The Gilded Age

Get Started. It's Free
or sign up with your email address
The Gilded Age by Mind Map: The Gilded Age

1. Post Civil War

1.1. Black Codes

1.1.1. Among the first acts of the new Southern legislatures sanctioned by Johnson

1.1.2. Aim #1: To ensure a stable and subservient labor force

1.1.3. Aim #2: Restore the pre-emancipation system of race relations

1.2. Jim Crow

1.2.1. 1890s: Systematic State-level legal codes of segregation

1.2.2. "Separate but equal"

1.2.3. Came about as white southerners reasserted political power in the post-Reconstruction South

1.3. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

1.3.1. Supreme Court upheld Louisiana law requiring "separate but equal accommodations" for white/black railroad passengers

1.3.1.1. Inferior school, public facilities (railroad cars, theaters, restrooms)

1.3.2. Ruled that Louisiana law did NOT violate 14th amendment guarantee of "equal protection of the laws"

1.3.3. Started wave of "Jim Crow" laws passed

1.4. Black Treatment

1.4.1. After Hayes-Tilden Deal…

1.4.1.1. Forced into sharecropping and tenant farming

1.4.1.2. "Crop lien" system

1.4.1.2.1. Manipulation so that farmers/workers remained perpetually in debt

1.4.1.3. Lynching, assaulted regularly

1.4.1.4. Unfair treatment under Jim Crow laws

2. Politics and Corruption

2.1. Parties

2.1.1. Democrat

2.1.2. Republican

2.2. Waving the Bloody Shirt: Election of 1868

2.2.1. Republicans: Ulysses S. Grant

2.2.2. Democrats: Horace Seymour

2.3. Era of Good Stealings (describe and dates)

2.3.1. Corruption

2.3.2. "Jubilee Jim" Fisk and Jay Gould: 1869

2.3.2.1. September 24, 1869 (Black Friday):

2.4. Boss Tweed

2.4.1. Tweed Ring: bribery, graft, fraudulent election

2.4.2. Thomas Nast: exposed Tweed

2.4.3. Attorney Samuel J. Tilden headed prosecution

2.4.4. 1871: NYT secures damning evidence

2.5. Credit Mobilier Scandal: 1872

2.6. Whiskey Ring: 1874-1875

2.7. Party Patronage (Bribes and Kickbacks; Spoils System)

2.7.1. Stalwarts

2.7.1.1. Led by Republican Senator Roscoe Conkling

2.7.2. Halfbreeds

2.7.2.1. Led by Congressman James J. Blaine (Maine)

2.7.3. Mugwumps

2.8. Garfield and Arthur

2.8.1. James A. Garfield

2.8.1.1. Received presidency in Election of 1880

2.8.1.2. Immediately ensnared in political conflict between Secretary of State James G. Blaine and Stalwart nemesis Senator Roscoe Conkling

2.8.1.3. Shot by Charles J. Guiteau - implication was that Conklingites (Stalwarts) would now get good jobs under Arthur

2.8.2. Chester A. Arthur

2.8.3. Pendleton Act of 1883

2.8.3.1. Positive Effects

2.8.3.1.1. Civil Service Commission

2.8.3.1.2. Made compulsory campaign donations from federal employees illegal

2.8.3.2. Negative Effects

2.8.3.2.1. Politicians forced to look elsewhere for money - turned to big corporation

2.9. 1884: Blaine-Cleveland Mudslingers

2.9.1. Republican Candidate: James G. Blaine

2.9.2. Democrat Candidate: Grover Cleveland

2.9.3. Cleveland's presidency

2.9.3.1. Laissez-Faire Economics

2.9.3.2. Caught between demands of Democrats (jobs) and Mugwumps (reform)

2.9.3.3. GAR (Grand Army of the Republic)

2.9.3.3.1. conscience-driven president read each bill carefully, vetoed them

2.9.3.4. Tariff Issue

2.9.3.4.1. Solutions: 1) Squander on pensions/"pork barrel" bills (gain favor of veterans); 2) Lower the tariff (strongly opposed by industrialists)

