War, made a lower tariff the first real issue
in national politics for some time. But his mild reform efforts were eclipsed by a major
economic depression that began in 1893, a crisis that deepened the growing outcry from
suffering farmers and workers against a government and economic system that seemed
biased toward big business and the wealthy.
Ulysses S. Grant
Jim Fisk
Thomas Nast
Jay Cooke
James G. Blaine
Samuel Tilden
Chester A. Arthur
Charles J. Guiteau
Benjamin Harrison
Horatio Seymour
Jay Gould
Horace Greeley
Roscoe Conkling
Rutherford B. Hayes
James A. Garfield
Winfield S. Hancock
Grover Cleveland
Thomas Reed
James B. Weaver
Adlai E. Stevenson
J.P. Morgan
Hard/sound money
Resumption
Spoils system
Pork-barrel bills
Grandfather clause
The “bloody shirt”
Credit Mobilier
Liberal Republicans
Bland Allison Act
Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)
Half-Breed
Pendleton Act
“Redeemers”
Jim Crow
U.S. vs. Wong Kim
Billion-Dollar Congress
Sherman Silver Purchase Act
William McKinley
Tom Watson
William Jennings Bryan
soft/cheap money
contraction
Gilded Age
crop-lien system
populism
“Ohio Idea”
Tweed Ring
Whiskey Ring
“Crime of ‘73”
Greenback Labor party
Stalwart
Compromise of 1877
Mugwumps
Plessy v. Ferguson
Chinese Exclusion Act
“Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion”
People’s Party (Populists)
McKinley Tariff
1. Compare the politicians of the Gilded Age to those of the previous age – Clay, Jackson,
Webster, and Lincoln. What are some of the marked differences between the two groups?
What might those differences say about the moral and political standards of the time?
2. Examine the impact of the new political alignments in the South. Consider the role of
“redeemers,” poor whites, and blacks in the post-Reconstruction era.
3. What is the link between racial and labor conflict, especially in places like California, where
the “racially different” Chinese were seen as threats to the advances of white (often Irish or
other immigrant) working people?
4. Examine the depression of the 1890s as the immediate context for the growing sense of class
crisis in America. Consider the different but related grievances of western and southern
farmers and (largely) northern and eastern industrial works.
5. Describe the Tweed scandal and how that event could also bee seen as a symbol for the
generally corrupt atmosphere of the times?
6. Compare Grant’s failures as president in contrast with his success as a general. Contrast his
performance with that of other general-presidents like Washington or Jackson who were
successful politicians.
7. Consider the Compromise of 1877 in relation to race and sectional conflict. Did a
Republican unwillingness to compromise by ending Reconstruction lead to renewed sectional
violence?
8. Examine the “corrupt” J.P. Morgan gold deal of 1895 as a symbol of what many Americans
saw as the capture of the federal government by big business. Considering Morgan himself
as an important political as well as economic figure, did he deserve the villainous treatment
he received from critics and protestors?
9. Why did politics in the Gilded Age seemingly sink to such a low level? Did the gilded Age
party system have any strengths to compensate for its weaknesses?
10. Was the Compromise of 1877 another cynical political deal of the era or a wise adjustment to
avoid a renewal of serious sectional conflict?
11. What were the short-term and long-term results of the “Jim Crow” system in the South? Why
was the sharecropping system so hard to overcome?
12. Why was the political system so slow to respond to the economic grievances of farmers and
workers, especially during the hard economic times of the 1890s? Were the Populists and
others more effectively addressing the real problems that America faced, or was their
approach fatally crippled by their nostalgia for a simpler, rural America?
William Jennings Bryan
1860-1925
William Jennings Bryan was born in Salem, Illinois. He was educated at Illinois College
in Jacksonville and Union Law School in Chicago. Bryan practiced law in Jacksonville
for several years, but in 1887 moved to Lincoln, Nebraska where he hoped to launch a
political career.
Bryan was elected to Congress twice, 1890 and 1892. His influence grew rapidly, due
largely to his strong advocacy of free silver, opposition to high protective tariffs and
oratorical skills. In 1894, Bryan worked to unite the Democrats and Populists in
Nebraska, but later lost a bid for a Senate seat. Out of politics, Bryan became the editor of
the Omaha World-Herald and traveled widely as a lecturer on the Chautauqua circuit.
Popular perception notwithstanding, Bryan's nomination at the Democratic convention in
1896 was not a spontaneous event fueled by his "cross of gold" speech. The gathering
was electrified by his performance, but Bryan's handlers had long been at work securing
votes from the delegates. His advocacy of free silver later brought him the Populist
Party's nomination. During the campaign, Bryan became the first candidate to
unabashedly seek voter support. He traveled thousands of miles by train and delivered
hundreds of speeches, stopping even in the smallest of towns. His oratorical prowess
earned him the nickname "boy orator of the Platte," but his detractors liked to point out
that the Platte River was only six inches deep and a mile wide at the mouth.
Bryan's limited message was instrumental in his loss to William McKinley, an event that
ushered in another era of Republican leadership. Under Bryan's influence, the Democratic
party underwent a dramatic change. The earlier Jacksonian legacy was one dedicated to
limited government, but the party from 1896 onward promoted a more expansive role.
In 1898, Bryan volunteered to serve with a Nebraska regiment in the Spanish-American
War. He would later become a vocal critic of that conflict and the wave of imperialism it
unleashed.
Bryan was nominated by the Democrats for a second time in 1900. He insisted upon
campaigning again on on the silver issue, which had passed its prime and cost him the
support of many eastern party members. Anti-imperialism emerged as the Democrats
leading cause, but the topic resonated poorly with the electorate.
In 1901 Bryan, founded the Commoner, a weekly newspaper, which he published for 12
years. He also maintained a busy public speaking schedule, which helped to ensure his
popularity in Democratic circles despite his two losses.
In 1908, Bryan was nominated for a third time, but lost to Republican William Howard
Taft.
Recognizing that his presidential desires would never be fulfilled, Bryan helped instead
to engineer the nomination of Woodrow Wilson in 1912. He was rewarded by an
appointment to secretary of state. Bryan's most notable contribution was the negotiation
of arbitration treaties with 30 nations that provided for a "cooling off" period as a way to
avoid war. Bryan was a staunch supporter of neutrality at the outbreak of World War I.
He later resigned his office in protest over Wilson's actions following the sinking of the
Lusitania.
Bryan remained active in a variety of causes, including peace, women's suffrage,
prohibition and Christian fundamentalism. In 1925, he served as an associate counsel in
the trial of John Scopes, a Tennessee instructor accused of teaching evolution in a public
school. Bryan took the stand and underwent a withering cross-examination by Clarence
Darrow. Bryan's side won the case, but he became the subject of widespread ridicule. He
died less than a week later.
William Jennings Bryan was not a deep or original thinker, but a sincerely dedicated
public servant. He was one of the most prominent figures of his day, but his political
appeal was too limited to allow him to become a successful presidential candidate. Many
of the goals he failed to achieve--women's suffrage, a graduated federal income tax,
prohibition and the popular election of U.S. senators--would later be enacted into law.
Early Chinese Experience in Gilded Age
1. Annexation of California = U.S. expansion to Asia + Asian migration
2. Reasons for Chinese migration
☺ sanctuary from Opium Wars
☺ fleeing peasant rebellions
☺ battle of Puntis (locals) v. Hakkas (guests) over fertile delta lands
☺ harsh economic conditions
♠ high taxes of the Qing gov’t on peasant farmers, unable to pay, many lost $
3. Searching for Gann Sann – Gold Mountain
☺ typically young, impatient, mostly men, planning temporary stay. Illiterate with
very little schooling
☺ image of America as prosperous, especially port cities
☺ some returned to China with $ made in Hawaii and America = excitement
♠ 1860s – earn $3-5/month in China v. $30/month working on railroad
4. Contrary to popular myth, these Chinese migrants were not “coolies” or unfree
laborers who had been kidnapped or pressed into service by coercion and shipped to a
foreign country.
Vs.
Came as free laborers: some paid own way, some in the credit-ticket system
5. Majority were married with promises to return someday to wives
In California (that held 77% of all Chinese in America, 10% of Montana, 29% Idaho, 9%
in California
1849 – 325
1850 – 450
1851 – 2,716
1852 – 20,026
1870 – 63,000
1930 – 400,000
At first they were welcomed, but then…
1850 – Nativist cry “California for Americans”
°
Legislature enacted a foreign miner’s tax to eliminate Mexican miners
1852 – A new foreign miner’s tax = monthly payment of $3/every foreign miner who did
not desire to be a citizen (1790 federal law reserved naturalized citizenship for “white”
persons)
1870 – Law repealed by 1870 Civil Rights Act. $5 million collected from the Ciniese
(25-50% of all state revenue.
1860s – 24,000 (2/3 Chinese population in America) worked in California mines
☺ banded together into smaller groups of 20-30 working “placer” claims or stream
mining – common Cali Rivers
☺ with their blue cotton shirts, baggy pants, wooden shoes, wide-brimmed hats, and
queues down their backs
☺ as profits went down, many left to join rails.
1865-1867: 100,000 hired by Central Pacific Rail to lay tracks for the transcontinental
east from Sacramento. Praised by Leland Stanford as “much more reliable than whites”
and had no danger or strike, and underlived white workers by 1/3.
The construction of the Central Pacific Railroad was a Chinese achievement. Time was
critical to the companies success, for the amount of money and land received was
proportionate to the miles of track built = forced work through the winter of 1866 –
dangerous, miners not found until snow melts, lived and worked in mines.
Spring 1866 – Chinese workers strike, demanding wages of $45/month and 8 hour work
day (same as whites). 5,000 walked out after company offered $35/month
°
believed to be a conspiracy with the competing Union Pacific
°
called 10,000 blacks to replace and cut off food supply = ended in a week
1869 – railroad completed, thousands went to San Fran. to join manufacturing – ½ of S.F.
labor force was Chinese.
° concentrated in low-wage and menial jobs, segregated with in individual
industrialists and were paid less than whites for equal work.
1860 – 1880 – massive growth of Chinese tenant farming. Transformed California from
wheat to fruit (experienced farmers from the Pearl River Delta shared ag. Knowledge
with white employers, teaching them how to plant, cultivate and harvest orchard and
garden crops). On average, increased the land value from $28/acre in 1875 to $100/acre
in 1877.
1882 – After Chinese Exclusion Act reduced labor supply and cut competition,
agricultural workers demanded more pay, becoming more Americanized in the medium
of labor organization.
1893 – “Driving Out” period during economic depression as white workers created antiChinese riots, beating and shooting Chinese and shipping them out of town on trains.
Ethnic antagonism: forced Chinese from mines, factories, and fields and into selfemployment – stores, restaurants, and especially laundries.
By 1890 – 6,400 Chinese laundry workers (1/12 Chinese)
☺ “Chinese laundryman” was an American phenomenon, as there were no laundries
in China; women did all the washing in tubs. All Chinese laundrymen here were
taught by American women; Chinese men would lose status at home.
☺ Laundry could be opened with a small amount of capital ($75-$200) with minimal
requirements – stove, trough, dry room, sleeping apartment, and a sign; little need
to speak English (prices given by size of coin).
By 1900: ¼ Chinese men worked in laundry
In the South
“We can drive the niggers out and import coolies that will work better, at less expense,
and relieve us from the cursed nigger impudence.” Chinese would replace blacks who
were leaving during and after Reconstruction and be a model for those who stayed.
How did cheap Chinese help the whites? Besides less labor cost and thus long-term
profit, it allowed whites to take the positions of authority that was not possible when they
were on the bottom-rung of the economy.
What permitted this treatment of the Chinese?
There was a dominant ideology that defined American as a racially homogeneous society
and Americas as white. Like blacks, the Chinese were described as heathen, morally
inferior, savage, childlike, and lustful. The Chinese were viewed as threats to white
racial purity.
1880: Prohibited marriage of a white person and a negro, mulatto, or Mongolian. New
York governor Horatio Seymour – “We do not let the Indian stand in the way of
civilization, so why let the Chinese barbarian?”
1854: California Supreme Court decision, People v. Hall, Chinese listed as the same as
blacks, mulattos, or Indians in that they could not testify against whites.
1879: President Rutherford Hayes warned Americans about the “Chinese Problem.”
The “present Chinese invasion,” he argued was “pernicious and should be discouraged.
Our experience in dealing with the weaker races – the Negroes and Indians… - is not
encouraging. I would consider with favor any suitable measures to discourage the
Chinese from coming to our shores.”
1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act (even though Chinese made up .003% of the U.S.
population), said that no more Chinese were allowed to enter and those who were here
could not become citizens. The Chinese became victims of the introduction of
unemployment which plunged society in to a national crisis.
1892 – renewed and 1902 extended indefinitely
The Chinese saw the source of their oppression as racism. “Up to 800,000 Europeans
enter the United States per year, yet the labor unions hardly cared,” the Chinese Six
Companies (leading Chinese economic coalition group) noted. “A few thousand of the
Chinese arrivals would irritate American workers…and European immigrants get
citizenships and voting rights often immediately after their arrival in the United States.”
Similarly, a Chinese worker explained that what separated them from the other immigrant
groups was race. “The cheap labor was always a falsehood,” argued Lee Chew. Chinese
labor was “never cheap” and “always commanded the highest market price”. But “it was
the jealousy of laboring men of other nationalities – especially the Irish – that raised all
the outcry against the Chinese. No one would hire an Irishman, German, Englishman or
Italian when he could get a Chinese, because our countrymen were so much more honest,
industrious, steady, sober, and painstaking. The Chinese were persecuted, not for their
vices, but for their virtues.” Noting the flaws of other immigrant groups, Lee Chew
continued: “Irish fill the almshouses and prisons and orphan asylums, Italians are among
the most dangerous of men, Jews are unclean and unclean and ignorant. Yet they are all
let in, while Chinese, who are sober, or duly law abiding, clean, educated, and
industrious, are shut out…more than half the Chinese in this country would become
citizens if allowed to do so, and would be patriotic Americans.
Twice a minority: Chinese women in America
1852: 11,794 Chinese in California – only 7 women
1870: 63,199 Chinese in U.S. – 4,556 female (13:1 ratio)
1900: 89,863 Chinese in U.S. – 4,522 female (5%)
Why so small numbers?
1. Chinese traditions and culture limited migration for women. Confucianism
determined the place of the women.
2. Women of all classes were expected to remain at home.
3. Upper class women had feet bound and “compressed” and “unused to winds and
waves”
4. Too expensive for them to accompany men and thought it would only be temporary
5. Hostage Theory: women were kept at home in order to ensure that their absent
husbands would not stay in America.
6. Work was too difficult to have family in tow.
7. Existence of wives and children created more anxiety of white Americans fearing an
“invasion.”
Industry Comes of Age 1865-1900
Chapter 24
America accomplished heavy industrialization in the post-Civil War era. Spurred by the
transcontinental rail network, business grew and consolidated into giant corporate trusts,
as epitomized by the oil and steel industries.
Industrialization radically transformed the practices of labor and the condition of
American working people. But despite frequent industrial strife and the efforts of various
reformers and unions, workers failed to develop effective labor organizations to match
the corporate forms of business.
Aided by government subsidies and loans, the first transcontinental rail line was
completed in 1869, soon followed by others. This rail network opened vast new markets
and prompted industrial growth. The power and corruption of the railroads led to public
demands for regulation, which was only minimally begun.
New technology and forms of business organization led to the growth of huge
corporate trusts. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller led the way in the steel and
oil industries. Initially, the oil industry supplied kerosene for lamps; it eventually
expanded by providing gasoline to fuel automobiles. Cheap steel transformed industries
from construction to rail building, and the powerful railroads dominated the economy and
reshaped America.
The benefits of industrialization were unevenly distributed. The South remained
in underdeveloped dependence, while the industrial working class struggled at the bottom
of the growing class divisions of American society. Increasingly transformed from
independent producers and farmers to dependent wage earners, America’s workers
became vulnerable to illness, industrial accidents, and unemployment.
Workers’ attempts at labor organization were generally ineffective. The Knights
of Labor disappeared after the Haymarket bombing. Gompers founded the AF of L to
organize skill craft laborers but ignored most industrial workers, women, and blacks.