2.9.3.4.2. 1887: Cleveland gave appeal for lower tariffs to Congress

2.10. Billion Dollar Congress

2.10.1. Thomas B. Reed - Speaker of the House

2.10.2. Passed McKinley Tariff Act of 1890

2.11. After Cleveland - Republicans won congressional elections, looked forward to presidential race of 1896

2.12. Forgettable Presidents

3. Reactions to the Gilded Age

3.1. Urban working class/Labor

3.1.1. 1877…Class Warfare

3.1.1.1. 1877: Railroads cut employee wages by 10%

3.1.1.2. Racial and ethnic fissures fractured labor unity (especially between Irish and Chinese)

3.1.1.2.1. Chinese

3.1.1.2.2. Irish

3.1.1.2.3. 1882: China Exclusion Act - barred further immigration from China into US

3.1.2. Women

3.1.2.1. New inventions = new jobs

3.1.2.2. Gibson Girl

3.1.2.3. Suffrage

3.1.2.3.1. National American Woman Suffrage Association (1890)

3.1.2.3.2. 1900 - Carrie Chapman Catt

3.1.2.3.3. First gained suffrage in the West

3.1.2.4. Changed lifestyles

3.1.2.4.1. The New Morality

3.1.2.4.2. Families

3.1.2.5. National Association of Colored Women (1896)

3.1.3. Unions

3.1.3.1. Wage earners

3.1.3.1.1. Most Americans depended on wages

3.1.3.2. Impact of new machines

3.1.3.2.1. Individuality stifled

3.1.3.3. Strike breakers or scabs

3.1.3.4. Lockouts

3.1.3.5. Yellow-Dog Contracts

3.1.3.6. Black Lists

3.1.3.7. National Labor Union (1866)

3.1.3.7.1. Colored National Labor Union

3.1.3.7.2. Wanted arbitration of industrial disputes and the eight-hour work day

3.1.3.7.3. Depression of 1870s - weakened movement

3.1.3.8. Knights of Labor (1869)

3.1.3.8.1. Skilled and unskilled, men AND women, whites and undeprivileged blacks

3.1.3.8.2. Campaigned for ecnomic/social reform

3.1.3.8.3. Terence V. Powderly

3.1.3.8.4. Strikes

3.1.3.8.5. Haymarket Square Bombing, Coxey's Army, Pullman Strike

3.1.3.8.6. Downfall

3.1.3.9. American Federation of Labor and Samuel Gompers

3.1.3.9.1. AF of L (1886)

3.1.3.9.2. Samuel Gompers

3.1.3.10. Changing attitudes

3.1.3.10.1. 1900 - attitudes toward labor began to change

3.1.3.10.2. Public beginning to concede the right of workers to organize

3.1.3.10.3. Vast majority of employers still fought

3.2. African Americans

3.2.1. Booker T. Washington and beliefs

3.2.1.1. George Washington Carver

3.2.1.2. self help

3.2.2. W. D. B. Du Bois and beliefs

3.2.2.1. Demanded complete equality for blacks and action now

3.2.2.2. Founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) - 1910

3.3. Farmers

3.3.1. Farmers/Debtors: wanted inflationary policies (greenbacks, silver) so as to easily pay back debt with depreciated money

3.3.1.1. Moved from demand for dollar to demand for silver

3.3.1.2. Crime of '73

3.3.2. Creditors: wanted deflation, not inflation (gold)

3.3.2.1. 1874: Convinced Grant to veto a bill to print more paper money

3.3.2.2. Contraction: Treasury accumulated gold stocks + reduction of greenbacks--> deflationary effect

3.3.2.2.1. Redemption Day 1879: few greenback holders bothered to exchange convenient bills for gold

3.3.2.2.2. Brought greenbacks up to their full face value

3.3.2.3. Republican hard money policy --> political backlash

3.3.2.4. Resumption Act of 1875: Pledged the government to the further withdrawal of greenbacks from circulation + redemption of all paper money @ face value in gold (beg 1879)

3.3.3. The Great West

3.3.3.1. Unwisely moved too far west

3.3.3.2. Russian species of wheat + corn replacements

3.3.3.3. "Great American Desert" bloomed

3.3.4. Impact of new tech and farming methods

3.3.4.1. INcreasingly producing single cash crops

3.3.4.2. Large scale farmers tried banking, railroading, manufacturing

3.3.4.2.1. Farmers inclined to blame banks/railroads rather than themselves

3.3.4.3. Mechanization of agriculture --> big farms

3.3.5. Cause of farmer's debt

3.3.5.1. Economy rebounded --> deflation --> ruin for farmers

3.3.5.2. Many homesteads fell to mortgages/foreclosures

3.3.5.3. Droughts, heatwaves, grasshoppers, plauges

3.3.5.4. Federal government made them pay taxes

3.3.5.5. Railroads (fixing freight prices), middlemen (took huge cuts in profits), trusts hurt farmers

3.3.6. Grange Movement

3.3.6.1. 1867: the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry - The Grange

3.3.6.1.1. spread over 800,000 members

3.3.6.1.2. found success in upper Mi valley

3.3.7. 1896 Election: Gold vs Silver election

3.3.7.1. William McKinley

3.3.7.1.1. won

3.3.7.1.2. in office: Dingley Tariff Bill

3.3.7.2. William Jennings Bryan - Cross of Gold

3.3.8. Greenback Labor Party

3.3.8.1. Attracted farmers

3.3.8.2. 14 members in Congress

3.3.9. Farmer's Alliance

3.3.9.1. 1870s

3.3.9.2. Coalition of farmers seeking to overthrow restrictions of banks/railroads

3.3.9.3. Platform:

3.3.9.3.1. 1) Nationalization of railroads

3.3.9.3.2. 2) Abolition of national banks

3.3.9.3.3. 3) Graduated income tax

3.3.9.3.4. 4) New federal sub-treasury for farmers

3.3.9.4. Out of farmer's alliance emerged People's party

3.3.10. Wizard of Oz

3.3.11. "Populists" Party - People's Party: 1892 election

3.3.11.1. West/South

3.3.11.2. Platform

3.3.11.2.1. delation, income tax

3.3.11.3. Candidate: James B. Weaver (greenbacker)

3.3.11.4. 1892 - nationwide strikes

3.3.11.5. fell short - not enough support with industrial laborers (East) or South (Cleveland won presidency)

3.3.11.6. Coin’s Financial School (1894)

3.3.11.7. Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota

3.3.11.8. Mary Elizabeth ("Mary Yellin') Lease

3.4. Native Americans

3.4.1. Plains Indians

3.4.1.1. Tribes

3.4.1.1.1. Sioux, displaced by Chippewas from ancestral lands @Mississippi, expanded at the expense of the Crows, Kiowas, Pawnees

3.4.1.2. Loss of Buffalo impact

3.4.1.2.1. Harmed the nomads

3.4.2. Sand Creek Massacre (1864)

3.4.3. Battle of Little Bighorn

3.4.3.1. Colonel Custer

3.4.4. Battle of Wounded Knee

3.4.5. Apache tribes

3.4.6. Reservations

3.4.6.1. Chief joseph and Nez Perc'e

3.4.7. Helen Hunt "A Century of Dishonor"

3.4.8. Dawes Act, Assimilation, Indian Boarding Schools

3.4.8.1. Dawes Severalty Act of 1887

3.4.8.1.1. Reservation land not alllotted to Indians under the act - sold to railroads

3.4.8.1.2. 1879- Carlisle Indian School

3.4.8.1.3. Hit Indians hard

3.4.9. Frederick Jackson Turner - Frontier Thesis

3.4.9.1. inspired by "closing" of the frontier

3.4.9.2. Stated that America needed a frontier

3.4.10. "Safety Valve Theory"