Leland Stanford
James J. Hill
Jay Gould
Thomas Edison
John D. Rockefeller
Terence V. Powderly
Samuel Gompers
Land grant
Pool
Vertical integration
Trust
Capital goods
Injunction
Union Pacific Railroad
Grange
Bessemer process
Gospel of wealth
New South
National Labor Union
American Federation of Labor
Collis P. Huntington
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Alexander Graham Bell
Andrew Carnegie
J. Pierpont Morgan
John P. Altgeld
stock watering
rebate
horizontal integration
interlocking directorate
plutocracy
Central Pacific Railroad
Wabash case
United States Steel
William Graham Sumner
yellow dog contract
Haymarket riot
1. Explain the central role the railroads played in late-nineteenth-century American. Show how
they not only moved goods and people but dominated politics, employed workers, promoted
farms and cities, and created models for American big business. Use the building of the
transcontinental railroad as a key symbolic event of the age.
2. Examine the dramatic impact of “big business” and the new industrial corporations on the
American economy and American life generally. Use Andrew Carnegie and John D.
Rockefeller as examples of how the new corporate industrial organizers became widely
celebrated heroes as well. Consider their effects not only on the economy but also on
American culture.
3. Consider the impact of industrialization on the nature of work and the lives of the workers.
Explain the effect of having most workers going from self-employment or working in small
enterprises to being employed in large, impersonal corporations.
4. Analyze the growing place of wage-earning women in the late 19th century industrial
economy. Compare and contrast men’s and women’s attitudes toward work, family, and
labor unions.
5. Explain the contrast of how can the railroads be seen as both a romantic enterprise (for
example, the golden spike, the luxurious Pullman cars) and as a controversial “exploitive”
business (for example, the corruption of legislatures, price-fixing).
6. Explain the benefits and drawbacks of industrialization for various groups (business, labor,
women, minorities, immigrants).
7. How did the Haymarket affair illustrate the growing class conflict in industrial American and
highlight the debates over how American workers should respond to the new industrial
conditions.
8. What were the costs and benefits of industrial transformation of the post-Civil War era?
9. Should industrialists like Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and Rockefeller be viewed as “robber barons”
or “captains of industry?”
10. Was the growing class division of the time a threat to American democracy? Why or why
not?
11. Why did American workers have such trouble responding to the new industrial conditions of
labor? Why were business and the middle-class public generally hostile to allowing workers
to organize as industry did? Why did the AF of L survive while the Knights of Labor failed?
The Rise of Industrial America
1865-1900
By 1900, the United States had emerged as the leading industrial power in the world. Its
manufacturing output exceeded that of its three largest rival, Great Britain, France, and
Germany. The rapid growth of the U.S. economy, averaging 4 percent a year, was the
result of a combination of factors.
1.
Treasure-house of natural resources, including raw materials essential to
industrialization – coal, iron, ore, copper, lead, timber, and oils.
2.
An abundant labor supply was, between 1865 and 1900, supplemented yearly by the
arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
3.
A growing population, combined with an advanced transportation network, made
the U.S. the largest market in the world for industrial goods.
4.
Capital was plentiful, as Europeans with surplus wealth recognized a good
investment and joined well-to-do Americans in funding the economic expansion.
5.
The development of labor-saving technologies increased productivity. Over
440,000 new patents were granted by the federal government from 1860 to 1890.
6.
Businesses benefited from friendly government policies that protected private
property, subsidized railroads with land grants and loans, supported U.S.
manufacturers with protective tariffs, and refrained from either regulating business
operations or heavily taxing corporations.
7.
Talented entrepreneurs emerged during this era who were able to build and manage
vast commercial enterprises.
°
How did the railroad companies end up controlling half the land in some western
states?
°
Vertical v. Horizontal Integration? Prime example of each? Modern example?
°
“
Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776) – the origin of laissez faire concept…
Businesses should be regulated, not government, but by the ‘invisible hand’
(impersonal economic forces) of the law of supply and demand.”
°
How do the concepts of Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer and William Graham
Sumner), the Horatio Alger Myth (self-made man) and the Gospel of Wealth
(Reverend Russell Conwell) change the perception of the “Robber Barons”?
American Moves to the City 1865-1900
Chapter 25
In the late nineteenth century, American society was increasingly dominated by large
urban centers. Explosive urban growth was accompanied by often disturbing changes,
including the New Immigration, crowded slums, new religious outlooks, and conflicts
over culture and values. While many Americans were disturbed by the new urban
problems, cities offered opportunities to women and expanded cultural horizons.
The United States moved from the country to the city in the post-Civil War
decades. Mushrooming urban development was exciting but also created severe social
problems, including overcrowding and slums.
After the 1880s the cities were flooded with the New Immigrants from southern
and eastern Europe. With their strange customs and non-Protestant religions, the
newcomers sometimes met with nativist hostility and discrimination.
Religion had to adjust to social and cultural changes. Roman Catholicism and
Judaism gained strength, while conflicts over evolution and biblical interpretation divided
Protestant churches.
American education expanded rapidly, especially at the secondary and graduate
levels. Blacks and immigrants tried, with limited success, to use education as a path to
upward mobility.
Significant conflicts over moral values, especially related to sexuality and the role
of women, began to appear. The new urban environment provided expanded
opportunities for women but also created difficulty for the family. Families grew more
isolated from society, the divorce rate rose, and average family size shrank.
American literature and art reflected a new realism, while popular amusement
became a big business.
Jane Addams
Mary Baker Eddy
Florence Kelley
Charles Darwin
Booker T. Washington
William James
Horatio Alger
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Cardinal James Gibbons
W.E.B. DuBois
Henry George
Mark Twain
Carrie Chapman Catt
Dwight L. Moody
Megalopolis
Nativism
Pragmatism
settlement house
evolution
yellow journalism
New immigration
Hull House
Salvation Army
Morrill Act
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
social gospel
American Protective Association
Chautauqua movement
Comstock Law
Eighteenth Amendment
Ch. 25 Quick Notes
Urban Growth
Skyscrapers (architect Louis Sullivan “form follows function”
Commuter living and “bedroom communities”
+ Electric trolleys, suspension bridges
+ Creation of Megalopolis
+ Department store shopping
- tenement housing (dumbbell apts.)
- treeless ghettos
- impure water
- uncollected garbage
New Immigration
1850s – 1870s = northern, western Europe, Protestant, Catholic Irish and Catholic
Germans
1880s – 1910s = southern, eastern Europe, Italians, Croats, Slovaks, Poles, Jews
 Creation of ethnic enclaves
Factors of Migration
Push – civil wars, depression, food shortage, landless
Pull – employment, land, freedom from military conscription, religious freedom (Jewish
Diaspora)


“Birds of Passage” – returned to country of origin after earning $
Culture clash – within and without
Reaction to Immigration
Local political control to machines like Tammany Hall & Tweed
“boss”, “padrone”
votes
jobs on city payroll
housing
gifts of food and clothing
law enforcement, assistance
schools, parks, hospitals
Reform and assistance
 Protestant clergy proclaiming “social gospel” – churches lead in assistance
 Hull House & settlement houses
Nativism
 Fear of job competition by established unions
 Fear of being “mongrelized” by inferior southern European blood
 Fear of political loss – American Protective Association (APA) voting against
Roman Catholics.
Government Policy
1882 – no paupers, criminals, or convicts, returned at shippers’ expense
1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act
1886 – Statue of Liberty proclamation vs. role of Ellis Island
Church (creationism) vs. Darwin (evolution)
Education Changes
 Compulsory education, kindergartens, specific schools vs. one room
 “normal” schools to “teach” teachers
Black Leadership: Booker T. v. W.E.B.