3.5. Urban Middle Class

3.5.1. Unsympathetic to working/labor class

3.5.2. Muckrakers

3.5.2.1. Jacob Riss, Thomas Nast, Lincoln Steffan, Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair

3.5.2.2. Thorstein Veblen - The Theory of Leisure Class (1899)

3.5.2.3. 1894 - Henry David Lloyd: Wealth Against Commonwealth

3.5.2.4. Jacob Riis

3.5.2.5. Theodore Dreiser

3.5.2.6. 1902 - magazines and writers flung dirt about trusts

3.5.2.6.1. 1902: Lincoln Steffens

3.5.2.6.2. Ida M. Tarbell - Standard Oil

3.5.2.6.3. Exposed money trusts, railroad barons

3.5.2.6.4. thomas W. Lawson

3.5.2.6.5. David G. Phillips

3.5.2.6.6. Ray Stannard Baker - Following the Color Line

3.5.2.6.7. John Spargo - The Bitter Cry of the Children

3.5.2.6.8. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley

3.5.2.6.9. Upton Sinclair

3.5.3. Progressives

3.5.3.1. Platform

3.5.3.1.1. socialist

3.5.3.2. Roots in Greenback Labor Party + Populist Party

3.5.3.3. Women - socialists/feminists Jane Addams; Lillian Wald

3.5.3.4. Base

3.5.3.5. Women

3.5.3.5.1. Fight against child labor

3.5.3.5.2. Landmark case Muller vs. Oregon 1908) -

3.5.3.6. TR's square deal

3.5.3.6.1. Control of Corporations

3.5.3.6.2. Consumer protection

3.5.3.6.3. Conservation of US natural resources

4. Migration/Immigration

4.1. Internal Migrations

4.1.1. Homestead Act (1862) Morrill Act (1862, 1890)

4.1.1.1. Morrill Act of 1862

4.1.1.1.1. Hatch Act of 1887

4.1.1.2. Homestead Act of 1862

4.1.1.2.1. 160 acres of land in return for developing it

4.1.2. Reservation System

4.1.3. Plains wars

4.2. Periods of Immigration

4.2.1. Colonial Immigration (time period, place of origin, who from where?)

4.2.1.1. From England, to America; 1600s-1700s

4.2.2. Old immigration

4.2.2.1. Until 1880s - most immigrants came from British Isles/western Europe

4.2.3. "New immigration"

4.2.3.1. 1880s-1890s - shifted to Baltic/Slavic people of southeastern Europe

4.2.3.2. Why?

4.2.3.3. Many immigrants stayed for a short time, then returned

4.3. Reaction Against Immigration

4.3.1. Nativism

4.3.1.1. Hostile

4.3.1.2. Anti-foreign associations

4.3.1.2.1. American Protective Association

4.3.2. 1882: Congress passed first restrictive law against immigration

4.3.2.1. Banned paupers, criminals, convicts

4.3.3. 1885: law passed banning importation of foreign workers under usually substandard contracts

4.3.4. literacy tests for immigrants were proposed

4.3.5. Know-Nothing Party

4.3.6. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 ("Yellow Peril")