Washington: self-help, technical and economic growth (then social and political)
 Tuskegee Institute, Atlanta Compromise (1895) why blacks and not immigrants
DuBois: Harvard grad, social and political rights (then economic)
 Talented 10%
 NAACP
Colleges and Universities
 HBCUs: See attached sheet
 Morrill Act of 1862 – Land Grant Universities
 Philanthropist endowments of private institutions (Stanford, Duke, U. of Chicago,
Johns Hopkins)
 New Lines of thinking
o Medical science
o Concept of Pragmatism vs. theorists
Literature
 Press: 1885 Linotype

Pulitzer (New York World vs. Hearst (San Fran Examiner) = “yellow
journalism” or sensationalism
Authors: Horatio Alger, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Brett Harte, William Dean
Howell, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Family Changes and Reform Movements
 New opportunities, more choices = Divorce Revolution
 Carrie Chapman Catt & women’s suffrage
 Prohibition: Carrie Nation (hatchet)
o Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
o 18th Amendment
Arts and Entertainment
 Whistler, Sargent, Cassatt, Inness, Eakins, Saint-Gaudens, Louis Sullivan, Henry H.
Richardson
 Chicago Exposition 1893, Buffalo Bill, baseball, basketball, boxing
Chapter 25 Items of Note
1.
Explain the strong connection among new forces of industrialization, urbanization, and
immigration. Show how each one tended to reinforce the others, creating a significantly
new kind of urban environment.
2.
Describe the experience of the New Immigrants and explain why they were often regarded
with suspicion or hostility. What factors made them different from most earlier
immigrants?
3.
Relate the cultural conflicts over religion and values to the new social and cultural
environment of the city. Show how urban life tended to undermine traditional standards of
belief and behavior (for example, about drinking or divorce) while creating new institutions
and values, including popular culture.
4.
What were the complicated effects of urbanization on women’s role and family? Even
though new opportunities arose, what new strains were imposed on women?
5.
Using Jane Addams’s experiences, demonstrate how some Americans encountered the
problems of new industrial metropolises like Chicago.
6.
Examine the myths and the realities of immigration. A good starting point might be Emma
Lazarus’s Statue of Liberty poem, which says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” but also called the immigrants “wretched
refuse.”
7.
Analyze the impact of urban life, immigration, Darwinism, and biblical higher criticism
(literary scholarship) on religion, including the “immigrant religions” like Roman
Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Judaism.
8.
Explain the impact and meaning of new “popular amusements” like the circus, baseball,
vaudeville, and so on.
9.
Did the development of American cities justify Jefferson’s claim that when we get piled up
in great cities we will become as corrupt as Europe?
10.
Did urban life cause a decline in American religion or just an adjustment to new forms?
Explain
11.
In what ways was the Italian experience typical of that of other New Immigration groups
such as the Polish, Greeks, Jews, and others? (See Chapter 25 text)
12.
Why did so many Italian-Americans initially intend to return to Italy after a time? How
does that fact fit with the common understanding of immigration to America?
13.
Compare the ethnic “Little Italy” enclaves in various American cities with the
“Chinatowns” established by the Chinese-Americans (Ch. 24). Consider the what functions
these communities served for new immigrants, and how they affected other Americans’
perceptions of the immigrants.
The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 18651896
Chapter 26
After the Civil War, whites overcame the Plains Indians’ fierce resistance and settled the Great
West, bringing to a close the long frontier phase of American history.
The farmers who populated the West found themselves the victims of an economic revolution in
agriculture. Trapped in a permanent debtor dependency, in the 1880s they finally turned to
political action to protest their condition. Their efforts culminated in the Populist Party’s attempt
to create an interracial farmer/laborer coalition in the 1890s, but William Jennings Bryan’s defeat
in the pivotal election of 1896 signaled the triumph of urbanism and the middle class.
At the close of the Civil War, the Great Plains and Mountain West were still occupied by
Indians who hunted buffalo on horseback and fiercely resisted white encroachment on their land
and way of life. But the whites’ railroads, mining, and livestock broke up Indian territory, while
diseases undercut their strength and numbers, A cycle of environmental destruction and
intertribal warfare eventually overcame Indian resistance and soon threatened Native Americans’
very existence. The federal government combined a misconceived “treaty” program with
intermittent warfare to force the Indians onto largely barren reservations.
Attempting to coerce Indians into adopting white ways, the government passed the
Dawes Act, which eliminated tribal ownership of land, while often insensitive “humanitarians”
created a network of Indian boarding schools that further assaulted traditional culture.
The mining and cattle frontiers created colorful chapters in western history. Farmers
carried out the final phase of settlement, lured by free homesteads, railroads, and irrigation. The
census declared the end of the frontier in 1890, concluding a formative phase of American
history. The frontier was less of a “safety valve” than many believed, but the growth of cities
actually made the West the most urbanized region of the United States by the 1890s.
Beginning in the 1870s, farmers began pushing into the treeless prairies beyond the 100th
meridian, using techniques of dry farming that gradually contributed to soil loss. Irrigation
projects, later financed by the federal government, allowed specialized farming in many areas of
the arid West, including California. The “closing” of the frontier in 1890 signified the end of
traditional westward expansion, but the Great West remained a unique social and environmental
region.
As the farmers opened vast new lands, agriculture was becoming a mechanized business
dependent on specialized production and international markets. Once declining prices and other
woes doomed the farmers to permanent debt and dependency, they began to protest their lot, first
through the Grange and then through the Farmers’ Alliances, the prelude to the People’s
(Populist) party.
The major depression of the 1890s accelerated farmer and labor strikes and unrest,
leading to a growing sense of class conflict. In 1896 pro-silverite William Jennings Bryan
captured the Democratic party’s nomination, and led a fervent campaign against the “goldbug”
Republicans and their candidate William McKinley. McKinley’s success in winning urban
workers away from Bryan proved a turning point in American politics, signaling the triumph of
the city, the middle class, and a new party system that turned away from monetary issues and put
the Republicans in the political driver’s seat for two generations.
Sitting Bull
Chief Joseph
Helen Hunt Jackson
Oliver H. Kelley
Mary Elizabeth Lease
James B. Weaver
Eugene V. Debs
Marcus Alonzo Hanna
George A. Custer
Geronimo
John Wesley Powell
William Hope Harvey
Frederick Jackson Turner
Jacob S. Coxey
William McKinley
William Jennings Bryan
Sioux Wars
Apache
Battle of Wounded Knee
Little Big Horn
Comstock Lode
Homestead Act
Safety-valve theory
National Grange
Farmers’ Alliance
Populist (People’s) Party
Coxey’s Army
Cross of Gold Speech
“16 to 1”
Dingley Tariff bill
Nez Perce
Ghost Dance
Dawes Severalty Act
Buffalo Soldiers
Long Drive
Sooner State
Bonanza farms
Granger laws
Colored Farmers National Alliance
Coin’s Financial School
Pullman Strike
Gold Bugs
“fourth party system”
Gold Standard Act
Chapter 26 Main Items of Note
1.
2.
3.
4.
Explanation and reasons for losing of Indian lands
Main Indian leaders, tribes represented, eventual outcome
Why was Fetterman’s defeat only considered to be “false security” for the Sioux?
Writings of Indian-White relations. Was it enough?
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
Indian “humanitarians” help or harm?
Reasons and events of the Battle of Wounded Knee
Goals and implementation of the Dawes Severalty Act
Mining Frontier – perception vs. reality (actual gains and the effect on economy)
Cow towns
Limits of the Homestead Act – effectiveness?
Great Plains living – who had the most lasting effect on the landscape?
Land rushes and “sooners”
Westward migration –who was interested and why? Who was not?
Frederick Jackson Turner’s Thesis – agree or disagree?
Concept of “safety valve”. What was the real “safety valve?”
Role of government in westward migration. Should they step in? In what capacity?
Farmers’ woes – where did they (the woes) come from? What were the solutions?
The Grange  Farmers’ Alliance  Populist Party  ????
Populist leaders and spokespeople? Populist Platform?
Race and farming, do they mix? Why or why not?
Coxey’s Army. What did they want? What did they get? Symbol of the time?
Pullman Strike – beginning to end (causes, main players, gov’t stance, outcome)
1. Examine the successive phases of economic activity in the Great West: mining, cattle raising,
agriculture. Show how in each an early “little person” era was ended by the coming of big
business and new technology, and how the entry of corporate and investment capital shaped
later western development.
2. Examine the unique roles of women in the West, including the more “typical” pioneer
farming women of the Great Plains, as well as the more unusual women who made their way
in the farming towns and later cities of the Far West. Consider how their experience was
similar to that of males in the West, and how it was different.
3. Focusing on the bitter labor conflicts of the decade, especially the Homestead strike and the
Pullman strike, explain why the use of federal troops (Pullman) and Pinkerton anti-labor
agents (Homestead) embittered many workers against both industry and the government’s
executive and judicial authority.
4. Examine the 1896 election as a “crucial election” in American history. Show how Mark
Hanna and McKinley effectively organized the forces of the new urban industrialism against
Bryan’s agrarian-based crusade.
5. Focusing on one of the notable Indian chiefs (for example, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, or
Geronimo), examine their roles as leaders of their people both in resistance to white conquest
and under the circumstances of reservation life. What has become of their image in
American history and culture?
6. Evaluate the validity of the frontier thesis first advanced by Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893
(See Expanding the “Varying Viewpoints” for an excerpt from Turner’s essay.) Consider
how his use of the word frontier contrasts with common understanding, in which the term
refers to almost entirely to the post-Civil War frontier of the Great West.
7. Explain the rapid rise and fall of the Populists in both the West and the South. Consider the
attempt by Populists like Tom Watson to overcome racial division, and explain the reasons he
and other disillusioned reformers later turned to a vicious racism.
8. Examine Hanna’s free-spending policies in the 1896 election. Asses what role campaign
spending (and other political tactics) may have had in defeating Bryan, compared to the
deeper social and political forces that kept most of the urban working class from supporting
the pro-silver campaign.
10. Analyze the long-term significance of the Republican victory in 1896. Consider McKinley as
a symbol of triumphant urban industrial capitalism and the harbinger of an age of Republican
political domination.
11. Why was the “passing frontier” in 1890 a disturbing development for many Americans? Was
the frontier more important as a particular place or as an idea?
12. Was McKinley’s election really a “conservative” one, or was it Bryan and the Populists who
represented the agrarian past resisting progressive urban American future?
Chapter 27: The Path of Empire
In the 1890s a number of economic and political forces sparked a spectacular burst of
imperialistic expansionism for the Unites States that culminated in the Spanish-American
War – a war that began over freeing Cuba and ended with the highly controversial
acquisition of the Philippines and other territories.
Various developments provoked the previously isolated United States to turn its attention
overseas in the 1890s. Among the stimuli for the new imperialism were the desire for
new economic markets, the sensationalistic appeals of the “yellow press,” missionary
fervor, Darwinist ideology, great-power rivalry, and naval competition.
Strong American intervention in the Venezuelan boundary dispute of 1895-1896
demonstrated an aggressive new assertion of the Monroe Doctrine and led to a new
British willingness to accept American domination in the Western Hemisphere.
Longtime American involvement in Hawaii climaxed in 1893 in a revolution against
native rule by white American planters. President Cleveland temporarily refused to
annex the islands, but the question of incorporating Hawaii into the United States
triggered the first full-fledged imperialistic debate in American history.
The “splendid little” Spanish-American War began in 1898 over American
outrage about Spanish oppression of Cuba. American support for the Cuban rebellion
had been whipped up into intense popular fervor by the “yellow press.” After the
mysterious Maine explosion in February 1898, this public passion pushed a reluctant
President McKinley into war, even though Spain was ready to concede on the major
issues.
An astounding first development of the war was Admiral Dewey’s naval victory
in May 1898 in the rich Spanish islands of the Philippines in East Asia. Then in August,
American troops, assisted by Filipino rebels, captured the Philippine city of Manila in
another dramatic victory. Despite mass confusion, American forces easily and quickly
overwhelmed the Spanish in Cuba and Puerto Rico.
After a long and bitter national debate over the wisdom and justice of American
imperialism, which ended in a narrow pro-imperialist victory in the Senate, the United
States tool over the Philippines and Puerto Rico as colonial possessions. Regardless of
serious doubts about imperialism, the United States had strongly asserted itself as a proud
new international power.
Alfred Thayer Mahan
Richard Olney
Dupuy de Lôme
George Dewey
James G. Blaine
Valeriano Weyler
Theodore Roosevelt
Emilio Aguinaldo
Reconcentration
Imperialism
jingoism
Pan-American Conference
Teller Amendment
Treaty of Paris
Foraker Act
Platt Amendment
Maine
Rough Riders
Anti-Imperialist League
insular cases
The United States Undertakes a Policy of Imperialism
Reasons for America’s turn to imperialism
Following the Civil War, and definitely in the 1890s, the United States began to
extend its control over “backward” or weaker areas, especially in Latin America, Mexico,
the Caribbean region, Central America, and parts of South America and the Pacific came
under our influence. The major reasons are as follows…
1. Industrial Revolution: Spurred by Civil War needs, American industry had grown
tremendously. Industrialists began to look abroad for (a) new sources of raw materials,
(b) additional markets for manufactured goods, and (c) places to invest surplus capital.
American merchants and sugar planters as well as missionaries had already pioneered
the way overseas.
2. Close of the frontier: By 1890 the American West was sufficiently populated for the
frontier to be considered closed. The development motivated American manufacturers
and investors to look beyond our borders for economic opportunities.
3. Examples of European Nations: The major as well as many lesser European
powers were engaged in imperialistic ventures. Britain purchased control of the Suez
Canal, established domination over Egypt, and planned a “Cape to Cairo” empire in
Africa. France annexed Indochina. Russia secured border territories from China.
Belgians took over the Congo. Such developments stimulated American interest in
empire building.
4. American Nationalism: Expansionists in the United States urged that America
assumed its rightful place as a great power by embarking upon a policy of imperialism.
Most influential were the lectures and writings of Captain Alfred Mahan. In his book,
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, Mahan urged the U.S. to “look outward”: to
expand foreign markets, construct a powerful navy, and acquire overseas bases. (Mahan
had a notable admirer in Theodore Roosevelt.)
Some historians maintain that overseas imperialism was a logical continuation of
America’s earlier pursuit of manifest destiny.
First Colonial Acquisitions
1. Alaska
a. Purchased from Russia (1867): Russia proposed to sell Alaska to the U.S., and
Secretary of State William Seward agreed to the purchase. Seward’s reasons were (1)
gratitude to Russia for its support of the Union during the Civil War, (2) the desire to
reduce foreign possessions in North American, and (3) the belief that Alaska contained
vast natural resources. Because many people thought the territory a “barren icebox,’
Alaska, costing $7.2 million, was called “Seward’s Folly.”
b. Statehood (1959): Out 49th state, Alaska ranks first in area (being more than
twice the size of Texas) but next-to-last in population (about 520,000 inhabitants). About
80,000 are native Inuits and Indians
c. Importance: Alaska (1) has natural resources of timber, fir, fish, coal, oil, and
gold, (2) is located along the polar air routed to northern Europe and Asia and (3) is
adjacent to Russian Siberia. Alaska contains major air bases, as well as missile-warning
systems.
2. Samoan Islands and Midway: The Samoan Islands in the South Pacific served
American merchant ships as supply harbors and coaling stations. In 1899 several of the
islands were formally annexed by the United States. Also annexed was the Central
Pacific island of Midway. Today American Samoa and Midway are American colonies
that provide the United States with naval and air bases.
3. Hawaii
a. Acquisition (1898): Hawaii, a group of islands in the Central Pacific, 2400 miles
off the California coast, (1) served American merchant ships as a supply and refueling
station, (2) drew American missionaries, who converted the natives to Christianity, and
(3) attracted American investors into Hawaiian sugar plantations. Most Hawaiian sugar
was sold in the U.S.
In 1893 revolutionists, mainly American settlers, overthrew the anti-American native
Queen Liliuikalani. The revolutionists established a temporary republic and asked for
annexation by the United States. Annexation was delayed by the opposition of President
Cleveland, who believed that most native Hawaiians preferred independence. In 1898,
however, with McKinley in the White House, the U.S. annexed Hawaii.
b. Statehood (1959): Our 50th state, Hawaii ranks 47th in are but 39th in population,
with about one million inhabitants. ¼ of these are white, ¼ are of Japanese ancestry, and
the rest are of Hawaiian, Filipino, and other extractions.
c. Importance: Hawaii (1) produces sugar and pineapple, (2) attracts many tourists,
and (3) contains the major American military installations in the Central Pacific,
including the naval base at Pearl Harbor.