4.3.7. 1886 - Statue of Liberty arrived from France

4.3.8. Churches

4.3.8.1. People questioned ambition of the churches

4.3.8.2. urban revivalists - Dwight Lyman Moody

4.3.8.3. Roman Catholic/Jewish faith

4.3.8.3.1. Cardianl Gibbons

4.3.8.4. 150 religions

4.3.8.4.1. Salvation Army

4.3.8.4.2. Church of Christ, Scientist

4.3.8.4.3. YMCA

4.3.8.5. Darwin

4.3.8.5.1. Modernists

4.3.8.5.2. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll

4.3.9. Dawes Act (1887)

4.3.10. Gentleman's agreement

4.3.11. National Origins Acts (1924, 1929)

4.3.12. Bosses

4.3.12.1. Fed gov did little to help immigrants assimilate

4.3.12.2. Bosses provided shelter in return for political support @ polls

4.3.13. Settlement houses

4.3.13.1. Hull House (1889) - Jane Addams

4.3.13.2. Lillian Wald's Henry Street Settlement

4.3.13.3. Centers for women's activism/reform

4.3.13.3.1. Florence Kelley

4.4. Theories of Immigration

4.4.1. Melting Pot Theory

4.4.2. Assimilation and Americanization

4.4.3. Salad-Bowl Theory (Pluralism)

5. Business Expansion/Wealthy Industrialists

5.1. Laissez-Faire Capitalism

5.1.1. Interstate Commerce Act = first large scale government attempt to regulate economy

5.1.2. Social Darwinism - survival of the fittest

5.1.3. Contempt for the poor

5.2. Forms of Business Organization

5.2.1. Pool

5.2.1.1. agreement to divide the business in a given area and share the profits.

5.2.2. Monopoly

5.2.3. Trust

5.2.3.1. Oil

5.2.3.2. Sugar

5.2.3.3. Tobacco

5.2.3.4. Leather

5.2.3.5. Harvester

5.2.3.6. Meat

5.2.3.7. Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890

5.2.3.7.1. Forbade combinations in restraint of trade (no distinction between good/bad trusts

5.2.3.7.2. Used to curb labor unions/labor combinations that were deemed to be restraining trade

5.2.4. Holding company

5.2.5. Interlocking Directorates

5.3. Entrepreneurs (Robber Barons or Captains of Industry?)

5.3.1. "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt

5.3.1.1. Two significant improvements to railroads

5.3.1.1.1. Steel rail

5.3.1.1.2. Standard gauge of track width established

5.3.1.1.3. Other small improvements

5.3.2. Andrew Carnegie

5.3.2.1. Vertical Integration

5.3.2.2. Steel

5.3.3. John D. Rockefeller

5.3.3.1. Horizontal Integration (trust)

5.3.3.2. Oil

5.3.4. J.P. Morgan

5.3.4.1. Interlocking Directorates

5.3.4.2. United States Steel Corporation

5.4. Vertical and Horizontal Integration

5.4.1. Vertical Integration

5.4.2. Horizontal Integration

5.5. Railroads

5.5.1. Transcontinental railroad building costly --> required govt subsidies

5.5.1.1. Land grants to railroads made in broad belts along proposed route

5.5.2. Good for government

5.5.3. Good for entrepreneurs

5.5.4. Good for community

5.5.5. The Transcontinental Railroad

5.5.5.1. 1862 - Congress made provision to start

5.5.5.2. Union Pacific Railroad

5.5.5.3. Central Pacific Railroad

5.5.5.3.1. Big Four: Chief financial backers of enterprise

5.5.5.4. 1869: "Wedding of the Rails" - Ogden, Utah

5.5.6. Other Transcontinental Railroads

5.5.6.1. Northern Pacific Railroad (1883)

5.5.6.2. Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (1884)

5.5.6.3. Southern Pacific (1884)

5.5.6.4. The Great Northern (1893)

5.5.6.4.1. James J. Hill

5.5.7. Significance

5.5.8. Corruption

5.5.8.1. "Stock Watering"

5.5.8.1.1. Railroad managers forced to have unreasonable rates + be competitive

5.5.8.2. "Bought/sold" people

5.5.9. 1886: Wabash Case

5.5.10. Interstate Commerce Act of 1887

5.5.10.1. Set up the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

5.6. Philanthropy

5.6.1. Andrew Carnegie

5.7. Panics

5.7.1. Panic of 1873

5.7.1.1. Cause

5.7.1.2. Effect

5.7.1.2.1. 15,000+ businesses went bankrupt

5.7.1.2.2. African Americans hard hit

5.7.1.2.3. Most hard hit: debtors

5.7.2. Depression of 1893 (Under Cleveland)

5.7.2.1. Overbuilding/speculation, labor disorders, agriculture depression, free-silver agitation damaged American credit