Spanish-American War (1898)
1. Cuban Background of the War
a. Early American Interest: American had long been interested in the Spanish
colony of Cuba. They recognized Cuba’s strategic location in the Caribbean Sea.
Located at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, the island is within 90 miles of the Florida
coast. Americans feared for our security if Cuba passed from Spanish into stronger
European hands.
Before the Civil War, Southerners wanted to annex Cuba as another pro-slavery state.
In 1854 three American diplomats declared that, if the U.S. could not purchase Cuba, it
would be justified in seizing Cuba by force - a declaration known as the Ostend
Manifesto. Although repudiated by the U.S. government, the Ostend Manifesto reflected
considerable American sentiment. After the Civil War, American interest in Cuba
temporarily subsided.
b. Despotic Spanish Rule: Spain denied the Cubans civil liberties and political
rights, levied heavy taxes, restrict foreign trade, and ruthlessly suppressed several
rebellions. In 1895, as a depression it the island, Spain faced another Cuban revolt for
independence.
2. Causes of the Spanish-American War
a. Humanitarianism: Americans sympathized with the desire of the Cuban people
for independence. Americans were outraged when Spain’s General Weyler forced
Cubans into concentration camps in an attempt to keep them from aiding the revolution.
Some 200,000 concentration camp inmates, mainly women and children, died of hunger
and disease.
b. Economic interests: American merchants traded with Cuba to the amount of
$100 million per year. American investors had placed $50 million in Cuban sugar and
tobacco plantations. Our trade and investments suffered from unsettled conditions.
c. “Yellow” Journalism: The “yellow” press – especially William Randolph
Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World – sought to increase
newspaper circulation by sensational treatment of news from Cuba. Journalists
exaggerated stories of Spanish atrocities and falsified news pictures while playing down
atrocities by the Cuban revolutionaries. The yellow press also gave sensational treatment
to the De Lôme Letter. Written by the Spanish minister in Washington to friend in Cuba
and stolen from the Havana post office, this private letter belittled President McKinley as
a weak, incompetent politician. By its treatment of such news stories, the yellow press
enraged the American people against Spain.
d. Sinking of the Maine: In 1898, the American battleship Maine, visiting in
Havana, Cuba, was blown up with a loss of 260 American lives. The cause of the
explosion remains unknown, but the American people blamed Spain. They were goaded
to do so by the yellow press; by jingoists who boasted of the nation’s strength; and by
imperialists who wanted an over seas empire.
3. Outbreak of the War: President McKinley had sought to avert war and urged
Americans to remain calm regarding Cuba. Now, with the sinking of the Maine,
McKinley demanded that Spain proclaim an armistice, end the concentration camps, and
negotiate with the rebels. Although Spain’s reply was conciliatory, McKinley finally
yielded to American sentiment for war. At this request, Congress approved the use of
American armed forces in Cuba. Congress also recognized the independence of Cuba
and declared that the United States would not annex Cuba but would leave “control of the
island to its people” – a self-denying declaration known as the Teller Resolution.
Key Question: Did American business interests favor war with Spain over Cuba?
Pro –
Con –
4. Conduct of War: With “Remember the Maine!” as their battle cry, American forces
swept quickly and easily to victory. In the Pacific, Commodore George Dewey led an
American naval force to destroy the Spanish fleet at Manila, the capital of the
Philippines, and an American army took possession of the city. In the Caribbean,
American naval units destroyed the Spanish fleet at Santiago, Cuba. Meanwhile,
American forces captured this city after a battle-famed for the dash up San Juan Hill by
Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders.
In this “splendid little war,” so called by the American diplomat John Hay, more
American soldiers died from tropical diseases, especially yellow fever, than from Spanish
guns. Some years after the war, Walter Reed, an army surgeon, discovered that the
disease is transmitted by a certain kind of mosquito. This discovery led to the wiping out
of yellow fever.
5. Treaty of Paris (1898): Thoroughly beaten, Spain agreed to the following: (a) Cuba
was freed of Spanish control, (b) Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean, and Guam in the Pacific,
were ceded to the United States, and (c) the Philippine Islands, in the Pacific, were sold
to the U.S. for $20 million.
6. Significance: The United States emerged from the Spanish-American War as a
world power with colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Anti-imperialists were
alarmed. In the Presidential election of 1900, Democrat William Jennings Bryan warned
that imperialism abroad would lead to despotism at home. Disregarding this warning, the
people reelected William McKinley, who had campaigned on the issue of the “full dinner
pail,” but who represented imperialism.
American Relations With Cuba
1. Temporary American Occupation: After the Spanish-American War, the United
States temporarily took charge of Cuba, establishing schools, building roads, providing
sanitation, and wiping out yellow fever. Americans also assisted the Cubans in drawing
up a democratic constitution. In 1902, in keeping with the Teller Resolution, American
forces withdrew from the island.
2. American Protectorate Over Cuba: The Platt Amendment: Under strong
American pressure, the Cuban included in their constitution the Platt Amendment. It
provided that Cuba would (a) not sign any foreign treaty that threatened its independence,
(b) allow the United States to intervene in Cuba to preserve Cuban independence and to
protect life, liberty, and property, and (c) grant the United States naval bases. Under the
last provision, Cuba leased to the United States the naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
The Cubans lacked political experience. For years their governments alternated
between weak, inefficient regimes and tyrannical military dictatorships. The island
abounded with corruption, fraud, violence, and revolt.
Using the Platt Amendment, the United States intervened four times in Cuba to
restore order and safeguard American lives and investments. Our interventions aroused
resentment among Cuban nationalists. In 1933, however, although Cuba was in the midst
of another revolt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not intervene. Instead, in 1934, as
part of his Good Neighbor Policy, he abrograted (abolished) the Platt Amendment. With
Cuban consent, the United States retained the naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
3. Economic Ties: Although the Platt Amendment was ended, the United States
continued to dominate the Cuban economy. Americans had over $1 billion invested in
Cuban public utilities, railroads, iron, and nickel mines, and Cuban agricultural and
mineral exports, and was the chief source of Cuban imports of manufactured goods.
American tourists flocked to Cuban vacation resorts.
4. Hostility (Since 1959): Fidel Castro, leading Cuban rebels, overthrew the
dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and seized power. As Castro aligned himself with the
Communist world, relations between Cuba and the United States deteriorated.
America on the World Stage 1899 – 1909
Chapter 28
In the wake of the Spanish-American War, President Theodore Roosevelt pursued a bold
and sometimes controversial new policy of asserting America’s influence abroad,
particularly in East Asia and Latin America.
America’s decision to take the Philippines aroused violent resistance from the Filipinos,
who had expected independence. The brutal war that ensued was longer and costlier than
the Spanish-American conflict.
Imperialistic competition in China deepened American involvement in Asia.
Hay’s Open Door policy helped prevent the great powers from dismembering China. The
United States joined the international expedition to suppress the Boxer Rebellion.
Theodore Roosevelt brought a new energy and assertiveness to American foreign
policy. When his plans to build a canal in Panama were frustrated by the Colombian
Senate, he helped promote a Panamanian independence movement that enabled the canal
to be built. He also altered the Monroe Doctrine by adding a “Roosevelt Corollary” that
declared an American right to intervene in South America.
Roosevelt negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War but angered both parties
in the process. Several incidents showed that the United States and Japan were now
competitors in East Asia.
William Howard. Taft
Theodore Roosevelt
George Washington Goethals
John Hay
Philippe Bunau-Varilla
Guerrilla warfare
“yellow peril”
spheres of influence
Philippine insurrection
“the full dinner pail”
big-stick diplomacy
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Panama Canal
Russo-Japanese War
Gentlemen’s Agreement
Root-Takahira agreement
Open Door notes
Boxer Rebellion
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty
Roosevelt Corollary
Portsmouth Conference
Great White Fleet
1. Why was the Philippine-American War such a brutal affair, and why is it not as well
remembered as the less costly Spanish American War?
2. Did Roosevelt more often “speak softly” or use the “big stick”? Was his approach to
foreign policy aggressive or simply energetic?
3. How did the Roosevelt Corollary distort the Monroe Doctrine? What were the
consequences of the Roosevelt Corollary for American relations with Latin America?
4. What was the role of Asian immigration and the fear of the “yellow peril” in shaping
American relations with East Asia in the early 20th century.
Imperialism or Not Imperialism
The Filipino leaders who fought for independence from Spain originally believed that the
U.S. would support their cause. They believed this because the American Revolution
inspired their owned revolution. They thus hoped that the U.S. would support them
because they intended to model their constitution after the U.S. constitution.
Those for imperialism…
1. Josiah Strong: viewed Filipinos as savage and incapable of self-government. He
differentiates between the concepts of independence and freedom: real freedom, he
argues, is only possible under law, and Anglo-Saxon freedom required intervening
upon national independence movements of less capable people and imposing AngloSaxon governance. (Because the Filipino independence movement was conducted by
an inferior race of peoples, expansionists were convinced that Americans had to step
in and show them how to govern themselves.)
2. Also states that the Anglo-Saxon race is an efficient “producer” race which, for the
good of humankind, needs to help maximize the utilization of natural resources. It
was therefore America’s duty to take custody of natural amenities of the Philippines
in order to ensure they fulfill their maximum economic potential. (See Rudyard
Kipling’s poem “White Man’s Burden”)
3. The Philippines was hoped by Americans to become America’s Hong Kong, and a
place where the U.S. could leverage for concessions and spheres of influence in
China. In addition, the Philippines would serve as a strategic base for the navy.
4. Albert Beveridge (IN): Reformist senator who essay “American Destiny” (1900),
delineates the reasons for American expansionism.
a. The divine mandate of spreading higher culture to the lesser-cultures peoples of
the Philippines.
b. Viewed the Philippines as more than just a land in need of missionary work,
however. Saw the Philippines as a stepping stone to China, “and just beyond the
Philippines are China’s illimitable markets.”
c. To show how the Philippines is unfit for an autonomous government, Beveridge
points to their history of Spanish rule, “They know nothing of practical
government except as they have witnessed weak, corrupt, cruel, and capricious
rule of Spain.” (Unfortunately, the cost of “saving” the Filipinos, meant that
200,000 (1/5 population) would be killed)
5 Theodore Roosevelt’s interpretation of expansion does not involve commitment to
governing the people there, but rather just being sure that their nations are stable and
using police powers to protect American investments. (See Roosevelt Corollary).
Anti-Imperialists say…
1. Carl Schurz: Influential Anti-Imperialist League spokesperson, argued that the use of
militarism required for colonialism undermined representative government and
equality under the law.
2. Anti-Imperialist League also argued that an empire is incompatible with a democratic
republic. They point out that “government derive their just powers from the consent
of the governed.”
3. Black leaders saw the Filipinos as a mirror of their own plight for freedom.
Segregation and racism became issues as blacks went to fight for a country in which
they were not treated as equals.
4. Americans began to wonder the logic of slaughter in the name of freedom. Did it
greatly undermine humanitarian justifications of the war?
5. Anglo-Saxon supremacist John W. Burgess opposed colonialism because it
incorporated “inferior” people with the American system. Roosevelt and Alfred
Thayer Mahan supported naval bases there, but had reservations about annexing large
populations of alien people.
6. Edward Atkinson disputed the benefits of imperialism, claiming the cost of
administering military control over the Philippines at $75,000 a day, outweighing any
profit that could be extracted from trade. Based on these arguments, it is clear that
the expenses of running an empire would always outweigh the profits.
Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt 1901-1912
Chapter 29
The strong progressive movement successfully demanded that the powers of government
be applied to solving the economic and social problems of industrialization.
Progressivism first gained strength at the city and state level, and then achieved national
influence in the moderately progressive administrations of Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor, William H. Taft, aligned himself with the Republican
Old Guard, causing Roosevelt to break away and lead a progressive third-party campaign.
The Progressive movement of the early 20th century became the greatest reform crusade
since abolitionism. Inaugurated by Populists, socialists, social gospelers, female
reformers, and muckraking journalists, progressivism attempt to use governmental power
to correct the many social and economic problems associated with industrialization.
Progressivism began at the city and state level, and first focused on political
reforms before turning to correct a host of social and economic evils. Women played a
particularly important role in galvanizing progressive social concern. Seeing
involvement in such issues as reforming child labor, poor tenement housing, and
consumer causes as a wider extension of their fundamental roles as wives and mothers,
female activists brought significant changes in both law and public attitudes in these
areas.
At the national level, Roosevelt’s Square Deal used the federal government as an
agent of the public interest in the conflicts between labor and the corporate trusts.
Rooseveltian progressivism also acted on behalf of the consumer and environmental
concerns. Conservatism became an important public crusade under Roosevelt, although
sharp disagreements divided “preservationists” from those who favored “multiple use” of
nature. The federal emphasis on “rational use” of public resources generally worked to
benefit large enterprises, and to inhibit action by the smaller users.
Roosevelt personally selected Taft as his political successor, expecting him to
carry out “my policies.” But Taft proved to be a poor politician who was captured by the
conservative Republican Old Guard and rapidly lost public support. The conflict
between Taft and pro-Roosevelt progressives finally split the Republican party, with
Roosevelt leading a third-party crusade in the 1912 election.
Henry Demarest Lloyd
Jacon Riis
Theodore Dreiser
Robert M. La Follette
Frances Willard
J.P. Morgan
Gifford Pinchot
Upton Sinclair
Richard Ballinger
Thorstein Veblen
Lincoln Steffens
Ida Tarbell
Hiram Johnson
Florence Kelley
John Muir
Charles Evans Hughes
William Howard Taft
Initiative
Recall
Preservationism
referendum
conservation
“rule of reason”
Muckrakers
18th Amendment
Hepburn Act
Women’s Trade Union League
Lochner v. New York
Meat Inspection Act
Newlands Act
Yosemite National Park
Payne-Aldrich Act
Old Guard
17th Amendment
Elkins Act
Northern Securities case
Muller v. Oregon
Triangle Shirtwaist fire
Pure Food and Drug Act
Sierra Club
dollar diplomacy
Ballinger-Pinchot Affair
Who were the Progressives?
By the turn of the century, a reform movement had developed that included a wide range
of groups, and individuals with a common desire to improve life in the industrial age.
Their ideas and work became know n as progressivism, because they wanted to build on
the existing society, making moderate political changes and social improvements through
government action. Most Progressives were not revolutionaries but shared the goals of
limiting power of big business, improving democracy for the people, and strengthening
social justice. It should be noted that Progressives did not cure all of American’s
problems, they improved the quality of life, provided a larger role for the people in their
democracy, and established a precedent for a more active role for the federal government.
Origins of Progressivism
* Dawned with the swearing in of Theodore Roosevelt in 1901.
* Lasted through the presidencies of Roosevelt (1901-1909) and William Howard Taft
(1909-1913), and the first term of the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson (1913-1917).
* U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 diverted public attention away from domestic
issues and brought the era to an end – but not before major regulatory laws had been
enacted by Congress and various state legislatures.
Issues of the Time
* A once relatively homogeneous, rural society of independent farmers was becoming
an industrialized nation of mixed ethnicity centered in the growing cities.
* For decades, middle-class Americans had been alarmed by the rising power of big
business, the increasing gap between rich and poor, the violent conflict between labor
and capital, and the dominance of corrupt political machines on the cities.
* Most disturbing to minorities were the racist, Jim Crow laws in the South that
relegated African Americans to the status of second-class citizens.
* Crusaders for women’s suffrage added their voices to the call political reform and
greater democracy.
The groups participating in the Progressive Movement were extremely divers. There
were Protestant church leaders who championed one set of reforms, African Americans
proposing other reforms, union leaders seeking public support for their goals, and
feminists lobbying their state legislatures for votes for women.
Demographics of the Progressives
* Unlike the Populists, citizens active in the Progressive movement were chiefly middle
class residents of U.S. cities. The urban middle class had steadily grown in the final
decades of the 19th century.
* In addition to doctors, lawyers, ministers, and storekeepers (the heart of the middle
class in the earlier era), there were now thousands of white-collar office workers and
middle managers employed in banks, manufacturing firms, and other businesses.
* Members of this business and professional middle class took their civic
responsibilities seriously. They were disturbed about what might happen to American
democracy from such conditions as unrest among the poor, excesses of the rich,
corruption in government, and in an apparent decline in morality.