5.7.2.2. Huge deficit

5.7.2.2.1. Treasury required to issue legal tender notes for silver buillion it bought

5.7.2.2.2. Gold reserve in Treasury dropped below $100 million

5.7.2.2.3. Repeal of Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 to stop bleeding away of gold

5.7.2.2.4. Congress

5.7.2.2.5. Cleveland got loan from J.P. Morgan ($65 million in gold)

5.7.3. Roosevelt Panic of 1907

5.7.3.1. Defanged his power

5.7.3.2. 1907: short/sharp panic on Wall Street - TR blamed

5.7.3.3. 1908: Aldrich-Vreeland Act

5.8. South in the Age of Industry

5.8.1. 1880s - cigarettes

5.8.1.1. James Buchanan Duke

5.8.2. Manufacturing cotton textiles

5.8.2.1. Working conditions

5.8.3. Problesm

5.8.3.1. Rate-setting systems

5.8.3.1.1. "Pittsburgh plus" pricing system

5.9. Meat Packing Industry

5.9.1. the "Long Drive"

5.9.2. Made possible by railroads

5.9.3. Breeders learned to organize

6. Urbanization/City Life/American Society

6.1. Positive Effects of Urbanization

6.1.1. New Technologies

6.1.1.1. Elevator

6.1.1.2. Skyscraper

6.1.1.3. Street lighting

6.1.1.4. Water/sewage systems

6.1.2. Cultural Benefits

6.1.2.1. Museums

6.1.2.2. Theaters

6.1.2.3. Parks

6.1.2.4. Libraries

6.1.2.5. Education

6.1.3. Changes with Industrialization

6.2. Negative effectives of Urbanizations

6.2.1. Housing

6.2.1.1. 1879: Dumbell Tenement

6.2.1.2. Flophouses

6.2.1.3. Slums

6.2.2. Health

6.2.2.1. Disease

6.2.2.2. Sanitation

6.2.3. Working Conditions

6.2.3.1. Child Labor

6.3. Philosophies

6.3.1. Puritan Work ethic

6.3.2. Social Darwinism

6.3.2.1. Horatio Alger

6.3.2.2. Herbert Spencer and William Graham

6.3.3. Gospel of Wealth or Social Gospel

6.3.3.1. Andrew Carnegie

6.3.3.2. Social Gospel - Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden

6.4. Portrayed as glamorous

6.5. Education

6.5.1. More public schools

6.5.2. Chautauqua movement - successor to lyceums (1874)

6.5.3. Education = solution to poverty

6.5.4. Morrill Act of 1862

6.5.5. Colleges for women and both genders, blacks

6.5.6. Medical schools/sciences prospering after CW

6.5.6.1. Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister

6.5.6.2. William James - behavioral psychology

6.5.7. Library of Congress

6.6. Social Progress

6.6.1. Prohibition

6.6.2. SPCA - 1866

6.6.3. Red Cross - 1881

6.7. Artistic Triumphs

6.7.1. Sculptors

6.7.1.1. Augustus Saint-Gaudens

6.7.2. Painters

6.7.2.1. Winslow Homer

6.7.2.2. George Inness

6.7.2.3. Thomast Eakins

6.7.2.4. Mary Cassatt

6.7.3. Music

6.7.3.1. Opera house

6.7.3.2. Jazz

6.7.3.3. Edison's phonograph

6.7.4. Architecture

6.7.4.1. Henry H. Richardson

6.8. Amusement

6.8.1. Phineas T. Barnum and James A. Bailey - "Greatest Show on Earth" (1881)

6.8.2. Wild West shows

6.8.3. Baseball, football, wrestling, basketball

7. Inventions/Mechanization

7.1. How?

7.1.1. Liquid capital

7.1.2. Immigration

7.1.3. American ingenuity

7.2. What?

7.2.1. Telephone (1876)

7.2.2. Thomas Edison

7.2.3. Skyspcraper: Louis Sullivan (1885)

7.2.4. Electricity, indoor plumbing, telephones