* Protestant churches preached against vice and taught a code a social responsibility,
which included caring for the poor and the less fortunate and insisting on honesty in
public life.
* The Social Gospel popularized by Walter Rauschenbusch was an important element
in Protestant Christians’ response to the problem of urban poverty.
* The Progressives were led by a number of dedicated and able leaders entered politics
at the turn of the century to challenge the status quo. Teddy Roosevelt and Robert La
Follette in the Republican party and William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson in
the Democratic party demonstrated a vigorous style of political leadership that had
been sorely lacking from national politics during the Gilded Age.
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Progressives’ Philosophy
The reform impulsive was not new. Many historians see progressivism as just one
more phase in a reform tradition going back to the Jeffersonians in the early 1800s,
the Jacksonians in the 1830s, and the Populists in the 1890s.
A revolution in thinking occurred at the same time as the Industrial Revolution.
Charles Darwin, in his Origin of Species, presented the concept of evolution, which
had an impact well beyond simply justifying the accumulation of wealth.
The way people thought and reasoned was challenged, and the prevailing philosophy
of romantic transcendentalism in America gave way tot a balanced pragmatism.
In the early 20th century, William James and John Dewey were two leading American
advocates of this new philosophy. They defined “truth” in a way that many
Progressives found appealing. James and Dewey argued that the “good” and the
“true” could not be known in the abstract as fixed and changeless ideals. Rather, they
said, people should take a pragmatic, or practical, approach to morals, ideals, and
knowledge. They should experiment with ideas and laws and test them in action until
they found something that seemed to work well for the better ordering of society.
Progressive thinkers adopted the new philosophy of pragmatism because it enabled
them to challenge fixed notions that stood in the way of reform. For example, they
rejected laissez-faire theory as impractical. The old standard of rugged individualism
no longer seemed viable in a modern society dominated by impersonal corporations.
Another idea that gained widespread acceptance among Progressives came from the
practical studies of Frederick W. Taylor. By using a stopwatch to time the output of
factory workers, Taylor discovered ways of organizing people in the most efficient
manner – the scientific management system.
Many progressive believed that government too could be made more efficient if
placed in the hands of experts and scientific managers. They objected tot eh
corruption of political bosses partly because it was antidemocratic and partly because
it was an inefficient way to run things.
1. In the view of progressives, what was wrong with American society? What solutions did
they try to use? Be specific.
2. List the five most outstanding achievements of Roosevelt’s presidency. Rank these five
according to your assessment of their importance. Justify your ranking.
3. President Roosevelt spoke disparagingly of the muckrakers and their work. Do you agree
with his view of these journalists? Why or why not?
4. Identify the “three Cs” of President Roosevelt’s Square Deal. Describe what he did to bring
progressive reform action in each of the three areas.
5. Do you think that Theodore Roosevelt’s claim that Taft had abandoned his policies was
entirely fair? Why or why not?
6. Progressives believed that “the cure for the ills of democracy was more democracy.” Apply
this observation to progressive action in city and state governmental reform; then assess the
accuracy of the observation.
Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad
Ch. 30
After winning a three-way election focused on different theories of progressivism,
Woodrow Wilson successfully pushed through a sweeping program of domestic and
economic reform in his first term.
Wilson’s attempt to promote an idealistic progressive foreign policy failed, as dangerous
military involvements threatened both Latin America and the North Atlantic.
Wilson and his New Freedom defeated Roosevelt and his New Nationalism in a contest
over alternative forms of progressivism. Eloquent, idealistic former professor Wilson
successfully carried out a broad progressive economic reform of the tariff, finances, and
the trusts. He also achieved some social reform that benefited the working classes, but
not blacks.
Wilson’s attempt to implement progressive moral goals in foreign policy was less
successful, as he stumbled into military involvements in the Caribbean and revolutionary
Mexico. The outbreak of World War I in Europe also brought the threat of American
involvement, especially from German submarine warfare.
Wilson temporarily avoided war by extracting the precarious Sussex pledge from
Germany. His anti-war campaign of 1916 narrowly won him re-election over the stillquarreling Republicans.
Woodrow Wilson
Eugene V. Debs
Louis D. Brandeis
Venustiano Carranza
John J. Pershing
Charles Evan Hughes
Herbert Croly
Arsene Pujo
Victoriano Huerta
Pancho Villa
Kaiser Wilhelm II
New Nationalism
Underwood Tariff Bill
Federal Reserve Act
Clayton Act
Seaman’s Act
Adamson Act
Central Powers
Lusitania
Sussex
New Freedom
Sixteenth Amendment
Federal Trade Commission Act
Federal Farm Loan Act
Workingmen’s Comp. Act
Jones Act
Allies
Arabic
Wilsonian Issues
1. Were Wilson’s progressive legislative achievements in his first term consistent
with his New Freedom campaign?
2. How was Wilson’s progressive presidency similar to Theodore Roosevelt’s, and
how was it different? Were the differences ones of personality or policy?
3. Was Woodrow Wilson too idealistic in his approach to both domestic and foreign
policy? How did he use his eloquence and moral appeals to arouse the public and
achieve his goals at home? Why was this approach not as successful abroad?
4. Why did Wilson fail in his attempt to develop a more “moral,” less imperialistic
policy in Latin America? Were his involvements an attempt to create a new
mutual relationship between the United States and the neighboring republics, or
was it just an alternative form of American domination?
5. What the heck was going on in Europe in 1914? Was the United States genuinely
neutral during the first years of World War I, or was it biased on favor of the
allies against Germany?
6. Putting yourself in Wilson’s spot, what would have to happen before you sent
American soldiers to fight in Europe?
Chapter 30 Study Items
Woodrow Wilson’s personal and political background prior to the election of 1912?
Wilson’s actions taken as governor of New Jersey gave him what label?
The Democrat’s platform in the election of 1912?
Who placed Roosevelt’s name in for nomination in the election of 1912? What did
that symbolize?
5. New Nationalism vs. New Freedom: How were they different, how were they the
same? Which seemed a more realistic response to industrialization?
6. Candidates and platforms of the election of 1912? Why was the election somewhat
notable? Who or what really won in the election?
7. Wilson was the first __________ elected since the Civil War?
8. Explain Wilson’s dealings with the masses vs. the academic elites.
9. How was Wilson as a politician? How was he able to get things done?
10. How did the Underwood Tariff Bill of 1913, the 16th Amendment, and the Federal
Reserve Act of 1913 illustrate the typical style of Wilson’s “Progressivism”?
11. Why was the Clayton Anti-Trust Act greeted by labor forces (i.e. Samuel Gompers)?
12. Louis Brandeis: what was his importance?
13. Did Wilson’s progressivism extend to all?
14. How did Wilson go against his efforts of non-imperialistic policy in the Caribbean?
1.
2.
3.
4.
15. Roosevelt had the Big Stick Policy, Taft had Dollar Diplomacy; what did Wilson
have?
16. Where and under what circumstance did Wilson commit American troops during his
first term?
17. In Europe, where did the alliance lines fall at the outbreak of WWI?
18. Explain America’s stance, activity and motives as they pertained to Europe’s War.
19. Describe the reasons for and Wilson’s stance towards Germany’s unrestricted sub
warfare?
20. Why the “Bull Moose Party die out?
21. Compare the issues and candidates in the presidential elections of 1912 and 1916.
Account for Wilson’s victory in each case.
22. What were the most important of Wilson’s progressive reforms? Was Wilson
actually a more effective progressive than Theodore Roosevelt? Why or why not?
23. It has been said that despite his intentions and idealistic pronouncements, “Woodrow
Wilson’s Caribbean policy was a mere extension of Roosevelt’s ‘big stick’.” Do you
agree? Why or why not?
24. Assess America’s neutrality at the outset of World War I. Consider both
a. Wilson’s policies in regard to Britain and Germany.
b. the sentiments of the American public.
Were we truly “neutral” in thought as well as deed”? Explain
25. Wilson once remarked that he was “going to teach the South American republics to
elect good men.” Do you think that this was a proper function for the president of the
United States? Why or why not? Use U.S. relations with Mexico to illustrate your
view.